Date: 1918
Source: ru:PSS/v36

Comrades, we must resolve today a question that marks a turning point in the development of the Russian, and not only the Russian, but also the international revolution. And in order to correctly resolve the question of the onerous peace that the representatives of the Soviet power concluded in Brest-Litovsk and which the Soviet power proposes to approve, or ratify, in order to correctly resolve this question, it is most necessary for us to understand the historical meaning of the turning point at which we have arrived, to understand what constituted the main feature of the revolution's development up to now and what constitutes the fundamental cause of the grave defeat and the era of severe trials that we have experienced.

It seems to me that the main source of disagreements among the Soviet parties{47} on this issue is precisely that some are too susceptible to the feeling of legitimate and just indignation at the defeat of the Soviet republic by imperialism, sometimes too susceptible to despair, and instead of taking into account the historical conditions of the revolution's development as they have taken shape before the present peace and as they appear to us after the peace, instead of this, they try to answer the question of the revolution's tactics on the basis of immediate feeling. Meanwhile, the entire experience of all histories of revolutions teaches us that when we are dealing with any mass movement or with class struggle, especially one such as the present, unfolding not only throughout one, albeit vast, country, but encompassing all international relations, in this case, the basis of our tactics, first and foremost, must be the consideration of the objective situation, to analyze how the revolution has proceeded up to now and why it has changed so menacingly, so sharply, so unfavorably for us.

If we look at the development of our revolution from this point of view, we will clearly see that until now it has experienced a period of comparative and largely illusory independence and temporary freedom from international relations. The path that our revolution took from the end of February 1917 to February 11 of this year{48}, when the German offensive began, this path, on the whole, was one of easy and rapid successes. If we look at the development of this revolution on an international scale, from the point of view of the development of the Russian revolution alone, we will see that we have experienced three periods during this year. The first period, when the working class of Russia, together with all that was advanced, conscious, and mobile in the peasantry, supported not only by the petty bourgeoisie, but also by the large bourgeoisie, swept away the monarchy in a few days. This dizzying success is explained by the fact that the Russian people, on the one hand, drew from the experience of 1905 a gigantic reserve of revolutionary combat capability, and on the other hand, by the fact that Russia, as a particularly backward country, suffered particularly from the war and particularly early came to a state of complete impossibility of continuing this war under the old regime.

After the short, stormy success, when a new organization was created, the organization of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies, there followed for our revolution long months of a transitional period, a period when the power of the bourgeoisie, immediately undermined by the Soviets, was supported and strengthened by the petty-bourgeois conciliatory parties, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who supported this power. This was a power that supported the imperialist war, the imperialist secret treaties, feeding the working class with promises, a power that did absolutely nothing, that supported the ruin. During this long period for us, for the Russian revolution, the Soviets accumulated their forces; this was a long period for the Russian revolution and a short one from the international point of view, because in most of the central countries the period of overcoming petty-bourgeois illusions, the period of experiencing the conciliation of various parties, factions, and shades, took not months, but long, long decades. This period, from April 20 to the resumption of the imperialist war by Kerensky in June, who carried a secret imperialist treaty in his pocket, played a decisive role. During this period, we experienced the July defeat, experienced the Kornilov affair, and only through the experience of mass struggle, only when the broadest masses of workers and peasants saw not from preaching, but from their own experience, the futility of petty-bourgeois conciliation, only then, after a long political development, after a long preparation and a change in the mood and views of party groupings, was the ground created for the October Revolution, and the third period of the Russian revolution began in its first, detached or temporarily separated from the international, phase.

This third period, the October period, is the period of organization, the most difficult and at the same time the period of the greatest and most rapid triumphs. Since October, our revolution, which handed power into the hands of the revolutionary proletariat, established its dictatorship, ensured it the support of the vast majority of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry, since October our revolution has proceeded in a victorious, triumphant procession. Throughout Russia, the civil war began in the form of resistance from the exploiters, landlords, and bourgeoisie, supported by part of the imperialist bourgeoisie.

The civil war began, and in this civil war the forces of the opponents of the Soviet power, the forces of the enemies of the working people and the exploited masses, proved to be insignificant; the civil war was a complete triumph for the Soviet power, because its opponents, the exploiters, the landlords, and the bourgeoisie, had no political or economic support, and their attack was shattered. The struggle against them combined not so much military actions as agitation; layer by layer, masses after masses, up to the working Cossacks, fell away from those exploiters who tried to lead them away from the Soviet power.

