V. I.

Lenin

“ King Constantine [of Greece] signed the act of abdication under
pressure from Allied diplomacy.” writes the newspaper of
Mr. Milyukov, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Provisional
“revolutionary” Government.

The Allied diplomats have completed the subjugation of Greece by
first sparking off the Venizelos movement (Venizelos is a former
minister of Constantine’s who entered the service of the British
capitalists), causing a split in the army, seizing part of Greek
territory, and finally using “pressure” to force the abdication
of the “lawful” monarch, i.e.. to force a revolution from
above. What kind of “pressure” that was and is everybody
knows. It was pressure by starvation. Greece was blockaded by the warships of the Anglo-French and Russian
imperialists and left without bread. The “pressure” on
Greece was of the same order as that recently applied in Russia
by the ignorant peasants of some out-of-the-way village, who,
if we are to believe the newspapers. condemned a citizen to
death by starvation for having allegedly insulted the Christian
religion.

The ignorant peasants in some godforsaken hole in Russia starved
a “criminal” to death. The “civilised” imperialists of Britain,
France, Russia, etc., starved a whole country, a whole nation, to force it, by “pressure”, to change its policy.

There we have the reality of the imperialist war. There
we have the real state of international relations at the present
time. The S.R. gentlemen laugh at this. It is really funny, very
funny....

Dyelo Naroda , the ministerial paper of Kerensky, Chernov and Co., publishes a laughing editorial entitled:
“‘Self-determination’ for Greece”. The S.R.s’ sarcasm of Greek “self determination” would have been
admirable had it been sincere .

Sincerity in politics does not mean that Kerensky, Chernov and
Co. have to prove their personal sincerity—we readily take
that for granted. That is not the point. Sincerity in politics,
that is, in that sphere of human relations which involves, not
individuals, but the millions , is a correspondence between word and deed that lends itself to verification.

The editorial in Dyelo Naroda is insincere because it is precisely the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, precisely the
Kerenskys and the Chernovs, as its leaders , who support
the Ministry of subjugation ... I beg your pardon, the Ministry
of Greek “self-determination”, together with citizens Tsereteli
and Skobelev.

“ It is clear to everyone,” writes Dyelo Naroda , “that
there is no essential difference between imperialist Germany’s
robber attack on Belgium, Austria’s attack on Serbia, and the
present advance into the interior of Greece’ on the part of the
Allied governments.”

Yes, this is clear, and this is not at all a question of
“ethics”, as the S.R.s believe, but a matter of pure politics. A
robber attack—that. is what you are participating in, citizens S.R.s, citizens Mensheviks, as members of the government . The robber attack is an established fact, and
“pressure from Allied diplomacy”—from all the Allies, including Russia—was apparently applied also after Chernov, Tsereteli and Co. joined the cabinet.

And what about the platforms of “peace without annexations”?
What about the “demands” of “revolutionary democracy” from the
new government? What about the declarations? Surely it is clear
by this time that all these platforms, declarations, promises,
statements, pledges, vows, etc., etc., are a sheer mockery of the people.

The laugh is on you, gentlemen of the S.R. and Menshevik fold!
You are laughing at your own policy of trust in the capitalists
and the government of the capitalists! You arc laughing at your
own role of eloquent and bombastic servants of capitalism and
imperialism, servants in the rank of ministers!

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