When Lenin heard the young man had died, he saw an opportunity. He knew Schmidt had two younger sisters, Ekaterina, aged nineteen, and Elizaveta, seventeen, who had also shown an interest in revolutionary politics. They were now heiresses – and a highly attractive ‘catch’ for a gold digger with ruthless motives. Lenin recruited two handsome young Party activists to seduce and marry the girls who, swept away by romance and the excitement of helping the Revolution, would give their fortune to the Bolsheviks

Victor Sebestyen, Lenin: The man, the dictator, and the master of terror, New York, 2017, p. 195