31. Negotiations at Brest-Litovsk¶
Core Argument¶
The negotiations at Brest-Litovsk exposed the irreconcilable antagonism between revolutionary internationalism and imperialist realpolitik. The first Soviet delegation, led by Joffe, was treated with ostentatious cordiality by the Germans, who shared meals and socialised with their Bolshevik counterparts. Lenin dispatched Trotsky to delay proceedings, and he promptly ended this familiarity: he refused to be presented to Prince Leopold of Bavaria, demanded separate meals, and replaced feigned friendliness with official formality. Kühlmann, the lead German diplomat, was skilled but prone to slovenly methods and underestimating his opponents. He attempted transparent manipulation, including a clumsy offer to return Trotsky’s library in exchange for the release of Austrian officers. The negotiations were repeatedly adjourned, partly due to internal difficulties among the other delegations; Trotsky used the enforced leisure to dictate a historical sketch of the October Revolution, intended for foreign workers.
The German delegation’s contradictory behaviour—proposing democratic formulas on 25 December only to reveal annexationist aims days later—stemmed from Kühlmann’s mistaken belief that the Bolsheviks would accept a disguised peace. He thought the Bolsheviks, needing peace to retain power, would let Germany annex territories under the pretence of self-determination, with the Russian revolution’s sanction. When the Bolsheviks refused this hypocrisy, Kühlmann reacted as if a tacit agreement had been broken. General Hoffmann, representing the High Command, repeatedly undercut Kühlmann by reducing questions to military force, at one point denouncing Bolshevik repression while the German delegation itself relied on force. Trotsky replied that all class governments use force; the difference was whom they protected. Kühlmann’s civility was relative; he mocked Russia as “powerful” sarcastically. Hoffmann openly declared he represented the High Command, not the government, revealing deep divisions between German diplomacy and the military, though both agreed on non-withdrawal from occupied territories. The Ukrainian Rada delegation, manipulated by Kühlmann and Czernin, insulted the Soviet delegation in a servile display, even as Soviet troops took Kiev. The Central Powers had already decided to occupy Ukraine. Count Czernin, the Austrian diplomat, privately compared the Bolsheviks to Jacobins and mused about a possible assassin for Trotsky. Karl Liebknecht, imprisoned in Germany, wrote that Brest-Litovsk had become a revolutionary tribunal exposing German avidity and hypocrisy.