isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

THE DRAMA OF BREST LfTOVSK 353
declaration; and he repeated the assurance that he would conduct
the peace negotiations openly and publicly so that the allies
could watch them closely and join in later, if they so desired. 1 But
when General Niessel, head of the French military mission, who
had been accustomed to talk down to Russian ministers and
generals in their palatial offices-France had been Russia's chief
creditor and political inspirer-appeared in the 'poor artist's
attic' at the Smolny, confident that here he could afford to speak
even more haughtily, Trotsky quite unceremoniously turned
him out. He ordered the French Embassy to close down its
press bureau, which published bulletins offensive to the Soviet
government. 2 When Noulens, the French Ambassador, came to
the Smolny to smoothe out the conflict, Trotsky was all politeness
and helpfulness. His first business with the British was to
demand the immediate release of Chicherin, the former correspondent
of Nashe Slovo, and of other Russian revolutionaries
imprisoned in Britain for anti-war propaganda. When the
British continued to keep Chicherin in jail, he notified them
that until his demand was satisfied no British citizen would be
allowed to leave Russia.J With firmness and dignity quite unknown
to recent Russian governments, Trotsky insisted on
Russia's equality with other powers, and answered insult with
insult, although even his insults took the form of reasoned and
persuasive argument.
On 19 November the armistice delegations met, and the
Germans at once proposed a preliminary truce of one month.
The Soviet delegation refused this and asked instead for the
prolongation of the cease fire for one week only so as to give the
western powers time to consider the situation. Once again
Trotsky turned to the allied embassies; and once again he met
with icy silence. Yet he instructed the Soviet negotiators to
sign no truce unless the central powers undertook not to transfer
any troops from the Russian to the western fronts, and-this was
a quite extraordinary condition-unless they expressly allowed
the Soviets to conduct revolutionary agitation among German
1
Ibid., p. 185. ' Noulens, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 27.
3
'There is, after all', the British Ambassador noted in his diary, 'something in
Trotsky's argument that, if we claim the right to arrest Russians for making
pacifist propaganda in a country bent on continuing the war, he has an equal right
to arrest British subjects who are conducting war propaganda in a country bent on
peace., Buchanan, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 228.