Brest peace was signed between. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
October 26, 1917 II All-Russian Congress of Soviets at the suggestion of V.I. adopted the famous "Decree on Peace", which outlined the program for Russia's withdrawal from the First World War. In particular, this document contained a proposal to all the governments of the belligerent countries to immediately stop hostilities on all fronts and begin negotiations on the conclusion of a general democratic peace without annexations and indemnities and on conditions of complete self-determination of the peoples regarding their future fate.
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In Soviet historiography (A. Chubaryan, K. Gusev, G. Nikolnikov, N. Yakupov, A. Bovin), the “Decree on Peace” was traditionally considered as the first and important stage in the formation and development of the “Leninist peace-loving foreign policy of the Soviet state”, based on the cornerstone principle of the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. In reality, Lenin's "Decree on Peace" could in no way lay the foundations for a new foreign policy doctrine of Soviet Russia, because:
He pursued a purely pragmatic goal - the withdrawal of dilapidated and exhausted Russia from the state of war;
The Bolsheviks considered the revolution in Russia not as an end in itself, but as the first and inevitable stage in the beginning of the world proletarian (socialist) revolution.
November 8 People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs L.D. Trotsky sent the text of the "Decree on Peace" to the ambassadors of all the allied powers, inviting the leaders of these states to immediately stop hostilities at the front and sit down at the negotiating table, but this call was completely ignored by the Entente countries. November 9, 1917 to the commander-in-chief N.N. Dukhonin was instructed to immediately contact the command of the countries Quadruple block with a proposal to end hostilities and start peace negotiations with them. General N.N. Dukhonin refused to comply with this order, for which he was immediately declared an "enemy of the people" and removed from his post, which was taken by ensign N.V. Krylenko. A little later, upon the arrival of N.V. Krylenko to Mogilev, General N.N. Dukhonin was first arrested and then killed at the staff car by drunken sailors, and the new Commander-in-Chief immediately followed the instructions of the Central Committee on this issue.
On November 14, 1917, representatives of the German and Austro-Hungarian military leadership informed the Soviet side of their agreement to stop hostilities on the Eastern Front and begin the process of peace negotiations. On November 20, 1917, the first round of negotiations between Russia and the countries of the Quadruple Bloc began in Brest-Litovsk, at which the leadership of the Soviet delegation represented by A.A. Ioffe (chairman of the mission), L.B. Kameneva, G.Ya. Sokolnikov and L.M. Karakhan immediately announced a declaration of principles, in which they again proposed to conclude a democratic peace treaty without annexations and indemnities. Having received no response to their proposal, the Soviet side refused to conclude a formal truce and took a week-long time-out.
On November 27, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR approved the "Outline of the peace talks program", compiled by V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin and L.B. Kamenev, in which the idea of concluding a general democratic peace was reaffirmed, and three days later the negotiation process resumed in Brest-Litovsk. The result of new negotiations was the signing on December 2, 1917 of an armistice agreement for a period of one month, until January 1, 1918.
On December 9, 1917, a new round of negotiations began, in which the head of the Soviet delegation, A.A. Ioffe announced the declaration "On the principles of universal democratic peace", consisting of six main points. In this declaration, based on the main provisions of the Peace Decree and the Outline of the Peace Negotiation Program, the main components of a democratic peace were once again concretized: "refusal of annexations and indemnities" And "complete self-determination of peoples".
On December 12, 1917, the Austrian Foreign Minister O. Chernin announced a response note to the Soviet side, which stated that the countries of the Quadruple Bloc agreed to immediately conclude a peace treaty with all Entente countries without annexations and indemnities. But for the Soviet delegation, this turn of events was so unexpected that its head, A.A. Ioffe suggested a ten-day break. The opposing side rejected this proposal, and three days later the head of the German delegation, Richard von Kuhlmann, who, by the way, while holding the post of State Secretary (Minister) of Foreign Affairs, was personally involved in the financial support of the Bolshevik Pravda, directly laid claim to the possession of all of Poland, Lithuania , Courland, part of Estonia and Livonia, whose peoples "they themselves expressed a desire to come under the protection of Germany." Naturally, the Soviet delegation categorically refused to discuss this proposal, and a break was announced in the work of the peace conference.
People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs L.D. Trotsky once again tried to give the peace talks a general character and addressed with a repeated note to the governments of the Entente countries to sit down at the negotiating table, but he did not receive an answer to his message. In this situation, fearing that the negotiations in Brest would take on an openly separate character, at the suggestion of V.I. Lenin, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR decided to move the peace talks to the capital of neutral Sweden, the city of Stockholm. The Austro-German side rejected this trick of the Soviet government, and Brest-Litovsk remained the place to continue negotiations. At the same time, representatives of the countries of the Quadruple Alliance, referring to the fact that the Entente countries remained deaf to the proposal to conclude a "general democratic peace", abandoned their own declaration on December 12, which seriously aggravated the negotiation process itself.
On December 27, 1917, the second round of the peace conference in Brest-Litovsk began, at which the Soviet delegation was already headed by People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs L.D. Trotsky. A new round of negotiations, at the suggestion of the oracle of the revolution, began with an empty theoretical dispute about the state and the right of nations to self-determination. This political chatter, which had become rather annoying for the opposing side, was soon stopped, and on January 5, 1918, the delegation of the countries of the Quadruple Union in an ultimatum presented the Soviet side with new conditions for a separate peace - the rejection from Russia not only of the entire Baltic region and Poland, but also of a significant part of Belarus.
On the same day, at the suggestion of the head of the Soviet delegation, a break was announced in the negotiations. L.D. Trotsky, having received a letter from V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin, was forced to urgently leave for Petrograd, where he had to give his explanations about his new position regarding the further conduct of negotiations, which he outlined in a letter addressed to V.I. Lenin on January 2, 1918. The essence of the new position of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs was extremely simple: “We stop the war, we demobilize the army, but we don’t sign peace.” In the Soviet historical science position L.D. Trotsky has always been interpreted in derogatory tones and expressions as the position of a "political prostitute" and a traitor to the interests of the working class and the working peasantry. In reality, this position, which was initially supported by V.I. Lenin, was absolutely logical and extremely pragmatic:
1) Since the Russian army cannot, and most importantly, does not want to fight, it is necessary to completely disband the old imperial army, and stop fighting at the front.
2) Since the opposing side is categorically in favor of a separate peace treaty, which threatens the Bolsheviks with a loss of reputation in the eyes of the world proletariat, a separate treaty with the enemy should by no means be concluded.
3) It is necessary to drag out the negotiating process as long as possible, in the hope that in Germany and other European powers the fire of the world proletarian revolution will flare up in the near future, which will put everything in its place.
4) Refusal to sign a separate treaty with the countries of the Quadruple Alliance will not formally give the Entente countries a reason to launch military intervention against Soviet Russia, which has violated its allied duty.
5) Finally, the refusal to sign a peace treaty will significantly smooth out the contradictions that have already arisen both within the ruling Bolshevik party and in relations between the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs.
By mid-January 1918, the latter circumstance began to acquire paramount importance. At this time, the “left communists” headed by N.I. Bukharin, F.E. Dzerzhinsky, M.S. Uritsky, K.B. Radek and A.M. Kollontai. This rather noisy and influential faction of the Bolsheviks, which was supported by a number of leaders of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party (B.D. Kamkov, P.P. Proshyan), categorically opposed any agreements with the enemy and declared that only a “revolutionary war” with the German imperialism will save the Bolsheviks from the universal disgrace of the accomplices of world capital and create the necessary conditions to kindle the fire of the world proletarian revolution. Moreover, at this time B.D. Kamkov and P.P. Proshyan turned to K.B. Radek, N.I. Bukharin and G.L. Pyatakov with a proposal to arrest the entire Council of People's Commissars headed by V.I. Lenin and form a new government consisting of Left Social Revolutionaries and Left Communists, which could be headed by Georgy Leonidovich Pyatakov, but this proposal was rejected by them.
In the meantime, another principled approach to solving this problem was outlined in the party leadership, which was expressed by V.I. Lenin. The essence of his new position, which he reached at the end of December 1917, was also extremely simple: to conclude a separate peace with Germany and its allies at any cost.
In historical science, the question of the motives that prompted the leader of the revolution to such a political conclusion, which ran counter to all the postulates of orthodox Marxism, has long been discussed.
Soviet historians (A. Chubaryan, K. Gusev, A. Bovin) claimed that V.I. Lenin came to this conviction under the pressure of harsh objective circumstances, namely the complete disintegration of the old Russian army and the uncertainty about the timing of the proletarian revolution in Europe, primarily in Germany itself.
Their opponents, mainly from the liberal camp (D. Volkogonov, Yu. Felshtinsky, O. Budnitsky), are sure that, while advocating extremely harshly for the conclusion of a separate peace with Germany, V.I. Lenin only fulfilled his obligations to his German sponsors, who generously forked out for the October Revolution.
