Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

440POLITICAL NOTESThe chauvinists are hard at work. Rumours are increasinglybeing spread that the Japanese are arming, that theyhave concentrated 600 battalions in Manchuria for an attackon Russia. Turkey is reported to be vigorously arming withthe intention of declaring war on Russia in the spring ofthis year. It is said that a revolt is being prepared in theCaucasus with the object of seceding from Russia (all thatis lacking is a clamour about the plans of the Poles!). Feeling,against Finland is being worked up by tales that sheis arming. A bitter campaign is being conducted againstAustria over the building of a railway in Bosnia. The attacksof the Russian press on Germany, which is alleged tobe inciting Turkey against Russia, are becoming more violent.The campaign is being conducted not only in the Russianbut also in the French press, whose bribery by the RussianGovernment was recently so opportunely mentionedin the Duma by a Social-Democrat.The serious bourgeois press of the West declines to regardthis campaign as a figment of the imagination of newspapermenor the speculation of sensation-mongers. Obviously,“ruling circles”—meaning the Black-Hundred tsarist government,or a secret court cabal like the notorious “Star Chamber”—havegiven a very definite cue; some systematic“line” is being pursued, some “new course” has been adopted.The foreign press traces a direct connection between thischauvinistic campaign and the fact that the doors of theDuma Committee of State Defence have been closed to allmembers of the Duma not belonging to that Committee,i.e., not only to the revolutionary parties but also to theCadets; it is even said that the Russian Government, as a