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II

PEACE AS GERMANY SOUGHT IT THROUGH THE BOLSHEVIKI-WILSON'S "FOURTEEN POINTS" SPEECH

THE

November, 1917-February 27, 1918

HE Germans had scarcely ceased to push their counteroffensive westward from Cambrai, in November, 1917, when there came to the Entente Allies alarming reports of negotiations between the Teutonic Powers and the new Russian, or Bolshevik, Government, looking toward peace, and an early armistice seemed certain as an outcome. As the negotiations proceeded, the Bolsheviki showed confidence in their ability to enlist the other Entente Powers in a peace movement, mainly because of faith in what the laboring classes might do to influence the Governments of Great Britain, France, and Italy, as well as that of Germany. The power of the Bolsheviki spread rapidly through Russia after Kerensky's overthrow in November, 1917, and with it came demands from the Russian masses for immediate steps toward peace. There was behind this movement much honest patriotism, including that of soldiers who were among the followers of the Bolsheviki; but as for Lenine and Trotzky, official documents published a year later indicated that they had been acting under German pay and largely at German dictation.

In his first address to the Pan-Russian Soviet, Trotzky, now the Foreign Minister, endeavored to make it appear that Russia wanted to make an offer for a universal, but not for a separate, peace. The great difficulty had been to convince him and other Russian pacifists that a general peace could not be brought about over night, and that the German people at that stage of the war could not be induced to revolt against the Kaiser. Trotzky and Lenine. favored a cessation of hostilities along the whole battlefront, in the west as well as the east. "We plan an im

mediate armistice of three months," said Lenine, "during which time elected representatives from all nations and not the diplomats, are to settle the questions of peace. We are willing to consider any proposals for peace, no matter from which side. We offer a just peace, but will not accept unjust terms. We want a democratic peace based on no annexations and no indemnities, but one made by representatives of the peoples." By annexations, he meant "forcible seizure of any territory in the past, or the present, without the consent of the people."

[graphic]

NICHOLAS LENINE

Observers among the Entente, alarmed altho they were by these events still believed that not even Slav idealists of the most exalted type would tamely submit to the dismemberment of Russia. But Germany now held, and proposed to keep, Courland, Esthonia, Livonia, and Poland, and it was on her program to include Finland also, in a Middle European system dominated by her and extending from the Baltic to the Adriatic, if not to the Persian Gulf. The Leninites were

ready for the time to indulge her to the extent of granting a three months' armistice for the purpose of discussion, but did not see as others saw that in that interval Germany would quietly and by force make more secure her grasp on Russian territory. In such conditions, Russia, as an active element in the war, promised to be a negligible factor at least for months to come, and perhaps to the end of the

war.

From Berlin, on December 5, came news that an armistice of ten days had been arranged and that it extended over the entire Russian front. When the Germans were asked if they would agree to leave their armies intact on the Eastern Front for the time being, their answer was reported as

"evasive"; they said they were there to arrange an armistice with Russia, and for no other purpose; moreover, it was not for them to decide what should be done with the German armies. Armies "were sent where there was work for them

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to do.' This Bolsheviki proposal, if it was seriously meant, added a comic opera touch to the extravaganza played so long on the boards of Petrograd. Lenine and Trotzky should have known, and probably did know, that the Germans were preparing to take their armies

from the Eastern Front; in fact, that they had already taken great masses away. Some of these troops might, in fact, have been in action against the British at Cambrai weeks before. On reinforcements from the Russian front the Germans had placed hopes for a last chance in the war-game before an American army was in action in the western field.

