View source for III. THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS AND THE BREST-LITOVSK PEACE

<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+4" FACE="Times">III</FONT><FONT SIZE="+2"></FONT><BR><BR>

<FONT SIZE="+2">THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS AND THE
BREST-LITOVSK PEACE</FONT><BR><BR></CENTER>

<BR><BR>ROBINS---to attend the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets
and to witness the ratification or repudiation of the Peace of
Brest-Litovsk---arrived in Moscow on March 10, 1918. Lenin had
not yet come. Wise ones in the high world said to Robins:

<BR><BR>&quot;Did you say Lenin would come? Don't you know that Lenin
can't come? Don't you know that in Moscow he would be murdered?
Moscow is the old Russia, the real Russia. Anyway, don't you know
that Lenin absconded to Finland last night with all the gold in
the State Bank?&quot;

<BR><BR>On the morning of March 13th Lenin came. He drove from the
railway station to the National Hotel in an open automobile, with
no rifles. He walked up the steps of the National Hotel in plain
view. He stepped up to the desk like any other traveler and asked
for his room. He went up to his room and opened his little satchel
and took out his documents and sat down to work.

<BR><BR>In that room, that afternoon, Robins had tea with Lenin and
Mrs. Lenin and Lenin's sister. Lenin said to Robins:

<BR><BR>&quot;Have you heard from your government?&quot;

<BR><BR>Lenin was alluding to the memorandum which he and Trotzky,
through Robins and the American ambassador, had sent to Washington,
asking Washington what it would specifically do in certain specific
circumstances.

<BR><BR>&quot;I've not heard yet,&quot; said Robins. He felt quite
free to say &quot;yet.&quot;

<BR><BR>The President of the United States, in a message to the Congress
of the United States, had just recently said:

<BR><BR>&quot;It is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may
be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of
Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace.&quot;

<BR><BR>The President of the United States, in a message to Russia,
in a message. to this very Congress of Lenin's at Moscow, a Congress
two-thirds Bolshevik, was even now saying in a special cable:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>I beg to assure the people of Russia, through the Congress,
  that the Government of the United States will avail itself of
  every opportunity to secure for Russia once more complete sovereignty
  and independence in her own affairs. The whole heart of the people
  of the United States is with the people of Russia in their attempt
  to free themselves forever from autocratic government and become
  the masters of their own life.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>If the President of the United States was willing to speak
to a Bolshevik Congress of Soviets---that is, to the Bolshevik
government---in a mariner so friendly and so verbally encouraging
against the Czar and the Kaiser, would he not make good his words
of help and by acts of help? Would he not give specific promises
of specific assistance?

<BR><BR>He surely would. So Robins said &quot;yet.&quot; Moreover,
Robins had in his pocket a certain document from the American
ambassador to Russia, Mr. David R. Francis. It had been written
in Petrograd in January of 1918, some eight weeks before Mr. Francis
retreated from Petrograd and took his stand at Vologda.

<BR><BR>To get the meaning of that document, and to get the meaning
also of Lenin's and Trotzky's suppressed memorandum to President
Wilson, it is necessary to go back now to a full statement of
certain incidents at Petrograd, incidents which formed the complicated
prologue to the abrupt drama at Moscow.

<BR><BR>In Petrograd, in December of 1917, there was a man called Kalpaschnikov-Kamak---for
short, Kalpaschnikov. He was a colonel of the old regime. He had
served the old r&eacute;gime as commander of a regiment of Siberian
Cossacks. Against the new r&eacute;gime he talked and, to some
extent, toiled.

<BR><BR>In September of 1917 he had associated himself with persons
who welcomed the Kornilov rising and who were prepared to evidence
their dislike of the leaders of the revolution as soon as Kornilov
should enter Petrograd.. On a day during the Kornilov rising Kalpaschnikov
said to Robins, confidently, &quot;The hanging will begin at noon.&quot;

<BR><BR>It did not begin, because Kornilov did not arrive; but thereafter
Kalpaschnikov awaited the next rising confidently.

<BR><BR>On the other hand, there was Gen. William V. Judson still chief
military attach&eacute; to the American embassy. General Judson
did not have much confidence in the next rising. He believed that
the revolution was stronger than the counter-revolution.

<BR><BR>General Judson did not come to this belief by any revolutionary
route. He belonged, and belongs, to the most regular of regular
army circles. He went to West Point after studying at Harvard;
and on graduation from West Point he was assigned to the Engineer
Corps for merit. He learned administration through much work on
harbor improvements at Galveston and on river improvements along
the Mississippi. He learned administration further through being
assistant to the Chief of Engineers in the War Department at Washington
and through being one of the three commissioners in charge of
the government of the District of Columbia. When he afterward
observed the Russian army as American military attach&eacute;
during the Russo-Japanese War, and when he again observed the
Russian army as a member of the Root Mission and as chief of the
American Russian Military Mission, he observed with eyes accustomed
entirely to scientific and administrative facts. His conviction
regarding the military strength of the revolution turned out to
be right. It was reached by regular and respectable reasoning.

<BR><BR>On December 26, 1917, General Judson held a formal conference
in Petrograd with his second-in-command, Lieut.-Col. M. C. Kerth.
Then, joined by Kerth, he communicated certain formal findings
and recommendations to the American ambassador.

<BR><BR>General Judson found that the Soviet government was the largest
and strongest effective power then existing in Russia. He found
that only through this power could the American government exert
an influence, favorable to the Allies, on the peace negotiations
then going forward at Brest-Litovsk. He found that the exerting
of such an influence was feasible. He recommended that for that
purpose the American government extend to the Soviet government
an offer of friendly and helpful cooperation.

<BR><BR>Mr. Francis was destined to veer toward General Judson's views
before the Moscow Congress met. He began, however, by veering
toward the views of men like Kalpaschnikov. He lent his countenance
to the idea that no American representative should go to the offices
of the Bolshevik government at Smolny Institute. He received Kalpaschnikov
at the Embassy. He gave himself to a little plan of Kalpaschnikov's
for taking certain motor-cars out of Moscow; and he found himself
the shipwrecked mariner in the wildest teapot tempest of Petrograd's
wildest diplomatic days.

