Written: Written after December 16 (29), 1904
Published:
First published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany, XVI.
Published according to the manuscript.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Foreign Languages Publishing House,
1962,
Moscow,
Volume 8,
pages 41-42.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor Lasker
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2003).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
• README
Under the above headline, the Frankfurter Zeitung, mouthpiece of the big German stockjobbers, gives the following interesting report:
“Rumours of a new big Russian loan have been current for several weeks now. All these rumours were promptly denied. It is now officially admitted, however, that a loan was recently [reported on December 29, new style] negotiated in St. Petersburg. No doubt, these official negotiations were preceded by private inquiries, which gave rise to the rumours. It is reported that German financiers took part this time in the negotiations. The loan is to be floated on the German market. Until now, since the beginning of the war, Russia has raised funds in three different ways: first, about 300 million rubles was borrowed from the cash holdings of the Treasury, in creased by cuts in previous allocations. This was followed by a loan of 800 million francs (about 300 million rubles) obtained through French bankers. In August Russia floated a domes tic loan of 150 million rubles. The war is consuming heavy sums which are growing from month to month, and Russia is again planning to raise a big foreign loan. Russian stocks have recently shown a strong (serious, bedenkliche) downward trend. How the German public will react to the Russian loan is unpredictable. The fortunes of war, so far, have invariably favoured the Japanese. And whereas, so far, Russian loans have been considered a safe investment, they are now becoming more or less speculative (Beigeschmack), especially in view of the tsar’s recent Manifesto, which throws characteristic light on what is going on in Russia. It remains to be seen whether the new loan will be offered to the German public on terms (the interest rate and the price of issue) that would make up for the impaired quality of the Russian loan."— — —
Another warning to the Russian autocracy by the European bourgeoisie! It is losing credit as a result both of the military defeats and of the growing discontent within the country. The European bankers are beginning to regard the autocracy as a gambling speculation, while the “quality” of Russian loans, in the sense of their reliability, is frankly declared to be impaired.
And what a mass of money this criminal war, which must be consuming no less than three million rubles a day, is still going to cost the people!
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