Vladimir I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky: Declaration on Signing the Treaty

19 February

[From the (British) Daily Review of the Foreign Press, 21 February, 1918, p. 940. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference. Washington 1918, p. 174 f.]

Russian Government wireless (Feb. 19) sends out the following:

To the Government of the German Empire, Berlin:

The Council of the People’s Commissaries protests against the fact that the German Government has directed its troops against the Russian Councils’ Republic, which has declared the war as at an end, and which is demobilizing its army on all fronts.

The Workmen’s and Peasants’ Government of Russia could not anticipate such a step, because, neither directly nor indirectly, has any one of the parties which concluded the armistice given the seven clays’ notice required in accordance with the treaty of Dec. 15 for terminating it.

The Council of the People’s Commissaries in the present circumstances regards itself as forced to formally declare its willingness to sign a peace upon the conditions which have been dictated by the Delegations of the Quadruple Alliance at Brest-Litovsk.

The Council of the People’s Commissaries further declares that a detailed reply will be given without delay to the conditions of peace as proposed by the German Government.

(Signed) For the Council of the People’s Commissaries:

V. Ulianov-Lenin,

President of the Council of the People's Commissaries.

L. Trotsky,

People's Commissary for Foreign Affairs.

★

We are sending to-day from Petrograd a messenger to Dvinsk with the wireless message containing the original signatures of the President of the Council of the People’s Commissioners, Vladimir Ulianov-Lenin, and of the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Leon Trotsky.

(Signed) The Council of the People’s Commissioners.

We beg you to give us an acknowledgment of this message, and to inform us if it has been received promptly. We also beg you to reply in Russian.