The history of the Russian Revolution starts with the gradual
dissolution of all fundamental institutions and notions. The
first to go was the army, as it was the most tangible and irksome
form of State organization. The first act of the Soviet of Work-
men was to issue an order to all army units enjoining the forma-
tion of Soldiers' Committees to watch over the behaviour of
officers, to take over arms, etc. It is to be imagined what effect
this order exercised on the discipline of the army. The pa-
triotic Minister of War in the Provisional Government, A.
Guchkov, strove might and main to stop the disintegration of
discipline, the fraternization with the enemy, and the cowardly
desertions. He called up a legendary hero of the war, Kornilov,
and placed him at the head of the Petrograd garrison. But all
these efforts were of no avail in the face of the disorganization
of the soldiery; the adulation of the demagogues, the propaganda
of German and native Defeatists, and the regime of Soldiers'
Committees was substituted for hierarchical command. In
April Kornilov left for the front in disgust, and in May Guchkov
resigned in despair.

Next came the turn of foreign policy. The mob, led by the
Council of Workmen and Soldiers, was repeating the magic
formula of " peace without annexation and indemnities." How
could fidelity to the Alliance concluded in the fateful months of
August 1914, how could the aspirations towards a command of
the Straits or any other aims of Russian national policy be
made to square with this abstract, colourless formula, devised
at Zimmerwald by the enemies of European civilization?

The extremists in Russia took a perverse delight in ignoring
completely the menace of German domination, and dreamed,
or pretended to dream, of a rising of the German Socialists that
would substitute class war for the struggle of empires. The
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Milyukov, was not willing to dis-
sociate himself from the Allies and to disregard the German
danger, nor was he prepared to tear up as a scrap of paper the
agreement concluded with much difficulty by Sazonov, in which
the Western Powers had acknowledged the justice of Russia's
claim to Constantinople and the Straits. He had to retire,
because the mob did not want to go on with the war and cared
nothing about the Allies or about Imperial interests of Russia,
while those who pulled the strings behind the scenes kept in
touch with the Germans and were bent on the destruction of
historical empires in accordance with Zimmerwald policy. After
stormy demonstrations Milyukov resigned.

Even worse than these ministerial changes was the displace-
ment of the centre of gravity in the political world. The Duma
was set aside by the appointment of the Provisional Govern-
ment. As the Duma had been elected on a narrow and artificial



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franchise, it carried no weight with the people. Its Executive
Council could not find its right place by the side of the Provi-
sional Government, and looked helplessly on the latter's efforts
to assume authority. An attempt was made to summon the
members of all the four Dumas to a kind of political conference,
but this only led to a good many speeches without any practical
results. The four Dumas in conjunction looked even more like
ghosts than the fourth one by itself. This meant that a number of
influential public men Rodzianko, Shidlovsky, Shulgin, Makla-
kov, N. Lvov, Karaulov vanished into oblivion, some for ever,
others at the most critical moments of the incipient Revolution.
The Provisional Government was left in isolation in the face of
a seething mass of half-educated people, who had lost all sense
of duty and all respect for authority. This would have been
bad enough in itself, but the Provisional Government had to
reckon not only with these heaving throngs but with a rival and
energetic organization the Soviet Workmen and Soldiers.

The resignations of Guchkov and Milyukov rendered neces-
sary a reconstruction of the Provisional Government, and it
was effected in the direction of the Left. The outstanding facts
in this reconstruction were the appointments of Kerensky as
Minister of War and Marine, the Social Revolutionary Chernov
as Minister of Agriculture, the Social Revolutionary Skobelev
as Minister of Labour. Prince Lvov was kept president of the
Council, but he was not much more than a figure-head: the
principal personage in the new combination was A. F. Kerensky,
while the appearance of Chernov and Skobelev as members of
the Government showed that the country was to be subjected to
socialistic experiments of the most extreme kind. The dykes
had burst and torrents of disorderly agitation were let loose on
the land. The composition of the new Ministry was intended to
bring some harmony in the action of the two rival centres, the
Ministry and the Council of Workmen and Soldiers, to which
a third element, delegated from the peasants, had been added.
In practice the Government was made amenable to the direct
influence of the council, whose aggressive Socialism was not
tempered by any sense of responsibility. At its head stood a
characteristic figure Cheidze, a Georgian Social Democrat, who
hated everything that savoured of Russian national tradition.
He had nothing to recommend him as a political leader except
his stubborn opposition under the old regime. His election to
be chairman of the Soviet, showed that the men, who were ready
to discard all bonds of national honour and self-preservation
for the sake of peace at any price, had the masses behind them.

