5. Trotsky and Brest-Litovsk¶
Core Argument¶
The Brest-Litovsk crisis of early 1918 forced the Bolshevik leadership to confront the brutal gap between revolutionary aspiration and military reality. Three positions emerged: Lenin demanded immediate acceptance of the German terms; Trotsky proposed “neither peace nor war,” refusing to sign but declaring hostilities at an end; and Bukharin championed a “revolutionary war” against German imperialism. Bukharin’s ultra-left line initially commanded the Party majority, while Lenin and Trotsky formed a moderate minority. The overwhelming majority of workers also opposed signing, and the Bolsheviks’ first instinct had been to prolong negotiations in the hope that revolution would erupt in the West. Trotsky conducted highly effective propaganda at the conference itself, exposing German imperialism before an international audience.
Lenin, however, was a supreme political realist. He viewed the peace solely as a temporary breathing space to rebuild Russia’s shattered armies and create a Red Army capable of both defence and offence, in order to assist revolution in the West. He insisted it was “indispensable to prepare for revolutionary war.” At the Central Committee meeting of 24 January, Lenin agreed to Trotsky’s delaying tactic on condition that Trotsky would support signing if Germany renewed its offensive. When the German advance began, Trotsky honoured this commitment, switching to Lenin’s side and giving him a majority. Lenin’s pamphlet The Revolutionary Phrase was directed against Bukharin’s faction, not Trotsky; indeed, Trotsky’s name does not appear in it. E. H. Carr confirms that Lenin’s disagreements with Trotsky were less profound than those with Bukharin.
Lenin repeatedly stated that without European revolution, the Russian Revolution’s victory would be hopeless. He required socialists to sacrifice patriotic feelings in the name of international revolution, even though it had not yet arrived. There is no guarantee of success in revolution; to imagine otherwise is to join the philistines who are always right only after the event. The reasons Lenin favoured signing have nothing in common with those advanced by Johnstone and Communist Party leaders today, whose arguments serve not to illuminate Lenin’s position but to cover up their own pusillanimous and anti-Leninist policies.