On January 8, 1918, after discussing the new Leninist theses at an enlarged meeting of the Central Committee, an open vote was held, which clearly showed the alignment of forces in the top party leadership: the position of N.I. Bukharin was supported by 32 participants in this meeting, for L.D. Trotsky was voted by 16 participants, and the position of V.I. Lenin was supported by only 15 members of the Central Committee. On January 11, 1918, the discussion of this issue was submitted to the Plenum of the Central Committee, where the position of L.D. was supported by a small majority. Trotsky. This situation forced V.I. Lenin to make partial adjustments to his previous position: no longer insisting on the immediate conclusion of peace, he proposed to delay the process of negotiations with the Germans in every possible way. The next day, the Trotskyist slogan "no war, no peace" was approved by a majority vote at a joint meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and the PLSR, which was immediately formalized as a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. Thus, all supporters of peace in both ruling parties, in particular members of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) V.I. Lenin, G.E. Zinoviev, I.V. Stalin, Ya.M. Sverdlov, G.Ya. Sokolnikov, I.T. Smilga, A.F. Sergeev, M.K. Muranov and E.D. Stasov, and members of the Central Committee of the PLSR M.A. Spiridonova, A.L. Kolegaev, V.E. Trutovsky, B.F. Malkin and A.A. Bidenko again remained in the minority. On January 14, 1918, the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved a resolution reflecting the position of L.D. Trotsky, and on the same day the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs left for Brest-Litovsk, where on January 17 the third round of peace negotiations began.
Meanwhile, in Brest itself, negotiations were in full swing between Austro-German representatives and the leadership of the Ukrainian People's Rada (N.A. Lyublinsky), whose government the Bolsheviks recognized back in December 1917. On January 27, 1918, immediately after the signing of a separate treaty with the government of the Ukrainian People's We are glad that the delegation of the Quadruple Alliance in an ultimatum demanded that the Soviet side immediately respond to its terms of the peace treaty.
The next day, L.D. Trotsky, on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, announced a declaration in which:
1) it was announced the termination of the state of war between Russia and the countries of the Quadruple Bloc - Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, as well as the complete demobilization of the old Russian army;
In Soviet historiography (A. Chubaryan, K. Gusev), this ultimatum of the head of the Soviet delegation was always regarded as another act of vile betrayal on the part of the “Jewish Trotsky”, who violated the oral agreement with V.I. Lenin that after the new "German ultimatum we sign a peace treaty."
Modern Russian historians, including outspoken apologists L.D. Trotsky (A. Pantsov), they say that the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs acted in strict accordance with the decision of the Central Committee of both ruling parties and the resolution of the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and their oral agreement with V.I. Lenin clearly contradicted them.
February 14, 1918 declaration by L.D. Trotsky received official support at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and its chairman Ya.M. Sverdlov, and a day later the German command in the person of Leopold of Bavaria and Max Hoffmann announced the end of the truce and the resumption of hostilities along the entire front from noon on February 18. In this situation, on the evening of February 17, 1918, an emergency meeting of the Central Committee was convened, at which six of the eleven members of the highest party Areopagus, namely L.D. Trotsky, N.I. Bukharin, M.S. Uritsky, G.I. Lomov, N.N. Krestinsky, A.A. Ioffe, spoke out against the resumption of the negotiation process in Brest.
The Germans launched an offensive at the front and by the end of February 19 occupied Polotsk and Dvinsk. In this critical situation at a new meeting of the Central Committee, with seven votes in favor, it was decided to immediately resume the peace process. In this situation, L.D. Trotsky announced his resignation from the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and the leader of the left communists N.I. Bukharin - about his withdrawal from the Central Committee and the editorial board of Pravda.
On February 23, 1918, the Soviet government was presented with new conditions for a separate peace treaty and a very strict framework for signing and ratifying it. In particular, the German side demanded that all of Poland, Lithuania, Courland, Estonia and part of Belarus be torn away from Russia, as well as the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from the territory of Finland and Ukraine, and the signing of a similar peace treaty with the government of the Central Rada.
On the same day, a new meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) was convened, at which the votes on the German ultimatum were distributed as follows: seven members of the Central Committee voted “for” its adoption - V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin, G.E. Zinoviev, Ya.M. Sverdlov, G.Ya. Sokolnikov, I.T. Smilga and E.D. Stasova, "against" - four members of the highest party Areopagus - N.I. Bukharin, A.S. Bubnov, G.I. Lomov and M.S. Uritsky, and "abstained" - also four members of the Central Committee - L.D. Trotsky, F.E. Dzerzhinsky, A.A. Ioffe and N.N. Krestinsky. Thus, at the most critical moment, when the issue of retaining one's own power was being decided, the majority of the members of the Central Committee "trembled" and voted for the conclusion of an "obscene" peace with the Germans.
On February 24, at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, after an extremely tense discussion, the Bolshevik resolution on the adoption of new terms of the peace treaty was approved by a small majority. And late in the evening of the same day, a new Soviet delegation consisting of G.Ya. left for Brest-Litovsk to sign a peace treaty with the countries of the Quadruple Bloc. Sokolnikova, L.M. Karakhan, G.V. Chicherin and G.I. Petrovsky.
On March 3, 1918, the leaders of both delegations signed Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, under the terms of which:
A vast territory of more than 1 million square meters was torn away from Soviet Russia. kilometers, on which more than 56 million people lived - the entire territory of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, part of Belarus and Turkish Armenia;
Soviet Russia was to pay the countries of the Quadruple Alliance a huge military indemnity in the amount of six billion gold marks and agree to the complete transfer of all industrial enterprises and mines, where before the war 90% of all coal was mined and more than 70% of iron and steel were smelted.
According to V.I. Lenin, in such humiliating and "obscene" conditions of the Brest peace treaty, which the Soviet government was forced to sign, were to blame, first of all, "our unfortunate leftists Bukharin, Lomov, Uritsky and Co." Moreover, a number of Soviet and Russian historians (Yu. Emelyanov) argue that not a single theoretical or political mistake of N.I. Bukharin did not have such catastrophic consequences for our country and tens of millions of its citizens.
On March 8, 1918, at the emergency VII Congress of the RCP (b), the terms of the Brest Peace Treaty after a sharp controversy between V.I. Lenin and N.I. Bukharin were passed by a significant majority, since the majority of his delegates agreed with Lenin's argument that the international world revolution was for the time being just a beautiful fairy tale and nothing more. On March 15, 1918, after no less heated and heated discussion at the IV Extraordinary Congress of Soviets, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was ratified by roll call and entered into force.
In historical science, there are still diametrically opposed assessments of the Brest peace treaty, which largely depend on the political and ideological views of their authors. In particular, V.I. Lenin, who did not have any sympathy for the patriarchal thousand-year-old Russia, directly called the Brest Treaty "Tilsit" And "obscene" peace, but vital to the salvation of the power of the Bolsheviks. The same assessments were shared by Soviet historians (A. Chubaryan, A. Bovin, Yu. Emelyanov), who were forced to talk about the brilliant insight and political wisdom of the leader, who foresaw the imminent military defeat of Germany and the annulment of this treaty. In addition, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was traditionally regarded as the first victory of the young Soviet diplomacy, which laid the foundations for the peace-loving foreign policy of the USSR.
IN modern science assessments of the Brest Treaty have changed significantly.
Historians of the liberal persuasion (A. Pantsov, Yu. Felshtinsky) believe that this agreement was not a victory, but the first major defeat of the Bolshevik course to prepare for the world proletarian revolution. At the same time, this peace became a kind of maneuver in the field of tactics and a short-term retreat of the Bolsheviks on a winding and hard way struggle for the victory of the world socialist revolution.
Historians of a patriotic persuasion (N. Narochnitskaya) are convinced that for V. Lenin and other leaders of Bolshevism, the Russian proletarian revolution was a kind of “bunch of brushwood” capable of igniting the fire of the world proletarian revolution. Therefore, the Brest Treaty was a direct betrayal of the national interests of Russia, which marked the beginning of its collapse and the most difficult Civil War.
2. "Left SR rebellion" and its political consequences
After the ratification of the Brest peace treaty, the "left communists" did not give up hope for its denunciation. In particular, in May 1918, at the Moscow Conference of the RCP(b), N.I. Bukharin, N.V. Osinsky and D.B. Ryazanov (Goldenbach) again called for the denunciation of the Brest Treaty, but the majority of the delegates of this party forum did not support their proposal.
Another attempt to denounce the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was the "Left SR rebellion", which took place in Moscow on July 6-7, 1918. The events associated with this rebellion were as follows: The Cheka, under a plausible pretext, entered the German embassy and, having killed the German ambassador, Count V. Mirbach, hid in the headquarters of the Cheka troops, which was headed by their fellow party member Dmitry Popov.
