Sealed Train

I have confirmed that, after life-changes and a house move, only one Michael Moorcock book remains on a shelf upstairs and it is not the one that I was looking for. In perhaps Volume III of Moorcock's Oswald Bastable alternative histories trilogy, a chapter is devoted to an aged revolutionary called Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov who is conscious that he had missed an opportunity at some earlier stage in his career. We are not told what name he might have had in our history and he does not think, "I should have got into that train..."

Back to Poul Anderson, "Details": 

In the spring of 1917, a Galactic playing the role of a German captain waits with his men to travel in a sealed train into Russia. Another Galactic, playing the role of a nobleman, has persuaded the German General Staff to transport a Russian exile, Ulyanov, into Russia because:

"...a psychotechnic evaluation...gave the little revolutionary a surprising probability of success." (p. 130)

Right at the end of section 2, the omniscient narrator informs us, the readers, that Ulyanov's:

"...Party name was Lenin." (p. 131)

How many readers did need to be told that?

Time Patrol agents know the importance of every detail including individuals as varied as a Pope, an Emperor, Hitler and Lenin. See:

Some Details Of History Or Archimedes And Others

Individuals

The Time Patrol And Other Reading