Peace! Immediate, universal peace, for all countries, for all peoples: Bolshevism’s popularity had been propelled, above all else, by a promised extrication from the hated war. At the Second Congress of Soviets, however, Lenin had suddenly equivocated. “The new power would do everything,” he promised, “but we do not say that we can end the war simply by sticking our bayonets in the ground . . . we do not say that we shall make peace today or tomorrow.”135 (Newspaper accounts of his remarks omitted these words.) The “Decree on Peace”—which mentioned England, France, and Germany, but not the
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