Whatever concessions the desperate Austrians were offering, in the hands of his imperialist antagonists, Trotsky insisted, the principle of self-determination could never be anything more than an ideological snare. As to the peace, he was no fool. Trotsky understood that the Germans could take what they wanted. Given this reality, what concerned him was not what the Germans took, but how they took it. ‘Russia could bow to force, but not to sophistry. He would never . . . admit German possession of the occupied territories under the cloak of self-determination, but let the Germans come out
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