On his arrival, Trotsky had the unpleasant surprise of learning that during the recess in the negotiations, the Germans had established separate channels of communication with Ukrainian nationalists. On December 19/ January 1, a Ukrainian delegation, composed of young intellectuals, had arrived in Brest at the Germans’ invitation to open separate talks.29 The German objective was to detach the Ukraine and make it into a protectorate. In December 1917, the Ukrainian Council, or Rada, had proclaimed Ukrainian independence. The Bolsheviks refused to recognize this act and, in violation of the right of “national self-determination” which they had officially proclaimed, sent a military force to reconquer the region.30 The Germans estimated that Russia received one-third of her food and 70 percent of her coal and iron from the Ukraine: her separation would appreciably weaken the Bolsheviks, making them even more dependent on Germany, and, at the same time, go a long way toward meeting Germany’s own pressing economic needs. Assuming the role of a traditional diplomat, Trotsky declared that the German action was interference in his country’s internal affairs, but that was all he could do. On December 30/January 12, the Central Powers recognized the Ukrainian Rada as that country’s legitimate government. This was a prelude to a separate peace treaty with the Ukraine.
Then came the presentation of German territorial claims. Kühlmann advised Trotsky that his country found the Russian demand for a peace “without annexations and contributions” unacceptable and intended to detach territories under German occupation. As concerned Czernin’s offer to give up all conquests, this lost its validity since it had been conditional on the Allies joining in the peace talks, which they had not done. On January 5/18, General Max Hoffmann unfolded a map which showed the disbelieving Russians the new border between the two countries.31 It called for the separation of Poland and German annexation of extensive territories in western Russia, including Lithuania and southern Latvia. Trotsky responded that his government found such demands absolutely unacceptable. On January 5/18, which happened to have been the very day when the Bolsheviks were dispersing the Constituent Assembly, he had the temerity to say that the Soviet Government “adheres to the view that where the issue at stake is the destiny of a newly formed nation, a referendum is the best means of expressing the will of the people.”32
Trotsky communicated the German terms to Lenin, following which he requested an adjournment of the political talks for twelve days. He departed for Petrograd the same day, leaving Ioffe behind. How nervous the Germans were about this postponement may be gathered from the fact that in informing Berlin, Kühlmann urged that the Bolshevik request for an adjournment not be treated as a rupture of negotiations.33 The Germans had reason to fear that a collapse of the peace negotiations could set off civil disturbances in the industrial centers of Germany. On January 28, a wave of political strikes organized by the left wing of the socialist movement and involving more than one million workers did break out in various parts of Germany, including Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Kiel, Leipzig, Munich, and Essen. Here and there “workers’ councils” sprang up. The strikers called for peace without annexations and contributions and self-determination for the nations of Eastern Europe—that is, for the acceptance of Russian peace terms.34 While there exists no evidence of direct Bolshevik involvement, the influence of Bolshevik propaganda on the strikers was obvious. The German authorities responded with vigorous, occasionally brutal repression: by February 3 they had the situation under control. But the strikes were troublesome evidence that, whatever happened at the front, the situation at home could not be taken for granted. People longed for peace and the Russians seemed to hold the key to it.
The German demands split the Bolshevik leadership into three contending factions, which subsequently merged into two.
The Bukharin faction wanted to break off the talks and continue military operations, mainly by means of partisan warfare, while fanning the flames of revolution in Germany. This position enjoyed great popularity in Bolshevik ranks: both the Petrograd and Moscow bureaus of the party passed resolutions in this spirit.35 Bukharin’s biographer believes that his policy, later labeled “Left Communism,” reflected the wishes of the majority of Bolsheviks.36 Bukharin and his adherents saw Western Europe on the brink of social revolution: since such a revolution was acknowledged as essential to the survival of the Bolshevik regime, peace with “imperialist” Germany struck them as not only immoral but self-defeating.
Trotsky headed a second faction, which differed from the Left Communists only in tactical nuances. Like Bukharin, he wanted the German ultimatum rejected, but in the name of an unorthodox slogan of “neither war nor peace.” The Russians would break off the Brest talks and unilaterally declare the war at an end. The Germans then would be free to do what they wanted and what the Russians could not prevent them from doing in any event—annex vast territories on their western and southwestern frontier—but they would have to act without Russian complicity. This procedure, Trotsky maintained, would free the Bolsheviks from the burden of carrying on an unpopular war, reveal the brutality of German imperialism, and encourage German workers to revolt.
Lenin, supported by Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin, opposed Bukharin and Trotsky. His sense of urgency and his belief that Russia was in no position to bargain received reinforcement from a report submitted to the Sovnarkom on December 31/January 13 by Krylenko, the Commissar of War. On the basis of responses to questionnaires distributed to delegates at the All-Army Conference on Demobilization, Krylenko concluded that the Russian army, or what was left of it, retained no combat capability.37 Without an army worthy of the name, Lenin reasoned, one could not stand up to a disciplined and well-equipped enemy.
Lenin formulated his views on January 7/20 in “Theses on the question of the immediate conclusion of a separate and annexationist peace.”38 Here he made the following points:
1. Before its ultimate triumph, the Soviet regime faced a period of anarchy and civil war: it needed time for “socialist reorganization.”
2. Russia required at least several months, “in the course of which the regime must have a completely free hand to triumph over the bourgeoisie, to begin with, in its own country” and to organize its forces.
3. Soviet policy must be determined by domestic considerations because of the uncertainty whether a revolution would break out abroad.
4. In Germany, the “military party” had gained the upper hand: Russia will be presented with an ultimatum demanding territorial concessions and financial contributions. The government has done everything in its power to prolong the negotiations but this tactic has run its course.
5. The opponents of an immediate peace on German terms wrongly argue that such a peace would violate the spirit of “proletarian internationalism.” If the government decided to continue fighting the Germans, as they wished, it would have no alternative but to seek help from the other “imperialist bloc,” the Entente, which would turn it into an agent of France and England. Continuing the war thus was not an “anti-imperialist” move, because it called for a choice between two “imperialist” camps. The task of the regime, however, was not to choose between “imperialisms,” but to consolidate power.
6. Russia indeed must promote revolutions abroad, but this cannot be done without account of the “correlation of forces”: at present Russian armies are powerless to stop a German advance. Furthermore, the majority of Russia’s “peasant” army favored the “annexationist” peace demanded by Germany.
7. If Russia persisted in its refusal to accept current German peace terms, it would eventually have to accept even more onerous ones: but this would be done not by the Bolsheviks but by their successors, because in the meantime the Bolsheviks would have been toppled from power.