Leon Trotsky: The Balkans, Capitalist Europe, and Tsarism

[October 14 (27), Proletary No. 38, November 1 (14), 1908, The Balkan Wars. New York-Sydney 1980, p. 15-27]

1. The “Conspiracy” of Austria and Bulgaria

Taking advantage of a strike on the Oriental Railway, Prince Ferdinand seized the Eastern Rumelia line, belonging to Austrian capitalists. In defense of their interests, the Vienna government immediately issued an appropriate protest. It was apparently so well drafted that even the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung thought itself obliged to express indignation at the British and French “slanderers” who sought to reveal, behind the pushy Bulgarian prince, the cunning hand of an Austrian stage manager. However, the slanderers proved to be right. Not only the Bulgarian seizure of the Turko-Austrian line but also the Austrian protest against this seizure formed necessary components in a conspiracy by the Austrian and Bulgarian governments. This was revealed within two or three days. On October 5 [1908] Bulgaria proclaimed her independence, and two days later Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both of these actions violated the Treaty of Berlin, though they meant no change at all in the political map of Europe.

The states that today occupy the Balkan Peninsula were manufactured by European diplomacy around the table at the Congress of Berlin in 1879. There it was that all the measures were taken to convert the national diversity of the Balkans into a regular melee of petty states. None of them was to develop beyond a certain limit, each separately was entangled in diplomatic and dynastic bonds and counterposed to all the rest, and, finally, the whole lot were condemned to helplessness in relation to the Great Powers of Europe and their continual intrigues and machinations. Part of the territory inhabited by the Bulgars was detached from Turkey by the congress and transformed into a vassal principality, but Eastern Rumelia, with an almost entirely Bulgarian population, remained with Turkey. The revolt of the Eastern Rumelian Bulgars in 1885 amended the work of the diplomatic cutters of the Congress of Berlin, and, against the will of Alexander III, Eastern Rumelia was de facto detached from Turkey and turned into southern Bulgaria. The dependence of the “vassal” principality of Bulgaria upon Turkey found no practical expression. The Bulgarian people gained as little from the ending of this pretense as the Turkish people lost by it. But the Austrian agent Ferdinand of Coburg attained the summit of his career, and from a vassal prince was transformed into a sovereign monarch.

The annexation by Austria of the two former Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina also brought no real changes in state frontiers. However piercing the screams of the Russian Slavophile-patriotic press about Austrian violence against Slavdom, it cannot alter the fact that both provinces were handed over to the Habsburg monarchy more than thirty years ago, and by nobody else but Russia. This was the bribe that Austria received under the secret Reichstadt agreement of 1876 with the government of Alexander II, in return for her neutrality in the Russo-Turkish War when that broke out in 1877. The Berlin Congress of 1879 merely confirmed Austria in her right to “occupy” these provinces for an indefinite period, and the tsarist government obtained — in exchange for these two Slavonic provinces cut off by Austria from Turkey — Moldavian Bessarabia, which was cut off from Romania. In the thieves’ jargon of diplomacy this sort of deal at the expense of a third party is called “compensation.” In any case we can console ourselves with the thought that if Krushevan, Purishkevich, Krupensky, and other well-known natives of Bessarabia are not truly Russian in the ethnographical Sense, they do nevertheless constitute a sort of “general Slavonic equivalent,” since we received them in exchange for the Serbs and Croats of Bosnia.

Austria’s policy in the Balkans naturally combines capitalist predatoriness, bureaucratic obtuseness, and dynastic intrigue. The gendarme, the financier, the Catholic missionary, and the agent provocateur share the work between them. All this taken together is called the fulfillment of a cultural mission.

During her thirty-years’ rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, though Austria has fundamentally undermined the “barbarism” of natural economy that prevailed there, she has not felt ready to undertake the abolition of feudal forms of agrarian relations. The Bosnian peasant still to this day pays one-third of his crop to the landlord-bey. The percentage of illiterates has declined in this period from 95 to 84 percent, but, on the other hand, the number of emigrants has increased sharply. After the revolution in Turkey, which caused a great ferment among the Bosnians, the government of Franz Josef on the one hand instructed its agent provocateur Nastic to organize the noisy affair of the Serb separatists and, on the other, proceeded to “crown” its thirty years of civilizing work by extending the sovereignty of the Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary to Bosnia and Herzegovina, promising to grant the inhabitants self-government in the form of a Landtag [provincial assembly] based on estate-curiae. The unceasing searches and arrests were to prepare the Bosnians for the receipt of constitutional benefits.

