"The Workers' and Peasants' Government, created by the revolution of October 24-25 and basing itself on the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, proposes to all the warring peoples and their governments to start immediate negotiations for a just, democratic peace. By a just or democratic peace, for which the overwhelming majority of the wretched, war-weary workers and labouring classes of all the belligerent countries are thirsting — a peace that has been most definitely and insistently demanded by the Russian workers and peasants ever since the overthrow of the Tsarist monarchy — by such a peace the government means an immediate peace without annexations and without indemnities."

Vladimir Lenin, Decree on Peace, adopted by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Petrograd, 26 October 1917 (Old Style). This was the first decree issued by the new Bolshevik government, the night after the seizure of power.