Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/451

 these "privileges," but to endeavor with all means at its command, together with the peoples of the East to demand the abolition of this crying injustice, and to give to the peoples of the East the opportunity to re-gain their lost liberty. We have abandoned all secret treaties, by which the ruling classes of the Oriental countries, either out of motives of aggrandizement or of fear, allied themselves with the Czarist Government, and by so doing enslaved their peoples for centuries. We have recalled our troops from the conquered territory of Persia, and also recalled our military instructors, whose task it was to create an army of the natives to protect the interests of the Russian capitalists and support the Persian absolutism. We have notified China that we relinquish the conquests of the Czarist Government in Manchuria, and that we recognize Chinese rights in this territory, where the principal trade-route runs, namely, the Eastern-Siberian Railroad. This railroad is the property of the Chinese and Russian people, which has already devoured millions of the money of these peoples, and therefore of right belongs to these peoples and to nobody else. More than this: we are of the opinion that as the Russian people advanced funds to defray part of the expenses of this railroad, these could be repaid and China buy the railroad outright, without waiting for the terms embodied in this particular treaty violently imposed upon China. We have recalled from China all troops for the protection of consulates, troops which were sent by Czarist Russia and the Government of Kerensky to protect the power of the Russian bureaucracy.

We are prepared to relinquish the right of extra-territoriality (institution of capitulation, etc.) of our citizens in China, Mongolia and Persia. We are prepared to relinquish the tribute imposed upon the peoples of China, Mongolia and Persia under different pretexts by the former Russian Government. We only wish, that all those millions would be used in behalf of the cultural development of the broad masses, and for the solidarity of the Oriental and Russian democracy.

We can very well imagine what impression the November Revolution has created upon the masses of the East. The events in Russia resounded especially amongs our Asiatic neighbors. The great revolution has awakened in them a desire to a new free existence. And this could not be hidden from us, not even by the representatives of the Capitalistic Governments. The party which accomplished the revolution in Russia is called in China the party of World Humanism.

In Persia which is being rent to pieces, and is not able to fight for its existence, a movement has started for the establishment of democratic organizations, after the example of the Soviets, which are the only salvation against suppression by foreigners. In South China with its more enlightened population, there rages open revolution, and we have only lately heard confession of the leaders of this movement, that the fact of Russia being a Socialist Republic for 8 months offers the East the assurance and possibility of establishing similar republics in the East.

In the Far-East there is a struggle by the people against secret treaties. The open declaration of South China, that it does not recognize the alliance with bordering State, the alliance which deprives the Chinese people of the right of self-determination and is dragging them inevitably to the bloody