The stars are shining, the moon is clear, and the former Tsar's office, located in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, is now occupied by a middle-aged man. The statues of Peter the Great and Alexander II on the walls were removed without suspense and replaced by a painting of Karl the Great. Giant oil paint by Marx: all the medals and sculptures of the Romanov dynasty in the room have also been cleaned up, adding a touch of emptiness to the opulence and luxury.

Under the bright crystal chandelier, Ulyanov, who used his early pseudonym "Lenin", was writing at his broad, heavy desk: even though the hour hand of the table clock next to him was already pointing to one o'clock in the morning, his eyes were still bright and energetic. Ever since he felt the taste of power in his hands, Ulyanov was completely immersed in the excitement of this dominant, and his whole person was as tireless as a wind-up machine, dealing with all kinds of things facing the nascent Bolshevik regime day and night. Now he suddenly realized that his previous 43 years of life journey was as boring as clear water, and the current situation of crisscrossing thousands of miles of territory and dominating hundreds of millions of people is a man's true value and mission!

"Tuk-tuk." A slight knock on the door was heard and was distinctly clear in the silent night sky. Ulyanov's heart moved slightly, and he opened his mouth and spat out a syllable that invited him in. A man in his thirties walked slowly to his desk: he was of medium height, with two thick beards on his lips, and his overall appearance was not very remarkable. However, in its deep gaze, there is a faint hint of an eagle-like wolf-like gloom; This feeling is like a fierce wolf. will not hesitate to use a qiē means for their own interests.

"Comrade Ulyanov, Comrade Trotsky sent from Brest overnight the demands of the Allies for an armistice. The Central Powers, led by the Germans, demanded that we cede the three Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, and the South Caucasus, and at the same time hand over a large amount of heavy equipment, and pay 30 billion marks in reparations within ten years. As long as we do not meet these conditions for a day, they will not stop their offensive at the front for a day. ”

The bearded man placed a telegram in front of Ulyanov, and his tone was filled with irrepressible indignation: "These imperialist countries are indeed virtuous, and they will do nothing but plunder the fruits of the labor of the proletariat. Where is this series of extremely harsh clauses acceptable to a normal country? Damn the Germans, they should have been exterminated by the whip of God of Attila, King of the Huns! ”

"Comrade Steel. You can't think like that. If the Germans were all dead. Who will show us the proletariat a path to a bright future? You must know that the great pioneers of communism, Comrade Marx and Engels, were both Germans. Ulyanov swiped down his decision on a piece of paper, then raised his head and said to the person in front of him. The bearded man, known as steel, slowed his tone when he heard this, and said, "That's what you said. But Comrade Ulyanov. The conditions offered by the Germans are beyond what we can bear; This is not peace at all. It is the brutal plundering and exploitation of us by imperialism! ”

Ulyanov's brow furrowed slightly. He took the telegram that the bearded man had brought to him and read it carefully. After a while, his gaze suddenly turned solemn, and an indescribable anger rolled and tumbled in his heart. It turned into a punch to the desk.

In fact, as early as the first days of contact between the Bolsheviks and the Germans, Ulyanov had already seen their purpose clearly. The central reason why this imperialist jackal came to him was to raise his revolutionary forces as a hen in order to wait for the golden eggs to be repaid in the future. And the meeting between the picturesque young imperialist leader and himself convinced him of this view. As the Bolshevik activities were at an unprecedented low ebb due to the defeat of the revolution of 1905, Ulyanov, who was in dire need of rejuvenation, gladly made a deal with the other party in order to restore the strength of the Bolsheviks with the help of this semi-official force. Ulyanov did not have a single guilty conscience about this act of cooperating with foreign forces and obviously detrimental to his own country: his ultimate goal was to realize Marx's theory and establish a state under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and if the tsar was not overthrown, where would the power belonging to the toiling people come from? What's more, his Tatar ancestral line is also a member of the Tsar's persecution!

Now, however, the sharp ideological antagonism between the two sides has been fully stimulated by the success of their own revolution. The Germans, raised by hens, tore off their hypocritical skins and began to ask for golden eggs in hand with sharp knives as a previous feed in return: and the number of golden eggs is not as simple as one or two!

