The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

On Christmas Day, carried away by the spirit of the occasion, Count Czernin, to the great irritation of the Germans, offered to surrender all the territories Austria had conquered during the war if the Allies would join in the peace negotiations: he was under instructions to avoid at all costs a breakdown of the armistice and to be prepared, if necessary, to sign a separate treaty.25 The Germans felt in a stronger position, since they were counting on the coming spring offensive in the West to bring them victory. In response to the Russian demand that the Central Powers give the inhabitants of Poland and other Russian areas occupied by them the right to self-determination, Kühlmann tartly responded that these areas had already exercised this right by separating themselves from Russia.

  Having reached a stalemate, the talks were adjourned on December 15/28, but the less publicized negotiations between “expert” legal and economic commissions went on.

  Assessing the results, some Germans began to wonder whether the Russians desired peace or were merely playing for time to unleash social unrest in Western Europe. Certain Russian actions lent support to the skeptics. German intelligence intercepted a letter from Trotsky to a Swedish collaborator in which the Commissar of Foreign Affairs wrote that “a separate peace involving Russia is inconceivable; all that matters is to prolong the negotiations so as to screen the mobilization of international Social-Democratic forces promoting general peace.”26 As if to demonstrate that such indeed was its intention, on December 26, in an action without precedent in international relations, the Soviet Government officially allocated 2 million rubles to foreign groups supporting the Zimmerwald-Kiental platform.* Nor were German suspicions assuaged by Ioffe’s demand that the German Government emulate the Soviet example by publishing the stenographic records of the political talks at Brest, which were designed, on the Russian side, to carry Bolshevik propaganda to German workers.

  At this point, the German military stepped in. In a letter to the Kaiser on January 7 (December 25), which was to exert on him a strong influence, Hindenburg complained that the “weak” and “conciliatory” tactics pursued by the German diplomats at Brest had given the Russians the impression that Germany needed peace as badly as they did. This had a detrimental effect on army morale. Without spelling out what he had in mind, Hindenburg was alluding to the alarming effects of the policy of “fraternization” of Russian and German troops, promoted by the Bolsheviks along the armistice front. It was time to act forcefully: if Germany did not show determination in the east, how could she expect to impose on the Western Allies the kind of peace that her world position required? Germany should redraw the borders in the east in a manner that would prevent wars in the future.27

  The Kaiser, who was also losing patience with the diplomatic shillyshallying at Brest, agreed. As a result, the German position appreciably hardened: the pretense of a negotiated peace was given up in favor of a dictated one.

  82. Russian and German troops fraternizing: Winter 1917–18.

  The Brest talks resumed on December 27/January 9. This time Trotsky headed the Russian delegation: he came with the intention of continuing to play for time and broadcasting propaganda. Lenin agreed to this strategy only reluctantly. Trotsky had to promise that if the Germans saw through it and presented an ultimatum, the Russian delegation would capitulate.28

  On his arrival, Trotsky had the unpleasant surprise of learning that during the recess in the negotiations, the Germans had established separate channels of communication with Ukrainian nationalists. On December 19/ January 1, a Ukrainian delegation, composed of young intellectuals, had arrived in Brest at the Germans’ invitation to open separate talks.29 The German objective was to detach the Ukraine and make it into a protectorate. In December 1917, the Ukrainian Council, or Rada, had proclaimed Ukrainian independence. The Bolsheviks refused to recognize this act and, in violation of the right of “national self-determination” which they had officially proclaimed, sent a military force to reconquer the region.30 The Germans estimated that Russia received one-third of her food and 70 percent of her coal and iron from the Ukraine: her separation would appreciably weaken the Bolsheviks, making them even more dependent on Germany, and, at the same time, go a long way toward meeting Germany’s own pressing economic needs. Assuming the role of a traditional diplomat, Trotsky declared that the German action was interference in his country’s internal affairs, but that was all he could do. On December 30/January 12, the Central Powers recognized the Ukrainian Rada as that country’s legitimate government. This was a prelude to a separate peace treaty with the Ukraine.

