Question 5.—What are the proposals of the Soviet Government to the French small holders of the Russian bonds? How are they to be brought to the notice of the French rentiers?
Answer.—Our proposals re the pre-war debts are published in Comrade Rakovsky's well-known interview. I think you must be familiar with them. The condition is: simultaneous credits for the USSR. We follow in this respect the well-known principle: if you give I give. If you give usc redit you will receive something from us on account of the pre-war debts, if you do not give anything you will not receive anything. Does this mean that thereby we have recognised in principle the pre-war debts? Certainly not. It means only that while leaving in force the well-known decree about the annulment of old Tzarist debts, we are prepared at the same time, in the form of a practical agreement, to pay a part of the pre-war debts if we get in return the credits which we need, and which will be at the same time useful to French industry. We look upon payments on account of the pre-war debts as additional interest on the credits which we will receive for the development of our industry.
People talk about the war debts of Tsarist Russia, of all sorts of claims on the USSR connected with the results of the October Revolution. But people forget that our Revolution is in principle negation of imperalist wars and Tsarist debts connected with them. People forget that the USSR cannot and and will not pay war debts. People also forget that the USSR must take into account the robberies and violation to which the country was exposed during several years, during the intervention of foreign States with which certain counter-claims on the part of the USSR are connected. Who is responsible for these robberies and the violation? Who must pay compensation for them? Imperialists at the head of affairs are inclined to relegate these unpleasant matters to the limbo of the past, but they must know that this cannot be done.
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