Krleža's Discussion on Brest-Litovsk (1918) as an Apologia for October Revolution or the Politics Of Friendship

Abstract

In the paper I shall endeavour to identify Krleža's antithetical carousel (to use Stanko Lasić's term), with regard to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in Krleža's written entries, specifically a polemical dispute titled Discussion on Brest-Litovsk (1918). In fact, from the perspective of 1918, Krleža defined the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918) as the anticipation of “the international solidarity of the European proletariat”, i.e. a political manoeuvre pro futuro (BD2, 180). However, in the footnote to the text, written from the perspective of 1967, Krleža suggests, as a correction of his own interastral rhetoric, that “any Moscow illusion about general strikes in the area of central government, particularly in Berlin” dissipated under the “terror sewing military hordes” in February 1918, and “the Leninist concept of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended up in a cul-de-sac” (BD2, 188).