  Then came the presentation of German territorial claims. Kühlmann advised Trotsky that his country found the Russian demand for a peace “without annexations and contributions” unacceptable and intended to detach territories under German occupation. As concerned Czernin’s offer to give up all conquests, this lost its validity since it had been conditional on the Allies joining in the peace talks, which they had not done. On January 5/18, General Max Hoffmann unfolded a map which showed the disbelieving Russians the new border between the two countries.31 It called for the separation of Poland and German annexation of extensive territories in western Russia, including Lithuania and southern Latvia. Trotsky responded that his government found such demands absolutely unacceptable. On January 5/18, which happened to have been the very day when the Bolsheviks were dispersing the Constituent Assembly, he had the temerity to say that the Soviet Government “adheres to the view that where the issue at stake is the destiny of a newly formed nation, a referendum is the best means of expressing the will of the people.”32

  Trotsky communicated the German terms to Lenin, following which he requested an adjournment of the political talks for twelve days. He departed for Petrograd the same day, leaving Ioffe behind. How nervous the Germans were about this postponement may be gathered from the fact that in informing Berlin, Kühlmann urged that the Bolshevik request for an adjournment not be treated as a rupture of negotiations.33 The Germans had reason to fear that a collapse of the peace negotiations could set off civil disturbances in the industrial centers of Germany. On January 28, a wave of political strikes organized by the left wing of the socialist movement and involving more than one million workers did break out in various parts of Germany, including Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Kiel, Leipzig, Munich, and Essen. Here and there “workers’ councils” sprang up. The strikers called for peace without annexations and contributions and self-determination for the nations of Eastern Europe—that is, for the acceptance of Russian peace terms.34 While there exists no evidence of direct Bolshevik involvement, the influence of Bolshevik propaganda on the strikers was obvious. The German authorities responded with vigorous, occasionally brutal repression: by February 3 they had the situation under control. But the strikes were troublesome evidence that, whatever happened at the front, the situation at home could not be taken for granted. People longed for peace and the Russians seemed to hold the key to it.

  The German demands split the Bolshevik leadership into three contending factions, which subsequently merged into two.

  The Bukharin faction wanted to break off the talks and continue military operations, mainly by means of partisan warfare, while fanning the flames of revolution in Germany. This position enjoyed great popularity in Bolshevik ranks: both the Petrograd and Moscow bureaus of the party passed resolutions in this spirit.35 Bukharin’s biographer believes that his policy, later labeled “Left Communism,” reflected the wishes of the majority of Bolsheviks.36 Bukharin and his adherents saw Western Europe on the brink of social revolution: since such a revolution was acknowledged as essential to the survival of the Bolshevik regime, peace with “imperialist” Germany struck them as not only immoral but self-defeating.

  Trotsky headed a second faction, which differed from the Left Communists only in tactical nuances. Like Bukharin, he wanted the German ultimatum rejected, but in the name of an unorthodox slogan of “neither war nor peace.” The Russians would break off the Brest talks and unilaterally declar
e the war at an end. The Germans then would be free to do what they wanted and what the Russians could not prevent them from doing in any event—annex vast territories on their western and southwestern frontier—but they would have to act without Russian complicity. This procedure, Trotsky maintained, would free the Bolsheviks from the burden of carrying on an unpopular war, reveal the brutality of German imperialism, and encourage German workers to revolt.

  Lenin, supported by Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin, opposed Bukharin and Trotsky. His sense of urgency and his belief that Russia was in no position to bargain received reinforcement from a report submitted to the Sovnarkom on December 31/January 13 by Krylenko, the Commissar of War. On the basis of responses to questionnaires distributed to delegates at the All-Army Conference on Demobilization, Krylenko concluded that the Russian army, or what was left of it, retained no combat capability.37 Without an army worthy of the name, Lenin reasoned, one could not stand up to a disciplined and well-equipped enemy.

  Lenin formulated his views on January 7/20 in “Theses on the question of the immediate conclusion of a separate and annexationist peace.”38 Here he made the following points:

  1. Before its ultimate triumph, the Soviet regime faced a period of anarchy and civil war: it needed time for “socialist reorganization.”