Better than the rest of the world, the German understood that Russia had not been a nation, but a collection of nationalities united by a governmental machine and a dom

[graphic]

LEON TROTZKY

inant dynasty. Now that the machine had been scrapped and the dynasty eliminated, Germany was prepared with a policy, while her enemies had neither a policy nor comprehension of the exact situation on which to base one. What Germany was seeking to do was to accelerate the pace of the Russian disintegration, to encourage the several racial elements in Russia, not alone in getting independence, but in dividing and subdividing, until the Eastern world should be transformed into a series of totally divided peoples, mutually hostile, reduced to anarchy and capable of offering no resistance to German penetration, whether peaceful or otherwise. Russia seemed definitely out of the war, but the United States in the support she was giving to the Allies

had stept into her position and, what was more than Russia could do, had lent her enormous resources to fortify the financial position of the Entente. In Russia, therefore, the Entente had lost a borrower and in us had found a lender. Our navy at the same time had begun to contribute materially to disposing of the submarine menace. All things considered, the loss of Russia and the gain of America. promised to offset each other provided there should be no German success in the western field before our army could arrive in Europe.

The preliminary peace conditions which the Germans now proposed to the Bolsheviki envoys read like an effort to revive Russia's economic vassalage as accomplished by the commercial treaty negotiated in 1904. Germany was to have control of the Russian wheat market for fifteen years; German goods were to be admitted to Russia free. These demands, somewhat more insolent than those made in the treaty of 1904, concluded during the Manchurian campaign, involved an exorbitant tribute which would drain Russia of

millions every year. Germany's third demand made the subjugation of Russia to Germany absolute. This was that "no territory now occupied by the Germans should be surrendered." Here was a most effective formula for adjourning indefinitely the recovery of Russia from her state of prostration. Shylock's pound of flesh sounded generous by comparison with the terms Germany proposed. If Russia had actually been beaten to her knees, if both her capitals, Moscow and Petrograd, had been occupied, the terms could hardly have been more drastic or humiliating. What Germany did not ask was merely what Germany did not want.

Territory embracing 120,000 square miles, with a population of 25,000,000 or more, was demanded, which in ultimate result was perhaps the least of her demands, for when Germany stipulated for the free entry of all her products into Russia, she meant that the Russians should buy from nobody else anything which Germany could supply, and to guarantee this Germany was to have command for fifteen years of Russia's wheat, which was Russia's greatest article of export and Gernany's most urgent need. Russia's trade under these conditions

would have been absolutely Germanized. The outside world. was asking if. there was any reason to suppose that Germany, in negotiation with the other Entente Allies, after an admission that they could not beat her, would have offered them any terms more favorable? The terms to Russia had disclosed Germany's hand to the whole world. Stript of disguises, Germany was to be as bloody and cruel in peace as she had been in war. The Entente knew now as never before that the only war-aims possible to them was to bring Germany to her knees through an actual military overthrow.

When the Russian armistice went formally into effect it supplied evidence of an unmistakable act of mischief against the Allies. Bolsheviki had made it possible for the Teutons to withdraw a great part of their forces from the east and transfer them to the west. Without overtly consenting to this operation, they had winked at it. Instead of frankly agreeing to let German and Austrian troops depart, they had refused, with much show of consideration for the Allies, and then had put off the formal signing of the armistice until the troops required by the Kaiser got well on their way. And yet, when the commissioners signed the agreement, Trotzky had the effrontery to say "it must first be thoroughly satisfactory to the Allies." What the armistice actually did was to supply an extra loophole for the Teutons, since it sanctioned their movements of troops as already begun. The nation that had broken faith with Belgium, and that more lately had failed to keep its political promises to the Poles, did not let an agreement with mere Bolsheviki stand in its way. Russia's defection forced Roumania also to make peace. With calm disregard of all the other nations, Russia's so-called internationalists had left Roumania completely at Germany's mercy, so that there was nothing for Roumania. to do but fall into line with the Bolsheviki leaders.

By December 19, preliminary peace discussions between Bolsheviki representatives and delegates of the Teutonic Allies were in progress at Brest-Litovsk, and promised to bring about peace; that is, a separate peace and a consequent retirement of the Russian army as a belligerent. The German and Austrian Foreign Ministers, both astute politicians, went to Brest-Litovsk at a time when the war

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