Solzhenitsyn’s LENIN IN ZURICH is interesting because it shows how Lenin always looked for revolutionary opportunity. He beleived that Switzerland was a perfect place for revolution because it was one country where the military reservists kept their weapons at home, Switzerland used three of the main languages of Europe (German, French, and Italian) and thus revolution could spread out from that central location, and there were some recent incidents of labor unrest.
But of course in reality land Switzerland was about the last place on Earth that was ripe for revolution.
I heard recently that Trotsky led some of comrades into Poland in 1918 because they thought they could start the world revolution there. It was a dud. Like you say, reality land is not where these people resided