Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/470

 and your own troops, which had invaded their territory, and against the counter-revolutions organized by these troops.

Mr. President, the acid test of the relations between the United States and Russia gave quite different results from those that might have been expected from your message to the Congress. But we have reason not to be altogether dissatisfied with even these results, since the outrages of the counter-revolution in the East and North have shown the workers and peasants of Russia the aims of the Russian counter-revolution, and of its foreign supporters, thereby creating among the Russian people an iron will to defend their liberty and the conquests of the revolution, to defend the land that it has given to the peasants and the factories that it has given to the workers. The fall of Kazan, Symbyrsk, Syzran and Samara should make clear to you, Mr. President, what were the consequences for us of the actions which followed your promises of January 8. Our trials helped us to create a strongly united and disciplined Red Army, which is daily growing stronger and more powerful and which is learning to defend the revolution. The attitude toward us which was actually displayed by your Government and by your Allies could not destroy us; on the contrary, we are now stronger than we were a few months ago, and your present proposal of international negotiations for a general peace finds us alive and strong and in a position to give in the name of Russia our consent to join the negotiations. In your note to Germany you demand the evacuation of occupied territories as a condition which must precede the armistice during which peace negotiations shall begin. We are ready, Mr. President, to conclude an armistice on these conditions, and we ask you to notify us when you, Mr. President, and your Allies intend to remove your troops from Murmansk, Archangel and Siberia. You refuse to conclude an armistice unless Germany will stop the outrages, pillaging, etc., during the evacuation of occupied territories. We allow ourselves, therefore, to draw the conclusion that you and your Allies will order the Czecho-Slovaks to return the part of our gold reserve fund which they seized in Kazan, that you will forbid them to continue as heretofore their acts of pillaging and outrages against the workers and peasants during their forced departure (for we will encourage their speedy departure, without waiting for your order).

With regard to your other peace terms, namely, that the Governments which would conclude peace must express the will of their people, you are aware that our Government fully satisfies this condition. Our Government expresses the will of the Councils of Workmen's, Peasants' and Red Army Deputies, representing at least eighty per cent. of the Russian people. This cannot, Mr. President, be said about your Government. But for the sake of humanity and peace we do not demand as a prerequisite of general peace negotiations that all nations participating in the negotiations shall be represented by Councils of People's Commissaires elected at a Congress of Coundls of Workmen's, Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. We know that this form of Government will soon be the general form, and that a general peace, when nations will no more be threatened with defeat, will leave them free to put an end to the system and the cliques that forced upon mankind this universal slaughter,