This period of the victorious, triumphant procession of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet power, when it attracted to its side absolutely, decisively, and irrevocably the gigantic masses of working people and exploited in Russia, marked the last and highest point in the development of the Russian revolution, which all this time proceeded as if independently of international imperialism. This was the reason why the country, the most backward and the most prepared for revolution by the experience of 1905, so quickly, so easily, so systematically advanced one class after another to power, overcoming individual political formations, and finally came to the political formation that was the last word not only of the Russian revolution, but also of the West European workers' revolutions, for the Soviet power was consolidated in Russia and acquired the irrevocable sympathies of the working people and the exploited because it destroyed the old oppressive apparatus of state power, because it fundamentally created a new and higher type of state, which in embryo was the Paris Commune, which overthrew the old apparatus and put in its place the directly armed force of the masses, which replaced bourgeois-parliamentary democratism with the democratism of the working masses, with the exception of the exploiters, and systematically suppressed their resistance.

This is what the Russian revolution did during this period, this is why the small vanguard of the Russian revolution formed the impression that this triumphant course, this rapid procession of the Russian revolution, could count on further victory. And this was a mistake, because the period when the Russian revolution developed, transferring power in Russia from one class to another and overcoming class conciliation within the limits of one Russia, this period could historically exist only because the greatest giants of the predators of world imperialism were temporarily suspended in their offensive movement against the Soviet power. A revolution that overthrew the monarchy in a few days, exhausted all attempts at conciliation with the bourgeoisie in a few months, and defeated all resistance from the bourgeoisie in a few weeks in the civil war, such a revolution, a revolution of the socialist republic, could coexist among the imperialist powers, in an environment of world predators, alongside the beasts of international imperialism only insofar as the bourgeoisie, being in a death grip of struggle with each other, was paralyzed in its attack on Russia.

And then began the period that we have to feel so clearly and so painfully, the period of the most severe defeats, the most severe trials for the Russian revolution, the period when, instead of a rapid, direct, and open offensive against the enemies of the revolution, we have to experience the most severe defeats and retreat before a force immeasurably greater than our own, before the force of international imperialism and financial capital, before the force of military might that the entire bourgeoisie, with its modern technology, with all its organization, has united against us in the interests of plunder, oppression, and the strangulation of small nationalities; we had to think about balancing forces, we had to face an immeasurably difficult task, we had to see in direct clashes not an enemy like Romanov and like Kerensky, who cannot be taken seriously, we had to meet the forces of the international bourgeoisie in all its military-imperialist might, to face the world predators. And it is understandable that, in view of the delay in assistance from the international socialist proletariat, we had to take upon ourselves the clash with these forces and suffer the most severe defeat.

And this epoch is an epoch of heavy defeats, an epoch of retreats, an epoch when we must save at least a small part of the position, retreating before imperialism, waiting for the time when international conditions in general change, until those forces of the European proletariat that exist, that are maturing, that could not deal with their enemy as easily as we did, come to our aid, for it would be the greatest illusion and the greatest mistake to forget that it was easy for the Russian revolution to begin and difficult to take further steps. This was inevitably so, because we had to start with the most rotten, backward political system. The European revolution has to start with the bourgeoisie, has to deal with an enemy immeasurably more serious, in conditions immeasurably more difficult. It will be immeasurably more difficult for the European revolution to begin. We see that it is immeasurably more difficult for it to break the first breach in the system that oppresses it. It will be much easier for it to enter the second and third stages of its revolution. And it cannot be otherwise by virtue of the balance of power between the revolutionary and reactionary classes that exists at present in the international arena. This is the fundamental turning point that is constantly overlooked by people who look at the present situation, at the extraordinarily difficult situation of the revolution, not from a historical point of view, but from the point of view of feeling and indignation. And the experience of history tells us that always, in all revolutions, during such a period, when the revolution experienced a sharp turning point and a transition from rapid victories to a period of heavy defeats, there came a period of pseudo-revolutionary phraseology, which always brought the greatest harm to the development of the revolution. And so, comrades, only then, if we set ourselves the task of taking into account the turning point that has thrown us from rapid, easy, and complete victories to heavy defeats, only then will we be able to correctly assess our tactics. This question, an immeasurably difficult, immeasurably heavy question, which represents the result of a turning point in the development of the revolution at the present time, from easy victories within to extraordinarily heavy defeats from without, and a turning point in the entire international revolution, from the era of propaganda and agitation activity of the Russian revolution in the waiting position of imperialism, from that era to the offensive actions of imperialism against the Soviet power, poses the question especially heavily and especially sharply before the entire international West European movement. If we do not forget this historical moment, we will need to understand how the fundamental circle of Russia's interests has taken shape in the question of the present, most onerous, so-called shameful peace.

