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

472V. I. LENINThe correspondent of another bourgeois newspaper, theMilan Corriere della Sera, reports the severe censorshipimposed in Portugal after the assassination. Telegrams arenot passed. Ministers and kings are not characterised bythat “good nature” which appeals so strongly to the honestbourgeois in the case of the mass of the people! In war, asin war—rightly argue the Portuguese adventurers who havetaken the place of the assassinated king. Communication hasbecome almost as difficult as in war. Reports have to besent by a roundabout route, first by post to Paris (perhapsto some private address), and thence transmitted to Milan“Not even in Russia,” writes the correspondent on February7, “during the most violent revolutionary periods, didthe censorship clamp down so hard as it now does in Portugal.”“Some Republican newspapers,” this correspondent reportson February 9 (New Style), “write today [the day ofthe king’s funeral] in terms which I positively dare notrepeat in a telegram.” In a report dated February 8, whicharrived after that of the 9th, the comment of the newspaperPays on the funeral arrangements is quoted:“The mortal remains of two monarchs were borne past—the uselessashes of a wrecked monarchy, which had been sustained bytreachery and privileges, and whose crimes have smirched two centuriesof our history.”“This is a Republican newspaper, of course,” the correspondentadds, “but is not the appearance of an article thusworded on the day of the king’s funeral an eloquent fact?”For our part, we will merely add that we regret one thing—that the Republican movement in Portugal did not settleaccounts with all the adventurers in a sufficiently resoluteand open manner. We regret that in the happening to theking of Portugal there is still clearly visible the element ofconspiratorial, i.e., impotent, terror, one that essentiallyfails to achieve its purpose and falls short of that genuinepopular, truly regenerative terror for which the Great FrenchRevolution became famous. Possibly the republican movementin Portugal will mount still higher. The sympathy ofthe socialist proletariat will always be on the side of the Republicansagainst the monarchy. But what they have suc-