Leon Trotsky

At Brest-Litovsk
(May 1918)
TIA Editor’s Note:
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was negotiated with
the Central Powers by Bolshevik War Commissar
Leon Trotsky. The Treaty, which saw Russia
withdraw from the war, was concluded on terms that
were very unfavorable to the Bolshevik government
which agreed to cede what are now Poland, the
Baltic states and Belarus to Germany and Austria-
Hungary and certain southern territories to the
Ottoman Empire. Russia also agreed to recognize the
independence of Finland and Ukraine. In this
speech, Trotsky explains the need for Russia to
withdraw from the war, the negotiations that led to
the treaty and Bolshevik perspectives following its
implementation.

The Soviet Government of Russia must now not only

build anew, but it must also close up the old
accounts and up to a certain and rather high degree,
pay the old debts: first, those of the war which has
lasted three and a half years. This war furnished the
touchstone of the economic strength of the warring
countries. The fate of Russia, a poor and backward
country, was, in a war of long duration, a foregone
conclusion. In the mighty collisions of war apparatus
the decision lay, in the last analysis, in the capacity
of the country to adapt its industries to the needs of
war, to transform the same in the shortest possible
time and replace, in ever growing volume, engines of
destruction that were used up with such rapidity in
the course of this general butchery. Every country or
almost every country, even the most backward, could
at beginning of the war be in possession of the
mightiest engines of destruction – or could import
them. That was the case with all backward countries;
even so in Russia. But war eats up quickly its dead
capital and requires constant renewal. The war
capacity of each and every country drawn into this
world massacre could in truth be measured by its
capacity to create anew and during the war cannons,
projectiles and other war material.

Had the war solved the problem of the relative

relation of forces in a very short time, then it would
have been possible, theoretically at least, for Russia
to maintain behind the trenches the position that
might have meant victory. But the war dragged on
too long. And that was not due to accident. The fact
that international diplomacy had for the last fifty
years worked in the direction of creating a so-called
European ‘balance of power’, that is to say, a
condition wherein the opposing forces were to be
about evenly balanced, that fact alone – considered
in the light of the power and wealth possessed by the
modern bourgeois nations – would give the war a
long-drawn-out character. And that, on the other
hand, meant the exhaustion of such countries as
were weaker, and, in an economic sense, less
developed.

The strongest, in a military sense, proved to be

Germany, due to the power of its industries and due
also to the modest rational character of these
industries side by side with a time-worn,
anachronistic political system. It was shown that
France, largely because of its petty bourgeois
economy, had fallen behind Germany, and even so
powerful a colonial empire as England, because of
the more conservative and routine character of its
industries, proved to be weaker in comparison with
Germany. When history placed the Russian
Revolution face to face with the question of
negotiating peace we were not in doubt that we
would have to settle the bill for the three and a half
years of war – unless the power of the international
revolutionary proletariat should decisively upset all
calculations. We did not doubt that in German
Imperialism we had to deal with an opponent
thoroughly saturated with the consciousness of his
colonial power, a power which in the course of this
war, has come so plainly to the fore.

All those arguments of bourgeois cliques, to the

effect that we would have been much stronger had
we concluded the negotiations together with our
allies for an indefinite time we should, above all
things, have been able to continue the war in
conjunction with them; but, as our country was
weakened and exhausted, it was the continuation,
not the termination of the war, that would have
further weakened and exhausted it. And thus we
would have been forced to quit sooner or later under
conditions still more unfavourable to us. If,
therefore, we stand today a weakened country, face
to face with world imperialism, we surely have not
been weakened because we have torn ourselves out
of the fiery ring of war and out of the embrace of
international war obligations – no, we have been
weakened by the policies of Czarism and of the
bourgeois classes, those policies which we have
fought as a revolutionary party – before the war and
during the war.

Do you remember, comrades, under what

circumstances our delegation went direct from a
session of the Third All-Russian Soviet Congress to
Brest-Litovsk? At that time we rendered to you a
report as to the state of negotiations and the
demands of the enemy. These demands, as you will
recollect, ran along the line of masked, or rather
half-masked annexationist desires, an annexation of
Lithuania, Courland, a part of Livonia, the islands of
the Moon Sound, as well as a half-veiled
contribution which, at that time, we estimated at
from 6 to 8 and even 10 billion rubles. During a
pause in the negotiations, which lasted about ten
days, there developed in Austria a tremendous
ferment and labour strikes broke forth. These strikes
signified the first recognition of our method of
conducting the peace negotiations, the first
recognition we received from the proletariat of the
central powers about the annexationist demands of
German militarism. As against that, how silly appear
the claims of the bourgeois press that we had
required two months to negotiate with Kuhlmann in
order to find out that German Imperialism was
imposing robber conditions. No, we knew that from
the very start. By means of the “pourparlers” with
the representatives of German Imperialism, we
endeavoured to find a means to strengthen those
forces that oppose German Imperialism. We did not
promise to perform miracles but we claimed that the
road we were following was the only road left to a
revolutionary democracy to secure for itself the
possibility of future development.

