They had hardly taken this first
step on the road to "international" existence, when the Kiev diplomacy
revealed the same narrow-mindedness and the same moral standards which
were always so characteristic of the petty politicians of the Balkan
Peninsula. Messrs. Kuehlmann and Czernin certainly had no illusions
concerning the solidity of the new participant in the negotiations. But
they thought, and correctly so, that the participation of the Kiev
delegation complicated the game not without advantage for themselves.
At its first appearance at Brest-Litovsk, the Kiev delegation
characterized Ukraine as a component part of the Russian Federated
Republic that was in progress of formation. This apparently embarrassed
the diplomats of the Central Empires, who considered it their main task
to convert the Russian Republic into a new Balkan Peninsula. At their
second appearance the delegates of the Rada declared, under dictation
from the Austro-Hungarian diplomacy, that Ukraine refused to join the
Russian Federation and was becoming an entirely independent republic. In
order to give the reader an opportunity to get a better idea of the
situation which was thus created for the Soviet power in the last moment
of the peace negotiations, I think it best to reproduce here in its
basic parts the address made by the author of these lines in his
capacity as the People's Commissar on Foreign Affairs at the session of
the Central Executive Committee on the 14th of February, 1918.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131