Russia from the America Embassy April, 1918 — November 1918 by David R. Francis A letter from A. Joffe, and marked "confidential" was sent from Brest-Litovsk, dated December 31 (Old Style), 1917, addressed "To the Council of People's Commissars of Petrograd." A. Joffe was President of the delegation representing the Bolshevik Government in the peace negotiations at Brest. This letter opened with; "Comrade L. D. Trotzky instructed me to bring to the knowledge of the Council of People's Commissars the motives of his telegraphic order about the arrest of the Roumanian diplomatic representatives at Petrograd." The letter stated that General Hoffmann of the German Peace Delegation "pointed out the necessity of sure agents into the Roumanian Army and the possibility to arrest the Roumanian Legation at Petersburg (Petrograd) in whole ; also to take repressive measure against the Roumanian King and the Roumanian Chief Command. After this conversation Comrade L. D. Trotzky ordered in a telegraphic way the arrest of the Roumanian representative at Petersburg (petrograd). The above-mentioned report is sent with a special courier, Comrade I. g. Brosoff, who will give to Commander Podvoyski secret information concerning the sending to the Roumanian Army of persons, the names of whom Comrade Brosoff will tell. All of those persons will be paid from the fund of the German Kerosene-Trade Bank, which bought near Borislave the stock society Fanto & Co. The chief direction of the agents will belong according to General Hoffmann's indication to the well-known Wolff Venigel, who has under his observation the military missions of the Allied countries." Very significant was the conclusion of this Joffe letter : "What concerns the British and American representatives, General Hoffmann said that the German staff approved the measures taken by Comrade Trotzky and Comrade Laziniroff concerning looking after their activities." Still more convincing evidence, perhaps, of Lenin's employment as the agent of Germany was afforded in a newspaper interview with General William Hoffmann, Chief of Staff of the Eastern Army of Germany, which appeared in the newspapers of December 24th, 1920. General Hoffmann was quoted as saying: "As Chief of Staff of the East Army during the war, I directed the propaganda against the Russian Army. The General Staff naturally made use of every possible means to break through the Russian front. One of these means was poisoned gas, another was Lenin. The Imperial regime dispatched Lenin to Russia from the Swiss frontier. With our consent Lenin and his friends disorganized the Russian army. Von Kuehlmann (former German Secretary for Foreign Affairs,), count Czernin (Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister), and I then closed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty so that we could throw our army against the West front. While at Brest we were convinced that the Bolsheviks could not hold power more than three weeks. "On my word of honor as a German general, in spite of the valuable service Trotzky and Lenin rendered, we neither knew nor foresaw the danger to humanity from the consequences of this journey of Bolsheviks to Russia." ( pages 220 - 222 ) New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921.

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