Lenin, Trotsky, Germany and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The ...

Lenin, Trotsky, Germany and the Treaty of Brest-LitovskDuring these days, Lenin was effectively marginalized. All of the key decisionspertaining to the revolution in Germany were made by the Central Committee ofthe Bolshevik Party without him. Even the decree terminating the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was published as a decree of the Soviet parliament – the All-RussianCentral Executive Committee (VTsIK), signed by Yakov Sverdlov – and not as adecision of the government – the Soviet of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom),which was headed by Lenin. The revolution in Germany was still only beginning,while Lenin was already losing his power. With Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky incharge of the theoretical side of things, and with Liebknecht and Sverdlov incharge of the practical side, Lenin was ceasing to be irreplaceable. Possibly, itwas precisely for this reason that he never took the risk of convening the Cominternwhile Liebknecht and Luxemburg were still alive. Only in March 1919, two monthsafter the leaders of the German Communist Party and Lenin’s rivals for leadershipin the International were murdered, and immediately following the mysteriousdeath of Sverdlov – Lenin’s rival for leadership in the Bolshevik Party in Russia– did Lenin convene the first Comintern congress, initiating the practice of breakingup Western Communist parties and handpicking delegates to suit Soviet ends. Ashead of the Communist International, he appointed the Bolshevik GrigoryZinoviev, who had not written a single theoretical article, but who was a skillfulparty operator. And since the German revolution had suffered an obvious defeat,Soviet Russia became officially and definitively established as center of the worldCommunist movement; and even those who refused to concede to it a position ofideological leadership were forced all the time to contend with it.* * *The German problem was the most important problem confronting the Russianrevolutionaries, but not the only one. The Soviet state and Lenin’s governmentalso had internal enemies. In November 1917, Lenin had to defend the BolshevikParty’s right to form the Soviet of People’s Commissars, and he had to hold ontopower in a standoff with a bloc of socialist parties that fought for the formation ofa multiparty “homogeneous socialist government.” In this conflict, Lenin cameout victorious thanks to the fact that, at the crucial moment, he was supported, onthe one hand, by Trotsky, and on the other hand, by the Left SR Party, politicalcollaboration with which became the dominant factor of party politics during thefirst half of 1918.In November 1917, anarchy reigned in Russia. The Provisional Government, whichhardly controlled the course of events even during the best moments of its existence,ceased to be a political force. In this vacuum, the Bolshevik coup was moreof a paper declaration than a factual takeover of the country’s government by theBolsheviks. No one understood this better than the leaders of Russia’s politicalparties. Naturally, the replacement of the unreal Provisional Government with anequally unreal Bolshevik government had little effect on the general chaos inwhich Russia was submerged.12