<BR><BR>Robins got his first breath of the approach of this affair
in a telegram he received from Rumania. It came from Col. Henry
Anderson., chief of the American Red Cross Mission in Rumania,
at Jassy. Colonel Anderson wanted Robins to let him have sixty
motor-cars and one hundred thousand rubles out of Red Cross stores
and out of Red Cross funds for a certain use. The use was not
at first quite clear. But the destination was altogether clear
from the beginning. It was Rostov on the Don.

<BR><BR>Robins was not enthusiastic for endeavors reaching toward Rostov
on the Don. Robins was representing an American mission to Russia;
and, like the American ambassador, he was living under the Bolshevik
government's protection and under the Bolshevik government's eye.
Rostov on the Don was the headquarters of Kaledine, who was now
the leading Cossack counter-revolutionary of Russia and who had
taken the field openly against the Bolshevik government's army.
It was as if a representative of a British mission at Washington
in 1901 had been asked to send money and motor-cars to Palawan,
the headquarters of Aguinaldo. There would have been two reasons,
in his mind, against doing it. Those same two reasons existed
for Robins in contemplating any effort to send war-supplies from
the Bolshevik capital through Bolshevik territory, abounding in
Bolshevik secret agents and Bolshevik machine guns, to an anti-Bolshevik
camp. First: diplomatic impropriety. Second: physical impossibility.
Robins answered Colonel Anderson by earnestly declining his request.

<BR><BR>Colonel Anderson then went, in Jassy, to Mr. Charles J. Vopicka,
American minister to Rumania. Mr. Vopicka sent a telegram from
Jassy to the American ambassador in Petrograd, in which he asked
Mr. Francis to convey a message from Colonel Anderson to Colonel
Kalpaschnikov, as follows:

<BR><BR>&quot;Arrange to take all motor-cars to Rostov on the Don by
the first train possible. Employ any method to accomplish this
immediately. If you need funds, call on the American ambassador.
I will either have further instructions for you at Rostov or will
meet you there.&quot;

<BR><BR>At the same time Mr. Vopicka sent Mr. Francis a message of
his own, from American minister to American ambassador, a wholly
diplomatic message, as follows:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>Please supply Kalpaschnikov with necessary funds up to one
  hundred thousand rubles. It is most urgent that this matter be
  done promptly. So please assist Kalpaschnikov in every way possible.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Mr. Francis did so. Kalpaschnikov was in possession of certain
motor-cars belonging to an old unit called the Siberian Ambulance
Corps. These cars had been purchased in America with money raised
in America by subscription. They were standing in Petrograd. Kalpaschnikov
felt that he could take a train-load of them out of Petrograd
and a thousand miles through Bolshevik territory inconspicuously
and prosperously, if only he had a little diplomatic influence.
Mr. Francis provided the diplomatic influence. He gave Kalpaschnikov
a certificate, for instance, which said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>I would appreciate it if all those to whom this document will
  be presented will extend to Colonel Kalpaschnikov all courtesies
  and co-operation.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Thus equipped, Kalpaschnikov proceeded to apply his plan. The
trouble with it was that it was known to the Soviet authorities
as soon as it passed Kalpaschnikov's lips. No Russian government,
whether of Romanovs or of Bolsheviks, is without a competent installation
of listening-posts. Kalpaschnikov's intrigue with the American
ambassador was heard sprouting---and was allowed to ripen.

<BR><BR>When Colonel Kalpaschnikov asked for a permit to ship motor-cars,
the Smolny authorities courteously and co-operatingly granted
that permit. When Colonel Kalpaschnikov asked for a train, the
Smolny authorities immediately set that train out for him on a
siding. The colonel got all his arrangements completed and all
his papers accumulated. Then, just as he was starting from his
house to step aboard his train and to slip away into the southland,
the Red Guards recited their line in the play by mechanically
arresting him and sending his papers to Smolny and his person
to Peter and Paul fortress.

<BR><BR>The papers amply disclosed the American ambassador's interest
in the colonel's adventure. Smolny was in a roar. Robins heard
it and went to Smolny. His reception was highly disagreeable.

<BR><BR>He had been accustomed to going through Lenin's door into Lenin's
room, on a pass, without question. This time two soldiers crossed
their bayonets in front of him. He sat down. He decided to go
away. He rose and approached an outer door. There two other soldiers
crossed their bayonets in front of him. He sat down again. After
a while he got a really successful idea. He went to a side door,
and so into a little private corridor; and he walked along that
corridor till he came to a door at the end of it. This door he
contemplated for a moment. Then he swung it open. It was the back-exit-door
to Lenin's room.

<BR><BR>Lenin looked up from his documents and his eyes were narrowed.
He looked, and said nothing. Robins said something fast.

<BR><BR>&quot;I admit this Rostov affair looks bad,&quot; he said.
&quot;But I can explain it. I ask you simply, before you attack
the American embassy or the American Red Cross give me a chance
to make the explanation.&quot;

<BR><BR>Lenin still looked at Robins and still said nothing; and the
way of his looking was as if he wished to resume the reading on
his table. Robins turned and left Smolny. He thought he had probably
seen Smolny for the last time.

<BR><BR>But Kalpaschnikov saved him. Kalpaschnikov, in the course of
completing his arrangements, had written a long letter which he.
had put in his clothes to carry with him to some safe spot. There
he would mail it. It was addressed to Colonel Anderson at Jassy.
It happily charged Robins with having done his best to thwart
Colonel Anderson and to thwart Kalpaschnikov in the matter of
the motor-cars and their shipment. This letter, in time, the Smolny
authorities unfolded and read. Trotzky read it.

<BR><BR>That night Trotzky made a public speech at the Alexandrovsky
Theater. He announced the discovery of documents &quot;proving
that agents of the United States are implicated in the Kaledine
plot at Rostov on the Don.&quot; Such agents, thus implicated,
were to be found even in the protected precincts of the American
Embassy. They included, actually, the American ambassador himself.
Trotzky was profoundly shocked. He could not witness such violations
of diplomatic etiquette without grief and horror.

<BR><BR>Of course---he went on---it would not be fair to include all
American representatives at Petrograd in one general and promiscuous
charge. Justice required that distinctions be made. The American
Red Cross Mission to Russia, and its chief, Colonel Robins, were
unexpectedly proved by the documents to be innocent. But the chief
of the American Red Cross Mission to Rumania was proved by the
documents to be guilty. And so was the American ambassador to
Russia.