While, however, the conspiracy of Habsburg and Coburg did not change any de facto relationships, it did violate the sacred norms of international law. The Treaty of Berlin constitutes the formal foundation of European equilibrium as a whole. Apart from so-called “moral” obligations, it is guarded, apparently, by armies, fortresses, and warships, and is the object of a constant vigil by diplomats. Yet all this in no way prevented one participant in the Congress of Berlin, namely, Austria, from violating the treaty as soon as a favorable moment occurred. The miserable incapacity of the “concert” of Europe to prevent the violation of a treaty placed under its protection provides a merciless disproof of illusions about the possibility of realizing the Peace of God by means of arbitration between capitalist states (Jaurès!). Arbitration tribunals, all those congresses and conferences and their “verdicts,” possess no more coercive power than do international treaties.

II. The New Turkey Confronts Old Difficulties

The proclamation of Bulgarian independence and the annexation of Bosnia were immediate consequences of the Turkish revolution — not because it had weakened Turkey but, on the contrary, because it had strengthened her. The historical precondition of the Treaty of Berlin was the disintegration of the old Turkey — a process that Europe hastened with one hand while with the other keeping it within definite bounds. The revolution has not yet succeeded in reviving the country, but it has created the conditions for its revival. Bulgaria and Austria were faced with the danger, real or apparent, that Turkey might in time wish and be able to transform fiction into reality. This explains the fearful haste with which Ferdinand assumed the crown while Franz Josef extended the area subject to his crown. The Habsburg monarch, however, frankly revealed his fear of a revived Turkey: while annexing Bosnia, he “voluntarily” withdrew his garrison from the sanjak of Novibazar. This extremely important move has been deliberately and systematically hushed up by both sides — by the Austrophiles, so as to conceal a cowardly retreat on the part of the Habsburg monarchy, and by the Pan-Slavists in order not to weaken the impression made by the “crime” of the annexation of Bosnia.

A glance at the map of the Balkan Peninsula is sufficient to show the importance of the sanjak of Novibazar: this narrow strip of land — belonging to Turkey, inhabited by Serbs, and occupied by Austrian troops under the terms of the Treaty of Berlin — is, on the one hand a wedge thrust between two parts of “Serbdom,” namely, Serbia itself and Montenegro, and, on the other, a bridge between Austria and Macedonia. A railway through the sanjak, a concession for which was granted to Austria during the last days of the old regime in Turkey, would have linked up the Austro-Bosnian line with the Turko-Macedonian one. The direct economic importance of the Novibazar branch — and the Austrian imperialists were quite clear about this — could only be insignificant: on the other hand, however, it would open a convenient strategic route for an Austrian drive into the eastern Balkans, and the scheme was completely based on the prospect of an impending dismemberment of Turkey. When this hope suffered ruin, Austria hastened to pull back the hand she had with cowardly greed stretched out toward the ever-seething cauldron of Macedonia.