After the accomplishment of this terrorist act, V.I. Lenin and Ya.M. Sverdlov went to the German embassy, and the chairman of the Cheka, F.E. Dzerzhinsky went to the headquarters of the Cheka troops to arrest Ya. G. Blyumkin and N.A. Andreeva. Upon arrival at the place of F.E. Dzerzhinsky was taken under arrest, and the headquarters of the Cheka troops, on the orders of D.I. Popov was turned into an impregnable fortress, where more than 600 well-armed Chekists dug in.
Upon learning of the arrest of F.E. Dzerzhinsky, V.I. Lenin instructed to arrest the entire faction of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries who took part in the work of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and to take their leader Maria Spiridonova as a hostage in exchange for saving the life of F.E. Dzerzhinsky. At the same time, the commander of the division of the Latvian riflemen I.I. Vatsetis was ordered to storm the mansion of the Cheka troops and suppress the "Left SR rebellion". On the night of July 7, 1918, a division of Latvian riflemen, with the support of field artillery, launched an assault on the headquarters of the Cheka troops, which ended in the complete defeat of the rebels and the release of F.E. Dzerzhinsky.
The trial of the rebels was quick and just: several hundred people, including Ya.G. Blyumkin and N.A. Andreev, were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and the immediate inspirer and leader of this rebellion, Deputy Chairman of the Cheka V.A. Aleksandrovich was shot. The same result ended with the new “Left SR rebellion”, raised in Simbirsk by the commander of the Eastern Front, the Left SR M.A. Muravyov, who was shot dead on July 10, 1918 upon arrival for negotiations in the building of the provincial executive committee.
In Soviet and Russian historical science (K. Gusev, A. Velidov, A. Kiselev), it was traditionally asserted that the July events in Moscow and Simbirsk were deliberately organized by the leadership of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party (M.A. Spiridonova, P.P. Proshyan), who not only wanted to denounce the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, but also, having provoked a government crisis, to remove from power the Bolshevik Party, which, planting kombeds, began to pursue a disastrous economic course in the countryside.
In foreign historiography (Yu. Felshtinsky), there is a rather exotic version, which says that the so-called “Left SR rebellion” was organized by “left communists”, in particular, the head of the Cheka, F.E. Dzerzhinsky, who also sought to denounce the "obscene" Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and kindle the fire of the world proletarian revolution.
In our opinion, there are much more white spots and unsolved mysteries in the history of this rebellion than it seems at first glance, since researchers have not been able to properly answer even two completely obvious questions:
1) why exactly the chairman of the Cheka F.E. Dzerzhinsky personally went to the headquarters of the Cheka troops to arrest the killers of the German ambassador;
2) if the decision to kill the German ambassador was sanctioned by the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, then why is its entire faction, including M.A. Spiridonov, calmly waited for her isolation and arrest on the sidelines of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
Speaking essentially, it should be recognized that the July events in Moscow and Simbirsk drew a line under the period of development of Soviet statehood on a two-party basis and became the starting point for the formation of a one-party Bolshevik system in the country. During this period, the activities of all Socialist-Revolutionary, Menshevik and anarchist groups and parties, the existence of which still created the illusion of proletarian-peasant democracy in the country, were banned.
The Brest Treaty itself was denounced by the Soviet government on November 13, 1918, that is, exactly one day after the surrender of Germany and its military allies to the Entente countries, which put a long-awaited end to the First World War.
The direct result of the Brest Peace and the suppression of the "Left SR rebellion" was the adoption of the first Constitution of the RSFSR. According to most authors (O. Chistyakov, S. Leonov, I. Isaev), for the first time the issue of creating the first Soviet Constitution was discussed at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on March 30, 1918. On April 1, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee formed a constitutional commission, in which included representatives of his three party factions (Bolsheviks, Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, Maximalist Socialist-Revolutionaries) and representatives of the six leading people's commissariats - for military and naval affairs, for nationalities, internal affairs, justice, finance and the Supreme Economic Council. Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya.M. Sverdlov.
During the work on the draft Constitution, which lasted more than three months, a number of fundamental disagreements arose on the following issues:
1) the federal structure of the state;
2) the system of local Soviet authorities;
3) the social and economic foundations of Soviet power, etc.
In particular, representatives of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (V.A. Algasov, A.A. Schreider) and Maximalist Socialist-Revolutionaries (A.I. Berdnikov) very persistently suggested:
1) to base the Soviet federation on the administrative-territorial principle of state structure with the provision of the broadest possible rights to all subjects of the federation to manage their own territories;
2) liquidate the grassroots links of the Soviet state system and replace them with traditional rural gatherings, which, having lost political functions turned into municipal authorities;
3) carry out total socialization of property and tighten the principles of universal labor service, etc.
During a heated and lengthy debate, in which many prominent Bolsheviks took part, including V.I. Lenin, Ya.M. Sverdlov, I.V. Stalin, N.I. Bukharin, L.M. Reisner, M.F. Latsis and M.N. Pokrovsky, these proposals were rejected. The final draft of the Soviet Constitution was approved by a special commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), headed by V.I. Lenin.
On July 4, 1918, this project was submitted for consideration by the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and already on July 10, the congress delegates approved the first Constitution of the RSFSR and elected a new composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, consisting entirely of Bolsheviks.
The main provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic were enshrined in six separate sections:
2) general provisions of the Constitution of the RSFSR;
3) the construction of Soviet power;
4) active and passive suffrage;
5) budget law;
6) about the emblem and flag of the RSFSR.
The Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which was fully included in the Constitution of the RSFSR, determined the political and social basis new Soviet statehood - the power of the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies and "the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry in order to completely suppress the bourgeoisie, abolish the exploitation of man by man and establish socialism in the country."
The state structure of the RSFSR was based on the principles of a national federation, the subjects of which were declared national republics, as well as various regional unions, consisting of several national regions. supreme body state power the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', Peasants' and Cossacks' Deputies was becoming in the country, the exclusive competence of which included all issues of state building: approval and amendment of the Constitution of the RSFSR; declaration of war and conclusion of peace; ratification of peace treaties, general leadership of foreign and internal politics states; establishment of national taxes, duties and fees; the basics of the organization of the armed forces, law enforcement agencies, the judiciary and legal proceedings; federal law, etc.
For everyday and operational work, the congress elected from among its members the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK RSFSR), which formed the Council of People's Commissars (SNK RSFSR), which consisted of people's commissars who headed the sectoral people's commissariats (People's Commissariats). And the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and the Council of People's Commissars equally had the right to issue legislative acts, which was a direct consequence of the complete denial by the Bolsheviks of the well-known bourgeois principle of separation of powers. Regional, provincial, district and volost congresses of Soviets, as well as city and rural Soviets, which formed their own executive committees (executive committees), became local government bodies.
It should be emphasized that the well-known principle of “democratic centralism” was put at the basis of the organization of Soviet power at all levels, according to which the lower bodies of Soviet power were strictly subordinated to the higher ones, which were charged with the obligation to implement all decisions of the higher Soviets that did not violate their competence.
The Constitution of the RSFSR legislated not only a new type of Soviet statehood, but also a new type of Soviet democracy, since it openly proclaimed the class principle of democratic rights and freedoms. In particular, all "socially alien class elements" were deprived of the right to vote, and representation from social groups working people, endowed with the right to vote, was far from being equal. For example, in elections to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, city Soviets had a fivefold advantage over provincial Congresses of Soviets, etc.
In addition, the Soviet electoral system retained the principle of indirect elections that existed in tsarist Russia. Only elections to grassroots city and rural Soviets were direct, and deputies of all subsequent levels were elected at volost, district, provincial and regional congresses of Soviets.
The signing of the Brest Peace meant the defeat of Soviet Russia in the First World War. Lenin called this agreement obscene, because Russia was deprived of most of its territories, and it was also obliged to pay a large indemnity. The signing of this document caused sharp criticism from the Entente countries, since Russia actually renounced its allied obligations. Why such an unfavorable peace was signed and whether it could have been avoided, our experts argued.
Questions:
What was the situation in the country before the conclusion of the Brest peace?
Igor Chubais
The fact is that the situation changed very quickly. The situation deteriorated greatly with the advent of the Bolsheviks. The Brest-Litovsk peace was necessary for Lenin. But if the Bolsheviks did not corrupt the Russian army, did not act as foreign agents, did not take money from the Germans to push Russia into chaos, Russia would inevitably win this war. This is clear if only because even after Russia left the Entente, the latter, as you know, won. And if Russia had not left the Entente, it would have won all the more.
Yuri Emelyanov
The situation was terrible for the country, because by that time the army had completely collapsed, and when our delegates went to Brest to negotiate, they saw completely empty trenches. In general, by this time the army fled. There was no possibility of defending the country from the very likely invasion of the Germans, Austrians and others. The country at that time was in ferment, in fact, a civil war began, although it had not yet acquired a full-scale character. Therefore, the country desperately needed peace.
Why was it decided to conclude the Brest peace?