<BR><BR>&quot;And now,&quot; said Trotzky, &quot;now this Sir Francis
will have to break the golden silence which he has kept unbroken
since the revolution. These documents will force him to unloose
his eloquence. Our dignity as a government, our dignity as a revolutionary
government, is of the highest importance to us. We shall prove
it to all who think they can tread on our toes with impunity.
Let them understand that from the moment they interfere in our
internal affairs they cease to be diplomatic representatives.
They are then private counter-revolutionaries, and the heavy hand
of the revolution will fall upon their heads.&quot;

<BR><BR>The crowd was ready with its response. It stood and shouted:

<BR><BR>&quot;Arrest Francis! Hang him! Shoot him!&quot;

<BR><BR>The next morning a cable arrived in Petrograd from Washington
bringing an order which confirmed Mr. Francis' policy of non-intercourse
with the Bolshevik government. It forbade even the officers of
the Red Cross to go to Smolny.

<BR><BR>At the Embassy Robins mentioned this order.

<BR><BR>&quot;What? &quot; said the ambassador. Pay no attention to
it.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;But,&quot; said Robins, &quot;it's an order.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;I'll take the responsibility,&quot; said the ambassador.
&quot;You keep on going to Smolny. Tear the order up.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Well,&quot; said Robins, &quot;will you cable Washington
to change the order?&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Certainly,&quot; said the ambassador.

<BR><BR>&quot;All right,&quot; said Robins.

<BR><BR>&quot;And now,&quot; said the ambassador, &quot;unofficially&quot;
but realistically, &quot;what can we do at Smolny about this Kalpaschnikov
business? &quot;

<BR><BR>There was only one thing to do-to go to Smolny and explain.
Through Robins the ambassador went. The Kalpaschnikov business
was filed and forgotten. The only difficulty in explaining it
was that the truth about it was more romantic than Smolny's theory
about it.

<BR><BR>The truth about it was that for Colonel Anderson and for Mr.
Francis it was not an anti-Bolshevik business at all. Kalpaschnikov
may have been an intriguer, but Colonel Anderson and his colleagues
in the Rumanian Red Cross were pure knights-errant. They were
about to rescue a lady---a fair and noble lady---a queen---the
Queen of Rumania. She was in jeopardy at Jassy. The Teutons were
approaching. Colonel Anderson and his colleagues had an opportunity
to do the Queen a service. They proposed to do it. For Americans
it was a small matter. It was simply to take the Queen to Rostov
on the Don, and then to carry her---and her retinue and entourage---in
motor-cars---four hundred miles across the Caucasus Mountains
to Kars, and then four hundred miles more, across Turkey, to Mesopotamia
and to the British army. As laid out, it was really one of the
great get-aways of all time.

<BR><BR>The sticking-point was Rostov on the Don.

<BR><BR>There was just one reason why anybody should have thought it
possible to send motor-cars---and money-out of Soviet territory
into anti-Soviet territory. That reason was that the Soviet government
was an eyeless and toothless and tottering thing. But that reason
was false; and Mr. Francis, a business man and a practical politician
from Missouri, had begun to be shown that it was false.

<BR><BR>He was shown its falseness now increasingly from day to day,
as counter-revolutionaries fell and the revolution stood. He veered
now toward an admission of the existence of the revolution and
of its Soviet government. He expressed his change of views in
writing. On January 2, 1918, in the American Embassy at Petrograd,
he handed to Robins, with his autograph indorsement, the document
which Robins had with him in his pocket when in Moscow he talked
with Lenin. It was headed: &quot;Suggested communication to the
Commissaire for Foreign Affairs.&quot;

<BR><BR>It began:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>At the hour when the Russian people shall require assistance
  from the United States to repel the aggressions of Germany and
  her allies, you may be assured that I will recommend to the American
  government that it render them all aid and assistance within
  its power.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>It ended

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>I may add that if the Russian armies now under command of
  the People's Commissaries commence and seriously conduct hostilities
  against the forces of Germany and her allies, I will recommend
  to my government the formal recognition of the <I>de facto </I>government
  of the People's Commissaries.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>This document was not for immediate presentation to Trotzky
and Lenin, but it was definitely for authority and guidance to
Robins in his line of conduct at Smolny and for his full protection
against any later denial of his right to have pursued that line.

<BR><BR>He pursued it at once and at length, and it took him into a
necessary collaboration with Trotzky. Trotzky, by insisting on
democratic terms of peace from Germany, was headed toward resistance
to undemocratic terms. Robins' duty, under instructions, was to
hold out to Trotzky the diplomatic prospect that resistance would
bring American help.

<BR><BR>It was therefore that Robins tried to get those American and
Allied military officers for Trotzky, to help enforce the embargo
against goods going from Russia to Germany. It was therefore that
Robins tried to get those American railway experts for Trotzky,
to help restore the Russian railway system.

<BR><BR>After many weeks Trotzky one day said to Robins:

<BR><BR>&quot;Colonel Robins, your embassy sends you here with a big
bag marked 'American Help.' You arrive every day, and you bring
the bag into my room, and you set it down beside your chair, and
you keep reaching into it as you talk, and it is a powerful bag.
But nothing comes out.&quot;

<BR><BR>Trotzky could joke about it. But America remained in his mind.
America was the only belligerent country represented daily in
his office. When finally Russia was beaten to earth and could
not by herself rise up, when finally Russia was forced to seek
an ally among &quot;capitalistic&quot; countries, it was to America
that Trotzky turned. It was to America that he sent his call.
Robins had maintained the relations of intercourse and the channels
of communication along which a call could go.

<BR><BR>In the mean time Robins maintained similar relations and similar
channels wherever else he could among persons of power in Petrograd.

<BR><BR>Such a person was Carl Radek. Radek was the most powerful propagandist,
as well as the most powerful journalist, among the Bolsheviks.
Like many other men prominent at Smolny, he had been badly treated
by the Teutonic autocracy which Allied diplomats accused him of
loving and serving.

