Lenin for his part, whilst insisting that he was playing one imperialist power off against the others, in fact slid ever further across the line that separated a regrettable separate peace from a truly discreditable alliance with German imperialism. As for Ludendorff, he wanted nothing more than to crush the Soviet regime to death. But he was prevented from acting by the German government and the Reichstag majority, which had no love for either the Bolsheviks or the arbitrary rule of the German military in the East, yet saw Brest as the best way to contain a further escalation.