Igor Chubais
Because the Bolsheviks behaved like traitors. They had various agreements with the Germans. Already some time after the February Revolution, the Bolsheviks began to actively operate within the army. Kerensky refused any restrictions. The army abolished the death penalty. In general, it is impossible to imagine that the army would conduct military operations in conditions of absolute democratization. Even in Peaceful time in any state, including a democratic one, there are some limits and restrictions. Then there were no restrictions.
Yuri Emelyanov
The Soviet government already in the first days announced its intention to end this war. The coming of the Bolsheviks to power was caused by the crisis that was generated by the First World War. The war led to the bankruptcy of all the powers that participated in it. They promised to end the war in a few months, but this did not happen. The war has become incredibly brutal. The most destructive methods of struggle were used. The people are tired of war. This became clear after it ended, when it turned out that except for the United States, everyone was ruined by this war. Russia suffered especially, which was blatantly unprepared for war and bore a significant part of the burden, not only sending a large army to fight against the German and Austro-Hungarian troops, but also sending its troops to France to fight on the western front. But most importantly: the recruitment of 16 million people into the army and the units that served the army bled the village. Women and teenagers worked there, which led to a colossal drop in agricultural production. The country was in a desperate situation.
Was there an alternative to the conclusion of the Brest peace?
Igor Chubais
After the Bolsheviks seized power, the situation steadily worsened. If there were no Lenin and the Bolsheviks, then Russia would be a signatory of the Versailles Peace and would receive all the dividends from the Versailles Peace. World War II would have been absolutely impossible after that. Was there an alternative to the Brest peace? When it was signed, there was no particular alternative, but there was an alternative before. It consisted in the fact that Russia did not have the right to withdraw from the Entente. She also violated the contract. She separately withdrew from the Entente. One of the clauses of this agreement was that none of the countries could conduct separate negotiations and withdraw from this union, it must act jointly with the rest of the countries. That is, Lenin violated everything. Bolshevism began by violating international treaties, international rules.
Yuri Emelyanov
The alternative was to continue the war. Among the Bolshevik Party there were very strong supporters of its continuation. Because the terms of peace that Germany introduced were devastating for the country. Here is one of the alternatives. Trotsky voiced another alternative - no peace, no war. We will not sign a humiliating peace, but we will stop the war. Here are three alternatives. Lenin was in the minority, the majority was in favor of continuing the war. Only after the failure of the Brest Treaty led to a decisive offensive of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops at the front, which led to the fact that Russia lost the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, then Lenin received a very shaky majority and peace was signed.
What was the reaction of Russia's allies to the conclusion of the Brest peace?
Igor Chubais
Of course, the Bolsheviks were negotiating with the Allies to withdraw from the Entente. Already 2-3 weeks after seizing power, Lenin began to warn London and Paris that Russia wanted to withdraw from the treaty. Of course they reacted. First, they supported, as much as possible, the white movement that had arisen. Some military landing was sent to Russia to support those forces that resisted the Bolshevik power. Also, more than ten years after the proclamation of the so-called Soviet power in Russia, not a single western country did not recognize this quasi-state.
Yuri Emelyanov
The Allies were categorically against it, because, from their point of view, the military actions of Russia were the only thing that kept the Germans from defeating the Allies on the Western front. But they did not take into account that the Germans had largely exhausted their forces. Nevertheless, it was quite obvious that as soon as peace was concluded on the eastern front, the Germans were able to transfer a significant part of their troops to the western front, huge offensives were organized, offensive operations. To say, like some, including the President of our country, that Germany at that time was the losing side, means to show complete ignorance of the events of 1918. Because in fact, after the Brest Peace, Germany was on the verge of victory. But, unfortunately for the Germans, their strength was exhausted. In addition, by this time the Americans began to pull up their forces.
What led to the conclusion of the Brest peace?
Igor Chubais
The Brest Peace is a 100% betrayal of Russia. For the Bolsheviks, there was neither a homeland nor a people - they had a fanatical idea that they were ready to defend at any cost. That is, if the war is for the interests of the people, for the interests of their country, then the Bolsheviks fought to maintain their power. This was their only true purpose. Therefore, they were ready to make any concessions, to lose territories. As a result of the Bolshevik putsch, not only Finland and Poland were lost, but also the Baltic countries were formed, which did not exist before, Bessarabia separated. That is, all this was given away in order for the Bolshevik power to be preserved. Moreover, because of the Brest Peace, two rogue states arose: Germany, which paid reparations for the outbreak of the First World War, and the great thousand-year-old Russia, which became known as Soviet Union which no one recognized. These two outcasts quickly found each other, and from the beginning of the 20s they entered into secret contacts. We agreed on mutual assistance, on the violation of all military restrictions that were imposed on Germany. This eventually led to World War II.
Yuri Emelyanov
Lenin called this world obscene. And indeed: it turned out to be predatory. We paid an indemnity, however, we did not fully pay it. We have lost huge territories. This greatly weakened the country's economy, especially agriculture. But it must be taken into account that the Brest-Litovsk peace did not last long. The signing of this peace was a forced historical necessity.
The Brest peace is one of the most humiliating episodes in the history of Russia. It became a resounding diplomatic failure of the Bolsheviks and was accompanied by an acute political crisis within the country.
Peace Decree
The "Peace Decree" was adopted on October 26, 1917 - the day after the armed coup - and spoke of the need to conclude a just democratic peace without annexations and indemnities between all warring nations. It served as the legal basis for a separate agreement with Germany and the other Central Powers.
Publicly, Lenin spoke about the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war, he considered the revolution in Russia only the initial stage of the world socialist revolution. In fact, there were other reasons as well. The warring peoples did not act according to Ilyich's plans - they did not want to turn bayonets against the governments, and the allied governments ignored the peace proposal of the Bolsheviks. Only the countries of the enemy bloc that were losing the war went for rapprochement.
Conditions
Germany declared that it was ready to accept the condition of peace without annexations and indemnities, but only if this peace was signed by all the belligerent countries. But none of the Entente countries joined the peace negotiations, so Germany abandoned the Bolshevik formula, and their hopes for a just peace were finally buried. The talk in the second round of negotiations was exclusively about a separate peace, the terms of which were dictated by Germany.
Betrayal and necessity
Not all Bolsheviks were willing to sign a separate peace. The left was categorically opposed to any agreements with imperialism. They defended the idea of exporting the revolution, believing that without socialism in Europe, Russian socialism is doomed to perish (and the subsequent transformations of the Bolshevik regime proved them right). The leaders of the left Bolsheviks were Bukharin, Uritsky, Radek, Dzerzhinsky and others. They called for a guerrilla war against German imperialism, and in the future they hoped to conduct regular military operations with the forces of the Red Army being created.
For the immediate conclusion of a separate peace was, above all, Lenin. He was afraid of the German offensive and the complete loss of his own power, which, even after the coup, was largely based on German money. It is unlikely that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was directly bought by Berlin. The main factor was precisely the fear of losing power. Considering that a year after the conclusion of peace with Germany, Lenin was ready even for the division of Russia in exchange for international recognition, then the conditions of the Brest peace will not seem so humiliating.
Trotsky occupied an intermediate position in the inner-party struggle. He defended the thesis "No peace, no war." That is, he proposed to stop hostilities, but not to sign any agreements with Germany. As a result of the struggle within the party, it was decided to drag out the negotiations in every possible way, expecting a revolution in Germany, but if the Germans present an ultimatum, then agree to all conditions. However, Trotsky, who led the Soviet delegation in the second round of negotiations, refused to accept the German ultimatum. Negotiations broke down and Germany continued to advance. When the peace was signed, the Germans were 170 km from Petrograd.
Annexations and indemnities
Peace conditions were very difficult for Russia. She lost Ukraine and Polish lands, renounced her claims to Finland, gave away the Batumi and Kars regions, had to demobilize all her troops, abandon the Black Sea Fleet and pay huge indemnities. The country was losing almost 800 thousand square meters. km and 56 million people. In Russia, the Germans received the exclusive right to freely engage in entrepreneurship. In addition, the Bolsheviks pledged to pay the royal debts of Germany and its allies.
At the same time, the Germans did not comply with their own obligations. After signing the treaty, they continued the occupation of Ukraine, overthrew the Soviet regime on the Don and helped the White movement in every possible way.
Rise of the Left
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk almost led to a split in the Bolshevik Party and the loss of power by the Bolsheviks. Lenin hardly dragged the final decision on peace through a vote in the Central Committee, threatening to resign. The split of the party did not happen only thanks to Trotsky, who agreed to abstain from the vote, ensuring the victory of Lenin. But this did not help to avoid a political crisis.
The heads of the military missions of the Allied countries at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief handed General N. N. Dukhonin a collective note in which they protested against the violation of the treaty of September 5, 1914, which forbade the Allies to conclude a separate peace or truce. Dukhonin sent the text of the note to all front commanders.
