TROTSKY INTERVIEWED.

Evening Star, Issue 16629, 11 January 1918, Page 3

TROTSKY INTERVIEWED.

SOME DISTORTED IDEAS. LONDON, January 9. Air Ransome, Petrograd correspondent of the ‘Daily News,’ interviewed- M. Trotsky as he was on the point of departing for Brest-Litovsk. M. Trotsky said that, under a mistaken impression, the Allies wanted Germany to succeed in making an advantageous separate peace with Russia, so that Germany, guarding herself on the east front, might be moi-e willing to surrender what the Allies want on the west front. M. Trotsky interpreted Air Llovd George as meaning this. The Allies then blamed the Boldheviks for having lost the freedom of Poland, Lithuania, and Courland. ALr Ransome assured AI. Trotsky that he was mistaken, but the latter replied: “ That is the allied policy.” Farther questioned, AI. Trotsky said an international labor conference would do no harm. The attitude of the Bolsheviks would not be influenced by the allied Governments—only by the allied peoples. It is difficult,” said AI. Trotsky, ‘‘to say what are the hopes of a general peace, because tho Germans have not yet been offered a chance of a general and acceptable peace, but they must need it. They have abandoned attempts to move large units from the east fronts westward, and now take tho men singly, ctkl they jump out of trains. Deserters tell mo that the soldiers will not go to the western front. Twenty-five thousand Germans at this moment are mutinying behind the German front in tho Kovno district, and the Hich Command, to get their comrades to attack tho mutineers, surrounded them, hoping to starve them into submission.” AI. Trotsky refused to be drawn regarding the actual terms he hopes to obtain, adding laughingly: ‘‘Logically we ought to declare war on Britain now, for tho sake of India, Egypt, and Ireland.”