Thus, Turkey lost nothing; on the contrary, she recovered a province whose fate had seemed at least doubtful. If she responded with such vigorous protest, this was because, after a long series of smoothly welcoming speeches addressed to the new regime, she again saw looming over her the naked jaws of European imperialism. Was not Ferdinand’s assumption of a kingly crown merely a first step, to be followed by an attempt to seize Macedonia? Was not the evacuation of the sanjak an oblique invitation to Serbia and Montenegro to seize his province and, by becoming in this way involved in war with Turkey, to protect Austria’s rear? Was not Russia behind Bulgaria, and Germany behind Austria? That capitalist and ruling circles in Germany look on the revived Turkey without much sympathy is easily understandable. In the very last years before the revolution, German capital celebrated one triumph after another in Turkey: a concession for the final section of the Anatolian railway, in the area traversed by which there are, apparently, very rich oilfields, had been obtained from Abdul Hamid’s government in May 1908. Steamship lines, branches of banks, a monopoly of the supply of armaments, railway concessions, orders of every sort, with extensive natural wealth and cheap labor-power — the German capitalists faced golden prospects. The revolution deprived the Hohenzollern monarchy of political influence in Constantinople, created the possibility of a development of Turkish “national” industry, and put in question the acquisition, by means of bribery and capitalist intrigues, of concessions for German business. Grinding its teeth, the Berlin government withdrew to one side, resolving to wait and see. The consolidation of the Young Turks' position made it even more necessary to seek a rapprochement with them. Undoubtedly, however, capitalist Germany is as sincerely ready to hail the collapse of constitutional Turkey as it has, hypocritically, up to now hailed its victory. On the other hand, Britain is demonstrating its friendly feelings for the new order all the more loudly because it has weakened the position of Germany in the Balkans. In the ceaseless struggle going on between these, the two most powerful states in Europe, the Young Turks have naturally sought support and “friends” on the Thames. But the sore spot in Anglo-Turkish relations is Egypt. There can, of course, be no question of a voluntary evacuation of the latter country by Britain: she is too much concerned with the domination of the Suez Canal to agree to that. Will Britain support Turkey in the event of military difficulties? Or will she stab Turkey in the back by annexing Egypt outright? The one is as possible as the other, depending on circumstances. In any case, it is not sentimental affection for liberal Turkey but cold and ruthless imperialist calculation that guides the actions of the British government.

Turkey, as has been said already, has every reason to fear that the violation of her fictitious rights by Bulgaria and Austria may be followed by encroachment upon her real interests. Nevertheless, she has not ventured to draw the sword, but has so far restricted herself to appealing to the powers who took part in the Congress of Berlin. Undoubtedly, a popular war launched on the initiative of the Young Turks could render their rule indestructible, since it is so closely bound up with the role played by the army. On one condition, though — that the war be a victorious one.

There were, however, no hopes for victory. The old regime had bequeathed to the new an army disorganized to the last degree: artillery without guns, cavalry without horses, infantry without a sufficient quantity of rifles of the modem type, a fleet still less fit than the Russian for warlike operations. Even if Britain were to grant a big loan, there could be no thought of going to war with Austria under such conditions. There remained the question of a war with Bulgaria. Here Turkey might hope for victory, by countering quality with quantity. But what would be the outcome of such a victory? Restoration of Bulgaria’s fictitious vassalage? Such things are not worth fighting for. Recovery of Eastern Rumelia? But that would strengthen not Turkey but those centrifugal tendencies, already strong, which the new regime still has to try to overcome.

Reactionary elements that have nothing to lose in any case have started a vigorous agitation in favor of war and, so far as can be judged from messages from Constantinople, have succeeded in weakening the influence of the ministry and the Young Turk Committee. The latter has, on the one hand, tried to deflect popular indignation by directing it into a boycott of Austrian goods and, on the other, has concentrated the most reliable regiments in Constantinople, sending the unreliable ones away. Control of the army remains as before the chief strength of the Young Turks. In this limited social base of theirs, however, also lies the chief source of danger to the new order. The election program of the governing party is confined exclusively to political and cultural questions. It is on this plane that the government’s activity is developing. Its first step in the social field was to adopt draconian measures against strikes. The Young Turk leaders categorically deny the existence of a labor question in Turkey and see in this its superiority over Russia. Turkish industry, the expansion of which was systematically and deliberately held back by the old regime, is still only embryonic. The proletariat of Constantinople consists of workers on the tramway and in the tobacco factories, dockers and typesetters. The weakness of the proletariat prevents it from being able at present to exert any serious pressure on the ruling party. An incomparably greater influence on the course of events in Turkey can be exercised by the peasantry. In semi-serfdom, entangled in the nets of usury, one-fifth without land, it stands in need of the most far-reaching agrarian measures by the state. Yet only the Armenian party “Dashnaktsutiun” and the Macedonian-Bulgarian revolutionary group led by Sandansky put forward a more or less radical agrarian program. So far as the Young Turks are concerned, they ignore the peasant question just as they ignore the labor question. … It is highly unlikely that the Turkish peasantry will be able to give expression to its social interests within the setting of parliamentary elections. But its mood may make itself felt in a more effective way — through the mediation of the army. The events of the revolution must have greatly enhanced the consciousness not only of the officers but also of the soldiers. And there is nothing improbable in the prospect that, just as the interests of the bourgeois “nation” found expression through the officer corps, so the needs of the peasants may be manifested through the mass of the soldiery. In these circumstances, it may prove fatal for parliamentary Turkey for a party that relies on the officers to ignore the peasant question,

In any event, Turkey today needs peace. In entering into direct negotiations with Austria and Bulgaria, Turkey has expressed readiness to recognize the accomplished facts, provided these states take upon themselves a corresponding share of the state debt. This would undoubtedly be the best way out of the situation for Turkey, since in present circumstances it is not possible for her to repudiate the huge debt incurred by the old regime. As soon as the question at issue is reduced to the size of the sum of money involved, the success of the negotiations should be ensured.