On the same day, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs turned to the ambassadors of neutral states with a proposal to mediate in organizing peace talks. Representatives of Sweden, Norway and Switzerland limited themselves to notification of receipt of the note. The Spanish ambassador, who told the NKID that the proposal had been submitted to Madrid, was immediately recalled from Russia.
The refusal of the Entente to support the peace initiative of the Soviet government and the active opposition to the conclusion of peace forced the Council of People's Commissars to take the path of separate peace negotiations with Germany. On November 14 (27), Germany announced its agreement to start peace negotiations with the Soviet government. On the same day, on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin addressed a note to the governments of France, Great Britain, Italy, the United States, Belgium, Serbia, Romania, Japan and China, inviting them to join the peace negotiations: " On December 1, we start peace talks. If the Allied peoples do not send their representatives, we will negotiate with the Germans alone.". No response was received.
Armistice
The conference was opened by the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Front, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, and Kühlmann took the chair.
The Soviet delegation at the first stage included 5 commissioners - members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee: the Bolsheviks A. A. Ioffe - the chairman of the delegation, L. B. Kamenev (Rozenfeld) and G. Ya. Sokolnikov (Brilliant), the Socialist-Revolutionaries A. A. Bitsenko and S. D. Maslovsky-Mstislavsky, 8 members of the military delegation (quartermaster general under the Supreme Commander of the General Staff, Major General V. E. Skalon, General Yu. N. Danilov, who was under the Chief of the General Staff, Rear Admiral V. M. Altfater, head of the Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, General A. I. Andogsky, Quartermaster General of the Headquarters of the 10th Army of the General Staff, General A. A. Samoilo, Colonel D. G. Fokke, Lieutenant Colonel I. Ya. Tseplit, Captain V. Lipsky), secretary of the delegation L. M. Karakhan, 3 translators and 6 technical employees, as well as 5 ordinary members of the delegation - sailor F. V. Olich, soldier N. K. Belyakov, Kaluga peasant R. I. Stashkov, worker P. A. Obukhov , ensign of the fleet K. Ya. Zedin.
The resumption of armistice negotiations, which involved agreeing on terms and signing a treaty, was overshadowed by the tragedy in the Russian delegation. Upon arrival in Brest on November 29 (December 12), 1917, before the opening of the conference, during a private meeting of the Soviet delegation, a representative of the Stavka in a group of military consultants, Major General V. E. Skalon, shot himself.
R. von Kuhlmann asked if the Soviet government would not agree to withdraw its troops from all of Livonia and from Estland in order to give the local population the opportunity to connect with their fellow tribesmen living in the areas occupied by the Germans. The Soviet delegation was also informed that the Ukrainian Central Rada was sending its own delegation to Brest-Litovsk.
Under the pretext of self-determination of peoples, Germany actually offered the Soviet delegation to recognize the puppet regimes established by that time by the German-Austrian occupation authorities in the western national outskirts of the former Russian Empire. So, on December 11 (according to the new style) 1917, right during the German-Soviet negotiations on a truce, the puppet Lithuanian Tariba announced the restoration of an independent Lithuanian state and the “eternal allied ties” of this state with Germany.
Leon Trotsky, heading the Soviet delegation, dragged out the negotiations, hoping for an early revolution in Central Europe, and over the heads of the negotiators addressed calls for an uprising to " workers in uniform» Germany and Austria-Hungary. In his words, " is it not necessary to try to put the German working class and German army before the test: on the one hand, the workers' revolution, declaring the war ended; on the other hand, the Hohenzollern government, ordering this revolution to attack» . When Germany dictated harsh peace conditions, Trotsky went against Lenin, who advocated peace at any cost, but did not support Bukharin, who called for a "revolutionary war." Instead, he put forward an "intermediate" slogan " neither war nor peace”, that is, he called for an end to the war, but proposed not to conclude a peace treaty at the same time.
According to one of the members of the Soviet delegation, the former tsarist general Samoilo A.A.,
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The second composition of the Soviet delegation in Brest-Litovsk. Sitting, from left to right: Kamenev, Ioffe, Bitsenko. Standing, from left to right: Lipsky V.V., Stuchka, Trotsky L.D., Karakhan L.M.
The memoirs of the head of the German delegation, State Secretary of the German Foreign Ministry Richard von Kuhlmann, who spoke of Trotsky as follows, have also been preserved: “not very large, sharp and piercing eyes behind the sharp glasses of glasses looked at his counterpart with a boring and critical look. The expression on his face clearly indicated that he [Trotsky] would have been better off ending the unsympathetic negotiations for him with a couple of grenades, throwing them over the green table, if this was somehow consistent with the general political line ... sometimes I wondered if he generally intends to make peace, or he needed a platform from which he could propagate Bolshevik views.
Immediately after his arrival in Brest-Litovsk, Trotsky tries to conduct propaganda among the German soldiers guarding the railway tracks, to which he receives a protest from the German side. With the assistance of Karl Radek, an agitational newspaper Die Fackel (Torch) is being created for distribution among German soldiers. On December 13, the Council of People's Commissars allocated 2 million rubles. for propaganda work abroad and defiantly published a report on this. In the words of Trotsky himself, he decided to "probe" the mood of the German soldiers, "whether they will advance."
A member of the German delegation, General Max Hoffmann, ironically described the composition of the Soviet delegation: “I will never forget the first dinner with the Russians. I was sitting between Joffe and Sokolnikov, then Commissar of Finance. Opposite me sat a worker, who, apparently, a lot of appliances and utensils caused great inconvenience. He clutched at one thing after another, but he used the fork exclusively for brushing his teeth. Diagonally from me, next to Prince Hoenloe, sat the terrorist Bizenko [sic], on the other side of her was a peasant, a real Russian phenomenon with long gray curls and a beard overgrown like a forest. He caused a certain smile in the staff when, when asked whether he preferred red or white wine for dinner, he answered: “Stronger.”
People's Commissar Trotsky, in turn, sarcastically comments on the behavior of Hoffmann himself: “General Hoffmann ... brought a fresh note to the conference. He showed that he did not like the behind-the-scenes tricks of diplomacy, and several times put his soldier's boot on the negotiating table. We immediately realized that the only reality that should really be taken seriously in these useless conversations is Hoffmann's boot."
Negotiations progress
Ioffe A. A. and Kamenev L. B. at the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk
Opening the conference, R. von Kühlmann stated that since during the break in the peace negotiations no application was received from any of the main participants in the war to join them, the delegations of the countries of the Quadruple Alliance renounce their previously expressed intention to join the Soviet peace formula " without annexations and indemnities. Both von Kuhlmann and the head of the Austro-Hungarian delegation, Czernin, spoke out against moving the talks to Stockholm. In addition, since Russia's allies did not respond to the proposal to take part in the negotiations, now, in the opinion of the German bloc, it will not be about a general peace, but about a separate peace between Russia and the powers of the Quadruple Alliance.
At the next meeting, which took place on December 28, 1917 (January 10), the Germans invited the Ukrainian delegation. Its chairman, V. A. Golubovich, announced the declaration of the Central Rada stating that the power of the Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia does not extend to Ukraine, and therefore the Central Rada intends to independently conduct peace negotiations. R. von Kuhlmann turned to L. D. Trotsky, who led the Soviet delegation at the second stage of negotiations, with the question of whether he and his delegation intended to continue to be the only diplomatic representatives of all of Russia in Brest-Litovsk, and also whether the Ukrainian delegation should be considered part of Russian delegation or it represents an independent state. Trotsky knew that the Rada was actually at war with the RSFSR. Therefore, by agreeing to consider the delegation of the Ukrainian Central Rada as independent, he actually played into the hands of the representatives of the Central Powers and provided Germany and Austria-Hungary with the opportunity to continue contacts with the Ukrainian Central Rada, while negotiations with Soviet Russia were marking time for another two days.
The German high command expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the delay in peace negotiations, fearing the disintegration of the army. General E. Ludendorff demanded that General Hoffmann speed up the negotiations. Meanwhile, on December 30, 1917 (January 12), at a meeting of the political commission, the Soviet delegation demanded that the governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary categorically confirm their lack of intentions to annex any territories of the former Russian Empire - according to the Soviet delegation, the decision on the future fate self-determining territories should be carried out by popular referendum, after the withdrawal of foreign troops and the return of refugees and displaced persons. General Hoffmann, in a lengthy response speech, declared that the German government refused to clear the occupied territories of Courland, Lithuania, Riga and the islands of the Gulf of Riga.
Meanwhile, in the rear of the Central Powers, the situation escalated. Economic situation Germany and Austria-Hungary, due to the protracted war, were not much better than Russia. By the spring of 1917, the German government had come close to exhausting mobilization resources - very limited, in contrast to the Entente with its huge colonial possessions. By 1917, almost all German industry had been transferred to a war footing, and the government was forced to return 125,000 workers from the front. Various surrogates (“ersatz”) spread, and already the winter of 1916/1917 entered German history as a "rutabaga winter", during which, according to some sources, up to 700 thousand people died of starvation.