The stars twinkle, and the table clock swings lonely and swaying; Ulyanov stared at the telegram in front of him, and a thousand thoughts had already turned in his mind. Battlefield pattern, domestic situation...... All sorts of factors drowned him like a tidal wave; Faintly, and interestingly, the thirst for power is mixed in. This feeling grew stronger and stronger in a sea of complicated and chaotic affairs, and finally completely occupied his heart, engulfing all the others.

Whatever means he used, he had to keep the hard-won Bolshevik power. If he is forced into exile again in the future, and barely makes ends meet on that little manuscript fee, it will be worse than killing him! He can no longer go back to the Marxist-style poverty of the past, either stabilize the regime and create a great cause, or be buried on the Russian soil with his ambitions, and he will never choose the third path! After a long silence, Ulyanov finally spoke: "Comrade Steel, please inform all the members of the Central Committee and let them meet in the chamber at seven o'clock on time. Now is the time for us to make the most critical decisions. ”

The next morning, before dawn, a conference hall was filled with the core leaders of the Bolsheviks. The news of the details of the front-line negotiations had reached them, and all the participants were frowning, and they did not know how many times they had cursed the Germans for stabbing them in the back. After a while, the mentor Ulyanov, who was shining in the center of his head, entered the venue and immediately expressed his opinion to everyone.

"Comrade, now we are more eager than any other force to withdraw from the war!" Ulyanov's majestic voice echoed through the room, and in the midst of the pain there was a hint of firmness, "Not only do we not have an army capable of resisting the Germans, but there are still a large number of reactionary forces hostile to the Soviet power in the country, and the remnants of the Tsar's heart; They all want us to repeat the prospect of the fall of the Romanovs and the Provisional Government, and then they will pounce on us and eat our corpses! At present, the edicts of the Soviet power can only reach a small part of the Russian territory in western Europe, and a large number of places still do not respect the orders of the Soviets; Under these circumstances, we cannot have the confidence to continue the war. Therefore, I advocate accepting the Germans' terms and immediately quelling the disastrous situation on the Western Front, which has collapsed. ”

Although Ulyanov had laid the present facts before the public, and even made a very bitter statement that the Bolshevik regime could only be saved by the immediate conclusion of a peace treaty with the Allies, the peace clauses sent back by Trotsky were too harsh for a large number of participants to accept. A handful of people, led by Bukharin, advocated the continuation of the world war with the Allies. They claim that it is now the beginning of spring, when the snow and ice are thawing, and that the Russian land will soon be turned into a mud pool; Whether it's vehicles, horses, or people, it's even more difficult to move in this environment than in the harsh winter months. Thus, Russia would have a natural respite of about two months, which would undoubtedly allow the Bolsheviks to regroup their army and fight a strong enemy.

Ulyanov completely scoffed at this opinion: if he did not say two months, even if he gave himself two years, the Bolsheviks might not be able to calm the chaos in the country caused by the fall of the Tsar. As for rebuilding an army, it will take much more time: it will take six or seven years for the British Army to emerge from the shadow of the Boer War! Without a long-term peace treaty on the Western Front, it is impossible for the current government to sustain itself!

The stalemate between the two sides immediately held a referendum on the commissioners. To Ulyanov's disgrace, only four of his compromises, including himself, voted in favor, with three abstentions and eight against, so his claim was rejected without any suspense. Bukharin's war tactics were likewise sent to the wastebasket with majority opposition. At present, the Bolshevik commissioners were still in a rather paradoxical state of confusion: they did not dare to continue the fight with the Germans, but they could not accept the signing of such a humiliating treaty!

"Maybe we can take the middle way? The armies on the battlefield were demobilized according to the normal procedure, with an armistice with the Germans, but without a treaty, that is, in a way that dealt with the current situation on the Western Front without war or peace. A committee member said. However, as soon as he finished speaking, Ulyanov immediately pointed out that this was simply an unrealistic fantasy of the weaker side: the Allies, who had not received the reparations, would inevitably continue to attack, and when the army had been demobilized, Russia's door would be completely open to the other side and undefended! Within a month, the Germans would be able to march under St. Petersburg, a tactic that was no different from suicide! (To be continued......)

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