Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/350

 In their isolation, abandoned equally by the Entente governments and by the Socialist proletariat, the Bolshevik: at Brest-Litovsk were overwhelmed. They still presented a united front, attacking bitterly the demands of the imperialistic Austro-German representatives, when their front was morally broken by the treachery of the Ukrainian delegation. The governing body of the Ukraine, the Rada, bourgeois in spirit and personnel, and composed largely of moderate Socialists, afraid of the spread of the proletarian revolution, secretly agreed to accept Germany's terms in return for Germany's offer to assist the Rada with troops in retaining control of the country. The Ukrainian issue was a crucial one, and the Soviet Government poured Red Guards into the Ukraine which, in co-operation with the local Red Guards, fought gallantly to overthrow the bourgeois, pro-German Rada. A similar situation prevailed in Finland, where the Workers' Government used all its resources to defeat the bourgeoisie under General Mannerheim. In both the Ukraine and Finland the Bolsheviki were defeated, due to the intervention of Austro-German troops called for by the bourgeoisie. Finland and the Ukraine accepted German tutelage, betrayed the peace struggle of revolutionary Russia, because the bourgeoisie considered the defense of its private property and class interests the supreme consideration. While the depised proletariat refused to accept Germany's terms, the bourgeoisie accepted enthusiastically.—Treason has a fatal logic. The Ukrainian bourgeois-"Socialist" Rada was finally dispersed by German bayonets, and a dictatorship established, Finland became a colony of Germany, and in both states the revolutionary proletariat waged a relentless struggle against its own bourgeoisie and German Imperialism.

The sessions of the Brest-Litovsk Conference reveal clearly the imperialistic duplicity of Germany, as they equally reveal the lofty principles and international spirit of the Bolsheviki. The correspondent of the London Daily News described one of the sessions as follows:

"The Russian delegation, acting on unequivocal instructions from the Bolshevik authorities, took up an uncompromising attitude. They said self-definition of nationalities in Poland, Courland, Esthonia and Lithuania was impossible until the last German soldier had left the country. Further, they jeered the Germans, asking whether they intended to take Petrograd and feed 3,000,000 starving folk or to disarm a revolutionary country in which every workman had a rifle. They also asked what the Germans proposed to say to their own democracy, which protested a couple of months ago against the proposed annexation of Poland and Lithuania."