The most terrible symptoms of the advancing disease was the
arrival from abroad of Bolshevik leaders Lenin coming through
Germany, under the benevolent protection of the Kaiser, and
Trotsky arriving from America. These men were resolved
to preach the doctrine of Zimmerwald and Kienthal. Their
zeal did not cool down in Russian surroundings. Riazanov
demanded that deserters should be free from punishment
for the sake of individual freedom. Steklov incited soldiers and
citizens to kill generals suspected of counter-revolutionary
designs without further inquiry. The weak spot in the armour
of Russia had been discovered. A hysterical stampede began
which spread rapidly from the rear to the front, and it is not a
paradox to say that the Government was powerless against
this organized disorganization: the Soldiers' Committees at the
front acted systematically against the officers, fraternization
with the enemy was encouraged by many of them, and when it
came to a fight, they debated for hours whether they should
obey orders or leave the line. In case of serious onslaughts on
the part of the Germans and the Austrians, whole regiments
gave way. The state of the army was depicted in the most
mournful colours by no less a man than that great citizen-soldier
of Russia General Alexeiev:

" Let us be frank; the fighting spirit of the Russian army is ex-
hausted. But yesterday stern and powerful, it now faces the enemy
in a trance of fatal inaction. A longing for peace and quiet has re-
placed the old traditional loyalty to the country. Base instincts of
self-preservation are reawakened. Where is the powerful authority
at home for which the whole State is yearning? We are told it will
come soon. But we do not see it yet. What has become of our love



for the Mother country? Where is our patriotism? The sublime
word of brotherhood is inscribed upon our banners, but it is not
written in our hearts. Class antagonism is raging in our midst;
whole classes who had honourably fulfilled their duty to their
country are placed under suspicion. As a result a deep abyss has
yawned between soldiers and officers."

In front of this disruption of moral ties the reproaches and
warnings of progressive leaders who had not lost the sense of
their allegiance to the Motherland did not avail, and yet among
these patriots there were many who had passed their h'ves in
prison and exile for the sake of their opinions Plekhanov,
Krapotkine, Breshkovskaya, Herman Lopotin.

Kerensky's Rule. The most conspicuous, although by far
not the most worthy representative of the " Defencists," was
the favourite of the Revolution, the new Minister of War and
Marine, A. F. Kerensky. None had thundered with more effect
against the oppressive measures of the old regime, none could
speak with such enthusiasm, of freedom, the sanctity of revolu-
tion, popular inspiration, the right of the masses, and the dawn
of a new era. Unfortunately, impassioned feelings and eloquent
words do not serve as substitutes for statesmanlike foresight,
clearness of purpose, and strength of will. After attaining to a
unique position at the head of revolutionary Russia Kerensky
entangled himself in a net of contradictory measures, of ill-
judged assertions of authority, and of weak-minded compromises
and renunciations. With incredible levity and conceit he as-
sumed that he could, by his personal magnetism, repair the
harm which was being done to the army by the propaganda of
Defeatists. He rushed from corps to corps, harangued soldiers'
meetings, revelled in their applause, and believed that he had
achieved wonders by his appearance at the front. Witnesses
of these meetings did not fail to notice that the soldiers, after
listening with some interest to the new kind of theatrical per-
formances, did not conceal their incredulity as to results. These
results were disclosed in a manner which did not admit of any
doubts when the time came for testing the effects of this orator-
ical campaign in a struggle with the enemy.