I have happened more than once in polemics against those who refused to accept the necessity of accepting this peace, I have happened more than once to encounter indications that the point of view of signing the peace supposedly expresses the interests only of tired peasant masses, declassed soldiers, and so on, and so forth. And I have always been surprised by such references and such indications at how comrades forget the class scale of national development, people who exclusively seek their own explanations. As if the party of the proletariat, taking power, did not calculate in advance that only the alliance of the proletariat and the semi-proletariat, i.e., the poorest peasantry, i.e., the majority of the peasantry of Russia, that only such an alliance is able to give power in Russia to the revolutionary power of the Soviets, the majority, the real majority of the people, that without this any attempt to establish power is meaningless, especially in difficult turning points of history. As if it were possible now to get rid of this truth recognized by all of us and to get by with a contemptuous mention of the tired state of the peasants and declassed soldiers. Regarding the tired state of the peasantry and declassed soldiers, we must say that the country will allow resistance, that the poorest peasantry can only go to resistance to the extent that this poorest peasantry is able to direct its forces to the struggle.

When we took power in October, it was clear that the course of events was inevitably coming to this, that the turn to Bolshevism of the Soviets meant a turn in the entire country, that the power of Bolshevism was inevitable. When we, aware of this, went to seize power in October, we told ourselves and the entire people quite clearly and distinctly that this was the transfer of power into the hands of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry, that the proletariat knows that the peasantry will support it, and in what, you yourselves know: in its active struggle for peace, in its readiness to continue the further struggle against large financial capital. We are not mistaken in this, and no one can, remaining at least somewhat within the limits of class forces and class relations, deviate from the undeniable truth that we cannot ask a small-peasant country, which has given so much both for the European and for the international revolution, to wage a struggle under the condition of that difficult and most difficult condition, when assistance from the West European proletariat is undoubtedly coming to us, this has been proven by facts, strikes, etc., but when this assistance, which is coming to us, is undoubtedly delayed. That is why I say that references of this kind to the fatigue of the peasant masses, etc., are simply the result of the absence of arguments and the complete helplessness of those who resort to these arguments, the complete absence in them of any possibility of encompassing all class relations as a whole, in their general scale, the revolution of the proletariat and the peasantry in its mass; only then, if we assess the balance of classes as a whole, all classes, at every sharp turning point in history, and do not choose individual examples and individual cases, only then do we feel ourselves standing firmly on the analysis of probable facts. I fully understand that the Russian bourgeoisie is now pushing us into a revolutionary war when it is completely impossible for us. This is required by the class interests of the bourgeoisie.

When they only shout: shameful peace, saying not a word about who brought the army to this state, I fully understand that this is the bourgeoisie with the Delo Naroda people, the Menshevik-Tseretelis, the Chernovs and their underlings (applause), I fully understand that this is the bourgeoisie shouting about revolutionary war. This is required by its class interests, this is required by its aspirations for the Soviet power to make a false move. This is understandable from people who, on the one hand, fill the pages of their newspapers with counter-revolutionary writings... (Voices: "They've closed them all down.") Not all of them yet, unfortunately, but we will close them all down. (Applause.) I would like to see the proletariat that would allow counter-revolutionaries, supporters of the bourgeoisie and conciliators with it, to continue to use the monopoly of wealth to stupefy the people with their bourgeois opium. There has never been such a proletariat. (Applause.)

