COMPELLED TO SIGN BRIGANDS' PEACE
Lenin, Nikolai
Compelled To Sign Brigands' Peace Lenin Says Russia Was Compelled To Take "An Incredibly Oppressive And Humiliating Peace." New Light On Russia By NIKOLAI LENIN While Lenin and Trostke hare...
...She can become so, for we still have left sufficient expanse and natural resources to supply all and everyone, if not with abundance, at least with sufficient means of subsistence...
...We aroused to freedom and independence the most humble sections of the toiling masses oppressed by czarism and the bourgeoisie...
...provided she comes to understand that salvation is possible only on the road of the international Socialist revolution, which we have chosen...
...Germany was in position to take Petrograd and Moscow and work her will in every way she chose...
...It is not true that we have betrayed our ideals or our friends when we signed the "Tilsit" peace...
...The war epochs teach us that peace has in many cases in history served as a respite to gather strength for new battles...
...We introduced and firmly established the Soviet republic—a new type of state—infinitely higher and more democratic than the best of the bourgeois-parliamentary republics...
...It should be remembered that the news that comes out of Russia is not, in the very nature of things, altogether reliable...
...Now capitalism has considerably raised the level of culture in general and of the culture of the masses in particular...
...To move forward along this road, not becoming dejected in case of defeats, to lay, stone after stone the firm foundation of self-discipline, to strengthen everywhere organization, order, efficiency, the harmonious cooperation of all the people's forces, universal accounting and control over production and distribution of products— such is the road towards the creation of military power and Socialist power...
...The war has gives impetus to history and now it is moving along with the speed of a locomotive...
...And in a few days an imperialistic briAND in a few days an imperialistic brigand knocked us down, attacking those who had no arms...
...We challenged the imperialistic plunderers of all countries...
...It would seem improbable that now in his declining years that he should turn traitor to his own life history and to his countrymen...
...gand knocked us down, attacking those who had no arms...
...It is not true that we have no way out and that we can only choose between a "disLEAD THE COUNTRY...
...We have the material in the natural resources, in the supply of human energy, and in the splendid, impetus which the creative spirit of the people has received through the great revolution, to create a really mighty and abundant Russia...
...In a few weeks we have overthrown the bourgeoisie and crashed her open resistance in civil war...
...We must not deceive ourselves...
...It is not surprising that at the most difficult points of such a crisis, when everywhere around us the old order is crumbling and falling apart with tumult and crash, and a-new order is being born in indescribable torments—it is not surprising that some are becoming bewildered, some become victims of despair, and others, to escape from the bitter reality, are taking cover behind beautiful and enchanting phrases...
...The clearer we understand this, the firmer, the more hardened and inflexible will become our will for liberation, our desire to arise anew from enslavement to independence, our firm determination to see at all costs, that Russia shall cease to be poor and weak, that she may become truly powerful and prosperous...
...We are "resist-ants" since November 7, 1917 We are for the "defense of our fatherland," but the war for the fatherland towards which we are moving is a war for a Socialist fatherland, for Socialism, we being a part of the universal army of Socialism...
...However that may be we give his own story which is interesting if not plausible...
...We have been forced, however, to see things clearly, as we pass through the sharp and painful experience of this most difficult crisis of history which turns the world from imperialism towards communistic revolution...
...It was this situation Lenin had to face...
...Translation by the Liberator.—Editor's Note...
...We passed in a victorious and triumphant procession of -Bolshevism from one end of an enormous country to the other...
...We must have courage to face the unadorned bitter truth...
...Lenin in the 'Pravado, the official organ of his government makes the following statement which we give our readers for whatever it may be worth...
...History is now being independently made by millions and tens of millions of people...
...When Napoleon I forced Prussia in 1807 to accept the Tilsit peace, the conqueror had defeated all the German armies, occupied the capital and all the large cities, established his police, compelled the conquered to give him auxiliary corps in order to wage new wars of plunder, dismembered Germany, forming an alliance with some of the German states against other German states...
...Faced Bitter Truth...
...He forced us to sign an incredibly oppressive and humiliating peace—a penalty for our daring to break away, even for as short a time as possible, from the iron grip of the imperialistic war...