Complaint might be made that the proletariat of

other countries, more especially that of the Central
Powers, moved too slowly along the road of the
revolutionary struggle – true enough. The tempo of
its development must be considered altogether too
slow – but, nevertheless, in Austria-Hungary a
movement began that spread over the entire country
and which was a different echo of the Brest-Litovsk
negotiations.

When I left here, we were saying that we had no

reason to suppose that this strike wave would wash
away the militarism of Austria and Germany. Had
we been so convinced we would, of course, gladly
have made the promise that certain persons
expected we should make, namely, that under no
circumstances would we make a separate peace with
Germany. I said then that we could not make such a
promise. That would have meant to assume the task
of overcoming German militarism. We do not
possess the secret of accomplishing such a victory.
And since we could not obligate ourselves to change
in a short time the relative position of international
forces, we declared, openly and honestly, that a
revolutionary government may under certain
conditions be compelled to accept the annexationist
peace. The decline of such a government would have
to begin at the moment it would try to hide before its
own people the predatory character of such a peace
– not because it might be compelled, in the course of
such a struggle, to accept such a peace.
 At the same time, we pointed out that we were
going to Brest-Litovsk for the continuance of the
peace negotiations under conditions which were
becoming better for ourselves but worse for our
enemies. We observed the movement in Austria-
Hungary and there was much to indicate – for that is
what the Social Democratic deputies in the Reichstag
had reference to – that Germany too was on the eve
of such events. Filled with this hope, we departed.
And even during the first days of our nest stay at
Brest, a radiogram via Vilna brought us the first
news that in Berlin a tremendous strike movement
had broken out, which, just as that of Austria-
Hungary, was directly connected with the conduct of
the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. But, as is often the
case in accordance with the dialectics of the class
struggle, the very dimensions of this proletarian
movement – never seen in Germany before –
compelled a closing of the ranks of the propertied
classes and forced them to ever greater implacability.
The German ruling class is saturated with a
sufficiently strong instinct of self-preservation to
realize clearly that any concessions made under the
conditions it found itself in and pressed by the
masses of its own people – that any, even partial,
concessions would spell capitulation to the spirit of
the revolution. And it was for this reason that
Kuhlmann, during the first period of uncertainty,
purposely delayed negotiations, either by not
holding any sessions at all or by wasting time, when
they were held, with purely secondary and formal
questions. But as soon as the strike was liquidated,
when he knew that his masters were no longer in
danger of their lives, he again assumed the tone of
complete self-possession and redoubled
aggressiveness.

Our negotiations were complicated by the

participation of the Kiev Rada. [1] We did not report
this last time. The delegation of the Kiev Rada
appeared at the moment when the Rada did not have
in the Ukraine a fairly strong organization and when
the outcome of the struggle could not yet be foretold.
At this very movement we made to the Rada an
official proposition to enter with us into an
agreement and, as the foremost condition of such an
agreement, we stipulated: that this Rada declare
Kaledin and Kornilov counter-revolutionists and
that it should not hinder us in fighting both. The
delegation of the Kiev Rada arrived at Brest at a time
when we hoped to attain our agreement with them
and with the enemy. We declared to them that, so
long as they were recognized by the people of the
Ukraine, we regarded it as possible to admit them as
independent participants in the negotiations. But the
more events developed in Russia and the Ukraine,
the more the antagonism between the people of the
Ukraine and the Rada became manifest, all the
greater issues became the willingness of the Rada to
close with the Governments of the Central Powers
the first Brest treaty of peace, and if need be, to
enlist the services of German militarism for purposes
of intervention to the internal affairs of the Russian
Republic in order to sustain the Rada against the
Russian Revolution.

