Francis there. Instead they took a train north to Finland, reaching Helsinki three days later. All the Allied embassies cut down their staff to a minimum and sent most of their people home.33 Yet Trotsky was still not entirely beaten. On 1 March, as the German high command continued to order its troops eastwards, he instructed the Murmansk Soviet to be ready to take any help from the Allies to halt the advance.34 But then the Germans abruptly halted and the treaty was signed on the day appointed. The Bolsheviks held a Party Congress from 6 March to discuss what had happened. The debates were angry. Despite this, Lenin knew he had internal party victory in his grasp.
Known to the Russians as the ‘obscene peace’, this was a drastic defeat because it meant that the Bolsheviks were giving up the claim to Ukraine and most of the Baltic region. Abundant resources of coal, iron and wheat were handed to the Germans in return for peace, and a quarter of the Russian Empire’s population came under Germany’s sway. It was the most humiliating end to a war for Russians since the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century. The Bolsheviks had made the October Revolution with the expectation of expanding into Europe. Four months later they found themselves penned in a territory little bigger than old Muscovy.
10. BREATHING DANGEROUSLY
On 21 March 1918 Germany started its great military offensive on the western front after weeks of troop transfers from the east. The French and British were forced back to within forty miles of Paris; it looked as if Ludendorff and Hindenburg might pull off a decisive victory and finish the war.1 Lenin boasted of the ‘breathing space’ achieved by his policy at Brest-Litovsk, but he knew he could not trust the German high command. Soviet leaders understood that if Paris fell to the Germans, it would not be long before they invaded Russia. And were the Germans to tear up the treaty and march on Petrograd, the newly created Red Army could not stop them. Sovnarkom would have to evacuate to the Urals and appeal to the Western Allies for aid. The Bolsheviks could not therefore afford to break ties with Allied representatives in Russia. This meant that Lenin and Trotsky were by no means as hostile to each other as most people thought at the time. Ioffe got other party leaders to support his suggestion that Trotsky be made People’s Commissar for Military Affairs,2 and Lenin followed this up with a personal plea to Trotsky, who made a brief show of demurral before accepting the appointment — and Chicherin took his place at the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, at first on a provisional basis.3
Lenin and Trotsky now headed a one-party government. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had walked out of Sovnarkom in protest at the Brest-Litovsk treaty. They kept their seats in the soviets, and many of them continued to work in official capacities, even for the Cheka. But the tension between the two parties was acute.
On 5 March, two days after the ink had dried on the treaty, Raymond Robins asked Trotsky about the consequences for Russia at home and abroad. Despite having handed over his post to Chicherin, Trotsky was happy to give him answers. He himself hoped for American assistance for the Red Army. But Robins asked why the communist leaders had signed the treaty unless they aimed to cease fighting. Trotsky explained that no treaty could involve a permanent commitment, and he did not discount the possibility of moving into active military co-operation with the Allies. Robins believed him but was reluctant to accept that Lenin shared this way of thinking. Trotsky escorted him to the Sovnarkom meeting chamber so that he could ask Lenin for himself, with Alexander Gumberg tagging along as interpreter. Lenin confirmed Trotsky’s words; he said he had an open mind about entering into a ‘military agreement with one of the imperialist coalitions against the other’ since he had no fundamental preference for the Central Powers or the Allies. The cardinal criterion for him was what benefited the Revolution in Russia.4 Lenin had questions of his own for the American authorities. What would the Western Allies do if the Bolsheviks ripped up the treaty? Would the US give military aid? Would Washington help Russia if the Japanese invaded Siberia? Would the United Kingdom send help to Murmansk and Archangel if Russia got into difficulties with Germany?5
Robins asked Ambassador Francis to accept that Lenin and Trotsky were genuinely open to restarting hostilities against Germany. He discussed the matter with Lockhart, who enthusiastically wired London:
Empower me to inform Lenin that the question of Japanese intervention has been shelved; that we will persuade the Chinese to remove the embargo on foodstuffs; that we are prepared to support the Bolsheviks in so far as they will oppose Germany, and that we will invite [Lenin’s] suggestions as to the best way in which this help can be given. In return for this there is every chance that war will be declared between the Bolsheviks and Germany.6
Oliver Wardrop, the UK consul-general in Petrograd, was of similar mind and advised London that the Bolsheviks embodied the only hope that Russia might return to fighting Germany.7 Ambassador Francis too displayed flexibility by cabling the American Railway Mission across the Russo-Chinese frontier in Harbin to get a hundred experts ready for sending into Russia with a view to restoring the rail network — and he kept Washington informed of his action. Even the
The Bolsheviks maintained a healthy distrust of Germany and decided to shift the Russian capital into the interior, to Moscow. Lenin and most of the other People’s Commissars left Petrograd on 10 March. On arrival, they found that the great clock on the Spasski Gate overlooking Red Square still played ‘God Save the Tsar’ on the hour.9 And if the Germans did invade, the monarchy’s restoration might not be wholly improbable.
