V. I.

Lenin

Speech at a Joint Meeting of The Bolshevik and Left S.R. Groups in the All-Russia Central Executive Committee. February 19, 1918

Brief Newspaper Report

In a long speech lasting two hours, Lenin propounded the
theses that there was no way out for Russia, that it was necessary
immediately to conclude a separate peace, since the Germans were advancing all along the front en masse and we were
powerless to offer any resistance to this million-strong pressure. Having
concluded peace, we would be able to start putting things in order at home
and deepening the socialist revolution, and we would succeed in completing
the radical reforms that would bring us nearer to the introduction in
Russia of a socialist system.

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