Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/444

 creation of a department that should investigate the German claims. This department is now in existence as the Liquidation Department of the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industries, and functions with success.

If, therefore, the settlement of such obligations, caused by the Czaristic war measures, occurs less rapidly than we wish, which gives the German government occasion for constant complaints, then this is not caused by the partial defects of our department alone (these defects are now eliminated), but by the fact that the Russian bourgeoisie strives to take advantage of our obligations to the Central Powers, and endeavors by all kinds of fictitious contracts to make demands upon us. The question of payments of interest on old loans, dividends, etc., cannot be separated from the question of interest obligations, caused by social legislation, and, likewise, cannot be separated from our duty to support our prisoners of war in Germany.

Our social legislation endeavors to unite the principal sources of the economic life of the country and place them in the hands of the Workers' and Peasants' Soviet. Many of these sources are in the hands of foreign subjects. If we nationalize these brandies of industry, then we are compelled to compensate the German subjects for their losses. Our local Soviets do not always understand that the interests of the State of Workers and Peasants does not demand the indiscriminate confiscation of everything that happens to be there, but a suitable nationalization of such industries as are necessary for us, from the standpoint of the general economic plans of the state.

The indiscriminate nationalization of all possible kinds of moving picture houses and apothecary shops, requisition of foreign property without plan, without direct necessity, caused the State of Workers and Peasants to pay damages which run into hundreds of millions.

All such impracticable actions give cause for protest from the German government and also cause for conflicts which increase the obligations excessively. The question of computation of the damage caused by us, the question of the financial liquidation of our obligations which were caused by these actions and the question of the regulation of our social legislation relative to foreign subjects, demand immediate decision.

The joint Commission of German and Soviet representatives, who are at this moment is session in Berlin, is confronted by an extremely complicated problem. Our representative, Bronsky, proposed the following conditions for an agreement, in the name of the People's Commisaire of Trade and Industry

1. Russia must, for the sake of economic restoration, take up her economic relations with the Central Powers again, and at the same time continue her relations with the Entente Powers as far as possible.

2. To meet our obligations to the Central Powers, according to the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, we are compelled to conclude a loan, whereby the total amount of these obligations shall be turned into a state debt. The payments of interest shall be partly in products of our country, and timber, and partly in gold and in German securities in possession of the Russian government.

3. As a guarantee for this debt, and also for the payment of the more necessary products for the economic reconstruction of Russia now being bought in Germany, we propose to give certain concessions for the exploitation of natural resources in Russia. The condition of these concessions