When Hugo Hasse questioned Philipp Scheidemann about the negotiations which were going on through "Parvus," Scheidemann replied that it was the Bolsheviki themselves who had invited "Parvus" to come to Stockholm for the purpose of opening up negotiations. This statement was denounced as a lie by Karl Radek in Pravda. Some day, doubtless, the truth will be known; for the present it is enough to note the fact that as early as November the Bolsheviki were negotiating through such a discredited agent of the Central Powers as Dr. Alexander Helfandt, otherwise "Parvus," the well-known Marxist! Such facts as this, added to those previously noticed, tended inevitably to strengthen the conviction that Lenine and Trotsky were the pliant and conscious tools of Germany all the time, and that the protests of Trotzky at Brest-Litovsk were simply stage-play.
But for all that, unless and until official, documentary evidence is forthcoming which proves them to have been in such relations with the German Government and military authorities, they ought not to be condemned upon the chain of suspicious circumstances, strong as that chain apparently is. The fact is that they had to make peace, and make it quickly. Kerensky, had he been permitted to hold on, would equally have had to make a separate peace, and make it quickly. Only one thing could have delayed that for long—namely, the arrival of an adequate force of Allied troops on the Russian front to stiffen the morale and to take the burden of fighting off from the Russians. Of that there was no sign and no promise or likelihood. Kerensky knew that he would have had to make peace, at almost any cost and on almost any terms, if he remained in power. If the Bolsheviki appear in the light of traitors to the Allies, it should be remembered that pressure of circumstances would have forced even such a loyal friend of the Allies as Kerensky certainly proved himself to be to make a separate peace, practically on Germany's terms, in a very little while. It was not a matter of months, but of weeks at most, probably of days.
Russia had to have peace. The nation was war-weary and exhausted. The Allies had not understood the situation—indeed, they never have understood Russia, even to this day—and had bungled right along. What made it possible for the Bolsheviki to assert their rule so easily was the fact that they promised immediate peace, and the great mass of the Russian workers wanted immediate peace above everything else. They were so eager for peace that so long as they could get it they cared at the time for nothing. Literally nothing else mattered. As we have seen, the Bolshevik leaders had strenuously denied wanting to make a "separate peace." There is little reason for doubting that they were sincere in this in the sense that what they wanted was a general peace, if that could be possibly obtained. Peace they had to have, as quickly as possible. If they could not persuade their Allies to join with them in making such a general peace, they were willing to make a separate peace. That is quite different from wanting a separate peace from the first. There was, indeed, in the demand made at the beginning of December upon the Allies to restate their war aims within a period of seven days an arrogant and provocative tone which invited the suspicion that the ultimatum—for such it was—had not been conceived in good faith; that it was deliberately framed in such a manner as to prevent compliance by the Allies. And it may well be the fact that Lenine and Trotzky counted upon the inevitable refusal to convince the Russian people, and especially the Russian army, that the Allied nations were fighting for imperialistic ends, just as the Bolsheviki had always charged. The Machiavellian cunning of such a policy is entirely characteristic of the conspirator type.
On December 14th the armistice was signed at Brest-Litovsk, to last for a period of twenty-eight days. On December 5th, the Bolsheviki had published the terms upon which they desired to effect the armistice. These terms, which the Germans scornfully rejected, provided that the German forces which had been occupied on the Russian front should not be sent to other fronts to fight against the Allies, and that the German troops should retire from the Russian islands held by them. In the armistice as it was finally signed at Brest-Litovsk there was a clause which, upon its face, seemed to prove that Trotzky had kept faith with the Allies. The clause provided that there should be no transfer of troops by either side, for the purpose of military operations, during the armistice, from the front between the Baltic and the Black Sea. This, however, was, from the German point of view, merely a pro forma arrangement, a "scrap of paper." Grumbach wrote to L'Humanité that on December 20th Berlin was full of German soldiers from the Russian front en route to the western front. He said that he had excellent authority for saying that this had been called to the attention of Lenine and Trotzky by the Independent Social Democrats, but that, "nevertheless, they diplomatically shut their eyes."[88] It is more than probable that, in the circumstances, neither Lenine nor Trotzky cared much if at all for such a breach of the terms of the armistice, but, had their attitude been otherwise, what could they have done? They were as helpless as ever men were in the world, as subsequent events proved.
As one reads the numerous declamatory utterances of Trotzky in those critical days of early December, 1917, the justice of Lenine's scornful description of his associate as a "man who blinds himself with revolutionary phrases" becomes manifest. It is easy to understand the strained relations that existed between the two men. His "neither war nor peace" gesture—it was no more!—his dramatic refusal to sign the stiffened peace terms, his desire to call all Russia to arms again to fight the Germans, his determination to create a vast "Red Army" to renew the war against Germany, and his professed willingness to "accept the services of American officers in training that army," all indicated a mind given to illusions and stone blind to realities. Lenine at least knew that the game was up. He knew that the game into which he had so coolly entered when he left Switzerland, and which he had played with all his skill and cunning, was at an end and that the Germans had won. The Germans behaved with a perfidy that is unmatched in modern history, disregarded the armistice they had signed, and savagely hurled their forces against the defenseless, partially demobilized and trusting Russians. There was nothing left for the Bolsheviki to do. They had delivered Russia to the Germans. In March the "indecent peace" was signed, with what result we know. Bolshevism had been the ally of Prussian militarism. Consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, Lenine, Trotzky, and the other Bolshevik leaders had done all that men could do to make the German military lords masters of the world. Had there been a similar movement in France, England, the United States, or even Italy, to-day the Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs would be upon their thrones, realizing the fulfilment of the Pan-German vision.
VIII
In view of the fact that so many of our American pacifists have glorified the Bolsheviki, it may be well to remind them, if they have forgotten, or to inform them, if they do not know it, that their admiration is by no means reciprocated. Both Lenine and Trotzky have spoken and written in terms of utter disdain of pacifist movements in general and of the pacifists of England and America in particular. They have insisted that, in present society, disarmament is really a reactionary proposal. The inclusion in the Constitution, which they have forced upon Russia by armed might, of permanent universal compulsory military service is not by accident. They believe that only when all nations have become Socialist nations will it be a proper policy for Socialists to favor disarmament. It would be interesting to know how our American admirers and defenders of Bolshevism, who are all anti-conscriptionists and ultra-pacifists, so far as can be discovered, reconcile their position with that of the Bolsheviki who base their state, not as a temporary expedient, but as a matter of principle, upon universal, compulsory military service! What, one wonders, do these American Bolsheviki worshipers think of the teaching of these paragraphs from an article by Lenine?[89]
Disarmament is a Socialistic ideal. In Socialist society there will be no more wars, which means that disarmament will have been realized. But he is not a Socialist who expects the realization of Socialism without the social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Dictatorship is a government power, depending directly upon force, and, in the twentieth century, force means, not fists and clubs, but armies. To insert "disarmament" into our program is equivalent to saying, we are opposed to the use of arms. But such a statement would contain not a grain of Marxism, any more than would the equivalent statement, we are opposed to the use of force.
A suppressed class which has no desire to learn the use of arms, and to bear arms, deserves nothing else than to be treated as slaves. We cannot, unless we wish to transform ourselves into mere bourgeois pacifists, forget that we are living in a society based on classes, and that there is no escape from such a society, except by the class struggle and the overthrow of the power of the ruling class.