Interrupted by the angry cries of the Left, and rebuked by the
President, Miliukov insisted that the proposition of peace concluded
by popular assemblies, not by diplomats, and the proposal to
undertake peace negotiations as soon as the enemy had renounced
annexations, were pro-German. Recently Kuhlman said that a personal
declaration bound only him who made it…. “Anyway, we will imitate the
Germans before we will imitate the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies….”
The sections treating of the independence of Lithuania and Livonia
were symptoms of nationalist agitation in different parts of Russia,
supported, said Miliukov, by German money…. Amid bedlam from the
Left, he contrasted the clauses of the _nakaz_ concerning
Alsace-Lorraine, Rumania, and Serbia, with those treating of the
nationalities in Germany and Austria. The _nakaz_ embraced the German
and Austrian point of view, said Miliukov.
Passing to Terestchenko’s speech, he contemptuously accused him of
being afraid to speak the thought in his mind, and even afraid to
think in terms of the greatness of Russia. The Dardanelles must
belong to Russia….
“You are continually saying that the soldier does not know why he is
fighting, and that when he does know, he’ll fight…. It is true that
the soldier doesn’t know why he is fighting, but now you have told
him that there is no reason for him to fight, that we have no
national interests, and that we are fighting for alien ends….
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