By the winter of 1917/1918, the position of the Central Powers had become even worse. Weekly consumption norms for cards were: potatoes - 3.3 kg, bread - 1.8 kg, meat - 240 grams, fat - 70-90 grams. The delay in peace negotiations and the deterioration of the food situation in Germany and Austria-Hungary led to a sharp increase in the strike movement, which in Austria-Hungary grew into a general strike. In a number of districts, the first Soviets on the Russian model began to appear. Only on January 9 (22), having received promises from the government to sign peace with Russia and improve the food situation, the strikers resumed work. On January 15 (28), strikes paralyzed the Berlin defense industry, quickly spread to other branches of production and spread throughout the country. The center of the strike movement was Berlin, where, according to official reports, about half a million workers were on strike. As in Austria-Hungary, Soviets were formed in Germany, demanding first of all the conclusion of peace and the establishment of a republic.
Beginning of internal party struggle
German ultimatum
At the same time, at the insistence of General Ludendorff (even at a meeting in Berlin, he demanded that the head of the German delegation stop negotiations with the Russian delegation within 24 hours after the signing of peace with Ukraine) and by direct order of Emperor Wilhelm II, von Kühlmann presented Soviet Russia in an ultimatum accept the German terms of peace, passing the following wording to the Soviet delegation: " Russia takes note of the following territorial changes coming into force with the ratification of this peace treaty: the areas between the frontiers of Germany and Austria-Hungary and the line that runs ... will no longer be subject to Russian territorial supremacy. From the fact of their belonging to the former Russian Empire, no obligations will follow for them in relation to Russia. Future destiny these areas will be decided in agreement with these peoples, namely on the basis of the agreements that Germany and Austria-Hungary will conclude with them.».
The pretext for this ultimatum was Trotsky's appeal to German soldiers allegedly intercepted in Berlin, urging them to "kill the emperor and the generals and fraternize with the Soviet troops."
According to the statement of Kaiser Wilhelm II, made on the same day,
Today, the Bolshevik government has directly addressed my troops with an open radio message calling for rebellion and disobedience to their top commanders. Neither I nor Field Marshal von Hindenburg can tolerate this state of affairs any longer. Trotsky must by tomorrow evening ... sign a peace with the return of the Baltic states up to the Narva - Pleskau - Dunaburg line inclusive ... Supreme High Command armies of the Eastern Front must withdraw troops to the indicated line.
At the same time, by the beginning of the German offensive, the front had actually already ceased to exist. Back in December 1917, the Bolsheviks brought to its logical conclusion the process of "democratization of the army", which began in March by Order No. 1 of the Petrosoviet, - the joint decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "On the elective beginning and organization of power in the army" and "On the equalization of the rights of all military personnel" were adopted ". The first finally declared the sole power in the army not commanders, but the corresponding soldiers' committees, councils and congresses, also introducing the principle of electing commanders. The second in the army were abolished all military ranks and insignia, and for all the polls of the military personnel, the title "soldier of the revolutionary army" was introduced. These two decrees actually completed the destruction of the former tsarist army. As the historian S. N. Bazanov writes, the “landslide democratization of the active army, which began with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, the purpose of which was the decisive demolition of the resistance of the overwhelming part of the generals and officer corps to the policy of a separate peace and the introduction of the demoralized army to the political goals of the Bolsheviks” ultimately led to “Paralysis of the already broken control apparatus at the fronts. The defeat of the Headquarters, the mass removal and arrests of the commanding staff and its replacement by an unskilled contingent from the soldier's environment, the only criterion for the election of which was political reliability in relation to the new government, had as a consequence the complete operational and organizational inability of these personnel to cope with the task of command and control troops ". The unified centralized command and control of troops was undermined.
The catastrophic drop in the combat effectiveness and discipline of the army was also associated with the participation of soldiers in mass fraternizations and local truces with enemy troops, legalized by Lenin's appeal of November 9 (22), sent to all regiments of the front armies: " Let the regiments standing in positions immediately choose those authorized to formally enter into negotiations on a truce with the enemy". Mass fraternization, which, according to Lenin, should have become an instrument of struggle for the conclusion of peace, led to the disorganization of the troops, the undermining of discipline and the psychological unpreparedness to continue hostilities. The mass of soldiers considered the war over, and it was almost impossible to raise them to a "revolutionary war". It is also known that the fraternization was used by the Austro-German side for reconnaissance purposes. Fraternization with the enemy gradually degenerated into barter, to facilitate which the soldiers dismantled wire obstacles in positions, so that by mid-January 1918 the positional defensive line on the fronts had actually ceased to exist.
S. N. Bazanov in his work refers to a note that on January 18, 1918 was sent to the Council of People's Commissars by the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General M. D. Bonch-Bruevich:
Desertion is progressively growing ... whole regiments and artillery go to the rear, exposing the front for considerable distances, the Germans walk in crowds along an abandoned position ... Constant visits by enemy soldiers to our positions, especially artillery, and their destruction of our fortifications in abandoned positions are undoubtedly of an organized nature .
By February-March 1918, the number of deserters in Russia reaches 3 million people. The next outbreak of desertion is facilitated both by the desire of soldiers to be in time for their villages to divide the land, and the collapse of the army's supply, aggravated by the growth of bagging and devastation in transport. On December 2, 1917, according to reports from the Western Front, "prolonged malnutrition turned into famine." In December, 31 carloads of flour arrive on the Northern Front in December at a rate of 92, and on the Western Front - even 8 at a rate of 122.
On January 15 (28), 1918, a joint decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars proclaimed the founding of the Red Army.
The head of the Soviet delegation, People's Commissar Trotsky L.D. was fully aware of the state of the army. As he stated in his work “My Life”, “when I first passed through the front line on the way to Brest-Litovsk, our like-minded people in the trenches could no longer prepare any significant manifestation of protest against the monstrous demands of Germany: the trenches were almost empty."
In December 1917, the chief of staff of the infantry corps of the Northern Front, Colonel Belovsky, testified that “there is no army; comrades sleep, eat, play cards, do not follow anyone's orders and orders; means of communication abandoned, telegraph and telephone lines collapsed, and even the regiments are not connected to the headquarters of the division; the guns were abandoned in positions, swam with mud, covered with snow, shells with their caps removed were immediately lying around (poured into spoons, coasters, etc.). The Germans are well aware of all this, since under the guise of purchases they climb into our rear 35-40 miles from the front.
Special army. 31st Corps: the attitude towards combat service in the 83rd division is variable, in the 130th division it is satisfactory, there is little occupation and work done. The attitude towards officers in the 83rd division is distrustful and hostile, in the 130th it is satisfactory. Parts of both divisions are waiting for peace ... The general mood in connection with the events is deteriorating. The combat effectiveness of parts of the hull is doubtful, recently everything has been deteriorating ...
39th Corps. ... In all divisions, except for the reserve units and the 53rd division, classes are not conducted. Work in parts of the hull is either not carried out at all or is performed poorly. The attitude towards officers in most units is distrustful and hostile, satisfactory only in the 498th and 500th regiments and tolerable in the 486th, 487th and 488th regiments. The attitude towards the war is negative, the soldiers are waiting for peace....
1st Turkestan rifle corps: the attitude to combat service in the 1st Turkestan division is indifferent, in the 2nd division it is unsatisfactory, in the 113th infantry division combat service is carried out regularly .... The attitude towards officers in the Turkestan divisions is distrustful and vicious, in the 113th division it is satisfactory, the attitude towards the war is everywhere negative, everyone is waiting for peace. The 1st Turkestan regiment, taking precautions, fraternizes along the entire front, exchanging cigars and rum from the Germans ...
34th Corps. ... On November 3, at a joint meeting of corps, divisional and regimental councils, one of the Ukrainians said the following: "Russia is now a decaying corpse that can infect Ukraine with its cadaveric poison." To this, a group of non-Ukrainian delegates passed a resolution protesting against such a definition.
3rd Caucasian Corps. The desire for an early conclusion of peace and the defeatist mood paralyze all the work of the officers towards raising the combat value of the units. Bad food and lack of uniforms make soldiers indifferent even to the fate of their homeland....
The failure of attempts to organize the defense of Petrograd followed on February 25th. Although the day before, most of the military units of the garrison had adopted resolutions “to fight to the death” at rallies, in fact, apart from the Latvian riflemen, no one moved to the front. The Petrograd and Izmailovsky regiments left the barracks, but they refused to be loaded into trains; several parts demanded increased allowances. The results of the mobilization of Petrograd workers into the Red Army turned out to be modest - for February 23-26, only 10,320 people signed up.
The threat of the occupation of Petrograd began to be perceived as quite real; In early March, Zinoviev, on behalf of the St. Petersburg Committee of the Party, even managed to apply to the Central Committee with a request for the allocation of several hundred thousand rubles in case the committee went underground. The Central Committee not only rejected this request, but even decided to hold the 7th Congress of the RCP(b) in Petrograd, despite Zinoviev's requests to hold it in Moscow. Nevertheless, it was nevertheless decided, in connection with the German threat, to transfer the capital to Moscow.