Towards the beginning of July 1917 a general offensive move-
ment was attempted, in the hope that the gallantry of specially
formed shock battalions would kindle the fighting spirit of
other troops, and that the whole line would advance and break
at least the thoroughly shaken Austrian army. The first
onslaught in the south-west was successful; Kornilov's shock
troops pushed as far as Stanislau (Stanislawow) in Galicia. But
it was the last flickering flame in the case of an army disinte-
grated by defeatist propaganda. In the north the ordinary
troops refused to support their comrades and looked on with
irony at their desperate efforts against heavy odds. In the
midst of the fighting a general dibdcle began: the Russian regi-
ments rolled back in disorderly retreat, and the only fact which
prevented an immediate collapse was the extreme weakness of
the enemy on the Austrian front.

The Russian nation, as represented by its army, had definitely
succumbed in the great struggle. Even more terrible perhaps
than the defeats at the front was the corresponding chaos in the
country. A Separatist disaffection in the Ukraine seized the
opportunity presented by the great catastrophe to assert claims
as to an independent Government, based on the fact that the
provinces on both shores of the Dnieper had for some centuries
formed part of a Cossack republic and of the Polish-Lithuanian
State. The fundamental unity of the Russian people, as well as
the immense benefits brought by the reunion in the i7th century
and the common progress in the i8th and igth centuries, were
set at nought by these people. The bulk of the Ukrainian pop-
ulation would not have followed them, in spite of many griev-
ances against Petrograd rule, if it had not been for the hysterical
stampede of the Revolution. As it was, people dreamt of a new
heaven and a new earth in Kiev and in Poltava, as well as in
Petrograd and in Moscow, only with the difference that their
visions were reminiscences of Cossack prowess and licence. The
representatives of the Provisional Government the romantic
socialist Tseretelli, the wealthy amateur Tereshtchenko, the
shifty intriguer Nekrasov were not able to make any stand



RUSSIA



321



against such treasonable pretensions, and conceded an auton-
omy bordering on complete separation. Some of the Cadet
members of the Provisional Government Prince Lvov, and
Shingarev protested and resigned, but their withdrawal was
hardly noticed. Kerensky was placed definitely at the head of
the Government and continued his campaign of eloquent appeals.

In the general confusion the group of relentless realists, the
Bolsheviks thought the moment opportune to show their
hand. On July 14 a military revolt broke out in Petrograd:
regiments converted by the extremists the first machine-gun
regiment at their head seized strategic points in the capital;
cruisers and destroyers flying the black and red flag of terror-
istic Revolution came into the Neva from Kronstadt. For
three days it seemed doubtful whether the Provisional Govern-
ment would be able to hold its own. The attempt was, however,
somewhat premature. Part of the Petrograd garrison remained
passive, and this made it possible for some loyal troops to sup-
press the rebellion. The Government was afraid, however, to
strike hard: Trotsky, Lunacharsky and Kamenev were let out
after a brief arrest; Lenin had disappeared as soon as it became
evident that the outbreak had miscarried. Apart from the usual
irresolution of ministers who had not learnt to govern during
their long apprenticeship in the ranks of a critical Opposition,
the hands of the Executive power were tied by the pressure
from the Soviet of Workmen, Peasants and Soldiers. The
Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats, although dis-
agreeing with the Bolsheviks and afraid of them, worshipped
the word " Revolution," and were loth to adopt coercive meas-
ures against their comrades of the extreme Left. Stern meas-
ures against the extremists might have seemed a return to the
oppression of the Tsarist regime, and the Socialists preferred
risking their own safety to the danger of being accused of the
crime of " lese-Revolulion."

So the see-saw of contradictory decrees and measures con-
tinued for some time. While the military chiefs addressed
passionate appeals to the Government for a restoration of dis-
cipline, for stern punishment of deserters, for abolition of the
political authority of the Army Committee, Socialists, even
moderate ones, defended the " new discipline " of the noble
revolutionary army, minimized its defeats and demoralization,
and consoled themselves with the prospect of a rebirth of the
nation under the mighty influence of the revolutionary spirit.
In the meantime, the peasants were grabbing the estates and the
live stock of the squires, burning houses, and killing some of
the unpopular owners. The Minister of Agriculture, Chernov,
looked upon this lawlessness of self-help as a perfectly natural
outbreak of the policy of expropriation. The factory workers and
workshop artisans in the towns were not less insistent in the
assertion of their rights; wages went up by leaps and bounds,
while the work done became more and more careless and casual.
Owners and engineers were sometimes thrown out of their
establishments, seized by the proletarians. It happened,
indeed, that after trying their hand at management for some
time the workmen requested or compelled their former employ-
ers to return as managers, but such isolated cases did not counter-
balance the general effect of disorder and slackness. The decay
of Russian industries was proceeding fast. The efforts of mili-
tary chiefs and responsible leaders to arrest the spread of treason,
disorganization, and demoralization were denounced by the
Socialists of the Soviet and their representatives in the Pro-
visional Government as counter-revolutionary attempts.

