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

by Adam Tooze

On 29 July 1918 Lenin gave the party’s Central Committee a truly drastic appraisal of the situation. Encircled by a ‘forged chain’ of Anglo-French imperialism, Russia had been ‘sucked back into the war’. The fate of the revolution now depended ‘entirely upon who will carry off the victory . . . the entire question of the continued existence of the USSR . . . has been reduced to this military question’.30 When pressed by the British representative Bruce Lockhart as to whether this amounted to a declaration of war against the Entente, Lenin was evasive. But behind the scenes the Bolsheviks had made their choice. Following through the logic of the policy adopted since May, Lenin was clasping the Germans ever closer.