Intra-party struggle
The question of a possible German offensive was discussed at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) on the evening of February 17. 5 members of the Central Committee (Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov, Sokolnikov, Smilga) voted for Lenin's proposal to immediately enter into new negotiations with Germany on signing peace, 6 members voted against (Trotsky, Bukharin, Lomov, Uritsky, Ioffe, Krestinsky) . However, when the question was put like this: "If we have a German offensive as a fact, and there is no revolutionary upsurge in Germany and Austria, do we make peace?" Trotsky voted in the affirmative; Bukharin, Lomov, Uritsky and Krestinsky abstained, only Ioffe voted against. Thus, the proposal was accepted by a majority of votes.
- against: Bukharin N.I., Uritsky M.S., Lomov (Oppokov) G.I., Bubnov A.S.
- for: Lenin V. I., Sverdlov Ya. M., Stalin I. V., Zinoviev G. E., Sokolnikov G. Ya., Smilga I. T. and Stasova E. D.
- abstaining: Trotsky L.D., Dzerzhinsky F.E., Ioffe A.A. and Krestinsky N.N.
None of the Bolshevik leaders was eager to go down in history by putting his signature on a treaty shameful for Russia. People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs Trotsky managed to resign by the time of signing, Ioffe refused to go as part of a delegation to Brest-Litovsk. Sokolnikov and Zinoviev proposed each other's candidacies, and Sokolnikov also refused the appointment, threatening to resign.
Third stage
After the decision to accept peace on German terms was made by the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), and then passed through the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the question arose of the new composition of the delegation. As Richard Pipes notes, none of the Bolshevik leaders was eager to go down in history by putting his signature on a treaty shameful for Russia. Trotsky by this time had already resigned from the post of People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, Sokolnikov G. Ya. proposed the candidacy of Zinoviev G. E. However, Zinoviev refused such an “honor”, proposing in response the candidacy of Sokolnikov himself; Sokolnikov also refuses, promising to leave the Central Committee in the event of such an appointment. Ioffe A.A. also flatly refused.
After long negotiations, Sokolnikov nevertheless agreed to head the Soviet delegation, the new composition of which took the following form: Sokolnikov G. Ya., Petrovsky L. M., Chicherin G. V., Karakhan G. I. and a group of 8 consultants (among them the former earlier the chairman of the delegation Ioffe A. A.). The delegation arrived in Brest-Litovsk on March 1, and two days later signed the contract without any discussion.
The German-Austrian offensive, which began in February 1918, continued even when the Soviet delegation arrived in Brest-Litovsk: on February 28, the Austrians occupied Berdichev, on March 1, the Germans occupied Gomel, Chernigov and Mogilev, and on March 2, Petrograd was bombed. On March 4, after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, German troops occupied Narva and stopped only on the Narova River and the western shore of Lake Peipus, 170 km from Petrograd.
Terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
In its final version, the treaty consisted of 14 articles, various annexes, 2 final protocols and 4 additional agreements(between Russia and each of the states of the Quadruple Alliance), according to which Russia pledged to make many territorial concessions, also demobilizing its army and navy.
- The Vistula provinces, Ukraine, provinces with a predominantly Belarusian population, Estland, Courland and Livonia provinces, the Grand Duchy of Finland were torn away from Russia. Most of these territories were to become German protectorates or become part of Germany. Russia also pledged to recognize the independence of Ukraine represented by the UNR government.
- In the Caucasus, Russia conceded Kars Oblast and Batumi Oblast.
- The Soviet government ended the war with the Ukrainian Central Council (Rada) of the Ukrainian People's Republic and made peace with it.
- The army and navy were demobilized.
- The Baltic Fleet was withdrawn from its bases in Finland and the Baltic.
- The Black Sea Fleet with all its infrastructure was handed over to the Central Powers.
- Russia paid 6 billion marks in reparations, plus the payment of losses incurred by Germany during the Russian revolution - 500 million gold rubles.
- The Soviet government pledged to stop revolutionary propaganda in the Central Powers and allied states formed on the territory of the Russian Empire.
An area of 780,000 square meters was cut off from Soviet Russia. km. with a population of 56 million people (a third of the population of the Russian Empire) and on which they were (before the revolution): 27% of cultivated agricultural land, 26% of the entire railway network, 33% of the textile industry, 73% of iron and steel were smelted, 89% of coal was mined and 90% of sugar was produced; there were 918 textile factories, 574 breweries, 133 tobacco factories, 1685 distilleries, 244 chemical plants, 615 pulp mills, 1073 machine-building plants and 40% of industrial workers lived:286.
At the same time, Russia withdrew all its troops from these territories, while Germany, on the contrary, brought in and retained control over the Moozund archipelago and the Gulf of Riga. In addition, the Russian troops had to leave Finland, the Aland Islands near Sweden, the districts of Kars, Argadan and Batum were transferred to Turkey. From the line Narva - Pskov - Millerovo - Rostov-on-Don, on which German troops were located on the day the agreement was signed, they were to be withdrawn only after the signing of the general agreement.
The appendix to the treaty guaranteed a special economic status for Germany in Soviet Russia. Citizens and corporations of the Central Powers were removed from the scope of the Bolshevik decrees on nationalization, and those who had already lost their property were restored to their rights. Thus, German citizens were allowed to engage in private business in Russia against the background of the general nationalization of the economy that was taking place at that time. This state of affairs created, for a time, the opportunity for Russian owners of enterprises or securities to evade nationalization by selling their assets to the Germans.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk restored the customs tariffs of 1904 with Germany, which were extremely disadvantageous for Russia. In addition, when the Bolsheviks renounced the royal debts (which occurred in January 1918), Russia was forced to confirm all the debts to the Central Powers and resume payments on them.
Reaction to the Brest peace. Consequences
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, as a result of which large territories were torn away from Russia, the loss of a significant part of the country's agricultural and industrial base was fixed, provoked a sharp reaction not only from the inner-party opposition ("left communists"), but also from almost all political forces, both on the right and on the left. .
F. E. Dzerzhinsky’s fears that “By signing the conditions, we do not guarantee ourselves against new ultimatums”, partially confirmed: promotion German army was not limited to the boundaries of the zone of occupation defined by the peace treaty. German troops captured Simferopol on April 22, 1918, Taganrog on May 1, and Rostov-on-Don on May 8, causing the fall of Soviet power on the Don.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk served as a catalyst for the formation of a "democratic counter-revolution", expressed in the proclamation of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik governments in Siberia and the Volga region, the uprising of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in July 1918 in Moscow, and in general the transition civil war from local skirmishes to large-scale battles.
Reaction in Russia
Political opponents of the Bolsheviks very soon even learned that, for "reliability", the Germans forced the representative of the Soviet delegation to sign as many as five copies of the agreement, in which discrepancies were revealed.
Under the Council of Congresses of Representatives of Industry and Trade in Petrograd, a special commission on the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was formed, headed by a well-known specialist international law with a European name, professor of St. Petersburg University B. E. Nolde. Prominent old diplomats took part in the work of this commission, including former minister Foreign Affairs N. N. Pokrovsky. Analyzing the content of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Nolde could not fail to note "the barbaric attitude towards the cause of the Bolshevik diplomats, who could not stipulate the interests of Russia even within the narrow framework in which the Germans allowed this."
The Left Social Revolutionaries, who were allied with the Bolsheviks and were part of the "red" government, as well as the faction of the "Left Communists" within the RCP (b) spoke of the "betrayal of the world revolution", since the conclusion of peace on the Eastern Front objectively strengthened the conservative Kaiser regime in Germany . The Left SRs resigned from the Council of People's Commissars in protest.
The opposition rejected Lenin's arguments that Russia could not but accept the German conditions in connection with the collapse of its army, putting forward a plan for the transition to a mass popular uprising against the German-Austrian invaders. According to Bukharin,
The most active supporter of peace, Presovnarkom Lenin V.I., himself called the concluded peace “obscene” and “unfortunate” (“annexationist and violent,” he wrote about him in August 1918), and the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev, stated that “ the entire structure now being erected by the German imperialists in an unfortunate treaty is nothing but a light plank fence, which in the very short time will be mercilessly swept away by history.
With a sharp condemnation of the world on March 5 (18), 1918, Patriarch Tikhon speaks, stating that “whole regions inhabited by the Orthodox people are being torn away from us and surrendered to the will of an enemy alien in faith ... peace, giving our people and Russian land into heavy bondage, - such a world will not give the people the desired rest and tranquility.
International reaction
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is a political crime that, under the name of the German peace, was committed against the Russian people. Russia was unarmed ... the Russian government, in a fit of strange gullibility, expected to achieve by persuasion "democratic peace", which it could not achieve by war. The result was that the truce that followed in the meantime had not yet expired, when the German command, although obliged not to change the disposition of its troops, transferred them en masse to Western Front, and Russia was so weak that it did not even dare to raise a protest against this blatant violation of the word given by Germany ... We will not and cannot recognize such peace treaties as these. Our own goals are completely different...
