Leon Trotsky: Russia’s Declaration to the Powers

10 February

[From the (British) Daily Review of the Foreign Press, 20 February, 1918, p. 929. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference. Washington 1918, p. 173]

The following declaration (Feb. 11) has been issued by the Russian Council of People’s Commissioners, according to the Bolshevist Official Agency:

In the name of the Council of People’s Commissioners, the Government of the Russian Federal Republic informs the Governments and peoples of allied and neutral countries and those in a state of war with us that we renounce any intention of signing an annexationist peace. Russia, for her part, declares that she ceases hostilities and puts an end to the state of war with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. At the same time, an order has been given for the complete demobilization of the Russian troops on all lines of the front.

(Signed) Trotsky, Medivediev, Bitzenko, Schachrai, Joffe, Karachan (Secretary), Pokrowsky.

Brest-Litovsk, Jan.¹ 10,1918.