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

THE DRAMA OF BREST LITOVSK 399
ratified the peace. The Council of the People's Commissars had
moved from Petrograd and had installed itself at the Kremlin
in Moscow. The allied diplomatic missions had also left Petrograd;
but in protest against the peace they went to \'ologda,
a small provincial town. Trotsky had become Commissar of
War and had begun to 'arm the revolution'. The Japanese had
attacked Siberia and occupied Vladivostok. The Germans had
suppressed the Finnish revolution and forced the Russian navy
to withdraw from the Bay of Finland. They had also occupied
the whole of the Ukraine, the Crimea, and the coasts of the
Black and the Azov Seas. The British and the French had
landed at Murmansk. The Czech Legion had risen against the
Soviets. Encouraged by foreign interventions, the Russian antirevolutionary
forces had resumed the life-and-death struggle,
subordinating to it all principles and scruples. Many of those
who had only recently accused the Bolsheviks of being German
agents, Miliukov and his followers in the first instance, had
come to rely on German assistance in their fight against the
Bolsheviks.' Hunger had visited Moscow and the cities of
northern Russia, cut off from their granaries. Lenin had decreed
wholesale nationalization of industry and called on the Committees
of Poor Peasants to requisition food from wealthier
farmers in order to feed the urban workers. Several real risings
and several phantom conspiracies had been suppressed.
Nen~r yet had any peace brought so much suffering and
humiliation as the 'peace' of Brest had brought to Russia. But
Lenin nursed his 'child'-thc revolution-through all these
trials and disappointments. He would not renounce the treaty
of Brest, although in more than one respect he disregarded its
stipulations. He had not ceased to call on the German and
Austrian workers to rise in revolt. He had, despite the clause
about Russia's disarmament, authorized the formation of the
Red Army. But in no circumstances did he permit his followers
to rise in arms against Germany. He had recalled to Moscow
the Bolsheviks who had directed the Ukrainian Soviets and who
had been tempted to strike from the underground at the
occupying power.' All over the Ukraine, the German war
machine crushed anti-German guerillas. Russian Red Guards
1
Denikin, Ocherki Ru.rskoi Srnuty, vol. iii, pp. 72-90·
' Antonov-Ovscenko,