Lenin Tells the Bolsheviks to Accept Brest-Litovsk

From Lenin's Statement on the Treaty

Published in Pravda, 14 March 1918

Comrades. . . some are giving way too much to the feeling of legitimate and just indignation at the defeat of the Soviet Republic by imperialism. They are sometimes too prone to give way to despair, and, instead of taking into account the historical conditions for the development of the Revolution as they emerged before the conclusion of the peace and as they appear after the peace. . . The most onerous of peace treaties—the Tilsit Peace—is nowregarded by history as a turning-point of that time, as the start of the turning-point in the history of the German nation. Germany, though forced to retreat to Tilsit. . . was actually gaining time, waiting until the international situation, which at one time had permitted the triumph of Napoleon—a robber similar to the present-day Hohenzollern-Hindenburg—should change in her favour, and until the consciousness of the German  people, exhausted by the decades of the Napoleonic wars and defeats, should heal and the people be resurrected to new life.. . . it is our revolutionary duty to sign even an onerous, a super-onerous and forced treaty, for thereby we shall attain a better position both for ourselves and for our allies. Have we lost anything by signing the peace treaty on March 3?. . . Our cause is gaining in strength, whilst the forces of the imperialists are becoming weaker, and whatever trials and defeats we may suffer from our “ Tilsit ” peace, we are starting the tactics of retreat, and I repeat once again: there is no doubt whatever that both the conscious proletariat and the conscious peasants are on our side, and we shall prove ourselves capable not only of heroic attack, but also of heroic retreat. We shall know how to wait till the international Socialist proletariat comes to our aid and we shall then start a second Socialist revolution on a world scale.

Shaded Area Shows Area to Be Occupied by Central Powers After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
(Map Is Somewhat Inexact)