V. I.

Lenin

We all know that the “revolutionary” Provisional Government’s
first word on foreign policy was the declaration that all secret
treaties concluded by ex-Tsar Nicholas II with the “Allied”
capitalists remained in force, and that the new Russia would
regard them as sacred and inviolable.

We know, furthermore, that our “defencists” vehemently support
the Milyukovs’ refusal to publish the secret treaties. These
so-called socialist have sunk so low as to defend secret
diplomacy, and the secret diplomacy of the ex-tsar at that.

Why do the supporters of the imperialist war guard the secret of
these treaties so zealously?

Do you want to know why, comrade workers and soldiers?

Familiarise yourselves with at least one of these noble
treaties–“our” treaty with Italy (i.e., with the Italian
capitalists) signed at the beginning of 1915.

On the basis of material published in Novoye Vremya , Mr. V. Vodovozov, a bourgeois democrat, reveals in Dyen
(for May 6, 1917) the contents of that treaty:

“ The Allies have guaranteed Italy Southern Tyrol with Trient,
the entire coastline, and the northern part of Dalmatia with the
towns of Zara and Spalato, the central part of Albania with
Valona, the Aegean islands off the coast of Asia Minor, as well
as a profitable railway concession in Asiatic Turkey–such is
the price for which Italy has traded her blood. These annexations exceed any national claims ever advanced by Italy
many times over. In addition to regions with an Italian
population (Southern Tyrol and Trieste) of nearly 600,000,
Italy, under this treaty, is to receive territories with a
population of over a million who are absolutely alien to Italy
eghnographically and in point of religion. These include, for
instance, Dalmatia, 97 per cent of whose population are Serbs
and only slightly over 2 per cent Italians. It is only natural
that this treaty with Italy, concluded without the knowledge or
consent of Serbia, should have provoked such bitterness and
resentment in that country.

Pašic,

speaking in the
Skupshtina, expressed the hope that the rumours concerning the
treaty were false, since Italy herself had united in the name of
the principle of national unity, and could not therefore do
anything that was likely to strike at the very roots of that
principle. But

Pašic

was wrong; the treaty was concluded.

“ This is the only treaty concerning the present war whose
contents we know of, and this treaty is grossly predatory. Whether similar predatory instincts are or are not
reflected in other treaties, we do not know. At any rate, it is
extremely important that democracy, on whose banner is inscribed
‘peace without annexations’, should know this.”

“ We do not know” to what extent the other secret treaties are
predatory? No, Mr. Vodovozov, we know it very well: the secret
treaties concerning the carve-up of Persia and Turkey, the
seizure of Galicia and Armenia are just as dirty and predatory
as the rapacious treaty with Italy.

Comrade soldiers and workers! You are told that you are
defending “freedom” and the “revolution”! In reality you are
defending the shady treaties of the tsar, which are concealed
from you as one conceals a secret disease.

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