On February 9, we learned that the negotiations

carried on behind our backs between the Rada and
the Central Powers had led to the signing of a peace
treaty. February 9 is the birthday of King Leopold of
Bavaria and, as is customary in monarchial
countries, the consummation of the solemn, historic
act – whether with the consent of the Kiev Rada, I do
not know – had been set for that day. General
Hoffmann fired the salute in honour of Leopold of
Bavaria – after he had asked the consent of the Kiev
delegation, because, after the signing of the Peace
Treaty, Brest-Litovsk passed over to the Ukraine.
Events, however, took such a course that when
General Hoffmann asked the Kiev Rada’s permission
to fire the salute, the Rada, granting them Brest-
Litovsk, did not have much more of a territory left.
Upon the strength of dispatches received from
Petrograd, we informed the delegations of the
Central Powers, officially, that the Kiev Rada no
longer existed – a circumstance not without serious
bearing upon the further course of peace
negotiations.
 We proposed to Count Czernin that he send
representatives to the Ukraine, accompanied by our
officers, so as to convince himself whether the “party
of the second part” – the Kiev Rada – did or did not
exist. It looked as though Czernin was willing to
acquiesce: but when we submitted to him the
question: does this mean that the treaty with the
Kiev delegation will not be signed until your
representatives return? – he was overcome by doubt
and offered to inquire of Kuhlmann. After such
inquiry he transmitted to us a negative answer. That
was on February 8 – on February 9 they had to have
a signed treaty: that permitted no delay. Not only
because of the birthday of King Leopold of Bavaria
but for a much weightier reason which Kuhlmann
had doubtlessly made clear to Czernin: “If we now
send our representatives to the Ukraine, they may
find, indeed, that the Rada no longer exists, in which
case we would have to deal with an All-Russian
delegation and that would make worse our chances
in the negotiations.” The Austrian delegation told us:
“Abandon the position of pure principle, put the
question on a practicable basis and then the German
delegation will be reasonable ... It is not possible for
Germany to continue the war for the sake of the
Moon Sound Islands if you present your demand in
concrete form.

We answered: “Very well, we are willing to test the

conciliatoriness of your colleagues of the German
delegation. Thus far we have negotiated about the
right of self-determination of the Lithuanians, Poles,
Livonians, Letts, Estonians and others, and we
ascertained that with all these there was no room for
self-determination. Now we want to see what is your
attitude towards the self-determination of still
another people, that of Russia, and what are your
intentions and plans of military-strategic character
hidden behind your occupation of the Moon Sound
Islands. For the Moon Sound Islands, as part of the
independent Estonian republic or as the property of
the federated Russian Republic, have a defensive
importance. In the hands of Germany, however, they
assume an offensive value and will menace the very
life centre of our country and, more especially, of
Petrograd.” But General Hoffmann was unwilling to
make the slightest concession.

Then came the hour of decision. We could not

declare war. We were too weak. The army had lost
internal cohesion. For the salvation of our country
and in order to overcome the process of
disintegration, we were forced to re-establish the
inner connection of the working-masses. This
psychological bond can be created by way of
common productive effort in the fields, in the
factories, and in the workshops. We must bring the
working masses, so long subjected to the terrible
sufferings and catastrophe trials of the war, back to
their acres and factories where they can again find
themselves in their labour and enable us to build up
internal discipline. This is the only way out for a
country that must now do penance for the sins of
Czarism and of the bourgeoisie. We are forced to
give up this war and to lead the army out of this
slaughter. But we do declare at the same time and in
the face of German militarism: the peace you have
forced upon us is a peace of force and robbery. We
shall not permit that you, diplomatic gentlemen, can
say to the German workers: “You have called our
demands conquests and annexations, but see: we
bring to you, under these same demands, the
signature of the Russian Revolution!” – Yes, we are
weak; we can not now conduct a war, but we possess
sufficient revolutionary force to prove that we shall
not, voluntarily, place our signatures under a treaty
that you write with your sword upon the bodies of
living people. We refused our signatures! – I believe,
comrades, that we acted rightly.

Comrades! I shall not claim that an attack upon us

by Germany is impossible – such an assertion would
be too risky if we visualize the power of the
imperialist party in Germany. I believe, however,
that the position we have taken in this question has
made attack more difficult for German militarism.
But if Germany does attack nevertheless? As regards
that, all we can say is this: If in our country,
exhausted and in desperate condition that we are, it
is possible to spur the courage of the revolutionary
and vital elements, if with us the struggle for the
protection of our Revolution and of the arena of the
Revolution is possible – then it is so only because of
the situation that has now been created, possible as
the result of our exit form the war and our refusal to
sign the treaty of peace.