In July 1915 the great theorist of the Bolshevik Revolution made a tortuous journey from Switzerland via London and Newcastle to Stockholm. In Newcastle he was arrested because he was travelling on a passport belong to someone else, a Jew, one M.L. Dolgolevsky. For this reason he had encountered a good deal of anti-semitic unpleasantness both in France and England. Eventually Bukharin was released and continued his journey by way of the Norway ferry (a forty-hour voyage). Passengers were obliged to remain in their cabins until open sea was reached, presumably to prevent espionage as the ship passed along the Tyne.
Bukharin was accompanied on the train north by A. Shlyapnikov, also a prominent Bolshevik. Shlyapnikov had been living in Wembley and working at the Fiat factory there. He made many journeys to and from Scandinavia via Newcastle 'along the beautiful, familiar route past fields and towns, to Newcastle', as he described a journey of his own a month later. This description makes a piquant contrast with that of Yevgeni Zamyatin, who made the same journey to London some six months later (v. MYERS LITERARY GUIDE).