On 12 January, after sitting through an infuriating lecture from the Soviets on the ‘legitimate’ procedures for self-determination, General Max Hoffmann, who since the Christmas crisis had been pilloried in the international press as the archetypal German militarist, lost his temper. Why, he demanded to know, should the representatives of Imperial Germany take lessons in legitimacy from the Bolsheviks, whose own regime was ‘based purely on violence, ruthlessly suppressing all who think differently’.
