The foundations
for that were laid by the reactionaries of the old regime. It was the
logical outcome of their long-continued efforts. Lenine, Trotzky, and their
Bolshevist associates were mere puppets, simple tools whose visions,
ambitions, and schemes became the channels through which the conspiracy of
the worst reactionaries in Russia realized one part of an iniquitous
program.
The Revolution itself was a genuine and sincere effort on the part of the
Russian people to avert the disaster and shame of a separate peace; to
serve the Allied cause with all the fidelity of which they were capable.
There would have been a separate peace if the old regime had remained in
power a few weeks longer and the Revolution been averted. It is most likely
that it would have been a more shameful peace than was concluded at
Brest-Litovsk, and that it would have resulted in an actual and active
alliance of the Romanov dynasty with the dynasties of the Hohenzollerns and
the Habsburgs. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had this great merit: it so
delayed the separate peace between Russia and Germany that the Allies were
able to prepare for it. It had the merit, also, that it forced the
attainment of the separate peace to come in such a manner as to reduce
Germany's military gain on the western front to a minimum.
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