Published:
Pravda No. 68, March 22, 1913.
Signed: W..
Published according to the Pravda text.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 19,
pages 29-30.
Translated: The Late George Hanna
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2004).
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We know that the great Chinese Republic, established at the cost of such sacrifice by progressive democrats among the Asian masses, recently encountered very grave financial difficulties. The six “Great” Powers, which are considered civilised nations, but which in reality follow the most reactionary policies, formed a financial consortium which suspended the granting of a loan to China.
The point is that the Chinese revolution did not evoke among the European bourgeoisie any enthusiasm for freedom and democracy—only the proletariat can entertain that feeling, which is alien to the knights of profit; it gave rise to the urge to plunder China, partition her and take away some of her territories. This “consortium” of the six Powers (Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Japan and the United States) was trying to make China bankrupt in order to weaken and undermine the republic.
The collapse of this reactionary consortium is a big success for the young republic, which enjoys the sympathy of the working masses the world over. The President of the United States has announced that his government will no longer support the consortium and will officially recognise the Republic of China in the near future. The American banks have now left the consortium, and America will give China much-needed financial support, opening the Chinese market to American capital and thereby facilitating the introduction, of reforms in China.
Influenced by America, Japan has also changed her policy towards China. At first, Japan would not even allow Sun Yat-sen to enter the country. Now the visit has taken place, and all Japanese democrats enthusiastically welcome an alliance with republican China; the conclusion of that alliance is now on the order of the day. The Japanese bourgeoisie, like the American, has come to realise that it stands to profit more from a policy of peace with China than from a policy of plundering and partitioning the Chinese Republic.
The collapse of the robber consortium is, of course, a defeat of no mean importance for Russia’s reactionary foreign policy.
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