Scheidemann replied that it was the Bolsheviki themselves who had invited “Parvus” to come to Stockholm for the purpose of opening up negotiations.  This statement was denounced as a lie by Karl Radek in Pravda.  Some day, doubtless, the truth will be known; for the present it is enough to note the fact that as early as November the Bolsheviki were negotiating through such a discredited agent of the Central Powers as Dr. Alexander Helfandt, otherwise “Parvus,” the well-known Marxist!  Such facts as this, added to those previously noticed, tended inevitably to strengthen the conviction that Lenine and Trotsky were the pliant and conscious tools of Germany all the time, and that the protests of Trotzky at Brest-Litovsk were simply stage-play.

But for all that, unless and until official, documentary evidence is forthcoming which proves them to have been in such relations with the German Government and military authorities, they ought not to be condemned upon the chain of suspicious circumstances, strong as that chain apparently is.  The fact is that they had to make peace, and make it quickly.  Kerensky, had he been permitted to hold on, would equally have had to make a separate peace, and make it quickly.  Only one thing could have delayed that for long—­namely, the arrival of an adequate force of Allied troops on the Russian front to stiffen the morale and to take the burden of fighting off from the Russians.  Of that there was no sign and no promise or likelihood.  Kerensky knew that he would have had to make peace, at almost any cost and on almost any terms, if he remained in power.  If the Bolsheviki appear in the light of traitors to the Allies, it should be remembered that pressure of circumstances would have forced even such a loyal friend of the Allies as Kerensky certainly proved himself to be to make a separate peace, practically on Germany’s terms, in a very little while.  It was not a matter of months, but of weeks at most, probably of days.

Russia had to have peace.  The nation was war-weary and exhausted.  The Allies had not understood the situation—­indeed, they never have understood Russia, even to this day—­and had bungled right along.  What made it possible for the Bolsheviki to assert their rule so easily was the fact that they promised immediate peace, and the great mass of the Russian workers wanted immediate peace above everything else.  They were so eager for peace that so long as they could get it they cared at the time for nothing.  Literally nothing else mattered.  As we have seen, the Bolshevik leaders had strenuously denied wanting to make a “separate peace.”  There is little reason for doubting that they were sincere in this in the sense that what they wanted was a general peace, if that could be possibly obtained.  Peace they had to have, as quickly as possible.  If they could not persuade their Allies to join with them in making such a general peace, they were willing to make a separate peace.  That is quite