clearly that this was but pretense; but we had not expected even that they would try to pretend; because, as the French writer has said, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. The fact that the German imperialists found it necessary to make this tribute to the principles of democracy, was, in our eyes, evidence that the situation of affairs within Germany was serious enough.... But if we, generally speaking, had no illusions concerning the love for democracy of Messrs. Kuehlmann and Czernin--we know well enough the nature of the German and Austro-Hungarian dominating classes--it must nevertheless be admitted that we had not the slightest idea of the chasm which separated the real intentions of German imperialism from those principles which were put forth on the 25th of December by Mr. von Kuehlmann as a parody on the Russian revolution--a chasm which was revealed so strikingly a few days later. Such audacity we had never expected. Kuehlmann's reply made a tremendous impression upon the working masses of Russia. It was interpreted as a result of the fear felt by the dominant classes of the Central Empires because of the discontent and the growing impatience of the working masses of Germany. On the 28th of December there took place in Petrograd a joint demonstration of workmen and soldiers for a democratic peace. The next morning our delegation came back from Brest-Litovsk and brought those brigand demands which Mr. von Kuehlmann made to us in the name of the Central Empires as an interpretation of his "democratic" formulae.