Leon Trotsky: Russian Statement Concerning Session of 10 January

[From the (British) Daily Record of the Foreign Press, 24 January, 1918, p. 643. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference. Washington 1918, p. 65]

The following messages are transmitted through the wireless stations of the Russian Government:

Brest-Litovsk, Jan. 14, 1918.

The following declarations to be published, sent to foreign countries and by wireless to all. It is a reply to the distortion of the minutes of the meetings of the Conference, especially a misrepresentation of our declarations. In the German newspapers of Jan. 11, received by us to-day, an official statement is published concerning the meeting of Jan. 10.

In the name of the Russian Delegation I protest in the most energetic manner against the tendencious arrangement to which the text of the declaration of the Russian Delegation has been subjected in this statement. It is sufficient to say that in the case of Point 7, which reads: “ Our Government has written at the head of its programme the word ‘ peace ’ but at the same time it has undertaken the obligation to sign only a just democratic peace.” Only the first half of the phrase is cited. This throws a vivid light upon the whole statement which is intended to serve not so much for the information of the German public as to mislead it. In attaching an enormous significance to the conveyance of exact information to the public in all countries regarding the real course of the peace negotiations, the Russian Delegation asks that credence shall be given only to the stenographic minutes as published, without alterations and in their entirety in the Russian Press.

L. Trotsky,

People's Commissioner for Foreign Affairs.

We beg that all our communications, especially stenograms, should be immediately and in extenso sent to foreign countries by wireless, because we are the only source of unaltered information.

L. Karahan.