Lenin was virtually unknown in the American socialist press before 1915.

Evidence

“Lenin was a mere name which had appeared so infrequently in the American Socialist press that scarcely a handful of non-Russians would have been able to identify him.” “Lenin’s name seems to have been mentioned for the first time in America in an article on ‘The Evolution of Socialism in Russia’ by William English Walling in the International Socialist Review of July 1907 … But Walling was far ahead of his time, and Lenin dropped completely out of sight for several more years. The next time, in the New Review toward the end of 1915, Lenin was listed as one of the signatories of the Zimmerwald Manifesto. Some excerpts from the pamphlet Socialism and War by Lenin and Zinoviev were published in tale International Socialist Review of January 1916, with favorable comment. It seems likely that this was the first American publication of anything written by Lenin.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2254