ABSTRACT
Trotsky was People's Commissar for War and president of the Soviet, responsible for the conduct of the revolutionary war. But the Soviet's deliberations caused him very little embarrassment, as this council met in a troop-train which was hastily got together between 7 and 8 August, 1918. The strict, methodical and severe rule of the Germans when in occupation was followed by a period of civil war with guerilla fighting: brigandage and pogroms became widespread. The mutiny in the Black Sea fleet, imprudently stirred up and sternly suppressed, gave French Communists a powerful, sentimental theme with which to arouse post-war republican opinion in favour of an unobtrusive reconciliation with the Soviet Republic. As a result of the obstinacy, the curious opportunity of a conference at Prinkipo was missed, thus enabling the Soviets, even while civil war was raging on every hand, to reconstruct their Republic so that finally its territory embraced one-sixth of the earth's surface.
