The constitutional law of the new state called for the treaty to be ratified by the Congress of Soviets in two weeks. The congress which was to do this was scheduled to convene in Moscow on March 14.
Although he had met all their conditions, Lenin still did not trust the Germans. He was well informed about the divisions within the German Government and knew that the generals insisted on his removal. He felt it prudent, therefore, to maintain contact with the Allies and to hold out the promise of a radical shift in his government’s foreign policy in their favor.
After the Brest Treaty had been signed but before it was ratified, Trotsky handed Robins a note for transmittal to the U.S. Government:
In case (a) the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets will refuse to ratify the peace treaty with Germany, or (b) if the German Government, breaking the peace treaty, will renew the offensive in order to continue its robbers’ raid, or (c) if the Soviet Government will be forced by the actions of Germany to renounce the peace treaty—before or after its ratification—and to renew hostilities—
In all these cases, it is very important for the military and political plans of the Soviet power for replies to be given to the following questions:
1. Can the Soviet Government rely on the support of the United States of North America, Great Britain, and France in its struggle against Germany?
2. What kind of support could be furnished in the nearest future, and on what conditions—military equipment, transportation supplies, living necessities?
3. What kind of support would be furnished particularly and especially by the United States?
Should Japan—in consequence of an open or tacit understanding with Germany or without such an understanding—attempt to seize Vladivostok and the Eastern Siberian Railway, which would threaten to cut off Russia from the Pacific Ocean and would greatly impede the concentration of Soviet troops toward the east about the Urals—in such case what steps would be taken by the other allies, particularly and especially by the United States, to prevent a Japanese landing on our Far East and to insure uninterrupted communications with Russia through the Siberian route?
In the opinion of the Government of the United States, to what extent—under the above-mentioned circumstances—would aid be assured from Great Britain through Murmansk and Archangel? What steps could the Government of Great Britain undertake in order to assure this aid and thereby to undermine the foundation of the rumors of the hostile plans against Russia on the part of Great Britain in the nearest future?
All these questions are conditioned with the self-understood assumption that the internal and foreign policies of the Soviet Government will continue to be directed in accord with the principles of international socialism and that the Soviet Government retains its complete independence of all non-socialist governments.82
The last paragraph of the note meant that the Bolsheviks reserved the right to work for the overthrow of the very governments from which they were soliciting help.
On the day when he handed the above note to Robins, Trotsky talked with Bruce Lockhart.83 He told the British agent that the forthcoming Congress of Soviets would probably refuse to ratify the Brest Treaty and would declare war on Germany. But for this to happen, the Allies had to offer Soviet Russia support. Then, alluding to proposals circulating in Allied capitals of massive landings of Japanese expeditionary forces in Siberia to engage the Germans, Trotsky said that such a violation of Russian sovereignty would destroy any possibility of a rapprochement with the Allies. Informing London of Trotsky’s remarks, Lockhart said that these proposals offered the best opportunity of reactivating the Eastern Front. U.S. Ambassador Francis concurred: he cabled Washington that if the Allies could prevail on the Japanese to give up their plans for landings in Siberia, the Congress of Soviets would probably turn down the Brest Treaty.84
There was, of course, not the remotest possibility that the Congress of Soviets, packed with the customary Bolshevik majority, would dare to deprive Lenin of his hard-won victory. The Bolsheviks used the bait to prevent something they genuinely feared—namely, occupation of Siberia by the Japanese and their intervention in Russian affairs on the side of the anti-Bolshevik forces. According to Noulens, the Bolsheviks had such confidence in Lockhart that they permitted him to communicate with London in code, which even official foreign missions were prohibited from doing.85
The first concrete result of the rapprochement with the Allies was the landing on March 9 of a small Allied contingent at Murmansk. Since 1916, nearly 600,000 tons of war matériel sent to the Russian armies, much of it unpaid for, had accumulated here from lack of transport to move it inland. The Allies feared that this matériel might fall into German hands as a result of Brest-Litovsk or the capture of Murmansk by German-Finnish forces. They also worried about the Germans seizing nearby Pechenga (Petsamo) and constructing a submarine base there.
The initial request for Allied protection came from the Murmansk Soviet, which on March 5 cabled Petrograd that “Finnish White Guards,” apparently assisted by German forces, were making preparations to attack Murmansk. The soviet contacted a British naval force and at the same time requested Petrograd for authorization to invite Allied intervention. Trotsky informed the Murmansk Soviet that it was free to accept Allied military assistance.86 Thus, the first Western involvement on Russian soil occurred at the request of the Murmansk Soviet and with the approval of the Soviet Government. In a speech which he delivered on May 14, 1918, Lenin explained that the British and French had landed “to defend the Murmansk coast.”87
The Allied party which disembarked at Murmansk consisted of 150 British sailors and a few Frenchmen as well as several hundred Czechs.88 In the weeks that followed, Britain was in constant communication with Moscow on the subject of Murmansk: unfortunately, the contents of these communications have not been revealed. The two parties cooperated to prevent the Germans and Finns from seizing this important port. Later, under German pressure, Moscow issued protests against the Allied presence on Russian soil, but Sadoul, who was in close contact with Trotsky, advised his government not to take them to heart:
Lenin, Trotsky, Chicherin accept, under the present circumstances, that is, in the hope of an entente with the Allies, the Anglo-French landings at Murmansk and Archangel, it being understood that in order to prevent giving the Germans an excuse for protesting this certain violation of the peace treaty, they themselves will address a purely formal protest to the Allies. They marvelously understand that it is necessary to protect the northern ports and the railroads leading there from German-Finnish ventures.89
On the eve of the Fourth Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviks held the Seventh (Extraordinary) Congress of their party (March 6–8). The agenda of this hastily convened meeting of forty-six delegates centered on Brest-Litovsk. The discussions in the intimate circle of the initiated, especially Lenin’s defense of his unpopular position, provide a rare insight into Communist attitudes toward international law and relations with other countries.
Lenin vigorously defended himself against the Left Communists.90 He surveyed the recent past, reminding his audience how easy it had been to seize power in Russia and how difficult to organize it. One could not simply transfer the methods which had proven so effective in the capture of power to the arduous task of administration. He acknowledged that there could be no lasting peace with the “capitalist” countries and that it was essential to spread the revolution abroad. But one had to be realistic: not every industrial strike in the West spelled revolution. In a very un-Marxist aside, he conceded that it was far more difficult to make revolution in democratic and capitalist countries than in backward Russia.