Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/439

 The military advance of the Germans after the treaty of Brest-Litovsk occured in two directions: in Finland and in the Ukraine. After the Russian Republic had submitted to the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk and had recalled her troops from Finland, there remained in Finland but few Russian citizens who, upon their own responsibility, took part in the struggle of the Finnish working class. At the moment of the invasion of German troops into Finland, and after, we received continual threatening notes from the German Government claiming that we had sent troops and munitions to Finland. But every time when the occupations complained in the notes were investigated we found that in reality they did not exist. They merely served the Germans as a pretext for delaying the cessation of military measures. The notes served to justify the government of the Finnish White Guards when they refused to liberate the Russian citizens, Kameniev, Sawitski and Wolf, who were returning from Sweden and were arrested at the Aland Islands. The Finns pointed out our violations of the Brest-Litovsk treaty when bands of White Guards invaded Karelie and the Murman regions, the south-west half of the former having been a part of Russia for two hundred years, and the later being wholly Russian.

The German government constantly remainded [sic] us that we are compelled, according to the treaty of Brest, to reach an agreement with Finland, and the Russian Soviet Government declared their willingness time and time again, despite the extreme provocative acts of the Finnish White Guards. I remind you of the shooting of thousands of Russians in Wyborg, of the many executions of Russian citizens, even of official members of the Soviets in Finland. I remind you of the arrest of Kowanko, the commander of Sveaborg, the Russian fortress of the Island of Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, of whose appointment Finland was duly informed through our representative ad interim and the agency of the German government. Kowanko was arrested immediately afterwards and had to submit to an investigation, and up to this date, July 19, 1918, has not yet been liberated. I remind you also of the violent seizure of the Russian ships by the Finns, of the seizure of the hospital ships, also of the enormous sums of money, amounting to many billions, taken from the safes of the fortress and the vaults of the Russian exchequer. Notwithstaning, [sic] the Russian government declared itself willing time and time again to negotiate, not only as an answer to the German demands, but the Russian government addressed itself directly to Finland with a proposition which was never answered.

The question of our relations to Finland was especially acute when an important German-Finnish army on one side advanced towards the Russian frontier near Bieloostrov (directly northwest of Petrograd) and the German government on the other side questioned us concerning the presence of English troops in the Murman district (which territory, as mentioned above, the German-Finnish White Guards had invaded) in this inquiry, the number of English troops was grossly exaggerated by the German government. In May, the question of Fort Ino became the most prominent, when the German government followed the example set by the Finnish High Commander and demanded the surrender of this Russian fort to Finland. This took place in the general critical period of the advance of the Germans, after the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, when the German troops advanced into the governments of Woronesj and Koorsk (in which governments the rivers Donetz and Don