The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931

by Adam Tooze

In 1917 the much maligned revolutionary defensists had refused to contemplate separate peace talks with Germany, precisely because they had foreseen the dilemma that Lenin and Trotsky now found themselves in. To refuse to come to terms with Germany risked a disastrous invasion. But if they accepted a humiliating peace they would have to brace themselves for civil war. The Bolsheviks, as always, comforted themselves with the thought that Germany would soon erupt in revolution. Trotsky responded by raising the stakes and issuing a radical peace appeal to the world, challenging the Entente to apply self-determination to Ireland and Egypt.38 The news from Vienna was certainly encouraging. But Lenin had come to a sober conclusion.39 Knowing the condition of the Russian units stationed in front of Petrograd, he rejected the idea of a revolutionary war of resistance as a pipe dream. The Soviet regime would have to make a separate peace, however ruinous the terms.