I fully understand that a continuous howl, wail, and cry against the shameful peace is coming from the pages of such publications, I fully understand that people who, at the same time, from the Cadets to the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, meet the Germans during their offensive and solemnly say: here are the Germans, and let their officers walk around with epaulettes in areas occupied by the invasion of German imperialism, are in favor of this revolutionary war. Yes, I am not at all surprised by the preaching of revolutionary war from such bourgeois, from such conciliators. They want the Soviet power to fall into a trap. They have shown themselves, these bourgeois and these conciliators. We have seen them and see them alive, we know that in Ukraine there are Ukrainian Kerenskys, Ukrainian Chernovs, and Ukrainian Tseretelis, there they are, the gentlemen Vinnichenkos. These gentlemen, the Ukrainian Kerenskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis, hid from the people the peace that they concluded with the German imperialists, and now, with the help of German bayonets, they are trying to overthrow the Soviet power in Ukraine. This is what those bourgeois and those conciliators and their like-minded people have done. (Applause.) This is what these Ukrainian bourgeois and conciliators have done, whose example stands before us vividly, who have hidden and are hiding their secret treaties from the people, who are going against the Soviet power with German bayonets. This is what the Russian bourgeoisie wants, this is where the underlings of the bourgeoisie are pushing the Soviet power, consciously or unconsciously: they know that it cannot accept an imperialist war with a powerful imperialism right now. That is why only in this international situation, only in this general class situation, will we understand the full depth of the mistake of those who, like the party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, have allowed themselves to be carried away by a theory that is common in all histories of revolutions in difficult moments and consists half of despair, half of phraseology, when, instead of soberly looking at reality and assessing the tasks of the revolution in relation to internal and external enemies from the point of view of class forces, you are called upon to resolve a serious and most difficult question under the pressure of feeling, only from the point of view of feeling. The peace is incredibly difficult and shameful. I myself have happened more than once in my statements and in speeches to call it the Peace of Tilsit, which the conqueror Napoleon imposed on the Prussian and German peoples after a series of most severe defeats. Yes, this peace represents the most severe defeat and humiliates the Soviet power, but if you, proceeding from this, limiting yourself to this, appeal to feeling, arouse indignation, try to resolve the greatest historical question, you fall into the ridiculous and pathetic position in which the entire Socialist-Revolutionary party once was (applause), when in 1907, in a situation somewhat similar in certain features, it equally appealed to the feeling of a revolutionary, when, after the most severe defeat of our revolution in 1906 and 1907, Stolypin prescribed to us the laws on the Third Duma, the most shameful and most difficult conditions of work in one of the most vile representative institutions, when our party, after a slight hesitation within itself (there were more hesitations on this issue than now), resolved the question in such a way that we have no right to succumb to feeling, that, no matter how great our indignation and outrage against the most shameful Third Duma, we must recognize that this is not an accident, but a historical necessity of the developing class struggle, which no longer had enough strength, which will gather them even in these shameful conditions that were prescribed. We turned out to be right. Those who tried to be carried away by revolutionary phraseology, to be carried away by justice, insofar as it expressed a feeling that was thrice legitimate, those received a lesson that will not be forgotten by any thinking and reasoning revolutionary.

Revolutions do not go so smoothly as to ensure us a quick and easy rise. There has not been a single great revolution, even within national frameworks, that has not experienced a difficult period of defeats, and one cannot approach the serious question of mass movements, developing revolutions, in such a way that, declaring the peace shameful, humiliating, a revolutionary cannot reconcile himself to it; it is not enough to cite agitational phrases, to shower us with reproaches about this peace, this is the ABC of revolution, this is the obvious experience of all revolutions. Our experience since 1905, and if we are rich in anything, if thanks to anything the Russian working class and the poorest peasantry had to take on the most difficult and honorable role of beginning the international socialist revolution, it is precisely because the Russian people, thanks to a special confluence of historical circumstances, managed to carry out two great revolutions at the beginning of the 20th century, we must learn from the experience of these revolutions, we must be able to understand that only by taking into account the changes in the balance of class ties of one state with another can we establish for sure that we are not able to accept the battle now; we must reckon with this, tell ourselves: whatever the respite, however fragile, however short, difficult, and humiliating the peace, it is better than war, for it gives the popular masses the opportunity to breathe, because it gives the opportunity to correct what the bourgeoisie has done, which is now shouting everywhere where it has the opportunity to shout, especially under the protection of the Germans in the occupied areas. (Applause.)

