Shortly after the news of the March revolution in Petrograd Trotzky, together with a number of other exiles, took passage for home. At Halifax he was taken off the ship by the British authorities, who knew his record. Here he was detained until, at the request of the Kerensky Government, he was released and allowed to proceed to his destination. In Petrograd he joined Lenine and was the executive head of the Bolsheviki. Of the domestic, the internal, program of the Bolsheviki little need be said, for it could not be brought into effective application until the international problems should be solved. Like other Socialists, they stand for the collective ownership of all public industries and natural resources, including the land. It is part of their doctrine that the big estates of the church and the bigger landlords who live off their rents should be expropriated at once. They hold that all army officers should be elected; that once elected, they should be respected and obeyed so far as military organization is concerned, but they should be made subject to sudden recall, or ejection. Unlike many Socialists, the Bolsheviki do not believe in centralization, even in a democratic government. In other words, they are keen partisans of "states' rights," and believe in local autonomy, superimposed by loose federation. For this reason, they recognize the right of secession on the part of any distinct section of the people who may have special sectional interests, such as radical, religious or national interests. These are the general principles underlying the Bolshevik movement, apart from the sinister leadership of Trotzky and Lenine, whose treacherous connection with Germany and German gold finally betrayed their party as well as their country and her Allies. CHAPTER XIX FIRST BOLSHEVIKI PEACE MOVE The first informal notice of the peace negotiations which the Bolsheviki proposed to initiate was issued on November 20, 1917, when the following announcement was issued: "By order of the All-Russian Workmen's and Soldiers' Congress, the 'Council of the People's Commissaries' had assumed power, with obligation to offer all the peoples and their respective governments an immediate armistice on all fronts, with the purpose of opening pourparlers immediately for the conclusion of a 'democratic peace.' "When the power of the Council is firmly established throughout the country, the Council will, without delay, make a formal offer of an armistice to all the belligerents, enemy and ally. A draft message to this effect has been sent to all the people's commissaries for foreign affairs and to all the plenipotentiaries and representatives of Allied nations in Petrograd.