...At that time the historical environment offered only one outlet for this awakening—a bourgeois state...
...THE Bureau of Internal Revenue reports a total tax collection of $3,671,918,236.91 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1918...
...WE HAVE signed a "Tilsit" peace...
...The war has aroused the masses, awakened them by the unheard of horrors and sufferings...
...Suck a commander is only doing his duty, he is choosing the only way to save what can still be saved, he is scorning adventures, telling the people the bitter truth, "yielding territory in order to win time," utilizing any, even the shortest respite in order to gather again his forces, and give the army, which is affected by disintegration and demoralization, a chance to rest and recover...
...TIE history of mankind is today recording one of the greatest and most difficult crises, a crisis which has an enormous— we can say without the least exaggeration a world wide—liberating significance...
...In a few days we destroyed one of the oldest, most powerful, barbarous and cruel monarchies...
...We have betrayed nothing and nobody, we have not sanctioned or covered any lie, we have not refused to aid any friend and comrade in misfortune in any way we could, or by any means at our disposal...
...The Peace of Tilsitz was the greatest humiliation of Germany and at the same time a turning point to the greatest national awakening...
...We must realize in full to the very bottom, the abyss of defeat, partition, enslavement and humiliation into which we have been thrown...
...WE WERE compelled to sign a "Tilsit" peace...
...He forced us to sign an incredibly oppressive and humiliating peace— a penalty for our daring to break away, even for as short a time as possible, from the iron grip of the imperialistic war...
...Thus, if Russia now moves—and it cannot be denied that she does move from the "Tilsit" peace to a national awakening, and to a great war for the fatherland—the issue of such an awakening is not the bourgeois state but the international Socialist revolution...
...He was for the time being at least helpless to oppose Germany and had to accept such a peaee when she can no longer defend her country with an armed force...
...In a few months we passed through a number of stages of compromise with the bourgeosie and got over the petty bourgeois illusions, in the grip of which other countries have spent decades...
...It must be remembered that when Lenin and his associates came into power the Russian army had dispersed and there was no organized resistance to Germany...
...A commander who leads into the interior the remnants of an army which is defeated or disorganized by a disorderly flight and who, if necessary', protects this retreat by a most humiliating and oppressive peace, is not betraying those parts of the army which he cannot help and which are cut off by the enemy...
...We sent broadcast the clarion call of the international working class revolution...
...And the more threatening the spectre of a working class revolution in his own country rises before the brigand, the more furiously he oppresses and strangles and tears Russia to pieces...
...Sees New Efforts...
...To any person able and willing to think, the example of the Tilsit peace (which was only one of the many oppressive and humiliating treaties forced upon the Germans in that epoch) shows clearly how childishly naive is the thought that an oppressive peace is, under all circumstances, ruinous, and war the road of valor and salvation...
...graceful" (from the standpoint of a feudal knight) death, which an oppressive peace is, and a "glorious" death in a hopeless battle...
...All his life he has fought autocratic control...
...He has suffered exile and imprisonment for his convictions...
...And the more threatening the spectre of a working class revolution in his own country rises before the brigand, the more furiously he oppresses and strangles and tears Russia to pieces...
...Russia will become so, provided she frees herself of all dejection and phrase-mongering...
...Lenin is 60 years of age...
...The district in which Wall Street is located paid in income and excess profits taxes, more than four hundred millions, easily leading the country in that respect...
...Capitalism has now become ripe for Socialism...
...Owing to this history at that time could crawl only with awful slowness...
...It is unworthy of a true Socialist, if badly defeated, either to deny that fact or to become despondent...
...At that time, over a hundred years ago, history was made by a handful of noblemen and small groups of bourgeois intellectuals, while the mass of workers and peasants were inactive and inert...
...And nevertheless, even after such a peace the German people were not subdued...
...We established the dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry, and have inaugurated a comprehensively planned system of Socialist reform...
...New Light On Russia By NIKOLAI LENIN While Lenin and Trostke hare been accused of betraying Russia into the hands of Germany it is only fair to give Lenin's own explanation of the situation...
...We awakened self-confidence and kindled the fires of enthusiasm in the hearts of millions upon millions of workers of all countries...
Vol. 10 • October 1918 • No. 10