The bourgeoisie is shouting that the Bolsheviks have disintegrated the army, that there is no army and the Bolsheviks are to blame for this, but let's look at the past, comrades, let's look, first of all, at the development of our revolution. Don't you know that the flight and disintegration of our army began long before the revolution, back in 1916, that anyone who saw the army must admit this? And what did our bourgeoisie do to prevent this? Isn't it clear that the only chance for salvation from the imperialists was then in its hands, that this chance presented itself in March-April, when the Soviet organizations could take power with a simple movement of the hand against the bourgeoisie? And if the Soviets had taken power then, if the bourgeois intelligentsia and the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, instead of helping Kerensky deceive the people, hide secret treaties, and lead the army into an offensive, if they had then come to the aid of the army, supplying it with weapons, food, forcing the bourgeoisie to help the fatherland with the assistance of the entire intelligentsia, not the fatherland of merchants, not the fatherland of treaties that help exterminate the people (applause), if the Soviets, forcing the bourgeoisie to help the fatherland of the working people, the workers, had helped the undressed, barefoot, hungry army, only then would we have, perhaps, a ten-month period, sufficient to give the army a breather and give unanimous support, so that it, without retreating a step from the front, would offer a universal democratic peace, tearing up the secret treaties, but would hold the front, without retreating a step. This was the chance for peace that the workers and peasants gave and approved. This is the tactics of defending the fatherland, not the fatherland of the Romanovs, Kerenskys, Chernovs, the fatherland with secret treaties, the fatherland of the venal bourgeoisie, but the fatherland of the working masses. This is who led to the fact that the transition from war to revolution and from the Russian revolution to international socialism is taking place with such severe trials. That is why such a proposal as a revolutionary war sounds like such an empty phrase when we know that we have no army, when we know that it was impossible to hold the army, and people familiar with the matter could not fail to see that our decree on demobilization was not invented, but that it is the result of obvious necessity, the simple impossibility of holding the army. It was impossible to hold the army. And that officer, not a Bolshevik, who said even before the October Revolution that the army could not and would not fight{49}, turned out to be right. This is what the months of trading with the bourgeoisie and all the talk about the need to continue the war led to; no matter how noble the feelings that dictated them on the part of many revolutionaries, or a few revolutionaries, they turned out to be empty revolutionary phrases, giving themselves up to the encroachments of international imperialism, so that it would rob as much and even more as it has already managed to do after our tactical or diplomatic mistake, after the non-signing of the Brest Treaty. When we said to the opponents of signing the peace: if the respite were at all long, you would understand that the interests of improving the army, the interests of the working masses, are above all else and that peace must be concluded for this, they asserted that there could be no respite.

But our revolution differed from all previous revolutions precisely in that it raised the thirst for construction and creativity in the masses, when the working masses in the most remote villages, humiliated, oppressed, oppressed by tsars, landlords, the bourgeoisie, rise up, and this period of revolution is completed only now, when the rural revolution takes place, which builds life in a new way. And for the sake of this respite, no matter how short and small it may be, we are obliged, if we put the interests of the working masses above the interests of the bourgeois warmongers who wave their sabers and call us to battle, we were obliged to sign this treaty. This is what the revolution teaches. The revolution teaches that when we make diplomatic mistakes, when we assume that the German workers will come to our aid tomorrow, hoping that Liebknecht will win now (and we know that one way or another Liebknecht will win, this is inevitable in the development of the workers' movement (applause)), this means that, in enthusiasm, revolutionary slogans of the difficult socialist movement turn into a phrase. And no representative of the working people, no honest worker, will refuse to make the greatest sacrifice to help the socialist movement in Germany, because during all this time at the front he has learned to distinguish between the German imperialists and the soldiers exhausted by German discipline, for the most part sympathetic to us. That is why I say that the Russian revolution has practically corrected our mistake, corrected it with this respite. In all likelihood, it will be very short, but we have the opportunity for at least the shortest respite, so that the army, which is exhausted, starved, becomes aware that it has received the opportunity to rest. It is clear to us that the period of the old imperialist wars has ended and new horrors of the beginning of new wars threaten, but periods of such wars have been in many historical epochs, and they acquired the greatest aggravation before their end. And this needs to be understood not only at rallies in Petrograd and Moscow; it needs to be understood in the villages by many tens of millions, so that the most enlightened part of the village, which has returned from the front and has experienced all the horrors of the war, helps to understand this, and the vast mass of peasants and workers becomes convinced of the necessity of a revolutionary front and says that we did the right thing.

