Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

522SPEECHES AT THE EVENING SITTINGOF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE R.S.D.L.P.(B.)FEBRUARY 18, 1918 183MINUTES1Comrade Lenin. This is a basic question. Uritsky’s proposalis amazing. The Central Committee voted againsta revolutionary war, but we have neither war nor peace,and are being drawn into a revolutionary war. War is nojoke. We are losing railway cars, and our transport is breakingdown. We cannot wait any longer because the situationhas fully crystallised. The people will not understandthis: since there is a war on, there should have been no demobilisation;the Germans will now take everything. Thisthing has gone so far that continued sitting on the fencewill inevitably ruin the revolution. Ioffe wrote from Brestthat there was no sign of a revolution in Germany; if thatis so the Germans will find their advance very rewarding.We cannot afford to wait, which would mean consigning theRussian revolution to the scrap-heap. If the Germans saidthat they wanted to overthrow Bolshevik power, we wouldnaturally have to fight; no more procrastination is permissible.It is now no longer a matter of the past but of the present.If we apply to the Germans, all we have is a piece ofpaper. You can’t call that a policy. The only thing we cando is offer the Germans a resumption of the talks. There isno half-way house in this. If it is to be revolutionary war itmust be declared, and the demobilisation stopped, but wecan’t go on in this manner. While we engage in paperwork,they take warehouses and railway cars, leaving us to perish.