The Second Revolution. Prince Lvov recognized that it was
no longer possible for Liberals to work with Chernov and his
companions. He resigned from the premiership, and the Cadets
in the Ministry followed him. Kerensky became prime minister.
Although he retained the portfolio of War and Marine, he set
himself the task of constructing a " strong revolutionary "
Government. In order to find a basis for a national coalition
he called a conference in Moscow, in which all classes, groups
and principal institutions of the Russian State were to be repre-
ented. The Bolsheviks refused to take part and ridiculed the

ea of a congregation of that kind. On Aug. 26 about 2,000

XXXII. 1 1



delegates met in the Grand Theatre, representatives of the
various parties, of Zemstvos and municipalities, of universi-
ties, of army, of factory workmen, of peasant communities, etc.
The meeting might have been a first step towards the regenera-
tion of Russia, if the leaders had clearly realized that the danger
did not lie in counter-revolution but in disorganization. But
Kerensky opened the discussion by a speech in which warnings
as to the danger to the country were intermixed with the usual
revolutionary catchwords, and no lead was given in the direction
of any practical reform. Kornilov, as commander-in-chief,
delegates of the officers, and many of the former political leaders,
spoke strongly of the necessity of reestablishing discipline, of a
strong executive, of national work to be carried on by all parties
and classes. But the delegates of the Left, who were in the
majority, not only turned a deaf ear to all such exhortations, but
manifested openly their contempt and dislike for the old ideals
of patriotism. Among the worst were the soldiers delegated by
various army committees. The whole attempt was a failure;
instead of bracing up the political consciousness of the nation
it revealed a state of complete paralysis on the part of the so-
called rulers of the country.

At the beginning of September Riga fell, after a half-hearted
and disconnected defence by the XI. Army. In the Soviet,
Tseretelli tried to bring through the reintroduction of capital
punishment for treason and desertion, and although he suc-
ceeded in collecting a narrow majority, this measure, insisted upon
by the officers, was nullified by motions in the opposite direction
for example, by a demand that the arrested Bolsheviks should
be liberated. It was evident that no serious effort to arrest
anarchistic effervescence could be expected either from the Pro-
visional Government or from the Soviet: they felt spellbound
as soon as the sacred word " Revolution " was pronounced by
the enemies of the State. The commander-in-chief, Kornilov,
was not the man to submit meekly and without a" struggle to
the fatal policy of drift. He threw his authority into the scales
against social disorder, and tried to force the Provisional Govern-
ment to side with him. With this object in view he ordered
some cavalry divisions on which he could rely to march toward
Petrograd. He began negotiations with Kerensky through the
medium of Boris Savinkov, a Social Revolutionary and active
terrorist, who was acting as Assistant Minister of War at the
time. This is how Savinkov related the main occurrences of
this momentous crisis:

" When, on the 5th-6th of September, at Headquarters I again
told him that in the near future the Provisional Government would
examine the bill which was being prepared by the order of the
Prime Minister, for the measures to be taken at the base, he believed
that the Government was no longer hesitating, and when bidding
me farewell on the 6th of September at Headquarters he declared
that he would give full support to the Prime Minister, for the good
of the country. On my return to Petrograd I reported my con-
versations with General Kornilov to the Prime Minister, and on
the evening of the 8th of Sept. the bill for legalizing measures at the
base (i.e. severe penalties for breaches of discipline) was to have been
examined by the Provisional Government. But on the 8th of Sept.
I was summoned to the Winter Palace, and the Prime Minister told
me something that was a complete surprise to me. He told me that
V. N. Lvov had come to him with an ultimatum from Gen. Kornilov,
who demanded that the supreme authority should be given over to
the Commander-in-Chief, with all military and civil power over the
country, and that he, the Commander-in-Chief, was to form a
Cabinet in which I was to be Minister of War and the Prime Minister
was to be Minister of Justice. The ultimatum was in writing, but
was signed, not by Gen. Kornilov, but by V. N. Lvov himself. Then
the Premier called Kornilov up on the Hughes apparatus, and asked
him without reading out to him the text of the declaration signed
by V. N. Lvov whether he was ready to sign the ultimatum pre-
sented by V. N. Lvov. Gen. Kornilov replied, ' Yes, 1 am ready to
sign.' On the same day (8th of Sept.), the Prime Minister sent a
telegram to Gen. Kornilov at Headquarters, demanding that
Kornilov should immediately give up his post and leave the army."
(Tyzkova- Williams, 214, 215.)