Power to ratify or reject the treaty lay with the Fourth Congress of Soviets, which opened in Moscow on 15 March. It was no longer feasible to wait for messages from Washington or London. Lenin grimly told Robins: ‘I shall now speak for the peace. It will be ratified.’10 He had arranged for the foreign missions to attend and hear his speech. In it he mentioned nothing of his recent approaches to the Western Allies and, seeking to keep his party’s spirits up, he asserted: ‘We know that [the German revolutionary] Liebknecht will be victorious one way or another; this is inevitable in the development of the workers’ movement.’11 But on 29 April he had to admit: ‘Yes, the peace we have arrived at is unstable to the highest degree; the breathing space obtained by us can be broken off any day both from the west and from the east.’12 He still could not afford to let the Germans conclude that he intended to challenge the terms of the treaty, but, provoked by criticisms in Russia, he came before the Central Committee to urge that the priority of Soviet diplomacy ought to be ‘to manoeuvre, retreat and wait’.13 This was as far as he could go without alarming Berlin. Many Russians thought that he was more interested in power for himself and his party than in spreading revolution westwards. But Lenin meant what he said: he remained committed to revolutionary expansion whenever the opportunity appeared.
The People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs lost much of its earlier influence. It was obvious that Chicherin would never dominate policy. Lenin and Trotsky wanted him to operate as an expert executant of their wishes, and generally he was willing to comply. Chicherin in any case had his hands full coping with ‘subordinates’ who showed him no deference. The People’s Commissariat seethed with its own disputes. Radek was an unrepentant advocate of ‘revolutionary war’ whereas Karakhan favoured compromise with the Allies. Radek put it about that Karakhan — ‘a donkey of classical beauty’ — was not up to the job. Karakhan thought Radek a hothead who was too sharp- tongued by half. The rivalry suited Lenin, who could play them off against each other — or at least this was how Lockhart assessed the situation.14
Trotsky at any rate was again seeing eye to eye with Lenin; and when the new People’s Commissar for Military Affairs finally left for Moscow on 16 March, he took Lockhart on the same train.15 Sadoul dismissed the Scot as ‘un bon bourgeois’ and regretted that the Allies had sent out no genuine socialist among their diplomats.16 But Lockhart at least counted for more with the Bolsheviks than Robins did. Trotsky disliked Robins for his lack of enthusiasm for the October Revolution and his past association with ‘imperialists’ like President Theodore Roosevelt.17 Lenin felt the same, and when Albert Rhys Williams put in a good word for Robins, Lenin exclaimed: ‘Yes, but Robins represents the liberal bourgeoisie of America. They do not decide the policy of America. Finance-capital does. And finance-capital wants control of America. And it will send American soldiers.’18
Lenin and Trotsky were also sceptical about Lockhart but thought he might come in useful while the