<BR><BR>He was an Austrian, and his front teeth had been knocked out
by the German-Austrian police in a revolutionary street-battle.
Afterward, in Switzerland, in 1915, when Radek was writing socialist
revolutionary propaganda for distribution among the German soldiers
on the Western front, the German government demanded that the
Swiss government expel him from Swiss soil. Radek, at Brest-Litovsk,
two years later, met the Austrian and German governments face
to face. His specialty was to make them feel insecure about their
own peoples and about their own futures.

<BR><BR>Count Czernin alluded to him one day as a &quot;Russian.&quot;
&quot;My nationality, Count,&quot; said Radek, &quot;is not Russian.
It is the same as yours---Austrian. It's not nationality that
puts us on the other side of the table from you.&quot;

<BR><BR>To Brest-Litovsk Radek carefully carried a certain book. It
was a book well known in Germany and suppressed there. It was
an argument for the military proposition (not unnoted by Napoleon)
that in war the final factor is numbers. Therefore, in the end,
against the Germans the Allies must win. The German generals at
Brest-Litovsk were fully acquainted with this book. Radek kept
it prominently on the table before their eyes. &quot;In the end,&quot;
he once said, &quot;the Allies will put a Brest-Litovsk treaty
on YOU.&quot;

<BR><BR>Radek also introduced at Brest-Litovsk a practice which frankly
revealed the social notions and the social purposes of the Russian
delegates. The Germans treated the Russian delegates as professional
diplomats, as excellencies, as persons now in the high world of
the ruling classes. They treated them so, and they wanted them
to behave so. Radek expressed the Soviet contempt for all of it
and the Soviet farewell to all of it by shaking hands with the
German privates who stood about as attendants and by addressing
them cordially and prophetically, in the presence of their officers,
as &quot;comrades.&quot;

<BR><BR>Back in Petrograd Radek's opinion of the Teutonic governments
appeared profusely in his daily writings. It was expressed in
a hundred such phrases as &quot;Austro-German vultures.&quot;

<BR><BR>But Radek wrote equally viciously about the &quot;Anglo-French
vultures.&quot; To him, as to Trotzky, the Allies and the Germans
were two equal maws of imperialism, the one opening for Mesopotamia
and the scattered ends of the earth, and the other opening for
a compact and consolidated prey in mid-Europe from Antwerp to
Odessa.

<BR><BR>Against all European &quot;capitalistic&quot; governments Radek
wrote without compromise. He also wrote without rest and with
an eloquence unceasingly and savagely brilliant. He had a slight
body, all wire, all electric wire. He had a mind heavily stored
with historical facts and economic facts and socialist explosives.
He scattered them everywhere. Day after day, in Pravda and in
Izvestia and in pamphlets and in leaflets and in journals of the
army and in journals of the navy, he blazed out on Russian opinion
with a popular power far beyond that of any other journalist or
propagandist in the Bolshevik world.

<BR><BR>Robins knew Radek's work; and he knew Radek. He kept Radek
informed about many things regarding America; and he pointed out
to him the special geographical situation of America and the special
political character of America; and he found that Radek could
perceive that specialness. He often quoted to Radek a saying of
President Wilson's which had been cabled to Russia:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>&quot;We are indomitable in our power of independent action
  and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed
  by intrigue and force.&quot;</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>At Moscow, later, when President Wilson's vague message to
the Soviet Congress was received, Radek at once seized upon it,
in spite of its vagueness, and made it the text of an editorial
sermon to all Russian socialists tempted to be anti-American.
Radek maintained that an understanding with America would be a
quite different thing from an understanding with any European
&quot;capitalistic&quot; country. He said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>&quot;The United States, by its position, is directly interested
  that Russia should be politically and economically strong and
  independent. The United States, by its own interests, must come
  to the assistance of the Soviet government, or of any other existing
  Russian government, for the resurrection of the economic and
  military might of Russia. Moreover, there is not, and there cannot
  be, between socialist Russia and democratic America, the irreconcilable
  contradiction and conflict which exist between socialist Russia
  and autocratic Germany.&quot;</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>In Radek, and in Trotzky, and in most of the other leaders
of Smolny, Robins found no theoretical antipathy to the idea of
a special economic co-operation between Russia and America. On
the contrary, he found a theoretical leaning toward it. That leaning
gave America a special advantage in Russia. The American ambassador
was now in a position to make use of it. The American ambassador,
by sending Robins to Smolny to make Smolny's personal acquaintance---and
by sending him there when no other ambassador was sending anybody
there to that end---had built a personal diplomatic thoroughfare
along which America in 1918 could have marched to becoming the
controlling influence in the economic development of the richest
undeveloped country in the world.

<BR><BR>The hour for doing it or not doing it came. The Germans, leaving
Brest, were approaching Petrograd. Russia met them with three
attitudes of mind, produced by the needs of three social classes.

<BR><BR>First there was the attitude of the class which we often call
&quot;upper&quot; or &quot;better&quot; and which the Bolsheviks
call &quot;bourgeois.&quot; The &quot;bourgeois&quot; class was
much of it inclined to look at the German advance with feelings
of satisfaction. The Germans, wherever they went, destroyed Soviets.
The Germans, wherever they went, hanged Bolsheviks.

<BR><BR>Among the prominent representatives of the &quot;bourgeois&quot;
class was Rodzianko. He had been a member of the Duma. He had
been president of the Duma. The public press had continually reported
his view of a possible German capture of Petrograd. Such a capture,
according to Rodzianko, would be no great misfortune. It might
indeed be a blessing. The Germans had captured Riga. Did they
do any harm? They did good. They abolished the Soviet and restored
the old-r&eacute;gime police.

<BR><BR>Col. William B. Thompson, Robins' old chief in the American
Red Cross Mission to Russia, had noticed this strong streak of
welcome for Germany among the Russian &quot;bourgeois&quot; during
his stay in Petrograd. He said to Robins:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>&quot;Robins, I'm a business fellow. These business fellows
  in Petrograd are people I understand. I'd like to deal with them.
  But it can't be done. I've talked to them. I've felt them out.
  Robins, they're for the Germans.&quot;</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>The Russian &quot;bourgeois,&quot; as Russians, might resent
the German advance. As property-holders they knew it to be to
their immediate advantage. They could rouse themselves, as a class,
to no sort of strong resistance.

