APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI
1.
LIMITATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER
This chapter extends over a period of two months, more or less. It covers the time of negotiations with the Allies, the negotiations and armistice with the Germans, and the beginning of the Peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, as well as the period in which were laid the foundations of the Soviet State.
However, it is no part of my purpose in this book to describe and interpret these very important historical events, which require more space. They are therefore reserved for another volume, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.”
In this chapter, then, I have confined myself to the Soviet Government’s attempts to consolidate its political power at home, and sketched its successive conquests of hostile domestic elements—which process was temporarily interrupted by the disastrous Peace of Brest-Litovsk.
2.
PREAMBLE—DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA
The October Revolution of the workers and peasants began under the common banner of Emancipation.
The peasants are being emancipated from the power of the landowners, for there is no longer the landowner’s property right in the land—it has been abolished. The soldiers and sailors are being emancipated from the power of autocratic generals, for generals will henceforth be elective and subject to recall. The workingmen are being emancipated from the whims and arbitrary will of the capitalists, for henceforth there will be established the control of the workers over mills and factories. Everything living and capable of life is being emancipated from the hateful shackles.