But at the very moment when I am writing these lines the talks have broken down — whether finally or temporarily is not yet clear. It is, however, quite clear that British and, especially, Russian diplomacy are doing all they can to prevent a bilateral agreement between Turkey and Austria. The task they have set themselves is to convene an international congress to revise the Treaty of Berlin — this, of course, not out of any platonic respect for international law.

III. Intrigues for “Disinterested” Compensation

The most vicious enemy of the new Turkey is undoubtedly tsarist Russia. As Japan has thrust her back from the shores of the Pacific Ocean, so a strong Turkey threatens once for all to thrust her back from the Balkans. Consolidated on democratic principles, Turkey would become a center of political attraction for Caucasia — and not for its Muslim inhabitants only. Linked by religion with Persia, such a Turkey might oust Russia from that country too, and become a serious threat to Russia’s dominions in Central Asia. There is no blow that the St. Petersburg government would not be willing to strike at the new Turkey. The semi-consent to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina that Izvolsky gave to Aehrenthal was undoubtedly motivated by consideration of the advantages that might arise for Russia from confusion in the Balkans. A peaceful outcome of the recent conflicts would signify a rapprochement between Bulgaria and Austria and the strengthening of Turkey — in other words, death to the political influence of Russia in the Balkans. To prevent a bilateral agreement between the directly interested parties, to bring into action all the lusts and appetites of the European Powers, to cause them to quarrel among themselves, and to grab for itself a piece of the bear’s skin — this is now the immediate task of Russian diplomacy. I have already had occasion to write in these pages about the fact that the latest foreign policy of the tsarist government is totally lacking in any unifying “idea,” and can be described as parasitic opportunism; it is principally nourished by the struggle between Germany and Britain, and is parasitic even in relation to the imperialist policy of the capitalist governments: it combines alliance with France with “friendship” with Germany, secret deals with Aehrenthal with official meetings with Pichon. To exploit every fissure in international politics without getting its tail caught in any of them — this is the mission to which Russian diplomacy is doomed by its political weakness. In order, however, that these tactics may show even an appearance of success, at least temporary financial independence is needed from those governments which hold the best cards in the game. But the Balkan events have broken out in the very midst of negotiations for a new half-billion loan to Russia. The economic and political preconditions for the new loan are extremely unfavorable. This year’s harvest is below average, and in many provinces is quite poor. The trade balance for the first few months of the year shows a marked deterioration; exports have fallen sharply even when compared with the years of the war [with Japan] and the “troubles.” There can also be no doubt that the European stock market has in its own way taken into account the student disturbances, in which it has learned to see a very alarming symptom. Negotiations about the loan, carried on with the active participation of Russian bankers, are dragging on indefinitely. The Moscow stock exchange explains its extreme depression by the complete absence of news as to where, when, and how the new external loan agreement will be concluded. For Russia to have a free hand in Balkan affairs, however, what is above all essential is to possess cash in hand. This is now the Achilles’ heel of tsarist diplomacy! Britain, with which France is coordinating her foreign policy, is trying to use Russia against Austria and Germany; but she has no reason to strengthen tsarism in the Balkans against herself, It is unlikely, therefore, that she will agree to grant a large loan before the conference, or, in general, before the recent complications in the Near East have been completely liquidated. She might agree only if she had previously bound tsarist diplomacy hand and foot, and ensured that its share of influence would be exercised in Britain’s favor. This is what lies behind the unintended but all the more killing humor with which the British financial press calls upon Russia to show complete “disinterestedness” in the Balkan Peninsula. Caught in the contradictions of his situation, Izvolsky drifts around Europe, from one government to another, evidently in the secret hope that his political influence will grow proportionately to his traveling expenses. And behind his back, wherever he goes, the Russian minister hears the patriotic chorus of the Russian