Page:René Marchand - Why I Side with the Social Revolution (1920).pdf/56

 and exposed themselves, to an ever greater extent, to the revolts of the peasants. Finally, it took place at a moment when, after the assasination of Mirbach and Eichhorn, the German Embassy precipately left, almost in a panic, for the other side of the frontier. It was effected frankly, formally,  against the Bolsheviks, at a moment when the latter were directly supporting, at the risk of most serious complications, the magnificent revolt of the peasants in the Ukraine, which German Imperialism, faithful to its tactics, suppressed with odious savagery, burning and exterminating whole villages, murdering women, children and old men, without distinction (I had just obtained possession of a proof of this which tardily, unfortunately, put a complete end to the legend so long entertained by me in regard to Bolsheviks being German-agents). This splendid uprising of the peasants,—the first grave check encountered by the Germans in Russia since the Brest Peace and which, at that period, was of considerable import,—was, for reasons which to day I hesitate to explain to myself,—neglected, passed over by the allied press almost in silence. At any rate, they were far from rendering the hommage due and, not for one moment, was the slightest protest raised against the savage repressions of the German subordinates, I mean Skoropadsky and his agents. Our representatives at Moscow who, at all costs, wished to unite the Bolshevik cause to that of the Germans, pretended to see id ail this nothing but the action of the „revolutionary left socialists“ whereas it was  that Government of the People's Commissaries had just despatched from Moscow to