# The Foreign Policy of the New Government
Source: PSS, Volume 31

3. In the realm of foreign policy—now, due to objective conditions, thrust to the forefront—the new government is a government that continues the imperialist war, a war waged in alliance with the imperialist powers, with Britain, France, and others, for the division of capitalist spoils and for the suppression of small and weak nations.

Subordinate to the interests of Russian capital and its mighty patron and master—the wealthiest Anglo-French imperialist capital in the entire world—the new government, despite the unequivocal expressions of desire voiced on behalf of the undisputed majority of the peoples of Russia through the Council of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies, took no real steps toward ending the slaughter of peoples in the name of capitalist interests. It did not even publish those secret treaties, inherently predatory in nature—concerning the partition of Persia, the plunder of China, the exploitation of Turkey, the division of Austria, the seizure of East Prussia, the appropriation of German colonies, and so forth—which had long bound Russia to the Anglo-French imperialist predatory capital. Instead, it reaffirmed these treaties concluded by Tsarism—a regime that, over the course of centuries, had plundered and oppressed more peoples than any other tyrant or despot; a regime that not only oppressed but also debased and corrupted the Great Russian people, turning them into executioners of other nations.

By reaffirming these shameful, bandit-like treaties, the new government failed to offer an immediate armistice to all warring peoples, contrary to the clearly articulated demands of the majority of the peoples of Russia as expressed through the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. It contented itself with solemn, resounding, ceremonial declarations and empty phrases—phrases that have always served, and continue to serve, in the mouths of bourgeois diplomats as tools for deceiving the trusting and naive masses of the oppressed people.

4. Therefore, not only does the new government deserve not the slightest bit of trust in the field of foreign policy, but to continue to demand of it that it proclaim the will of the peoples of Russia for peace, that it renounce annexations, and so forth—and so forth—is, in reality, nothing more than a deception of the people, a sowing of unrealistic hopes, a delaying tactic designed to obscure their consciousness, and a roundabout means of reconciling them with the continuation of the war—whose true social character is determined not by good intentions, but by the class nature of the government leading the war, by the ties between the class represented by this government and the imperialist financial capital of Russia, Britain, France, and beyond; by the actual, concrete policies pursued by that class.