Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/344

 know no other interests than those of the people, but these interests are identical with the interests of the peoples of all nations. We declare war upon war. The Czars are afraid of the conclusion of peace, are afraid that the peoples will ask for an accounting for all the great sacrifices they have made and the blood they have shed. Germany, in agreeing to peace negotiations, is heeding the will of her people; she knows that they want her to answer, and that if she does not answer the Russian Revolution will become the ally of the German people. France and England ought to come to the discussion on the conclusion of peace, but If they do not, their own peoples, who will know of the course of the transactions, will cast them out with rods. The Russian representatives at the peace table will be transformed into plaintiffs; the peoples will sit in judgment on their rulers. Our experience of the manner in which the rulers have treated their peoples in the forty months of the war has not been wasted. In your name we shall say to our brothers: Understand that in the moment you turn your revolutionary strength against your bourgeoisie, not one Russian soldier will shoot! This promise will be given in your name, and you will keep it."

The war was destroying the Revolution. Peace was a central problem of the Revolution. The moderates' policy of trying through diplomacy to influence the Entente governments collapsed, and collapsed miserably. The collapse was inevitable, and it did not even develop revolutionary reserves for action in the days to come; the class struggle method would, at least, develop these reserves. As a realistic necessity alone, peace was indispensable.The country was disorganized industrially; and should all energies be concentrated upon war, internal reconstruction could not be put through, the disorganization would become worse. Considering that war to-day is more a matter of the internal front than of actual fighting, less a military problem than a problem of intensive production, the economic disintegration prevailing in Russia was the decisive factor in war and peace. The Russian army was bled white, having had 8,000,000 casualties due to the criminal corruption of the Czar's regime. The disintegration of the army and the disorganization of industry were produced by the autocratic regime, and completed by the regime of Kerensky. When the Bolsheviki assumed power, virtual chaos was their inheritance.

In spite of all these disadvantageous conditions, the Bolsheviki made a bold and magnificent attempt to secure a general peace, in accord with Socialist policy. The policy of the Bolsheviki on peace may be summarized as follows:

The slogan of a "democratic peace" is a mockery, if the peace is to be concluded by bourgeois governments; a peace concluded in this way, on no matter what terms (even on terms of no annexations and r.o indemnities,) is in fact an imperialistic peace fundamentally, if it is not accompanied by the overthrow of Imperialism. A "democratic peace" means a peace largely on the status quo ante, an imperialistic status. Moreover, the prolongation of the war, and its sacrifices, compelled each government to strain for annexations and indemnities; only proletarian pressure could secure even an ordinary "democratic peace." All nations have imperialistic objectives of one sort or another, and military victory will reveal these objectives. Socialism, accordingly, aims at a revolutionary peace, a peace concluded by the revolutionary proletariat through its overthrow of Imperialism in all belliger-