Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/446

 that we require for this work the assistance of foreign economic apparatus, as long as we can not depend upon the assistance of a Socialistic Europe. We are prepared to pay for such assistance: yes, to pay. We declare it openly, as we are not to blame.

The nationalization of the principal branches of industry, the nationalization of foreign trade, do not exclude these payments; they but determine the form and manner of payment which foreign capital shall demand.

The question of the return of the prisoners of war and civil prisoners, and the maintenance of them until their return to their countries, played a great part in our relations to Germany and Austria-Hungary. Between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the question of the number of war prisoners to the transported presented no difficulties, as the number of prisoners on both sides was less than a million. There was difficulty with Germany, as the number of our war prisoners in Germany was more than a million, while the number of German prisoners in Russia was but little more than a hundred thousand. As the Russian-German commission in Moscow could not come to an agreement on this question of the basis for an exchange of war prisoners between Russia and Germany, it was referred to the Russian-German commission in Berlin, who adopted the principle of exchanging man for man, in accordance with an ultimatum of the German authorities on June 24. We had to accommodate ourselves to this demand. We are yet facing a severe struggle for the improvement of the conditions of our war prisoners in Germany, where the majority of them labor under extraordinary severe conditions. We must labor unceasingly so that when the German prisoners of war shall have returned to their country the future return of Russian prisoners occurs in the same period.

The relations with Austria-Hungary are less vital than those with Germany, as the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was only lately ratified by Austria-Hungary. In the beginning, there was only the question of the exchange of prisoners of war, but later a financial commission arrived in Moscow from Vienna, with the object of regulating the mutual financial obligations of both states upon a basis similar to that of the Russian-German commission in Berlin. Kameniev was appointed as our representative to Vienna. But we have not as yet received his recognition by the Austro-Hungarian government. We expect the appointment of representatives of Austria-Hungary to Moscow in the near future (this report was made in the beginning of July) which will greatly improve the relations between both countries.

The Turkish ambassador, Thalib-Kemal-Bey, came to Moscow with the German ambassador, Count Mirbach, but the establishment of friendly relations between the peoples of Russia and Turkey, which country is also the object of exploitation by World Capital, was prevented by the aggressive policy of Turkey in the Caucasus, where the Turkish army, after having occupied Batoum, Kars and Ardahan, commenced to advance furdier* occupied Alexandropol and threatened Baku. The horrible treatment of the Mussulmen in the Caucasus was always pointed to by the Turkish ambassador as an answer to our protest.

The lately arrived Bulgarian ambassador, Mr. Tajaprasjnikof, pointed constantly to the absence of any cause that could interrupt the friendly relations of the peoples of Bulgaria and Russia, while at the same time, the total absence of all aggressive endeavors in our policy, to which we called