  2. Russia required at least several months, “in the course of which the regime must have a completely free hand to triumph over the bourgeoisie, to begin with, in its own country” and to organize its forces.

  3. Soviet policy must be determined by domestic considerations because of the uncertainty whether a revolution would break out abroad.

  4. In Germany, the “military party” had gained the upper hand: Russia will be presented with an ultimatum demanding territorial concessions and financial contributions. The government has done everything in its power to prolong the negotiations but this tactic has run its course.

  5. The opponents of an immediate peace on German terms wrongly argue that such a peace would violate the spirit of “proletarian internationalism.” If the government decided to continue fighting the Germans, as they wished, it would have no alternative but to seek help from the other “imperialist bloc,” the Entente, which would turn it into an agent of France and England. Continuing the war thus was not an “anti-imperialist” move, because it called for a choice between two “imperialist” camps. The task of the regime, however, was not to choose between “imperialisms,” but to consolidate power.

  6. Russia indeed must promote revolutions abroad, but this cannot be done without account of the “correlation of forces”: at present Russian armies are powerless to stop a German advance. Furthermore, the majority of Russia’s “peasant” army favored the “annexationist” peace demanded by Germany.

  7. If Russia persisted in its refusal to accept current German peace terms, it would eventually have to accept even more onerous ones: but this would be done not by the Bolsheviks but by their successors, because in the meantime the Bolsheviks would have been toppled from power.

  8. A respite will give the government the opportunity to organize the economy (nationalize the banks and heavy industry), which “will make socialism invincible in Russia and the entire world, creating, at the same time, a solid economic basis for a powerful worker-peasant Red Army.”

  Lenin had another reason in mind which he could not spell out because it would have revealed that, notwithstanding his protestations, he really desired the World War to continue. He felt certain that as soon as the “bourgeoisie” of the Central Powers and the Entente made peace, they would join forces and attack Soviet Russia. He hinted at this danger during the debates on the Brest Treaty: “Our revolution was born of the war: if there were no war, we would have witnessed the unification of the capitalists of the whole world, a unification on the basis of a struggle against us.”39 Projecting his own political militancy, he gave his “enemies” much too much credit for astuteness and decisiveness: in fact, no such “unification” would occur after the November 1918 Armistice. But believing in the danger, he had to prolong the war in order to gain time for building an armed force able to withstand the expected “capitalist” assault.

  On January 8/21, 1918, the Bolsheviks convened a conference of party leaders from three strongholds: Petrograd, Moscow, and the Ural region. Lenin presented a resolution calling for the acceptance of the German ultimatum: it received a bare fifteen votes out of sixty-three. Trotsky’s compromise resolution in favor of “neither peace nor war” won sixteen votes. The majority (thirty-two delegates) voted for the resolution of the Left Communists, demanding an uncompromising “revolutionary war.”*

  The discussion next shifted to the Central Committee. Here, Trotsky moved for an immediate, unilateral suspension of hostilities and the concurrent demobilization of the Russian army. The motion carried with the barest majority, 9–7. Lenin responded with an impassioned speech in favor of an immediate peace on German terms,40 but he remained in the minority, which dwindled still further the next day when the Bolshevik Central Committee met in joint session with the Central Committee of the Left SRs, who strenuously opposed Lenin’s peace proposals. Here again Trotsky’s resolution carried the day.

  With this mandate in hand, Trotsky returned to Brest. The talks resumed on January 15/28. Trotsky continued playing for time with irrelevant remarks and propagandistic speeches, which now began to irritate even the self-possessed Kühlmann.

  While Russo-German negotiations bogged down in rhetoric, the Germans and Austrians settled with the Ukrainians. On February 9, the Central Powers signed a separate peace treaty with the Ukrainian Republic which made it a de facto German protectorate.41 German and Austrian troops moved into the Ukraine, where they restored a certain degree of law and order. Their price for this welcome action was massive shipments westward of Ukrainian foodstuffs.

