Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/379

 conciliatoriness of your colleagues of the German delegation. Thus far we have negotiated about the right of self-determination of the Lithuanians, Poles, Livonians, Letts, Esthonians and others, and we ascertained that with all these there was no room for self-determination. Now we want to see what is your attitude towards the self-determination of still another people, that of Russia, and what are your intentions and plans of military-strategic character hidden behind your occupation of the Moon Sound islands. For the Moon Sound islands, as a part of the independent Esthonian republic or as the property of the federated Russian republic, have a defensive importance; in the hands of Germany, however, they assume an offensive value and will menace the very life center of our country and, more especially, of Petrograd." But General Hoffman was unwilling to make the slightest concession. Then came the hour of decision. We could not declare war. We were too weak. The army had lost internal cohesion. For the salvation of our country and in order to overcome the process of disintegration, we were forced to re-establish the inner connection of the working masses. This psychological bond can be created by way of common productive effort in the fields, in the factories and in the workshops. We must bring the working masses, so long subjected to the terrible sufferings and catastrophic trials of the war, back to their acres and factories where they can again find themselves in their labor and enable us to build up internal discipline. This is the only way out for a country that must now do penance for the sins of Czarism and of the bourgeoisie. We are forced to give up this war and to lead the army out of this slaughter. But we declare at the same time and in the face of German militarism: The peace you have forced upon us is a peace of force and robbery. We shall not permit that you, diplomatic gentlemen, can say to the German workers: "You have called our demands conquests and annexations, but see: we bring to you, under these same demands, the signature of the Russian Revolution!"—Yes, we are weak; we can not now conduct a war, but we possess sufficient revolutionary force to prove that we shall not, voluntarily, place our signatures under a treaty that you write with your sword upon the bodies of living peoples. We refused our signatures!—I believe, comrades, that we acted rightly.

Comrades! I shall not claim that an attack upon us by Germany is impossible—such an assertion would be too risky if we visualize the power of the imperialist party in Germany. I believe, however, that the position we have taken in this question has made