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7. An Obscene Peace
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7 An Obscene Peace Dispatching his acceptance of harsher peace terms to Berlin in the early morning of 24 February, Lenin hoped to head off the occupation of Petrograd by rapidly advancing German forces. He was, of course, unaware that the Germans planned to stop short of the city. His fears that the Germans intended to capture the Russian capital and crush the revolution were reawakened , therefore, by news he received later that day—first about the capture of Pskov, roughly 150 miles southwest of Petrograd and on a direct rail line to the capital; second, the German high command’s rejection of Krylenko’s request for an immediate cease-fire; and, finally, reports that enemy troops were moving beyond Pskov. Simultaneously, German forces were moving deep into what is now Belarus and Ukraine.The formal signing of the treaty ending Russia’s participation in the world war was to take place in Brest on 3 March. At that time, the Presidium of the CEC would schedule the opening of the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets for 12 March in Moscow to ratify the accord.1 Meanwhile, with German forces continuing to advance, the Leninist government and party leadership had to prepare for evacuation, if that became necessary, and at the same time direct the defense of Petrograd and combat both the counterrevolution and fierce Left Communist and Left SR opposition to a separate, “obscene” peace. * * * The question of evacuating the national government to Moscow had been discussed by the Sovnarkom on 26 February, and a formal resolution to proceed with a move was adopted.2 Several crises had occurred in the days preceding this decision. For example, as German troops occupied Pskov on 24 February, Russian forces fled helter-skelter from what seemed to be a broad German offensive aimed at Petrograd. At the same time, the universal mobilization of Petrograd workers for dispatch to the front greatly increased 182 / War or Peace? the government’s vulnerability to domestic conspiracies. On 22 February, the Sovnarkom began to prepare for a move by creating an Emergency Commission for the Evacuation of Petrograd.3 Even earlier, on 20 February, the Sovnarkom had formed the Provisional Executive Committee to act in the Sovnarkom’s name during the rapidly escalating military crisis. By the next evening (21/22 February), the capital was declared under a state of siege, and the Petrograd Soviet created the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd that would direct defense-related functions.4 During its first hours of operation, the Sovnarkom’s Provisional Executive Committee issued a spate of proclamations calling the Russian people to arms. The most important among these was “The Socialist Fatherland Is in Danger!” In order to save our exhausted and depleted country from the miseries of a new war we made the supreme sacrifice and notified the Germans of our readiness to accept their conditions for peace. . . . [However,] German generals are bent on establishing their own kind of “order” in Petrograd and Kiev. . . . The Socialist Republic of Soviets is in the gravest danger. Until the German proletariat rises and is victorious, it is the sacred duty of the workers and peasants of Russia to defend the Republic of Soviets against the bourgeoisimperialist German hordes. Written byTrotsky and approved by Lenin, this proclamation informed Russian citizens that the Sovnarkom had decreed that all the country’s forces and resources should be devoted wholly to revolutionary defense; that all soviets and other revolutionary organizations should defend every position to the last drop of blood; and that everything possible should be done both to prevent German use of Russian railway lines and equipment, and to keep Russian food supplies and other valuable property from falling into German hands. It also authorized the immediate shutdown of the counterrevolutionary press and the shooting, “on the spot,” of “enemy agents, speculators , burglars, thieves, hooligans, counterrevolutionary agitators, and German spies.” “The Socialist Fatherland Is in Danger” was telegraphed the next day to soviets throughout Russia and published inPravda andIzvestiia in the name of the Sovnarkom.5 By the time the CEC met on the night of 21/22 February and agreed on the need to prepare for a united defense, efforts to hold back “the German hordes” had already begun. However, organizing an adequate defense was difficult regardless of the strength of German forces. The demoralized state of troops in the old front army indicated the hopelessness of trying to utilize them.Then, too, as Krylenko made plain to...