Page:Lenin's Speech at the First Session of the Second Congress of the Third International (1920).djvu/5

 two hundred and fifty million people in countries which (such as Germany) partly belong to the most advanced, the most enlightened countries, standing in point of technical development to the forefront of modern progress.

The war through the Versailles treaty imposed upon them such conditions that advanced peoples found themselves in the position of colonial dependents, of misery, starvation, and ruin, deprived of all rights because they are bound by the treaty for many generations and are placed in such conditions in which no civilised nation ever lived. Here you have the picture of peace after the war; no less than thousand two hundred and fifty millions of people are suddenly put under a colonial yoke, are subject to exploitation by beastly capitalism which was boasting of its love for peace, and some fifty years ago had some right to so boast, so long as the world was not divided, so long as no monopoly ruled, so long as capitalism could develop comparatively peacefully without colossal military conflicts

Now after this peaceful epoch we have a most monstrous accentuation of oppression, we see a return to colonial and military oppression, even worse than ever before. The Versailles treaty placed both Germany and a whole series of defeated states in conditions of impossibility of economic existence, into conditions where they are completely degraded and deprived of all right.

How many nations have benefited by it? To answer this question you must remember that the population of the United States of America, which alone fully profited by the war, and which was transformed from a country deep in debt into a country to which everybody owes money—does not exceed one hundred million. The population of Japan, which gained very much, keeping out of the European conflict and capturing the tremendous Asiatic continent, is equal to fifty millions. The population of England, which after the above countries has gained most, is also equal to fifty millions. And if we add neutral states with a very small population, which grew rich during the war, we will get in round numbers two hundred and fifty millions.

You thus get in its main features the picture of the world as it developed after the imperialistic war. One and a quarter billion people of the colonies, of countries which are being cut up alive, such as Persia, China and countries which have been defeated and thrown into a state of colonial dependence. No more that two hundred and fifty million is the