Although Bolshevik domination afflicts Russia with hunger, crimes, and silent executions in a horror for which there is no name, no Russian would even pretend to be willing to purchase German help against the Bolsheviks with the acceptance of the Brest Treaty.81
No Russian government had ever surrendered so much land or allowed a foreign power such privileges. Russia had not only “sold out the international proletariat”: it had gone a long way toward turning herself into a German colony. It was widely expected—with glee in conservative circles and with rage in radical ones—that the Germans would use the rights given them in the treaty to restore free enterprise in Russia. Thus, in mid-March rumors circulated in Petrograd that the Germans were demanding the return to their owners of three nationalized banks and that before long all banks would be denationalized.
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
