Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/452

 war, this open declaration was presented to us and to the whole democratic world by the representatives of revolutionary China.

You may realize what impression the Russian Revolution created upon the Capitalistic Governments. In February, 1918, an uprising of the proletarian masses in Tokio took place, an uprising which was immediately suppressed by the Japanese Government. Five of the most prominent representatives of the lately organized Social-Democratic Party were arrested. The war censor suppressed carefully all reports from Russia.

Revolutionary Siberia is in danger of foreign intervention. On April 5 the Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok and remained there uninterrupted. And yet there begins in Japan slowly but surely the struggle for the right of self-determination of the people. And this struggle is especially noticeable in the question of interference in Russian affairs. The man who is the representative of the dying but still powerful feudal regime in Japan, Count Motono, former ambassador in Russia and who was closely connected with the Russian reactionaries in hiding in Japan, was compelled to resign. At present a struggle is going on in Japan between the representatives of the reactionary military party, who endeavor by all means to provoke a conflict with the Russian people, and to utilize our weakness for their own advantage, and the representatives of the more moderate liberal opinion who desire certain advantages in a peaceful manner, without making an enemy of Russia, as they know very well, that the encroachment of Japan in Russian affairs would determine our mutual relations and possibly the whole further history of the Far East for the immediate future.

We are prepared to assist to a great extent Japanese citizens who wish to develop the natural resources of Siberia in a peaceful way, and to allow them to take part in our industrial and business life. We are willing in case China gives her consent, to relinquish some of our rights in the East-Siberian railway and to grant Japan the Southern branch of this railroad, and to extend to Japan other advantages by the importation of Japanese products to Russia. We are willing to renew with Japan the trade treaty and the fishing agreement, which agreement was always a source of prosperity for the people of Japan, because the Russian fish is not only the principal food of the Japanese but also serves as fertilizer for the rice-fields. We have communicated this to the Japanese Government, and we have started with this Government unofficial discussions. The people of Japan must know this and must know the value of these concessions, concessions which even as other things which happen in Russia are kept secret for these people, as for instance the fact that Russia would extend the hand of friendship to the people of Japan and offers to establish mutual relations with these people upon a healthy and permanent basis. The people must know, that if they refuse to grasp the hand of friendship, the responsibility rests upon those classes in Japan who in the interest of their own greediness have kept these things secret for the people of Japan. If the destiny of history should bring forth that Japan, misguided and blinded, would decide upon the insane step of trying to strangle the Russian Revolution then the working classes of Russia will arise as one for the protection of that which is most cherished and valuable to them namely: the protection of the results of the Social Revolution.