<BR><BR>Next was the greatest class---the supremely greatest class---the
peasants. They had already shown their attitude by what they did
in the Constituent Assembly.

<BR><BR>The Constituent Assembly was dominated by the Socialists-Revolutionists
of the Right. They were a peasant party. The Bolsheviks, before
they dissolved the Constituent Assembly, withdrew from it. When
they withdrew, the Constituent Assembly became an almost purely
peasant body. In that condition, cleansed of all Bolshevik votes,
it passed resolutions about war and peace. It resolved for a <I>general
</I>peace rather than a <I>separate </I>peace; but, leaving distant
hopes for immediate recommendations, it resolved specifically
that:

<BR><BR>The armistice between Russia and Germany must be continued.
The separate negotiations for peace between Russia and Germany
must be prosecuted. And:

<BR><BR>&quot;In the name of the people of the Russian Republic the
All-Russian Constituent Assembly expresses the firm will of the
people <I>to immediately discontinue the war.&quot;</I>

<BR><BR>So the peasants voted. And so also they behaved, when the Germans
advanced.

<BR><BR>The third class was the &quot;revolutionary proletariate&quot;---the
class of class-conscious wage-earners. Within this class there
was indeed an impulse of desperate resistance to the oncoming
Germans. This class was the only class which had everything to
lose by German conquest. The &quot;bourgeois,&quot; by German
conquest, would get humiliation but &quot;prosperity.&quot; The
peasants, by German conquest, would get their landlords back,
but they would still have their own little former parcels of land
under their landlords. The &quot;revolutionary proletariate&quot;
would lose its whole revolution, its whole &quot;proletarian dictatorship.&quot;

<BR><BR>Naturally, therefore, it was this class that cried out in special
pain as the Germans marched forward into Russia. The high leaders
of the Soviet government were pained to a specially high degree.
The document which the Germans held out to them to sign was a
document threatening their own final personal abdication from
all power in the world.

<BR><BR>Therefore they never did personally sign it. It was too personally
portentous to them. When all resistance collapsed, Trotzky was
asked to go and sign. He refused. Radek was asked. He refused.
Karelin was asked. He refused. Finally certain very subordinate
leaders were outrightly ordered to go. They went. They signed.
They signed the document without reading it. They wished the Germans
to know that they did not regard it as a binding act of agreement.
They regarded it as a revocable act of force.

<BR><BR>Out of this spirit, as furious as it was futile, the Council
of People's Commissioners issued its summons of February 21, 1918.
It commanded a universal resistance to the Germans. The &quot;bourgeois&quot;
must be compelled to resist. They must be compelled to at least
dig trenches. And &quot;all Soviets and revolutionary organizations
are charged with the duty of defending every post to the last
drop of blood.&quot;

<BR><BR>But the mass of the army at once showed that on this point
it agreed with the Constituent Assembly and not with the People's
Commissioners. Even the &quot;revolutionary proletariate,&quot;
in most of its representatives in the old army, was finished with
fighting. Soviet leaders, in Petrograd and in most other places,
passed resolutions for fighting. The army could not and would
not fight.

<BR><BR>Lenin noted this contradiction acidly in Pravda. He said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>In the week of February 18-24th we were instructed by the
  comparison between two different sorts of communications which
  reached us. On the one hand there were the communications telling
  us of a debauch of &quot;resolutive&quot; revolutionary fighting
  phrases. On the other hand, there were the communications telling
  us of the poignantly disgraceful refusal of regiments to hold
  their positions, of their refusal to hold even the Narva line,
  of their failure actually to obey the order for the destruction
  of supplies before retreating.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Russia was in mass-flight. The Allied embassies were leaving
Petrograd. They were leaving Russia. The American embassy did
not leave Russia. It was able to be calmer. It was better acquainted
with Smolny. It knew that Lenin and Trotzky intended to keep all
of Russia they could for the Soviets and that they could still
keep much of it.

<BR><BR>Mr. Francis and Robins decided that to go to Vologda would
be to go far enough. Robins accompanied Mr. Francis to Vologda.
Lenin gave him a personal letter, written with his own hand, asking
the Vologda Soviet to provide the American embassy with every
possible assistance. The embassy, arriving at Vologda, cast its
eyes on Vologda's best club-house. The members moved out and the
embassy moved in.

<BR><BR>Robins started back for Petrograd. He arrived there on March
4th. On March 3d the preliminary signing of the peace---in the
field---the signing without reading had happened. On March 5th
Robins went to Trotzky's office. Trotzky, as soon as he entered,
said to him:

<BR><BR>&quot;Colonel Robins, do you still want to beat the peace?&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Mr. Commissioner,&quot; said Robins, &quot;you know the
answer to that question.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Well,&quot; said Trotzky, &quot;the time has come to
be definite. We have talked---and we have talked---about help
from America. Can you produce it? Can you get a definite promise
from your government? If you can, we can even now beat the peace.
I will oppose ratification, at Moscow, and beat it.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;But, Mr. Commissioner,&quot; said Robins, &quot;you have
always opposed ratification. The question is, what about Lenin?
Lenin, Mr. Commissioner, if you will pardon me, is running this
government. What about him?&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Lenin,&quot; said Trotzky, &quot;agrees.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Will he say so?&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;He will.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;In writing?&quot;

<BR><BR>Trotzky bared his teeth to reply. &quot;Do you want us to give
you our lives? &quot; he said. &quot; The Germans are thirty miles
from Petrogad. How soon will your people be within thirty miles?&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Nevertheless,&quot; said Robins, &quot;I will not handle
a verbal message to my government. It's got to be written. I'll
bring my interpreter back here with me. You tell him what you
mean---in Russian. He'll write it down---in English. Then you
and Lenin will read it in English and will say you understand
it and will promise me to go through with it. Otherwise I can't
handle it.&quot;

<BR><BR>Trotzky yielded. &quot;Be back at four,&quot; he said.

