Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/450

 with the Rumanian Government are not settled. The annexation of Bessarabia to Rumania was accomplished through a fictitious right of self-determination by a small group of the population and accompanied by unparalleled violence.

Concerning the neutral powers, Sweden protected the interests of the German subjects, Denmark those of Austria-Hungary. The questions concerning the German and Austrian prisoners of war were always a subject of very animated discussion between ourselves and Sweden and Denmark.

We intended to establish economic relations with the three Scandinavian states. The interests of our citizens, and thus of our prisoners in Germany, were taken care of by Spain, but the Spanish Government adopted an extremely reticent attitude toward Soviet Russia. The Spanish Embassy has delivered only the keys of our Embassy in Berlin to the German Government, but it refused to deliver to us the administration of our prisoners of war. The Spanish Government also refused to allow our citizens to leave Spain. The Swiss Government, after acknowledging our authorized representative, Comrade Bersine, did not immediately admit his staff and his couriers are always meeting difficulties in their travels to the Swiss Republic. Our relations to all these states, and the foreign states in general, affect the existence of our Worker's and Peasants' Dictatorship. Our inroads on the rights of private property are of great influence. Insofar as these inroads are legal in method, under the power to tax, the foreigners are subject to our measures. Insofar as irregularities occur which do not come within the scope of our regulated economic policy, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs has always exercised its influence upon the local Soviets to regulate the situation of the foreigners; and at this moment instructions are being worked out in conformity with all the other People's Commissaires. Nevertheless, we inform the foreign Governments that our social reforms cannot end at the door steps of those who consider themselves foreign subjects.

Our policy in the Eastern countries is determined by the peace measure adopted at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants, November 7, 1917.

Imperialism has created in the East a special kind of veiled annexations. This is the so-called right of European Concessions and Capitulations, which determines that citizens of imperialistic countries are subject to the administrative powers and not the local laws. The imperialistic governments have been relying upon their armed power to coerce these Oriental countries, consisting partly of their own troops and partly of native elements ambitious for conquest. These governments have pursued in the Oriental countries a policy which places their subjects and their interests in extraordinarily favorable circumstances, to the disadvantage of the native peoples. They have established settlements, within which the natives are slaves, and within which they are sometimes not even allowed to live. They have by their absolute independence of the native government protected themselves, created an impregnable citadel from which they gradually extend their power over the oppressed people of the East.

Socialist Russia cannot reconcile itself with such a situation, despite its existence for centuries. Socialist Russia, since the November Revolution, has declared to the Oriental peoples that it is not only willing to abandon