whole of the active conscious population was behind them, and swept the Assembly aside. Not anywhere in Russia did the indifferent mass stir in protest. The Assembly died like the Tsardom and the Coalition before it. Not any one of the three showed in the manner of its dying that it retained any right to live.
Peace Negotiations.
The day after the October Revolution Lenin proposed, and the assembly carried, the declaration on peace with its promise to do away with the secret diplomacy that had kept Russia in the war beyond her strength and allowed small groups to gamble in the lives of nations. On that day, October 26, the whole world was told that the new Russian Government was ready to conclude peace itself, and invited all the fighting countries to put an end to the war, “without annexation (that is, without the seizure of other peoples’ land and without the forced incorporation of other nationalities) and without indemnity.” The declaration was sent out by radio on November 7. Some Governments prevented its publication, others sought to disguise its true character and to give it the appearance of an offer of separate peace. The Allies replied to it with a threat conveyed to the Russian commander-in-chief, Dukhonin, that further steps towards peace would have serious consequences. It should of course be remembered that the Allies were in a position of peculiar difficulty. Practically all the Russians who were able to give direct information to members of Allied Governments belonged to the classes that had persistently fed themselves and others with lies as to the character of the Bolsheviks. They believed that the Soviets could hold authority only for a few days, and they persuaded the Allied Governments to share that belief. The next step of the Soviets was an agreement made across the front itself, stopping all military operations between the Black Sea and the Baltic. This was followed by another invitation to the Allies to join Russia in peace negotiations. Meanwhile the German Government, with one eye on the military party and the other on the feeling of German Labor, which at that time was unrestful and excited by the Russian Revolution, was hesitating over its answer. I shall not here attempt any detailed history of what followed. My only point is that the Soviet Government cannot be accused of having
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