The naval battle in the Korean Strait has monopolized the attention of the political press of the entire world. At first the tsarist government attempted to conceal the bitter truth from its loyal subjects, but soon became convinced of the hopelessness of such an attempt. It would have been equally impossible to conceal the complete débâcle of the entire Russian fleet.

In assessing the political significance of the latest naval battle, we find ourselves repeating what we said in No. 2 of *Vpered*[88] concerning the fall of Port Arthur. The complete military collapse of tsarist Russia had become evident even then, but the Baltic Squadron still inspired a shadow of hope in Russian patriots. Everyone understood that the final outcome of the war depended upon the victory of one side or the other at sea. The autocracy saw that an unfortunate outcome of the war would be equivalent to the victory of the "internal enemy," that is, the victory of revolution. Therefore, everything was staked on it. Hundreds of millions of rubles were expended on the hasty dispatch of the Baltic Squadron. An crew was assembled from every quarter, final preparations of the warships for the voyage were hurriedly completed, the number of these vessels was increased by the addition of "old hulks" to the new and powerful battleships. A great armada—as enormous, as unwieldy, as absurd, as powerless, as monstrous as the entire Russian Empire itself—set forth, squandering enormous sums on coal, on maintenance, provoking the general ridicule of Europe, especially after the brilliant victory over fishing boats, crudely violating all the conventions and requirements of neutrality. By the most modest calculations, this armada cost up to 300 million rubles, and its dispatch cost 100 million rubles—in total, 400 million rubles thrown away on this last military wager of tsarist autocracy.

Now even this last wager has been lost. Everyone expected this, but no one thought that the defeat of the Russian fleet would turn out to be such a merciless débâcle. Like a herd of savages, the armada of Russian vessels rushed headlong against the magnificently armed Japanese fleet and equipped with all the means of the latest defensive technology. Two days of battle—and out of twenty Russian warships with 12-15 thousand men of crew, thirteen were sunk and destroyed, four were taken prisoner, and only one ("Almaz") escaped and arrived in Vladivostok. The greater half of the crew perished, taken prisoner was Rozhdestvensky himself and his closest assistant Nebogatov, while the entire Japanese fleet emerged unscathed from the battle, losing only three destroyers.

The Russian military fleet has been finally annihilated. The war is lost irrevocably. The complete expulsion of Russian troops from Manchuria, the seizure by the Japanese of Sakhalin and Vladivostok—these are now merely questions of time. Before us stands not merely military defeat, but the complete military collapse of autocracy.

The significance of this collapse, as a collapse of the entire political system of tsarism, becomes ever clearer both for Europe and for the entire Russian people with each new blow inflicted by the Japanese. Everything rises up against autocracy—both the wounded national pride of the big and petty bourgeoisie, and the outraged dignity of the army, and the bitterness of the loss of tens and hundreds of thousands of young lives in a senseless military adventure, and the rage against the pillaging of hundreds of millions of public funds, and the fear of the inevitable financial collapse and prolonged economic crisis as a consequence of such a war, and the fear before the formidable people's revolution, which (in the bourgeoisie's opinion) the tsar could and should have avoided through timely "judicious" concessions. Demands for peace grow and multiply, the liberal press fumes with indignation, even the most moderate elements, such as landowners of the "Shipov" tendency, begin to threaten, even the servile *Novoye Vremya* demands the immediate convocation of popular representatives.

European bourgeoisie, that most reliable bulwark of tsarist power, is also beginning to lose patience. It is frightened by the inevitable regrouping in international relations, the growing might of young and vigorous Japan, the loss of a military ally in Europe. It is troubled by the fate of those billions which it generously lent to autocracy. It is seriously alarmed by the revolution in Russia, which too greatly agitates the European proletariat and threatens a worldwide revolutionary conflagration. In the name of "friendship" with tsarism it calls upon its prudence, insists upon the necessity of peace—peace with Japan and peace with the liberal Russian bourgeoisie. Europe is not in the slightest closing its eyes to the fact that peace with Japan can now be purchased only at a very high price, but it soberly and businesslike calculates that each new month of external war and internal revolution inevitably raises this price and increases the danger of such a revolutionary explosion as would sweep away all the policy of "concessions" like a grain of sand. Europe understands that it is terribly difficult, almost impossible for autocracy to stop now—it has gone too far—and so this bourgeois Europe tries to reassure both itself and its ally with rosy dreams.

Here is what, for example, the newspaper of French patriotic bourgeoisie, *Le Siècle*{112}, writes, in a little article by Cornély entitled "The End of an Epoch": "Now, when the Russians have been defeated at sea after a series of defeats on land, it falls upon their government the obligation to conclude peace and to transform their military forces. Adventurist governments are sometimes compelled by force of their pretensions or for purposes of their safety to involve in war the peoples over whom they rule. And, since for such governments the stake in the struggle for victory is their very existence, they demand ever-new sacrifices from their peoples, leading them in this way to final ruin. Such was in France the history of our two empires. Such would have been the history of a third empire, had it been possible to create such with us.

On the contrary, the position of the Russian government is precisely not such; it rests upon the very depths of the Russian people, and common misfortunes do not separate the government and people, but only bind them more closely to one another. A defeated Caesar is no longer Caesar. An unfortunate tsar can remain a sacred and popular tsar."

Alas, alas! The boasting of the chauvinist French shopkeeper is "already too evident"; his assurances that the war has not separated the Russian government and people are so contradicted by well-known facts that they provoke a smile and seem like naive and innocent cunning. In order to forewarn his friend and ally, the Russian autocrat, of the inevitable collapse toward which he, as a true "Caesar," is going blindly and stubbornly, the French bourgeois affectionately assures this Caesar that he ought not to resemble other Caesars, that he still has another, better way out. "We believe what we wish to believe." The French bourgeoisie so wishes to have a powerful ally—the tsar—that it rocks itself to sleep with a romantic fairy tale about misfortune that binds the Russian people to the tsar. Seriously, Mr. Cornély himself does not believe, of course, in this fairy tale—still less should we take it seriously.

Adventurist are not only the governments of Caesars, but also the governments of the most legitimate monarchs of the oldest dynasty. In Russian autocracy, lagging behind history by an entire century, there is more of the adventurist than in any of the French empires. Autocracy precisely in an adventurist manner threw its people into a senseless and shameful war. It now stands before its deserved end. War has laid bare all its sores, revealed all its rottenness, shown the complete separation of it from the people, shattered the sole supports of Caesarist rule. War has proven to be a terrible judge. The people have already pronounced their verdict upon this government of brigands. Revolution will carry this verdict into execution.

*Proletariy* No. 3, 9 June (27 May) 1905

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Proletariy*, collated with the manuscript