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk not only allowed the Central Powers, who were on the verge of defeat in 1917, to continue the war, but also gave them a chance to win, allowing them to concentrate all their forces against the Entente troops in France and Italy, and the liquidation of the Caucasian Front unleashed Turkey’s hands to act against the British on the Middle East and Mesopotamia.
At the same time, as subsequent events showed, the hopes of the Central Powers turned out to be greatly exaggerated: with the entry of the United States into the First World War, the preponderance of forces turned out to be on the side of the Entente. The depleted human and material resources of Germany are insufficient for a successful offensive; in addition to this, in May 1918, American troops begin to appear at the front.
In addition, significant military forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary were diverted to the occupation of Ukraine. According to the researcher Savchenko V.A., since May 1918, a “grand peasant war” has been unfolding in Ukraine against the German-Austrian invaders and the hetmanate of Skoropadsky:
In the course of local uprisings of Ukrainian peasants, only during the first six months of the presence of foreign armies in Ukraine, about 22 thousand Austro-German soldiers and officers were killed (according to the German General Staff) and more than 30 thousand of the hetman's guards. Field Marshal von Eichhorn pointed out that more than 2 million peasants in Ukraine opposed the Austro-German terror. It can be said that in May-September 1918 alone, up to 100 thousand people managed to visit the rebel armed detachments. … The uprisings of the peasants practically disrupted the collection and export of food from Ukraine. ... The interventionists, counting on more, could not overcome the food crisis in Germany and Austria at the expense of Ukraine.
The Entente powers took the concluded separate peace with hostility. On March 6, British troops landed in Murmansk. On March 15, the Entente announced the non-recognition of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, on April 5, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok, and on August 2, British troops landed in Arkhangelsk.
In April 1918, diplomatic relations were established between the RSFSR and Germany. On the whole, however, Germany's relations with the Bolsheviks were not ideal from the outset. According to N. N. Sukhanov, “the German government was quite thoroughly afraid of its“ friends ”and“ agents ”: it knew very well that these people were the same“ friends ”to it, as well as to Russian imperialism, to which the German authorities tried to“ palm off ”them keeping them at a respectful distance from their own loyal subjects." From April 1918, the Soviet ambassador Ioffe A.A. engaged in active revolutionary propaganda already in Germany itself, which ends with the November Revolution. The Germans, for their part, are consistently eliminating Soviet power in the Baltic States and Ukraine, providing assistance to the “White Finns” and actively contributing to the formation of a hotbed white movement on the Don. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks, fearing a German attack on Petrograd, transferred the capital to Moscow; after the signing of the Brest Peace, they, not trusting the Germans, did not begin to cancel this decision.
Additional agreement
While the German General Staff came to the conclusion that the defeat of the Second Reich was inevitable, Germany managed to impose on the Soviet government, in the context of the growing civil war and the beginning of the intervention of the Entente, additional agreements to the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty. On August 27, 1918, in Berlin, in the strictest secrecy, a Russian-German supplementary treaty to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and a Russian-German financial agreement were concluded, which were signed on behalf of the government of the RSFSR by Plenipotentiary A. A. Ioffe, and on behalf of Germany - von P. Ginze and I. Krige. Under this agreement, Soviet Russia was obliged to pay Germany, as compensation for damage and expenses for the maintenance of Russian prisoners of war, a huge indemnity - 6 billion marks - in the form of "pure gold" and credit obligations. In September 1918, two "gold echelons" were sent to Germany, which contained 93.5 tons of "pure gold" worth over 120 million gold rubles. It didn't make it to the next shipment.
According to other clauses of the supplementary agreement, Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine and Georgia, renounced Estonia and Livonia, bargained for itself the right to access the Baltic ports and retained Crimea. The Bolsheviks also negotiated for themselves control over Baku, ceding a quarter of the products produced there to Germany; however, at the time of the conclusion of the agreement, Baku was, from August 4, occupied by the British, who still had to be expelled from there. Before both sides could take any steps on this issue, on September 16, the Turks entered Baku.
In addition, Russia took upon itself the obligation to expel the allied powers from Murmansk; at the same time, the secret clause indicated that she was not in a position to do this, and that this task should be solved by the German-Finnish troops.
Elimination of the consequences of the Brest Peace
Germany's rejection of the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Peace and the Bucharest Peace Treaty with Romania was recorded by the Compiègne truce (section B, paragraph XV) between the Entente and Germany of November 11, 1918. On November 13, the Treaty of Brest was annulled by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The withdrawal of German troops from the occupied territories of the former Russian Empire began.
According to clause XVI of the Compiègne truce, the Allies agreed on the right of access to the territories in the East up to the Vistula and in the Danzig region, from which the German troops were withdrawn, to ensure order and supply the population. In reality, the French side limited itself to the occupation
The Brest Peace of 1918 was a peace treaty between representatives of Soviet Russia and representatives of the Central Powers, which marked the defeat and withdrawal of Russia from the First World War.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918 and annulled in November 1918 by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR.
Prerequisites for the signing of a peace treaty
In October 1917 another revolution took place in Russia. The Provisional Government, which ruled the country after the abdication of Nicholas 2, was overthrown and the Bolsheviks came to power, the Soviet state began to form. One of the main slogans of the new government was "peace without annexations and indemnities", they advocated an immediate end to the war and Russia's entry into a peaceful path of development.
At the very first meeting of the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks presented their own decree on peace, which provided for an immediate end to the war with Germany and an early truce. The war, according to the Bolsheviks, dragged on too long and became too bloody for Russia, so its continuation is impossible.
Peace negotiations with Germany began on November 19 at the initiative of Russia. Immediately after the signing of the peace Russian soldiers they began to leave the front, and this did not always happen legally - there were many AWOLs. The soldiers were simply tired of the war and wanted to return to civilian life as soon as possible. The Russian army could no longer participate in hostilities, as it was exhausted, as well as the whole country.
Signing of the Brest peace treaty
Negotiations on the signing of the peace proceeded in several stages, since the parties could not reach an understanding in any way. Russian government, although they wanted to get out of the war as soon as possible, they did not intend to pay an indemnity (monetary ransom), since this was considered humiliating and had never been practiced before in Russia. Germany did not agree to such conditions and demanded payment of an indemnity.
Soon, the allied forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary presented Russia with an ultimatum, according to which it could withdraw from the war, but at the same time lose the territories of Belarus, Poland and part of the Baltic states. The Russian delegation found itself in a difficult situation: on the one hand, the Soviet government did not like such conditions, as they seemed humiliating, but, on the other hand, the country, exhausted by revolutions, did not have the strength and means to continue its participation in the war.
As a result of the meetings, the councils made an unexpected decision. Trotsky said that Russia did not intend to sign a peace treaty drawn up on such terms, however, the country would not participate in the war further either. According to Trotsky, Russia is simply withdrawing its armies from the field of hostilities and will not offer any resistance. The surprised German command said that if Russia did not sign the peace, they would start the offensive again.
Germany and Austria-Hungary again mobilized their troops and launched an offensive into Russian territories, however, contrary to their expectations, Trotsky kept his promise, and the Russian soldiers refused to fight and did not offer any resistance. This situation caused a split within the Bolshevik Party, some of them understood that they would have to sign a peace treaty, otherwise the country would suffer, while some insisted that the world would be a shame for Russia.
Terms of the Brest Peace
The terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk were not too favorable for Russia, as it lost a lot of territory, but the ongoing war would have cost the country much more.
- Russia lost the territories of Ukraine, partly Belarus, Poland and the Baltic States, as well as the Grand Duchy of Finland;
- Russia also lost a fairly significant part of the territories in the Caucasus;
- The Russian army and fleet were to be immediately demobilized and completely had to leave the battlefield;
- The Black Sea Fleet was to go to the command of Germany and Austria-Hungary;
- The treaty obligated the Soviet government to immediately stop not only hostilities, but also all revolutionary propaganda on the territory of Germany, Austria and the allied countries.
The last point caused a lot of controversy in the ranks of the Bolshevik Party, since it actually forbade the Soviet government to promote the ideas of socialism in other states and interfered with the creation of the socialist world that the Bolsheviks so dreamed of. Germany also ordered the Soviet government to pay all the losses that the country suffered as a result of revolutionary propaganda.
Despite the signing of the peace treaty, the Bolsheviks feared that Germany might resume hostilities, so the government was urgently transferred from Petrograd to Moscow. Moscow became the new capital.
The results and significance of the Brest Peace
Despite the fact that the signing of the peace treaty was criticized both by the Soviet people and representatives of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the consequences were not as dire as expected - Germany was defeated in the First World War, and Soviet Russia immediately canceled the peace treaty.
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