Abstract
In April 1916 Lenin had called upon the workers in the belligerent armies to lay down their arms. This raised the question of what would happen if one side did lay down its arms, but the other side did not follow the example. To this Lenin had in part already given the answer in an article published on 13 October 1915. Should revolution place the proletariat at the helm in Russia, he stated, the government of the proletariat would immediately offer peace to all the belligerents on condition that all colonial and dependent peoples be liberated. Neither the Central Powers nor the Entente would, under their present governments, accept this. ‘If so, we should have to prepare and lead a revolutionary war’ and ‘systematically arouse to insurrection’ the socialist proletariat of Europe and the oppressed peoples of Asia, for which revolution in Russia would provide ‘unusually favourable conditions’.1 This idea continued to dominate official bolshevik doctrine as it developed between April and November 1917. On the eve of his departure for Petrograd, Lenin reaffirmed that, if need be, a revolutionary war would be waged in the interests of international socialism.2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
‘Neskol’ko tezisov’, published in Sotsial demokrat, 13 October 1915, Lenin, Vol. XVIII, pp. 311–13.
‘Farewell Letter to Swiss Workers’, Lenin, Vol. XX, pp. 65–70.
Zinovicv, Sochineniya, Vol. VII (i), pp. 547–51.
See M. Kedrov, in Proletarskaya revolyutsiya, no. 1 (60), 1927, p. 53. V. Rakhmetov, who has examined the origins of Lenin’s decision to sign a separate peace, comes to the conclusion that the idea may have been in Lenin’s mind from the start, but concealed ‘for tactical or for some other reasons’; the actual decision to sign a separate peace on any terms he places between 5 and 10 January—see Proletarskaya revolyutsiya, no. 5 (88), 1929, pp. 3–16.
The United States unofficial contact with the Bolsheviks, Colonel Robins, believed as late as 5 March, that Lenin was prepared to go back on the Brest-Litovsk treaty in the event of allied aid being assured—see Hard, pp. 151–2, 138–9. cf. N. A. Kornatovsky in Krasnaya letopis’, no. 3 (36), 1930, at p. 9, for the Russian version of the interview with Lenin described by Robins. Such documents as there are do not suggest that the Russians ever went further than sounding allied intentions against the event of the German advance being resumed for whatever reason. Bruce Lockhart apparently on the same day also still expected, on the basis of Trotsky’s assurances, that such action would be taken at the Congress ‘as will make a declaration of war on Germany’s front inevitable’—see a document said to be his dispatch to the Foreign Office of this date reprinted in Cumming and Pettit, Russian-American Relations, pp. 82–4.
U.S. Foreign Relations, Vol. I, pp. 480, 350, 352. For the plot see Izvestiya 26 January 1918. The attempt on Lenin’s life may have been the work of some right wing Socialist Revolutionaries—see B. Sokolov in Arkhiv russkoy revolyutsii, Vol. XIII, p. 48.
Even Stalin, after the German advance had been resumed, advocated at one time that the German conditions of peace should not be signed,—at a Central Committee meeting on 23 February—see Proletarskaya revolyutsiya, no. 2 (73), 1928, pp. 149–50. Trotsky’s own evidence that Lenin was for a time converted to his point of view is not entirely convincing—see Ma Vie, III, pp. 77–8. If Karakhan’s account as told to Louis Fischer is correct, Stalin gave his approval before the declaration—see The Soviets in World Affairs, Vol. I, p. 57.
See Lenin (1), Vol. XV, p. 625; cf. Lenin, Vol. XXII, p. 557, and Proletarskaya reuolyutsiya, no. 2 (73), 1928, pp. 132–3, which gives the same version. At the height of the campaign against Trotsky in 1928 a reprint of this document was apparently altered to show Trotsky abstaining on this question—B. & F., p. 512, note 63. Trotsky states that about this time he was approached by Uritsky, Radek, and possibly Obolensky to form a ‘united front’, but that he rejected the suggestion (Ma Vie, III, p. 79).
Proletarskaya reuolyutsiya, no. 2 (73), 1928, pp. 134–6. The Germans had issued a proclamation at the start of the offensive explaining that their advance was undertaken against the Bolshevik government in the interests of civilization (B. & F., p. 512, quoting Pravda of March 1918). According to Trotsky (Ma Vie, III, p. 80), all, including Lenin, then believed that the Germans in agreement with the Allies intended to destroy Bolshevism and make peace at the expense of Russia.
Proletarskaya revolyutsiya, no. 2 (73), 1928, pp. 145–7.
This Bureau, of which Yakovleva was the secretary, included at the beginning of 1918, Lomov, Stukov, Maksimovsky, Kizel’shtein, Mantsev, Safonov, T. B. Sapronov, and Z. P. Solov’ev. Bukharin had been a member since 1917. See Lenin (1), Vol. XIV (ii), p. 513. (But cf. Vol. XXII, p. 609 of the 2nd–3rd edn., edited by Bukharin, first printed in 1928, in which Bukharin is omitted from the list of members!) For the resolution, which Lenin attacked in his article ‘The Strange and the Monstrous,’ see Lenin (1), Vol. XV, pp. 109–10.
Copyright information
© 1977 Leonard Schapiro
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schapiro, L. (1977). The Peace of Brest-Litovsk. In: The Origin of the Communist Autocracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09509-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09509-4_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-44140-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-09509-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)