  The deadlock in the Russo-German political talks was broken by a cable which the Kaiser, under the influence of his generals, sent to Brest on February 9. In it he ordered an ultimatum to be given to the Russians:

  Today, the Bolshevik Government has addressed my troops

  en clair

  [

  klerom

  ] by radio, and urged them to rise and openly disobey their military superiors. Neither I nor His Excellency Field Marshal von Hindenburg can accept and tolerate any longer such a state of affairs! This must be ended as soon as possible! Trotsky must sign by 8 p.m. tomorrow, the 10th [of February] …,

  without procrastination, peace

  on

  our

  terms.… In the event of refusal or attempts at procrastination and other pretexts, the negotiations are broken off at eight o’clock on the night of the 10th [and] the armistice terminated. In this event, the armies of the Eastern Front will move forward to the preassigned line.

  42

  The next day, Kühlmann advised Trotsky of his government’s ultimatum: he was to sign, without further discussions or other delays, the German text of the peace treaty. Trotsky refused to do so, saying that Soviet Russia was leaving the war and would proceed to demobilize her armies.43 The economic and legal discussions, however, which had in the meantime moved to Petrograd, could continue, if so desired. Trotsky then boarded his train and left for Petrograd.

  Trotsky’s unorthodox move threw the German rank into complete confusion. By now, no one doubted any longer that the Russians were using the peace talks as a diversion. But this conceded, it was by no means obvious how Germany should respond. Continue the fruitless negotiations? Compel the Bolsheviks by military action to accept her ultimatum? Or remove them from power and put in their place a more acceptable regime?

  German diplomats counseled patience. Kühlmann feared that German workers would fail to understand the resumption of hostilities on the Eastern Front and would cause trouble. He further worried that Austria-Hungary would be forced out of the war.44

  But the military, who in the winter of 1917–18 dominated German politics, had di
fferent ideas. Massing forces in the west for the decisive campaign scheduled for mid-March, they had to have perfect certainty that the Eastern Front was secure or they could not continue shifting troops to the Western Front. They also needed access to Russian foodstuffs and raw materials. Military intelligence from Russia indicated that the Bolsheviks had the worst intentions toward Germany but also that they were in a most precarious position. Walther von Kaiserlingk, the Admiralty’s Chief of Operations, who went to Petrograd with Mirbach’s mission, sent back alarming reports.45 Having observed the Bolshevik regime at close quarters, he concluded it was “insanity in power” (regierender Wahnsinn). Run by Jews for Jews, it presented a mortal threat not only to Germany but to the entire civilized world. He urged that the German-Russian frontier be shifted far to the east, to shield Germany from this plague. Kaiserlingk further proposed the penetration of Russia by German business interests: for the second time in her history (an allusion to the Normans) Russia was ready to be colonized. Other firsthand reports depicted the Bolshevik regime as weak and despised. Lenin was said to be exceedingly unpopular and protected from assassins more assiduously than any tsar. Kühlmann’s sources indicated that the Bolsheviks’ only support came from the Latvian Riflemen: if they were bought off, the regime would collapse.46 Such eyewitness accounts strongly impressed the Kaiser and inclined him toward the generals’ point of view.

  Combining the information he received on the instability of the Bolshevik regime with evidence of its systematic campaign to demoralize the German army, Ludendorff, with Hindenburg’s backing, urged that the Brest negotiations be broken off, following which the army would march into Russia, remove the Bolsheviks, and install in Petrograd a more acceptable government.47

  The recommendations of the Foreign Ministry and the General Staff clashed at a conference at Bad Homburg on February 13 which the Kaiser chaired.48 Kühlmann pressed the conciliatory line. The sword, he argued, could not eliminate “the center of the revolutionary plague.” Even if German forces occupied Petrograd, the problem would not disappear: the French Revolution demonstrated that foreign intervention only inflamed nationalist and revolutionary passions. The best solution would be an anti-Bolshevik coup carried out by Russians with German assistance: but whether he favored such policy, Kühlmann did not say. The Foreign Minister received support from the Vice-Chancellor, Friedrich von Payer, who spoke of the widespread desire for peace among the German people and the impossibility of overthrowing the Bolsheviks by military force.