Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/461

 tion and declare their indestructible faith in an early realization of a life of brotherhood, the Telegraph informs us that the governments of the Entente Allies have resolved to crush the Russian Revolution.

Awakened through the fight against the dispossessed classes, a hostile aristocracy, against a bourgeoisie anxious above M to reconquer their privileges and their capital, more than half strangled through German Imperialism, the power of the Soviets is in danger of annihilation to-day through the offensive begun by the Entente.

Senseless are those who do not see that this armed intervention—persistently demanded for some time by certain Russian circles which have lost all political influence—will have the result of awakening the indignation of the invaded nation. Irrespective of what is being said, and without showing any partisanship for the Soviets, the fact is that this intervention is against the entire Russian people, against their will for peace, and their ideal of social justice. The day will come, when through the uprising of this nation, which is still capable of great things, the invaders who have violated it, will be expelled. That day, Frenchmen and Germans, Austrians and English, will all equally be the object of hatred in Russia.

The free men of Europe, those who through the turmoil have conserved their opinions honestly, and who know, or at least guess the immense value to humanity of the Communist experiment which is being tried out by the Russian proletariat, will they allow the accomplishment of this detestable injustice?

What Is the Bolshevik Revolution? What did it want? What has it done up to to-day? What will it be able to realize to-morrow? Is it worth being defended? The documents which I am sending you will contribute, I feel sure, to make known the truth. I happen to be in a position nearer than anybody else, to the events which have taken place in Russia during the past nine months. I have taken daily, short notes of my impressions. They were written in a hurry—necessarily incomplete, sketchy, and often contradictory. I send you enclosed a copy of the notes which I could find, that is nearly all those which I have sent to France.

I am not a Bolshevik.

I know the great mistakes that have been committed by the Maximalists.

But I also know that before signing the treaty of Brest, the Commissaires of the people did not cease to solicit the Allies for military help which would have permitted the Bolsheviki to resist the abominable demands of the Central Empires, and have saved them from having to submit to a shameful peace of which they knew the dangers.

I also know that since Brest, Trotzky and Lenin have multiplied their efforts to induce the powers of the Entente to collaborate loyally in the economic and military reorganization of Russia.

Finally, I know that these desperate appeals to the Allies, contrary to their best interests, have been opposed by a non possumus—disdainful indifference.

Forgetting the teachings of history, and erring to the point of believing that the dismembered parts of Russia would continue the war aban-