<BR><BR>Robins went away. He went away confident. He remarks now, regarding
Lenin and Trotzky:

<BR><BR>&quot;They never convinced me in the slightest degree that
they could make Bolshevism work. But they did convince me absolutely
that they could keep their word. They made me many promises about
Red Cross affairs and about other American affairs in Russia.
They always made good on them. Unlike many gentlemen in the government
which preceded them at Petrograd, Lenin and Trotzky never gave
me any blue-sky talk. They never promised unless they had the
will and the power to deliver. They often refused to promise.
But, having promised, they delivered---always. The Germans tried
to double-cross them, and they doublecrossed the Germans. I tried
to deal with them on the square, and they came back on the square---every
time. Therefore, when Trotzky told me to be back at four I knew
that at four I would get the document and that it would say precisely
what Trotzky had said it would say.&quot;

<BR><BR>So Robins went to get his interpreter, his Russian secretary,
Alexander Gumberg. Also he went to see Mr. Charles Stevenson Smith,
head of the Russian Bureau of the American Associated Press. Smith
was skilled and wary. He had represented the Associated Press
in the Far East. He had come to Petrograd soon after the Bolshevik
revolution. He was skeptical of Bolsheviks.

<BR><BR>&quot;At Smolny,&quot; said Robins<B>, </B>&quot;there's a
thing going on that may stop the peace. Will you send a despatch
on the policy of it?&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;I will,&quot; said Smith, &quot;if I can get a satisfactory
interview from Trotzky.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;You know,&quot; said Robins, &quot;that Trotzky has a
rule against ever seeing any representative of the 'bourgeois'
press.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Get me an interview,&quot; said Smith. &quot;It's the
only way I can send the despatch.&quot;

<BR><BR>Robins 'phoned Trotzky. He got an angry &quot;Never!&quot;
He went back to Smolny at once and into Trotzky's office, and
said:

<BR><BR>&quot;What is the sense in a rule against talking to 'bourgeois'
newspapers when you are entering into negotiations with a whole
'bourgeois' country?&quot;

<BR><BR>Trotzky yielded again. &quot;Send him,&quot; he said. Robins
departed, and sent him.

<BR><BR>At four o'clock Robins returned with his interpreter. Trotzky
received them at once. He had a sheet of paper in his hand. It
was his message to America, already dictated ---in Russian---and
typewritten. He conducted Robins and the interpreter to Lenin's
room. There were other people there. Lenin left them. He led the
way to the Council Hall of the Council of People's Commissioners.
There, at the end of a long table, Lenin and Trotzky and Robins
and the interpreter sat down. The interpreter took Trotzky's piece
of paper and translated the message on it into English, and then
read the translation aloud.

<BR><BR>Robins said to Lenin:

<BR><BR>&quot;Does the translation give your understanding of the meaning
of the document?&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Lenin.

<BR><BR>&quot;Mr. President Commissioner,&quot; said Robins, &quot;I
must ask you another question:

<BR><BR>&quot;If the United States government answers this document
affirmatively, will you oppose the ratification of the Peace of
Brest-Litovsk at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets at Moscow?
&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Lenin.

<BR><BR>&quot;Very well,&quot; said Robins, and rose.

<BR><BR>The document is in the words following:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>In case (a) the All-Russian Congress of 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, either before or after its ratification, and
  to renew hostilities.
  <BR><BR>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:
  <BR><BR>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?
  <BR><BR>2. What kind of support could be furnished in the nearest
  future and on what conditions---military equipment, transportation.
  supplies, living necessities?
  <BR><BR>3. What kind of support would be furnished particularly and
  specially by the United States?
  <BR><BR>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?
  <BR><BR>In the opinion of the United States, to what extent ---in
  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 foundations of rumors of
  the hostile plans against Russia on the part of Great Britain
  in the nearest future?
  <BR><BR>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.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Such was the document. Robins went with it immediately to Mr.
R. H. Bruce Lockhart.

<BR><BR>Lockhart was special commissioner in Russia for the Prime Minister
of Great Britain. The Prime Minister had sent him to Russia for
the special purpose of forming an opinion and of outlining a policy
about the Bolsheviks. He had been in Russia before. He had spent
seven years there in the British service. He had returned to England
for a rest. He was dragged out of his rest and hurried to Russia
to study the Bolshevik emergency and to keep the Prime Minister
personally informed about it. He had a full mastery of the Russian
language and he was the most trusted and the most powerful British
representative in Russia at, that moment.

<BR><BR>Robins knew him well. Lockhart had been told in London to look
Robins up in Petrograd. He did so. He worked with Robins in a
close interchange of observations and of conclusions, agreeing
or disagreeing. Lockhart was a professional diplomat. Robins was
not. Robins wanted to know what Lockhart would think of Trotzky's
message.

<BR><BR>Lockhart read it. He had been in Russia now, on his special
mission, for some eight weeks. He read Trotzky's message, and
he measured it by his knowledge of Russia and of the Bolsheviks,
and he did not hesitate. He at once sent a cable to Mr. Lloyd<B>
</B>George, in which he said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>Empower me to inform Lenin that the question of Japanese intervention
  has been shelved; that we will persuade the Chinese to remove
  the embargo on foodstuffs; that we are prepared to support the
  Bolsheviks in so far as they will oppose Germany, and that we
  invite his (Lenin's) suggestions as to the best way in which
  this help can be given. In return for this there is every chance
  that war will be declared between the Bolsheviks and Germany.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Such was Lockhart's judgment. The matter was then presented
to Mr. Harold Williams.

<BR><BR>Williams was, and is, one of the most influential of writers
about Russia. Besides corresponding with his newspaper in London,
he corresponded intimately with the British government. He was
a confidential agent of the British government. He was married
to a distinguished Russian woman---Ariadna Tyrkova. He had lived
in Russia for a total of some twelve years. He was, and is, vehemently
anti-Bolshevik.

<BR><BR>He was given an outline of the new special situation at Smolny.
He knew the whole general situation himself. He knew the background
which tested Trotzky's message. He listened, and considered; and
then, on the stationery of the British embassy, he wrote a message
of his own, saying:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>The peculiar revolutionary tactics of the Bolsheviks forbid
  them to accept this peace as final. . . . At the Congress convened
  to ratify the peace there will be a strong agitation in favor
  of revolutionary war with Germany. . . . This movement may supply
  the nucleus of a real national resistance which would necessitate
  a broadening of the Bolshevik political platform. . . . For the
  present the Bolsheviks are the only party possessing real power
  in Russia. . . . National revival is certain, and the Bolsheviks
  will by their agitation stimulate it among the masses. It should
  be our business to foster this revival. . . . Rumors of intended
  Japanese intervention in Siberia embitter the sense of humiliation
  in all classes and divert resentment from the Germans to the
  Allies and endanger the future of our interests in Russia.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Such was Williams' judgment. He sent it by cable, to his newspaper
and also to Mr. Lloyd George.

