[September, before 14, 1905. Geneva.]

LENIN'S EDITORIAL BOARD.

Peace has been concluded. After a series of defeats unprecedented in history, the tsarist government, with the help of the European and American bourgeoisie, has managed, at the cost of heavy concessions, to halt Japan's victorious onslaught. Despite all diplomatic tricks and evasions, the tsarist government has in fact admitted itself defeated. Russia loses part of its territory for the first time. The shameful end of a shameful war will leave its traces for many years. But European and American capital have united to prevent Japan from finishing off the autocracy, for its rapid collapse threatens a revolutionary conflagration in Europe, uprisings of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. The ruling clique of tsarist servants breathes a sigh of relief: yet another mountain has fallen from their shoulders.

The development of political consciousness in the working class and in the broad strata of the people generally has proceeded in recent years of Russian life with unprecedented speed. The people have begun to recognise themselves as the supreme sovereign power in the state. The idea of a constituent assembly... as the political expression of the sovereignty of the people, has become the current slogan of the day... But two sovereign powers cannot exist in one state. Either the autocracy of the tsar, or the sovereignty of the people. Between the two, a merciless struggle is inevitable... The people... waged this struggle, imbued with the consciousness of their supreme right, with a burning need for freedom... And every new blow struck against the military force of tsarism breached a gap through which new waves of the revolutionary torrent rushed.

We pointed out at the time (see Vperyod No. 2 "The Fall of Port Arthur" and No. 13 "European Capital and the Autocracy") that the slogan advanced by Iskra plays into the hands of reaction... the slogan of European reaction, of the European bourgeoisie, became — "peace at any price"...

Peace is now concluded — and concluded, in exact accordance with the slogan of Iskra...

The war proved to be a very important and very powerful auxiliary to the Russian revolution; in some respects it fully deserves the name of a revolutionary war — but still it was only an auxiliary, only external assistance. History knows even more severe defeats of autocratic states, which however caused not revolution but, on the contrary, an outburst of patriotism. Consequently, the basic social fact is not the war, but the internal economic conditions of the country's life, whose development is incompatible with the existence of the autocracy.

...there is reason to expect that in the near future the revolution may receive a new impetus. Firstly, this impetus will inevitably be the agitation against the State Duma, over the elections to the Duma, over constitutional conflicts within the Duma, if it nevertheless convenes. Secondly, the severe economic consequences of the war will begin to tell with particular force only some time after the conclusion of peace, when the burden of paying for the war becomes ever clearer. Thirdly, this impetus should be expected from the return of the Manchurian army and soldiers from Japanese captivity.

...a new defeat of tsarist power will only remove the chains from millions of yet unborn Russians when the millions now oppressed Russians are able to take advantage of this defeat, themselves launching an onslaught against the autocracy....

Japan was not allowed to finish off tsarist might — this task falls entirely to the revolutionary people.