8. A respite will give the government the opportunity to organize the economy (nationalize the banks and heavy industry), which “will make socialism invincible in Russia and the entire world, creating, at the same time, a solid economic basis for a powerful worker-peasant Red Army.”
Lenin had another reason in mind which he could not spell out because it would have revealed that, notwithstanding his protestations, he really desired the World War to continue. He felt certain that as soon as the “bourgeoisie” of the Central Powers and the Entente made peace, they would join forces and attack Soviet Russia. He hinted at this danger during the debates on the Brest Treaty: “Our revolution was born of the war: if there were no war, we would have witnessed the unification of the capitalists of the whole world, a unification on the basis of a struggle against us.”39 Projecting his own political militancy, he gave his “enemies” much too much credit for astuteness and decisiveness: in fact, no such “unification” would occur after the November 1918 Armistice. But believing in the danger, he had to prolong the war in order to gain time for building an armed force able to withstand the expected “capitalist” assault.
On January 8/21, 1918, the Bolsheviks convened a conference of party leaders from three strongholds: Petrograd, Moscow, and the Ural region. Lenin presented a resolution calling for the acceptance of the German ultimatum: it received a bare fifteen votes out of sixty-three. Trotsky’s compromise resolution in favor of “neither peace nor war” won sixteen votes. The majority (thirty-two delegates) voted for the resolution of the Left Communists, demanding an uncompromising “revolutionary war.”*
The discussion next shifted to the Central Committee. Here, Trotsky moved for an immediate, unilateral suspension of hostilities and the concurrent demobilization of the Russian army. The motion carried with the barest majority, 9–7. Lenin responded with an impassioned speech in favor of an immediate peace on German terms,40 but he remained in the minority, which dwindled still further the next day when the Bolshevik Central Committee met in joint session with the Central Committee of the Left SRs, who strenuously opposed Lenin’s peace proposals. Here again Trotsky’s resolution carried the day.
With this mandate in hand, Trotsky returned to Brest. The talks resumed on January 15/28. Trotsky continued playing for time with irrelevant remarks and propagandistic speeches, which now began to irritate even the self-possessed Kühlmann.
While Russo-German negotiations bogged down in rhetoric, the Germans and Austrians settled with the Ukrainians. On February 9, the Central Powers signed a separate peace treaty with the Ukrainian Republic which made it a de facto German protectorate.41 German and Austrian troops moved into the Ukraine, where they restored a certain degree of law and order. Their price for this welcome action was massive shipments westward of Ukrainian foodstuffs.
The deadlock in the Russo-German political talks was broken by a cable which the Kaiser, under the influence of his generals, sent to Brest on February 9. In it he ordered an ultimatum to be given to the Russians:
Today, the Bolshevik Government has addressed my troops en clair [klerom] by radio, and urged them to rise and openly disobey their military superiors. Neither I nor His Excellency Field Marshal von Hindenburg can accept and tolerate any longer such a state of affairs! This must be ended as soon as possible! Trotsky must sign by 8 p.m. tomorrow, the 10th [of February] …, without procrastination, peace on our terms.… In the event of refusal or attempts at procrastination and other pretexts, the negotiations are broken off at eight o’clock on the night of the 10th [and] the armistice terminated. In this event, the armies of the Eastern Front will move forward to the preassigned line.42
The next day, Kühlmann advised Trotsky of his government’s ultimatum: he was to sign, without further discussions or other delays, the German text of the peace treaty. Trotsky refused to do so, saying that Soviet Russia was leaving the war and would proceed to demobilize her armies.43 The economic and legal discussions, however, which had in the meantime moved to Petrograd, could continue, if so desired. Trotsky then boarded his train and left for Petrograd.
Trotsky’s unorthodox move threw the German rank into complete confusion. By now, no one doubted any longer that the Russians were using the peace talks as a diversion. But this conceded, it was by no means obvious how Germany should respond. Continue the fruitless negotiations? Compel the Bolsheviks by military action to accept her ultimatum? Or remove them from power and put in their place a more acceptable regime?
German diplomats counseled patience. Kühlmann feared that German workers would fail to understand the resumption of hostilities on the Eastern Front and would cause trouble. He further worried that Austria-Hungary would be forced out of the war.44
But the military, who in the winter of 1917–18 dominated German politics, had different ideas. Massing forces in the west for the decisive campaign scheduled for mid-March, they had to have perfect certainty that the Eastern Front was secure or they could not continue shifting troops to the Western Front. They also needed access to Russian foodstuffs and raw materials. Military intelligence from Russia indicated that the Bolsheviks had the worst intentions toward Germany but also that they were in a most precarious position. Walther von Kaiserlingk, the Admiralty’s Chief of Operations, who went to Petrograd with Mirbach’s mission, sent back alarming reports.45 Having observed the Bolshevik regime at close quarters, he concluded it was “insanity in power” (regierender Wahnsinn). Run by Jews for Jews, it presented a mortal threat not only to Germany but to the entire civilized world. He urged that the German-Russian frontier be shifted far to the east, to shield Germany from this plague. Kaiserlingk further proposed the penetration of Russia by German business interests: for the second time in her history (an allusion to the Normans) Russia was ready to be colonized. Other firsthand reports depicted the Bolshevik regime as weak and despised. Lenin was said to be exceedingly unpopular and protected from assassins more assiduously than any tsar. Kühlmann’s sources indicated that the Bolsheviks’ only support came from the Latvian Riflemen: if they were bought off, the regime would collapse.46 Such eyewitness accounts strongly impressed the Kaiser and inclined him toward the generals’ point of view.
Combining the information he received on the instability of the Bolshevik regime with evidence of its systematic campaign to demoralize the German army, Ludendorff, with Hindenburg’s backing, urged that the Brest negotiations be broken off, following which the army would march into Russia, remove the Bolsheviks, and install in Petrograd a more acceptable government.47
The recommendations of the Foreign Ministry and the General Staff clashed at a conference at Bad Homburg on February 13 which the Kaiser chaired.48 Kühlmann pressed the conciliatory line. The sword, he argued, could not eliminate “the center of the revolutionary plague.” Even if German forces occupied Petrograd, the problem would not disappear: the French Revolution demonstrated that foreign intervention only inflamed nationalist and revolutionary passions. The best solution would be an anti-Bolshevik coup carried out by Russians with German assistance: but whether he favored such policy, Kühlmann did not say. The Foreign Minister received support from the Vice-Chancellor, Friedrich von Payer, who spoke of the widespread desire for peace among the German people and the impossibility of overthrowing the Bolsheviks by military force.