Page:Arthur Ransome - The Truth about Russia.djvu/12

 (old style), the whole world was told that the new Russian Government was ready to conclude peace itself, and invited all the fighting countries to put an end to the war "without annexation (that is, without the seizure of other people's land and without the forced incorporation of other nationalities) and without indemnity." The declaration was sent out by radio on November 7th, o.s. Some governments prevented its publication, others sought to disguise its true character and to give it the appearance of an offer of separate peace. The Allies replied to it with a threat conveyed to the Russian Commander-in-Chief, Dukhonin, that further steps towards separate peace would have serious consequences. It should, of course, be remembered that the Allies were in a position of peculiar difficulty. Practically all the Russians who were able to give direct information to members of Allied Governments belonged to the classes that had persistently fed themselves and others with lies as to the character of the Bolsheviki. They believed that the Soviets could hold authority only for a few days, and they persuaded the Allied Governments to share that belief. The next step of the Soviets was an agreement, made across the front itself, stopping all military operations between the Black Sea and the Baltic. This was followed by yet another invitation to the Allies to join Russia in peace negotiations. Meanwhile the German Government, with one eye on the military party and the other on the feeling of German Labour, which at that time was unrestful and excited by the Russian revolution, was hesitating over its answer. I shall not here attempt any detailed history of what followed. My only point is that the Soviet Government cannot be accused of having sought and obtained a separate peace. The first aim of the Bolsheviki was, as it always will be, a Universal Social Revolution. They hoped to illustrate to the workers of the world the possibility of honourable peace, and nothing would have pleased them better than to find that such a peace was rejected by all governments alike, so that the workers, convinced of its possibility, should rise and overthrow them. That was their general aim. They, least of all governments in the world, were interested in a German victory. Their proposal was for a general peace, for the peace which Russia, in agony, had been awaiting for a year.

What followed? Step by step, they published every detail of their negotiations over the armistice, every word of the German replies. Then came the first German answer as to the conditions of peace, in which Germany and her allies expressed themselves ready to make the Russian formula the basis of negotiation. The Bolsheviki believe that if the Allies had even at that late hour joined them, so that in withdrawing from that position the Germans would have been facing a continuance of the war as a whole instead of merely a failure to obtain peace with the weakest of the Allies, peace on the Russian formula would have been attainable. The Allies left them, unrecognised, ignored, to continue their struggle single-handed. The Germans now took a bolder line, and the hand