THE BREST-LITOVSK PEACE
The Bolsheviks acted quickly after announcing their new government under the form of the "Council of Commissars of the People".
On the 7th of November, 1917 Trotzky as �the Commissary of the People for Foreign Affairs,� addressed this communication to the American Embassy :
"In drawing your attention to the text of the proposition for an armistice and a Democratic peace without annexations or contributions, founded on the rights of people to dispose of themselves, proposals approved by the Congress of the Council of Workmen and Soldiers, I have the honor to beg you, Mr. Ambassador, to be good enough to regard the above-mentioned documents as a formal proposal for an armistice without delay on all the fronts, and for the opening without delay of negotiations for peace—a proposal which the plenipotentiary government of the Russian Republic is addressing simultaneously to all the belligerent nations and to their governments.
"I beg you, Mr. Ambassador, to be good enough to accept the assurance of the perfect consideration and very profound respect of the government of the Councils for the people of the United States, who also, like all the other peoples exhausted by this incomparable butchery, cannot help but ardently desire peace."
The armistice between the Bolsheviks and the Germans took effect at the end of November, 1917. . . .
. . . I transmitted the communication from Trotzky to the American Government, but made no answer to Trotzky, as the United States had not recognized the Bolshevik Government. Lieut.-Col. Kerth, representing the Military mission of the United States at the front in Russia, did address the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army this protest :
"In accordance with definite instructions of my Government, transmitted to me by the Ambassador of the United States of America in Petrograd, I have the honor to inform you that in view of the fact that the Republic of the United States is carrying on a war in alliance with Russia, which war has as its basis the struggle of democracy against autocracy, my Government categorically and energetically protests against any separate armistice which may be made by Russia."
It was not until the 12th of March, 1918, that the terms of this peace were approved by the soviet Congress at Moscow, but in the meantime Lenin and Trotzky had not delayed the work of demoralizing the Russian Army. . . .
As soon as the armistice had been agreed to by the Bolsheviks, the Germans moved more than 100 divisions from their Eastern front to France,
and began to prepare for their drive, in March, 1918, against the Allied armies. History records how nearly successful this drive was. Had it not been for the demoralization of the Russian army by the Bolsheviks, hundreds of thousands of lives of French and British and American soldiers would have been spared. Lenin and Trotzky demoralized the Russian army and thereby caused the war to be prolonged.
In various ways the Bolsheviks promptly contributed directly or indirectly to strengthen the Germans during that period immediately following their armistice. In March I received through Consul-General Madden Summers, of Moscow, reports from our consuls,—Macgowan at Irkutsk, Nielson at Samara, Jenkins at Chita, and others, showing the movement of released prisoners and
of material from Russia to Germany. Nielson from Samara reported many cars of cotton loaded and being shipped by German firms.
The Bolsheviks went through the form of inviting England, France, Italy and America to enter into negotiations for peace under the armistice with Germany. They waited ten days, professedly to give the other countries time to come in. Then they proceeded with the negotiation of a separate peace. Trotzky was at the head of the Bolsheviks in the first negotiations. Lenin remained in Petrograd and was practically the whole Bolshevik Government. While I have no doubt that Lenin was a German agent from the beginning and disbursed German money, I believe, and so wired the Department, that his real purpose was promotion of world-wide social revolution. He would have taken British money, American money, and French money and used it to promote his purpose. He told a man who asked what he was doing in Russia that he was trying an "experiment in government" on the Russian people. Germany's desire to demoralize Russia and break up the Provisional Government gave Lenin his opportunity, of which he made good use.
When Trotzky demurred to the hard terms offered by the Germans in the first peace negotiations, General Hoffmann, the head of the German delegation, notified him and his Bolshevik associates that Germany would not prolong the negotiations more than two or three days further, and said : "You will have to say definitely whether you will accept these terms or not." Then it was that Trotzky showed real ability .He made that dramatic stand and replied in effect : "We decline to sign these severe peace terms, but Russia will fight no more."
This was the situation which rather stunned the
Germans. Trotzky carried out his declaration by leaving Brest-Litovsk and returning to Petrograd. A few days later the Germans gave out that they were going to march on Petrograd and Moscow. Trotzky replied to them that they could not move without violating the terms of the armistice, which required twelve days' notice before resumption of hostilities. The Germans' reply was, as the armies advanced, "You have already terminated the armistice by refusing to sign the peace terms."
From Brest-Litovsk on the 5th of February, 1918, Karl Radek sent a long statement of the purposes of the Bolshevik delegation in the negotiations for peace with Germany.
In the course of that he said :
"We Revolutionary-Internationalists not only emphatically refused to aid our own Bourgeoisie to gain a victory over the proletariat of a neighboring country, but we pointed out that a peace which would be the result of an agreement between the great capitalistic powers would be a peace concluded at the expenses of small nations and their international proletariats. . . .