press, in which the hoarse barking of Novoye Vremya harmonizes with the lustful squeals of Miliukov’s Rech. “Austria has shamefully crucified Slavdom!” howl the Cadets, Octobrists, and Novoye Vremya people, “and therefore we demand compensation — the most disinterested and purest compensation!” The frenzy of these patriots, each striving to shout the other down, has in recent weeks attained the maximum possible limits. Everything is mixed up together in one disgusting heap — and from political programs, Anglophilism, Pan-Slavist ideology, and external decorum only scraps of wool fly out. “Compensation, the most disinterested compensation!” Where? What sort? No one can answer. Impotence and confusion only intensify their frantic spite. Novoye Vremya constructs fresh plans and projects new combinations every day. From gnashing its teeth against the Turks it suddenly goes over to a stance of ingratiating friendliness towards them: “Actually, Muscovites and Ottomans are closer to each other than to anybody else." The conduct of the Octobrist press is marked by the same feverish instability. In recent weeks it has with increasing resolution affirmed its support for a Russo-British rapprochement, toward which it had previously shown cold reserve. Reporting the formation, in London and St. Petersburg, of Anglo-Russian chambers of commerce, Golos Moskvy placed this new international combination under the protection of that class “which perhaps, does more than any other to bring the peoples closer together." After, however, the London press had preached Izvolsky a sermon on the evils of covetousness, the semiofficial Octobrist organ burst forth in furious spleen against Britain, who had once more shown her "accustomed perfidy.” Worst of all, though, was the liberal press, which tried to give its pseudo-oppositional imperialism a principled “Pan-Slavist” formulation. During the holidays, Miliukov inspected the Balkan Peninsula and came to the conclusion that everything is going splendidly there. With characteristic shrewdness, he reported from Belgrade that a rapprochement between Serbia and Bulgaria was well on the way and would soon bear fruit. … Neo-Pan-Slavism had, however, to undergo a disagreeable experience only a few weeks later. What on earth happened? The Bulgars came to an understanding with the “primordial foe” of Slavdom, Austria, and helped her to annex two provinces inhabited by Serbs. Profiting by the continued support of the Cadets, Izvolsky, representing the so-called “new course,” gave his secret consent to the “crucifixion” of Slavdom. The Poles, Ruthenes, and Czechs of the Austrian Empire, through their nationalist parties, expressed in the Austro-Hungarian delegations their full solidarity with the annexation effected by the Habsburg monarchy. Thus, only two days after the “All-Slav” congress in Prague, history showed once again (!) that the brotherhood of all Slavs is a hypocritical pretense, and that neither national-dynastic nor bourgeois-imperialist interests consult the ethnographic gazetteer. The Cadets have lost the last vestiges of their ideological cover and along with this their last rags of shame. Rech complains excitedly that the government is making it difficult for the people to hold meetings to protest against the annexation of Bosnia and meetings to express support for Izvolsky. Hastening forward with servile zeal, the semiofficial organ of the Cadets inquires anxiously whether Izvolsky may perhaps have “conceded rather a lot to Turkey” (Rech, October 1 [14]). This is the logic of the Opposition’s subservient attitude. Having begun by protesting because Austria annexed two provinces seized from Turkey, they end by calling for pressure to be brought to bear on … Turkey. What is meant here by “conceding a lot”? Two years ago these gentlemen went to Paris to seek help from the French Radicals against the tsarist government. And now they are urging the tsarist government against Turkey as she struggles for revival. In view of the losses Turkey has suffered they demand compensation, for Russia, at Turkey’s expense.

This is how the bourgeois press is preparing the conditions for an international conference at which tsarist diplomacy is to appear, in the words of Novoye Vremya, as the “protector of the Slavs and defender of violated rights.”

IV. Hands off the Balkans! Quit Tabriz!

Russian diplomacy wishes to secure for its navy freedom of exit into the Mediterranean from the Black Sea, to which it has been confined for over half a century. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles, two sea-gates effectively guarded with artillery, are held by Turkey, gatekeeper of the Straits by virtue of Europe’s “mandate.” If Russian warships cannot leave the Black Sea, neither can warships of other nations enter it. Tsarist diplomacy wants to have the gate unlocked for its own warships only.

