Published: Pravda No. 54, May 24 (11), 1917.

'What do you take the class-conscious workers and soldiers for? Or do you really regard them as “rebellious slaves”?'

Now that “socialists” have become members of the cabinet, things will be different, the defencists have been assuring us. It did not take more than a few days to reveal the falsity of these assurances.

We all know what indignation was aroused among the soldiers and workers by ex-Minister Milyukov’s statement that he had no intention of publishing the secret treaties which ex-Tsar Nicholas II had concluded with the British and French capitalists. And now, what does Mr. Tereshchenko, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, the associate of Skobelev and Tsereteli, have to say on this question?

Tereshchenko admits that “this question [i.e., the secret treaties] arouses passions”. But what does he do to cool these passions? He simply repeats what Milyukov, who has just been deposed, said before him.

“Immediate publication of the treaties would amount to a break with the Allies,” Tereshchenko declared in a statement to the press.

And the “socialist” ministers are silent and condone the system of secret diplomacy.

The coalition cabinet has brought no changes. The tsars secret treaties remain sacred to it.

And you, gentlemen, want this not to “arouse passions”? What do you take the class-conscious workers and soldiers for? Or do you really regard them as “rebellious slaves”?

Source: Marxist Internet Archive.