We want to transform the war of nations into a civil war."
The formal notification which the Trotzky delegation handed to the Germans at Brest was a curiosity :
"In the name of the People's Commissaries, which is the government of the Russian Federated Republic, we hereby bring to the knowledge of the governments and peoples at war with us, to our allies and to the neutral countries, that refusing to sign an annexationist treaty, Russia declares on her part the state of war with Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria has ceased. That the Russian troops are simultaneously given orders to demobilize completely on all fronts."
When Trotzky returned to Petrograd . . . . Lenin reprimanded him and told him the Russian Soviet Government would be compelled to agree to terms still more severe, whereupon Trotzky resigned as Minister of Foreign Affairs and was made Minister of War and organized the Red Army, which organization is in existence up to the present time, and waged war successfully for a time against Poland and is now threatening Esthonia. The Red Army is composed of Lettish and Chinese troops and conscripted Russians. It has the reputation of being the most strictly disciplined and the most cruel army in history.
The actions of these Bolsheviks in these peace negotiations were without precedent as far as I know in the history of international relations, but it may be said that Lenin and Trotzky had disregarded many precedents. While I have no agreement whatever with Lenin�s views, my judgment credited him with sincerity. (This sentence was written soon after my return. I have changed my mind in regard to Lenin�s sincerity.) . . .
( pages 223 - 228 )
A short time before the Brest-Litovsk peace was ratified at Moscow by the All-Russian Soviet congress I had cabled the State Department that the Congress would meet to act upon the peace treaty, and that I thought the Russian people should have some expression of interest on the part of the American people. President Wilson cabled a message addressed to the Russian people . . .
The reply to the President�s message . . . �was intended by the Bolsheviks for effect on the workingmen of the United States. It was practically an invitation to revolution . . .
Immediately following the ratification of the peace treaty at Moscow, I gave out a statement for publication, March 16, 1918. The Bolshevik papers at Moscow were closed against communications from the American Embassy, but in other cities the statement was printed. I had it translated into Russian :
�I shall not leave Russia until forced to depart. My government and the American people are too deeply interested in the welfare of the Russian people to abandon the country and leave its people to the mercies of Germany. America is sincerely interested in Russia and in the freedom of the Russian people. We shall do all possible to promote the true interests of the Russians and to protect and preserve the integrity of this great country. The friendship between Russia and the United States which has existed for a century or more should
be augmented rather than impaired by Russia becoming a Republic, and all Americans are sincerely desirous that Russians should be permitted to continue free and independent and not become subjects of Germany.
�I have not yet seen an authentic copy of the peace treaty but am sufficiently acquainted with its provisions to know that if the Russian people submit thereto Russia will not only be robbed of vast acres of her rich territory but will eventually become virtually a German province and her people will lose the liberties for which their ancestors have struggled and sacrificed for generations past. My Government still considers America an ally of the Russian people, who surely will not reject the proffered assistance which we shall be prompt to render to any power in Russia that will offer sincere and organized resistance to the German invasion. . . .
I issued the above address to the Russian people. I appealed to them to organize and repel the Germans. I said we Americans and our Government still considered the Russian people our allies, that we were not going to observe the peace.
About four days after this appeared, Kuehlman, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, made a demand on the Bolshevik Government that I be sent out of Russia.. . . .
The German demand said :
" He is not only violating the laws of neutrality, but he has issued an address to the Russian people which is a virtual call to arms."
The Bolsheviks said nothing to me about this demand of the German Government. I was not in communication with them at the time. I learned, however, that their
reply to Kuehlman was to the effect that I had not said any more than President Wilson had said in his message to the Bolshevik Congress.
Kuehlman, in conversation with Karahan, Secretary of the Russian Peace Delegation at Brest in February, had said that the Foreign Embassies would have to leave Petrograd on short notice from the Germans. One of the reports which reached us at the time was that the Allied Missions might be arrested. It was even rumored that the American Ambassador might be made a prisoner by the Germans and held to be exchanged for the German ship, The Vaterland, then held in New York harbor. There were German officers in Petrograd at the time. One of them shot and killed two Russian soldiers at the Grand Hotel "for being rude to him," as the report made to the Bolshevik officers stated.
At this time cable communication with my Government was severed ; it had been very unreliable and irregular since the Bolsheviks came into power. I had no authority from my Government to make the foregoing address to the
Russian people, but assumed the responsibility, advising the Department of State of the exact wording of this appeal to the Russian people. I did not learn until two months later that the Department of State approved of this address, and then I was informed only through a newspaper clipping sent to me by Ira Nelson Morris, American Minister to Stockholm. That newspaper clipping stated the Associated Press correspondent in Washington had called at the Department of State and inquired whether the address I had issued to the Russian people had been authorized by my government. The reply, according to the clipping, was : "No, but it was thoroughly approved."