<BR><BR>In the mean time Trotzky's message was being prepared for transmission.
It was being coded into the military code of the United States
War Department by Captain Prince and Lieutenant Bukowski. They
had been left behind in Petrograd by the American Military Mission
when the mission accompanied the embassy to Vologda. They worked
at Trotzky's message together; and they got it coded; and Robins
put it on the wire to Vologda; and it was now three o'clock in
the morning; and Robins went to see Smith of the Associated Press.

<BR><BR>Smith, on being waked, said that Trotzky had talked. He had
talked for publication, as Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the
Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, and he had said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>&quot;America and Russia may have different aims. We are what
  we are in Russia and cannot change; and we do not expect the
  United States to change. But if the two of us have common stations
  on the same route, I do not see why we might not go together
  on the same car. Certainly, at least until revolution comes in
  Germany, Russia and the United States have an undoubted common
  route. In October last we did not exclude the possibility of
  a holy war against Germany. Now we consider it positively possible.&quot;</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>This interview Smith had already cabled. On the following day
he cabled an observation of his own, as follows:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>Whether Moscow Congress approves or rejects peace apparently
  depends largely on attitude of Entente Allies toward Soviet Government.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>On that following day Robins learned there was an unavoidable
stoppage of Trotzky's message at Vologda. Colonel Ruggles, the
only man at Vologda who knew the War Department code, had left
Vologda for Petrograd. Robins turned to Captain Prince. Would
Captain Prince send the message direct to the War Department at
Washington from Petrograd at once? He sent it. That was one route
by which it went to Washington.

<BR><BR>But it went also by the route from Vologda. Robins carried
Trotzky's message to Vologda personally. He got there on the night
of March 8th. On the morning of the 9th the American ambassador
sent Trotzky's message to Washington in the code of the State
Department. It went to Washington, therefore, by a double transmission.

<BR><BR>On the morning of the 9th the ambassador also sent to Washington
a cable of his own, in which he said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BR><BR>I cannot too strongly urge the folly of intervention by the
  Japanese just now. It is possible that the Congress of Soviets
  may ratify the peace. but if I receive assurance from you that
  the Japanese peril is baseless, I am of the opinion that the
  Congress will reject this humiliating peace.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Such was Mr. Francis' judgment when the moment of decisive
crisis came.

<BR><BR>Robins was convinced then, as he is convinced now, that such
facts about recent history in Russia cannot be properly suppressed.
He was convinced then, as he is convinced now, that the evils
of Bolshevism cannot be successfully met by counter-evils of untruthfulness
and misrepresentation. If the Bolsheviks asked economic and military
co-operation from the United States, Robins will say so. If Lenin
and Trotzky were personally reliable in their personal dealings
with the American Red Cross Mission in Russia, Robins will say
so. He believed then, and still believes, that the only way of
successfully meeting the evils of Bolshevism is first to eliminate
the imaginary and irrelevant evils from our consideration and
then to attack the real ones. His position in his dealings with
the Bolsheviks in Russia was precisely his position now-namely:

<BR><BR>In Bolshevism there are certain fundamental fallacies. Those
fallacies are in the essential political and social method of
Bolshevism. They would exist if the Bolsheviks had never executed
one counter-revolutionary. They would exist if the Bolsheviks
had never seen one German. They are fallacies of fundamental philosophy.
They have an immense power over the minds of men in all countries
harassed by existing economic injustices and hardships. They are
fallacies widely, honestly held. They can never be understood,
they can never be exposed, they can never be destroyed, by following
side-trails to promiscuous cries of &quot;common thief&quot; and
&quot;vulgar murderer&quot; and &quot;bought pro-German.&quot;
Assailed by such cries, Bolshevism is touched in no vital spot
and proceeds unhindered on its way through the field in which
it must win or lose---the field of actual political and social
controversy and proof.

<BR><BR>Farther on in the story Robins outlines the principles on which
he believes that the evils of Bolshevism can be effectively combated
and on which he believes that existing institutions of injustice
and of hardship can be changed into institutions of self-respect
and of decent human happiness without the Bolshevik method and
in opposition to it.

<BR><BR>At Vologda Robins thought he saw an opportunity for the Allies
and for America to influence Bolshevism and to moderate it even
in Russia itself. Bolshevism, by asking America to stretch out
its hand to the Congress of Soviets at Moscow, was giving Western
democratic thought a wide entrance into Russian life.

<BR><BR>Robins, it must strongly be repeated, was not solitary in the
view he took of this opportunity at Moscow. Harold Williams, in
his cable to his newspaper and to Mr. Lloyd George, had spoken
of the effect which Allied and American help would have on the
&quot;political platform&quot; of the Bolsheviks. R. H. Bruce
Lockhart and David R. Francis, in their cables to London and Washington,
had urged their governments to abandon intervention against the
Bolsheviks and to adopt intervention on the side of the Bolsheviks
against the Germans and to live on terms of practical recognition,
and therefore on terms of practical influence, with the Bolshevik
government. London and Washington, through their highest authorized
advisers in Russia, had been advised. Their reply would go a great
distance toward settling two things-two things reaching far into
the future of Bolshevism in Russia and in the whole world:

<BR><BR>1. Shall revolutionary Russia, in Harold Williams' language,
get a tradition of help from the Allies and from America? Or shall
it get a tradition of unfriendliness and of isolation from the
Allies and from America?

<BR><BR>2. Shall revolutionary Russia, as Williams suggested in his
cable, get a &quot;broadening&quot; of its &quot;political platform&quot;
through &quot;national resistance &quot; to its national foe and
through co-operation with the democracies of the West? Or shall
the Russian revolutionary spirit, shut in on itself, grow narrower
instead of broader and become the increasingly fanatical and vindictive
prophet and agent of an unmodified and finally unmodifiable world
catastrophe?