Britain, however, can hardly agree to this. Demilitarization of the Straits would be acceptable to her only if it enabled her to send her ships into the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. In that event, though, Russia, with her insignificant naval forces, would not gain but lose. Turkey would be the loser in both cases. Her own fleet is useless, and that state would be master in Constantinople that could bring its warships up to the city’s walls. Novoye Vremya snarls at Britain for refusing to allow the tsarist government a right that, given the weakness of the Black Sea fleet, would possess a “purely theoretical character,” and at the same time urges the sultan’s government to open its gates to Russia, promising in return to safeguard Turkey’s authority over the Straits against encroachment by any other power. Protesting, in the name of the Treaty of Berlin, against a bilateral agreement between Turkey and Austria, Russia herself desires, by way of a bilateral agreement with Turkey, to violate the mandate of Europe. Were she to get what she wants, this would mean danger not only to the peaceful development of Turkey but also to the peace of Europe as a whole.

While in Europe Izvolsky is tying knots of diplomatic intrigue, Colonel Lyakhov in Asia does his part in the same work by cutting diplomatic knots with the sword. Behind the uproar of the Balkan events and the patriotic howls of the “national” press, tsarism is preparing once again to trample revolutionary Persia beneath the Cossack jackboot. And this is being done not only with the moral toleration of Europe but with the active complicity of “liberal” Britain.

The victory of Tabriz, the most important city in Persia, over the shah’s army threatened to upset completely the plans of the diplomats of Petersburg and London. Not only did the decisive victory of the revolution bring the prospect of an economic and political rebirth of Persia, but the protracted civil war was causing immediate damage to the interests of Russian and British capital. Having dissolved the Majles in the name of order, Lyakhov let loose anarchy throughout the country. While he cleaned his machine guns and sharpened his bayonets for further operations, Novoye Vremya read the sentence on Persia. “It must not be forgotten,” said this paper, “that all the eastern part of Transcaucasia and Azerbaijan form a single entity ethnographically. … The Armenian committees carry on their revolutionary activity not only in our country but in Persia too, endeavoring to unify the revolutionary movement and bring about general disorder. … The Tatar semi-intellectuals of Transcaucasia, forgetting that they are Russian subjects, display warm sympathy with the troubles in Tabriz, and dispatch volunteers thither: Sattar Khan’s retinue consists of young Tatar and Armenian demagogues. …” In vain did the anjoman of Tabriz call on all “civilized and humane peoples of the world” to remember the struggle waged by their own heroic forefathers for “the ideals of justice and right.” In vain did émigrés from Persia demand, in a fiery appeal (in the Times), that Europe leave Persia alone and allow her to settle her own affairs. Sentence had been passed upon Persia. Reporting the latest talks between Izvolsky and Grey, the London Foreign Office demonstratively stressed the complete solidarity between the two governments as a guarantee of their “harmonious collaboration” in solving Central Asian problems. And already on October 11 (24), six Russian infantry battalions, with the corresponding accompaniment of artillery and cavalry, crossed the Persian frontier to occupy revolutionary Tabriz. Telegraphic communication with that city having long since been cut, the humane peoples of Europe were spared the necessity of following step by step just how the unbridled rabble of tsarism put into effect the “harmonious collaboration” of two “Christian” nations amid the smoking ruins of Tabriz. …

By its mighty uprising throughout the country and, in particular, in Caucasia, the proletariat of the Russian Empire impelled Persia into political life. Now, however, it lacks the strength to drag back the bloody fist lifted above the head of the Persian people. All that the socialist workers of Russia can do is to brand mercilessly not only the work of the tsarist butcher but also that of the bourgeois parties who share responsibility for his crime.

“Quit Tabriz!” This slogan must ring out in every factory and every workers’ club, so that then it may be voiced for all to hear, throughout the country and the whole world, from the tribune of the Duma.

“Hands off the Balkans!” Tsarism has no right in Constantinople. The Black Sea fleet has no business in the Sea of Marmara or in the Mediterranean. However the Balkan peoples may settle their relations among themselves, they will do this better and more soundly without any interference by tsarism, with its bloody provocations and predatory intrigues.

May the voice of the socialist proletariat of Russia pierce through the atmosphere of reactionary poison-fumes which the bourgeois press have saturated with their exhalations of chauvinism and base servility.