There was no doubt in our minds that in the person of the German
imperialism we were dealing with an opponent who was saturated with the
consciousness of his immense power, which was strikingly revealed during
the present war.
All the arguments made by bourgeois cliques that we might have been
incomparably stronger if we had conducted these negotiations together
with our allies are absolutely without foundation. In order that we
might at an indefinite future date conduct negotiations together with
our Allies, we should first of all have had to continue the war together
with them. And if our country was weakened and exhausted, the
continuation of the war, a failure to bring it to a conclusion, would
have still further weakened and exhausted it. We should have had to
settle the war under conditions still more unfavorable to us. In the
case even that the combination of which Russia, owing to international
intrigues of Czarism and the bourgeoisie, had become a part--the
combination headed by Great Britain--in the case even that this
combination had come out of the war completely victorious--let us for a
moment admit the possibility of such a not very probable issue--even in
that case, comrades, it does not mean that our country would also have
come out victorious. For during further continuation of this protracted
war, Russia would have become even more exhausted and plundered than
now.
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