We are told that we have betrayed Ukraine and Finland, oh, what a shame! But such a situation has arisen that we are cut off from Finland, with which we previously concluded a tacit agreement before the revolution and have now concluded a formal one{50}. They say that we are giving up Ukraine, which Chernov, Kerensky, and Tsereteli are going to destroy; we are told: traitors, you have betrayed Ukraine! I say: comrades, I have seen enough in the history of the revolution to be confused by the hostile views and cries of people who give themselves up to feeling and cannot reason. I will give you a simple example. Imagine that two friends are walking at night, and suddenly ten people attack them. If these scoundrels cut off one of them, what is left for the other? He cannot rush to help; if he rushes to run away, is he a traitor?[17] And imagine that we are not talking about individuals or areas in which questions of immediate feeling are decided, but five armies of one hundred thousand people meet, which surround an army of two hundred thousand people, and another army must go to its aid. But if this army knows that it will surely fall into a trap, it must retreat; it cannot but retreat, even if it is necessary to sign a shameful, filthy peace to cover the retreat, curse it as you like, but it is still necessary to sign it. One cannot reckon with the feeling of a duelist who takes out his sword and says that I must die because I am forced to conclude a humiliating peace. But we all know that no matter how you decide, we have no army, and no gestures will save us from the need to retreat and buy time so that the army can breathe, and everyone who looks at reality, and does not deceive himself with revolutionary phraseology, will agree with this. Everyone who looks at reality, without deceiving himself with phrases and swagger, must know this.

If we know this, it is our revolutionary duty to sign, albeit a difficult, arch-difficult, and violent treaty, for by this we will achieve a better position both for us and for our allies. Have we lost anything by signing the peace treaty on March 3? Anyone who wishes to look at things from the point of view of mass relations, and not from the point of view of a nobleman-duelist, will understand that, not having an army or having a sick remnant of an army, to accept war, to call this war revolutionary, is self-deception, is the greatest deception of the people. Our duty is to tell the truth to the people: yes, the peace is most difficult, Ukraine and Finland are perishing, but we must go for this peace, and all conscious working Russia will go for it, because it knows the unvarnished truth, it knows what war is, it knows that to put everything at stake, reckoning on the fact that the German revolution will break out now, is self-deception. By signing the peace, we received what our Finnish friends received from us, a respite, help, and not death.

I know examples in the history of peoples when a much more violent peace was signed, when this peace gave viable peoples to the mercy of the victor. Let us compare this our peace with the Peace of Tilsit; the Peace of Tilsit was imposed by the victorious conqueror of Prussia and Germany. This peace was so difficult that not only were all the capitals of all the German states captured, not only were the Prussians thrown back to Tilsit, which is equivalent to throwing us back to Omsk or Tomsk. Moreover, the greatest horror was that Napoleon forced the defeated peoples to give auxiliary troops for his wars, and when, nevertheless, the situation developed in such a way that the German peoples had to endure the onslaught of the conqueror, when the era of revolutionary wars of France was replaced by the era of imperialist wars of conquest, then what those carried away by phraseology do not want to understand, who portray the signing of the peace as a fall, became clear. From the point of view of a nobleman-duelist, this psychology is understandable, but not from the point of view of a worker and a peasant. The latter has gone through a difficult school of war, and he has learned to count. There have been trials even more difficult, and peoples more backward have emerged from them. A peace even more difficult has been concluded, and concluded by the Germans in an era when they had no army, or their army was sick, as our army is sick. They concluded the most difficult peace with Napoleon. And this peace was not the fall of Germany, on the contrary, it was a turning point, national defense and rise. And we are on the eve of such a turning point, and we are experiencing analogous conditions. We must look the truth in the face and drive away phraseology and declamation. We must say that if this is necessary, then peace must be concluded. A war of liberation, a class war, a people's war will take the place of the Napoleonic war. The system of Napoleonic wars will change, peace will replace war, war will replace peace, and from each new most difficult peace there has always flowed a broader preparation for war. The most difficult of the peace treaties, the Peace of Tilsit, went down in history as a turning point to the time when the German people began to turn, when they retreated to Tilsit, to Russia, but in fact they were buying time, waiting for the international situation that had allowed Napoleon, the same robber as Hohenzollern, Hindenburg now, to triumph for a time, until this situation changed, until the consciousness of the German people, exhausted by ten years of Napoleonic wars and defeats, was healed, and until he was resurrected to a new life. This is what history teaches us, this is why all despair and phraseology are criminal, this is why everyone will say: yes, the old imperialist wars are ending. The historical turning point has arrived.

