ABSTRACT
Lenin prepared the Bolshevik coup d’etat impelled by a certainty that in Europe—and particularly in Germany—the revolution was moving yet faster; at every crucial point his decisive argument was the latest scant news of the German anti-war movement. The Bolshevik government declared a revolutionary war against “the bourgeoisie and imperialists of Germany” and ordered complete destruction of property in case of retreat. From the same basic premise as Lenin, that Europe was on the brink of a revolutionary crisis and time was with the Soviets, the Left Communists drew an opposite conclusion. The effect of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty on the new state was such, the Bukharinists feared, that the revolution would develop in the opposite direction. The stabilization of the army afforded by Brest-Litovsk had indeed been a setback, and the peace that the Bolsheviks had signed with the German General Staff led to widespread misunderstanding and criticism among German socialists.
