Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/440

 enter the Azov Sea) and the end of this advance could tot be foreseen. Our notes to the German government at the later part of April and the beginning of May, containing pressing inquiries as to their exact intentions in relation to Fort Ino. resulted in he [sic] commencement of negotiations to reach a compromise. (Note: Fort Ino is one of those forts which threaten Petrograd).

When, despite the negotiations, the Finnish troops demanded the immediate surrender of Fort Ino, and the Fort was destroyed by the retreating Russian troops, the German government at last proposed as a basis for an agreement with Finland: the return of the town Ino, upon the condition that this place and the district Ravoli (on the railroad exactly N. W. of Petrograd) in the vicinity of Bjeloostrov should not be enforced by the Russians, and upon the condition that we (abandon the western part of the Murman regions, which the Germans and Finns had invaded, to Finland. Our acceptance of this as a basis for an agreement led to the discontinuation of the critical situation of May. However, notwithstanding this, Finland still continued to refuse to answer our proposal to enter into mutual negotiations.

The separation of Esthonia and of the northern part of Courland from Russia is in no way the result of the treaty of Brest-Utovsk, because this treaty only provided for the temporary occupation by Germany of these parts. Already on the 28th of January there was delivered to our representative Worofski in Stockholm a declaration from the land owners and barons of Esthonia and Courland concerning the independence of these provinces. After that, meetings of the landowners and barons were held in Esthonia and Courland, and in Riga, the capital of Livonia, on March 22, and at Reval, the capital of Esthonia, on March 28, theiy [sic] decided on the convocation of congresses. These congresses were held in Riga and Reval on April 9–10, and they accepted the declaration as to the separation from Russia. On the 19th of May, our representative Joffe received notice to that effect through the office of the German Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In his note of May 28th, addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joffe called attention to the fact that the action taken in Riga and Reval was in reality but the expression of a comparatively small part of the people of Courland and Esthonia and that only by a real and general unhampered expression of all the people, under the condition, could the basis of self determination and separation be decided.

The Russian government was but lately confronted with the question of its relations to Poland, when the representative of the Polish Council of Regents, Mr. Lednitzki, came to Moscow, and in his position as representative of Poland, desired to enter into relation with the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. On his first visit, we found his credentials unintelligible, but when he came the second time, he came with the formal authority of the Council of Regents to negotiate with us, concerning matters regarding Poland. However, we do not recognize the present situation in Poland as politically independent, and therefore cannot consider the Polish government as expressing the will of the people.

We entered therefore into relations with Mr. Lednitzki, but, as is self explanatory, only in essential, not in diplomatic relations, and then only when Count Mirbach, who was at that time the German ambassador in Moscow,