Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/385

 tions by the Germans and not a revolutionary war, while the organization of a revolutionary army and the forming of a Red Guard have hardly been begun.

It would be a serious business to wage war against the will of the majority of our soldiers, now that the entire army is demoralized; and it will be many months before a truly proletarian army, Socialistic through and through, can be formed.

16. The poorest section of the Russian peasants would be ready to support a revolution headed by the working class, but they are not ready to support a revolutionary war at present. It would be a serious error to overlook this state of things.

17. The question of revolutionary war therefore stands as follows: if revolution should break out in Germany within the next three or four months, the revolutionary war tactic, for immediate action, would not be fatal to our Russian Revolution.

If the German Revolution does not take place in a few months, the continuation of the war would have the consequence that still greater defeats would force Russia to accept a still more onerous peace; and peace would not be concluded by a Socialist, but by a mixed government, for example, by a coalition between the adherents of Chernov and of the bourgeois party or something of the sort, for the peasant army, sick and tired of the war, would overthrow the Socialist government in a few weeks.

18. Conditions being as indicated above, it is intolerable thus to jeopardize the fate of the Russian Revolution.

19. The German Revolution will absolutely not be made more difficult by the conclusion of a separate peace. It will probably be weakened for a time by chauvinism, but the conditions in Germany will remain very critical. The war with America and England will last long and Imperialism will finally be unmasked completely, on both sides. The example of the Russian Revolution will continue to inspire the peoples of the world, and its influence will be enormous. On the one side will be the bourgeois system and war for conquest waged by two imperialistic groups, on the other peace and the Socialist Republic.

20. By a separate peace we free ourselves, in so far as present conditions will permit, from the two imperialist coalitions; by taking advantage of their warfare and their mutual enmity preventing them from uniting against us, we shall utilize the time so gained, in order to strengthen the Socialist Republic in Russia.

The reorganization of Russia, based on the dictatorship of the proletariat, the nationalization of banks and of big industry, the ex-