Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/176

 164 prepared the ground for the later blunders of the Allied diplomacy and made them stand out in still more glaring relief. Those were indeed fateful steps, both for Russia and for the Allies, which began when the Allies had to define their attitude to the Russian peace programme. To-day, when the veil is partly lifted and secrets are being revealed, when it is known that Austria made serious proposals for peace, the conduct of the Allied diplomacy is still harder to understand. When one hears of the demands then made by French diplomacy, one comes to the conviction that the imperialistic mania from which Miliukov's party suffered was an international phenomenon. It is hard to restrain one's feelings when one thinks that Russia was sacrificed to satisfy the annexationist greed of the French imperialists, who were not content with Alsace-Lorraine, but who wanted to annex purely German land. To-day the same statesmen who allowed Russia to go to rack and ruin for the sake of their greed for a "bigger Alsace," hypocritically say that they will not lay down their arms till justice is done in Russia. But I want to forget these newly revealed facts in writing this chapter. I shall attempt to describe the struggle of the Allied diplomacy with the Russian democracy as it appeared in Russia, where these facts were not yet known.

When the Soviet had published its manifesto to the peoples of the world, there began a time of great expectations. How would Europe respond? At first the Russians thought only of what would be the attitude of Germany. Less attention was paid to France and England. That is not to say that the Russian democracy was