<BR><BR>Mr. Francis and Robins listened in Vologda. But Mr. Francis
said to Robins:

<BR><BR>&quot;Robins, go to Moscow and keep me posted.&quot;

<BR><BR>So Robins went.

<BR><BR>&quot;Have you heard from Your government?&quot; said Lenin
to Robins again. It was on the day after he had made his first
inquiry.

<BR><BR>&quot;I've not heard yet,&quot; said Robins again.

<BR><BR>&quot;Has Lockhart heard from London?&quot; said Lenin.

<BR><BR>&quot;Not yet,&quot; said Robins, and added: &quot;Couldn't
you prolong the debate?&quot; It was a rather courageous question.

<BR><BR>On March 6th, in Petrograd, Robins had gone to Lenin and had
told him about the unavoidable stoppage of Trotzky's message to
America in military code at Vologda. He had asked Lenin for an
extension of time to get his reply from Washington. He had asked
for an extension of forty-eight hours. Lenin had made no definite
answer, but, therefore, <I>Izvestia</I> carried the announcement
that by request of President Commissioner Lenin the Moscow Congress
had been postponed from March 12th to March 14th.

<BR><BR>Now, in Moscow, Lenin simply said, &quot;The debate must take
its course.&quot;

<BR><BR>&quot;Can I get the credentials of the delegates?&quot; said
Robins.

<BR><BR>Lenin consented. Robins got them from Sverdlov, chairman of
the All-Russian Soviet Executive Committee. There were 1,204 delegates.
Robins got 1,186 credentials. He had them examined by two persons.

<BR><BR>One of these persons was a follower of the revolution<B>, </B>but
not a Bolshevik---a Menshevik. The other was a member of the old
nobility.

<BR><BR>From their reports he knew that this convention was not a packed
convention. He had already put out a supplementary investigation
through men in his service who lived among the delegates at headquarters
in the National Hotel. This convention was a valid convention
of conscious Russia.

<BR><BR>It did not represent---it did not pretend to represent---Russia's
7 per cent. of &quot;bourgeois.&quot; It did effectively represent
Russia's 93 per cent. of peasants and wage-earners.

<BR><BR>Certain inert elements among the peasants might not have sent
delegates. The really conscious elements had availed themselves
of the summons despatched to all councils of wage-earners and
of peasants and had come to Moscow with delegates bearing the
documentary evidence of their elections.

<BR><BR>From as far west as Smolensk, from as far cast as Vladivostok,
from as far south as Odessa, from as far north as Murmansk, these
delegates of the 93 per cent. assembled. Robins, on going out
of Russia, met the Vladivostok delegate at Vladivostok and the
Irkutsk delegate at Irkutsk. Such encounters merely confirmed
his conviction. The Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets was
not a Congress of Soviet specialists from Petrograd and Moscow.
It was a Congress broadly based on the effective mass of Russia.,

<BR><BR><A HREF="images/Robins06.jpg"><B><FONT FACE="Times"><IMG SRC="thumbnails/Robins06tn.jpg"
WIDTH="109" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="LEFT" BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></FONT></B></A><B><FONT
 COLOR="#0000ff" FACE="Times">Fig. 6.</FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#0000ff">
SVERDLOV, CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS
OF SOVIETS</FONT>

<BR><BR><FONT FACE="Times">It was a Congress of a Russia &quot;real&quot;-er
and &quot;old&quot;-er than any Russia of any aristocracy. The
great boots rising to the knee, the flannel shirts flowing over
the breeches, the broad belts, these were the signs of a really
antique country-side crowding the Hall of the Nobles.</FONT>

<BR><BR>The debate on the peace began on the 15th. It continued, with
scant intermissions, through to the evening of the 16th. Most
of the talking was against the peace. At eleven-thirty on the
evening of the 16th Lenin spoke. After him no one spoke.

<BR><BR>At eleven-thirty he was sitting in a chair on the platform.
Robins was sitting on the steps of the platform. Lenin waved to
Robins to come to speak to him. Robins came.

<BR><BR>Lenin said, &quot;What have you heard from your government?&quot;

<BR><BR>Robins said, &quot;Nothing. . . . What has Lockhart heard from
London?&quot;

<BR><BR>Lenin said, &quot;Nothing.&quot;

<BR><BR>Then Lenin said: &quot;I shall now speak for the peace. It
will be ratified.&quot;

<BR><BR>He spoke for an hour and twenty minutes. He pointedly wanted
to know with what resources, with what resources of fighting men,
with what resources of fighting materials, the Russians would
fight the Germans. He seemed to agree with the private soldier,
who once instructed the learned propagandists of the Petrograd
Soviet by saying:

<BR><BR>&quot;It's no use approaching German generals with a copy of
Karl Marx in one hand and of Friedrich Engels in the other. Those
books are in German. But German generals can't understand them.&quot;

<BR><BR>Lenin spoke, though, above all, for respite for the revolution.
His policy remained what it was in Petrograd. He would surrender
Petrograd---the imperial, the revolutionary, city. He would surrender
Moscow---the immemorial, the holy, city. He would retreat to the
Volga. He would surrender anything, and retreat anywhere, if only,
on some slip of land, somewhere, he might preserve the revolution
and create the revolutionary discipline which did indeed, twelve
months later, enable him to fight a war on sixteen fronts and
endure all the disabilities inflicted by the Allied economic naval
blockade and still precariously revolutionarily live.

<BR><BR>He spoke for a necessary peace, a preparatory peace, a peace
of respite and return. Red cards rose up in hands all over the
house to approve. Red cards rose up to disapprove. The count was
had:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <BLOCKQUOTE>
    <BR><BR>Not voting, 204.
    <BR><BR>Voting against ratification, 276.
    <BR><BR>Voting in favor of ratification, 724.</BLOCKQUOTE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BR><BR>Russia was at peace. Russia was alone. Russia was headed for
a war with the world.

<BR><BR>Robins still sat on the steps of the platform. The count was
cried through the house. It was the decision of the most populous
white people in the world. It was the decision of the most innovating
and upsetting of all peoples in the world. From them, through
him, a question had gone to Washington, and an offer, begging
a response. No response came to him then. No response came to
him at any time afterward.
<HR>