Komilov's attempt to assume power was obviously conducted
in a very clumsy manner: he was not a statesman, but a soldier,
and the people around him were in no way able to make up for
his deficiencies in political training. It is almost inconceivable
how he could have chosen as his messenger the half-witted



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V. Lvov. But, apart from that blunder, the chief advisers of
Kornilov, were Zavoiko, a minor bureaucrat of the old regime,
crafty and plausible, but devoid of insight and authority, and
Aladine, a noisy half-educated demagogue, a member of the
First Duma, who had turned Nationalist and had nothing to
recommend him but his posing as the mouthpiece of the secret
diplomacy of the Entente. However this may be, the intended
coup d'etat miscarried completely and made the situation only
worse. Kerensky assumed the part of a heroic defender of the
Revolution against a military conspiracy, all the various Social-
istic groups joined him in the outcry against the would-be
dictator, the army did not rise to support the general, who wanted
to reestablish discipline and unity of command, the leader of
the cavalry corps, which had advanced to the outskirts of Pet-
rograd, shot himself, and Kornilov and his principal supporters
Danikine and Lukomsky were arrested and charged with
treason. The outcome of the whole affair was a recrudescence
of revolutionary zeal, and a violent rush to the Left. In the
country the panic produced by Kornilov's attempt expressed
itself in wholesale massacres.

The victorious Kerensky did not realize that he had thrown
away the last chance of salvation from the rising tide of anarchy
and terrorism. He appointed himself commander-in-chief and
imagined that he was strong enough to defeat the onslaught
from the Left as well as from the Right. Yet he received warn-
ing after warning of the crumbling away of political organiza-
tion. The central executive of the Soviet had been effected by
the landslide towards the Left. They called a Democratic
Conference in Petrograd from which all bourgeois elements
were excluded: the membership was restricted to delegations
from Soviets, trade unions, cooperative societies and peasants'
communes. This Assembly, in which the various Socialist
groups had entirely their own way, could not even agree on a
resolution calling for a Coalition Government capable of defend-
ing Russia in the hour of supreme danger. A motion in the
sense was first passed and then rejected in consequence of the
reluctance to admit Cadets and adherents of Kornilov to any
share in the Government.

In contrast with this confusion of ideas and lack of resolution
the extremists were quite clear in their minds, and the snake
of Bolshevism was lifting its head again. Trotsky, who had been
let out of prison, was more popular than ever, when he dis-
coursed on the necessity of forming a Government of the Soviets
and appealing for peace to the proletarian masses of the world.
At the new elections to the Executive of the Soviets of Workmen,
Peasants and Soldiers, he was elected President against Cheidze.
This meant that the dualistic system was recognized to be obso-
lete, and the Provisional Government with Kerensky at its
head was to be discarded in favour of a concentration of power
in the hands of the Extremists. A motion condemning Kerensky
and his Government was passed by the Soviet Executive.

Kerensky tried to parry the blows by supplementing a totter-
ing Coalition Ministry with a Council of the Republic composed
of representatives of all the political parties, principal associa-
tions and institutions. This body met at Petrograd on Oct. 20.
Jt gave a measure of its capacity for political action by starting
a long discussion on the question of the active or passive defence
of Russia against the ever-increasing German menace. Although
the Bolsheviks ostentatiously left the Council as a protest
against the presence of " bourgeois " elements and the " counter-