The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-01-30

treaty, ne gave his reasons in long
theses. He proved that the signing
of peace treaty with the imperial
lists does not mean a betrayal of in
ternatienal socialism. "Workers who
lose strike and accept terms un.
favorable to themselves and favorable
to the capitalists, do not betray so
cialism."
In the collected writings of Lenin
there is an appendix by Ovsiannikov
on materials in the party archives.
1t was during the early days of Janu-
airy, 1918, some days before the Sow
let congress, that this question came
up in the central committee Lenin
was from the first of the opinion that
the treaty must be signed. On Janu-
airy 8, according TO the notes by E
D. Stasova, Lenin analysed the three
different opinions on the question:
1. Separate peace with the German
annexationists.
2. Revolutionary war.
3. Proclamation of the end of the
W0A 0AA UOAnOUAAlLdLAOA VI Tie dIIQJ,
but without signing the treaty.
The day before the first opinion had
fifteen votes, the second thirty-two.
and the third sixteen. All are unani-
nous that the country of the reyolu-
ton must be defended. The ques-
ton is, how? The army is worn
out, there are not horses enough to
move the artillery, the Germans can
easily take Reval and Petrograd. If
under such conditions we continue
the war, we will strengthen German
imperialism, and will have to sign
terms worse than these. Undoubtedly
this peace will be a wretched peace,
but If the war begins again, our gov
eminent will be overthrow and the
peace will be signed with some other
government. Our government is bas-
ed not only on the proletariat, but
also on the poor peasants, who will
serve the interests of the French,
English and American imperialists.
The staff of Comrade Krylenko has
received from the Americans an Of
fer of hundred rubles for every sol
dier-those who support the proposal
that revolutionary war must be wag-
ed, claim that we are conducting a
civil war with German imperialism
and that we thus instigate revolution
in Germany. But Germany is merely
pregnant with revolution and we have
already a healthy baby-the socialist
ranuh1ia which CON he LyilIod AZ xna
start the war again. We have in our
hands a circular from the German so
cial-democrats; there is information
of two separate centrist opinions
about us, one of them claiming that
we are bribed and that there is go
ing on in Brest-Litovsk a comedy
with ready-made roles. This group at
tacks us for the armistice. The other
group, the Kautskians. declares that
the personal honesty of the Bolshe-
vik leaders is above suspicion, but
the conduct of the Bolsheviks is
psychological puzzle. We do not know
the opinion of the left wing social-de-
mocrats. The English workers appre-
ciate our efforts towards peace. OF
course, this will be shameful treaty.
But we badly need breathing spell
to put thru certain social reforms Cf
only the organization of transporta-
tom; we must strengthen our posi-
ton and must have time for it. We
must break the bourgeoisie complete
ly, but for this we must have both
hands free. Then we will be in a
position to conduct a revolutionary
war with international Imperialism.
The cadres of the voluntary revolu-
tionary army which we create now
will become the officers cadres for
our future army.
Comrade Trotzky's proposal to
end the war, to refuse to sign the
peace and to demobilize the army
is intended to be an international de-
monstration. But by Withdrawing
our troops we only relinquish the Es-
thonian socialist republic to the