Since October, our revolution has been a continuous triumph, and now long and difficult times have begun, we do not know how long, but we know that this is a long and difficult period of defeats and retreats, because such is the balance of power, because by retreating we will give the people a rest. We will give the opportunity for every worker and peasant to understand the truth that will give him the opportunity to understand that new wars of imperialist-predators against oppressed peoples are coming, when the worker and peasant will understand that we must stand up to defend the fatherland, for we have become defenders since October. Since October 25, we have openly said that we are for the defense of the fatherland, for we have this fatherland, from which we have expelled the Kerenskys and Chernovs, for we have destroyed the secret treaties, we have suppressed the bourgeoisie, so far badly, but we will learn to do it better.

Comrades, there is an even more important difference between the state of the Russian people, who have suffered the most severe defeats from the conquerors of Germany, and the German people, there is a greatest difference, which must be said, although I spoke about it briefly in the previous part of my speech. Comrades, when the German people, more than a hundred years ago, fell into a period of the most severe wars of conquest, into a period when they had to retreat and sign one shameful peace after another, before the German people woke up, then the matter stood thus, the German people were only weak and backward, only that. Against it stood not only the military force and power of the conqueror Napoleon, against it stood a country that was above it in revolutionary and political terms, above Germany in all respects, which had risen immeasurably above other countries, which had said the last word. It was immeasurably higher than the people who languished in subordination to the imperialists and landlords. The people, who were, I repeat, only a weak and backward people, managed to learn from the bitter lessons and rise up. We are in a better position: we are not only a weak and not only a backward people, we are the people who managed, not thanks to special merits or historical predestinations, but thanks to a special confluence of historical circumstances, to take upon ourselves the honor of raising the banner of the international socialist revolution. (Applause.)

I know perfectly well, comrades, and I have said directly more than once, that this banner is in weak hands, and the workers of the most backward country will not hold it until the workers of all advanced countries come to their aid. The socialist transformations that we have carried out, they are in many ways imperfect, weak, and insufficient: they will be an indication to the West European advanced workers, who will say to themselves: "the Russians did not start the matter that needed to be started in that way," but the important thing is that our people in relation to the German people are not only a weak and not only a backward people, but a people who have raised the banner of revolution. If the bourgeoisie of any country fills all the columns of its publications with slanders against the Bolsheviks, if in this respect the voices of the press of the imperialists of France, England, Germany, etc., merge, reviling the Bolsheviks, then there is not a single country where it would be possible to gather a meeting of workers and where the names and slogans of our socialist power would cause outbursts of indignation. (Voice: "Lie.") No, not a lie, but the truth, and anyone who has been to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and America in recent months will tell you that this is not a lie, but the truth, that the greatest enthusiasm is met among the workers by the names and slogans of the representatives of the Soviet power in Russia, that, contrary to all the lies of the bourgeoisie of Germany, France, etc., the working masses have understood that no matter how weak we are, their cause is being done here, in Russia. Yes, our people must bear the most difficult burden that they have taken upon themselves, but the people who have managed to create the Soviet power cannot perish. And I repeat: no conscious socialist, no worker thinking about the history of the revolution, can dispute the fact that, with all the shortcomings of the Soviet power, which I know too well and appreciate perfectly, that the Soviet power is the highest type of state, a direct continuation of the Paris Commune. It has risen a step ahead of the other European revolutions, and therefore we are not in such difficult conditions as the German people were a hundred years ago; a change in this respect in the balance of power between the robbers and the use of the conflict and the satisfaction of the demands of the robber Napoleon, the robber Alexander I, the robbers of the English monarchy, only this remained then as the only chance, oppressed by serfdom, and yet the German people did not fall from the Peace of Tilsit. And we, I repeat, are in better conditions, since we have the greatest ally in all West European countries, the international socialist proletariat, which is with us, no matter what our opponents say. (Applause.) Yes, it is not easy for this ally to raise its voice, as it was not easy for us to do this until the end of February 1917. This ally lives underground, in the conditions of a military-penal prison, into which all imperialist countries have been turned, but it knows us and understands our cause; it is difficult for it to move to our aid, therefore, the Soviet troops need a lot of time and a lot of patience and severe trials to wait for that time, we will save the slightest chances to delay the time, for time is working for us. Our cause is getting stronger, the forces of the imperialists are weakening, and, whatever the trials and defeats from the "Tilsit" peace,