Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/343

 [who was released, and subsequently became Commissaire of Foreign Affairs in the Soviet Government] who has devoted his wealth and his knowledge to the peoples of Russia, England, Germany and France, and the courageous agitator of the English workers, the emigrant Petroff. I communicated in writing with the English Embassy, saying that Russia was now permitting the presence within her borders of many wealthy Englishmen, who are engaged in counter-revolutionary conspiracies with the Russian bourgeoisie, and that we were therefore all the more disinclined to permit Russian citizens to be thrown into English prisons; that, consequently, all those against whom there were no criminal charges should be liberated at once. Failure to comply with this request will mean that we shall refuse passports to English subjects desiring to leave Russia. The People's Soviet Power is responsible for the well-being of the entire people; wherever its citizens may be, they shall enjoy its protection. If Kerensky spoke to the Allies like a shop-attendant to his boss, we are prepared to show that we shall live with them only on terms of equality. We have more than once said that anyone who counts on the support and friendship of the free and independent Russian people must approach them with respect for them and for their human dignity.

"As soon as the Soviets found themselves with power in their hands, we proposed peace parleys in the name of the Russian people. We had a right to speak in the name of the people, for everything that we proposed, as well as the whole program of the People's Commissaires, consists of doctrines and propositions voted on and passed in hundreds and thousands of Soviets, factories and works, that is, by the entire people. Our delegation will speak an open and courageous language: do you agree to the holding of an immediate peace conference on all the fronts? And if they say. Yes, we shall ask them to invite their governments and allies to send their delegates. Our second question will be: Do you mean to conclude peace on a democratic foundation? If we are forced to make peace alone, we shall declare to Germany that it is inadmissible to withdraw their troops from the Russian front to some other front, since we are offering an honorable peace and cannot permit England and France to be crushed by reason of it.

"Secret diplomacy shall not be tolerated for a single moment during the negotiations. Our flyers and our radio-service will keep all the nations informed of every proposition we make, and of the answers they elict from Germany. We shall be sitting in a glass house, as it were, and the German soldiers, through thousands of newspapers, in German, which we shall distribute to them, will be informed of every step we take and of every German answer.

"We say that Lithuania and Courland must themselves decide the question, with whom they will join forces, and that Germany must, not in words only, but in deeds, heed the free expression of the will of the peoples. And if, after these frank and honorable declarations, the Kaiser refuses to make peace, if the banks and exchanges, which profit by the war, destroy our peace, the nations will see on whose side is the right, and we shall come out the stronger, the Kaiser and the financiers the weaker. We shall feel ourselves to be not the vanquished, but the victors, for peace hath its victories no less renowned than war. For a nation that has assumed power after having cast out its enemies, such a nation is victorious. We