Current History, Vol. VIII, No. 3, June 1918: A Monthly Magazine of the New York TimesVarious
History
Current History, Vol. VIII, No. 3, June 1918: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times
Various
World War, 1914-1918
You still remember the case of Miassoyedov, which was perpetrated with
the aim of annihilating an entire Russian army. You also remember the
attempt of the enemy to have Ireland revolt, an experiment which
dismally failed owing to the prompt and energetic measures taken by the
British Government. Surely you have a vivid memory of the criminal
exploitation which the enemy Governments made in Italy of the Papal note
in favor of peace. Also, you remember the numerous cases of arson of
munition plants by the action of their agents, and the enemy propaganda
of a premature peace for the benefit of Germany, employed to the limit
by pacifists and certain imperialist and international adventurers
through lectures and "defeatist" newspapers in neutral countries.
RUSSIA ALONE DECEIVED
All these intrigues were clothed in fine phrases and put forward with
high humanitarian ideals, by which the enemy propagated monarchistic
ideas in republics and republican ideas in monarchies, eulogizing a
military régime in democratic countries and in autocracies democratic,
republican, and even anarchistic ideals.
They all had one sole end--to provoke internal disorders and discord
among the Allies in order to divert the attention of Germany's
adversaries from the principal aim. In every allied country these secret
machinations of our enemies were unmasked and repelled. Repelled--except
in Russia. All these intrigues and secret machinations could not succeed
anywhere except in Russia, where there are many Germans, and where our
enemies managed to concentrate the entire attention of a people in the
midst of war upon their internal organization. In this way the
possibility was placed in the hands of enemies--most dangerous to the
liberty of the people and to their right to dispose freely of their
destiny--to guide more easily the struggle with free and democratic
nations reared against Prussianism in order to defend the rights of the
weak and prevent the enslaving of other countries and other peoples.
RUSSIAN LIBERTY DESTROYED
The first revolutionary movement in Russia was directed against an
autocratic and irresponsible Government. On the side of the revolution
they pretended that the Government had initiated pourparlers for a
separate peace with Germany unknown to the Russian people and the
Allies. After this first movement, a second took place in Russia
demanding a democratic peace "without annexations and indemnities" on
the basis of the right of peoples to determine their destiny freely and
for themselves.
This second revolutionary provisional Government not having the desire
to cut the bonds which attached Russia to the democratic and allied
countries, a third movement followed, which did not hesitate to cut the
bonds uniting Russia to the Allies, to demobilize the Russian armies--an
act contrary to all reason, even revolutionary--and to initiate
pourparlers with the enemy at Brest-Litovsk for a separate peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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