CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE PROCESS OF DISINTEGRATION
THE "patriotic" Press in this country and in France would like to shift the responsibility for the disintegration of the Russian army to the Revolution and the Revolutionary democracy. According to them, the disintegration of the army was the evil work of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates and of the "Committee System."
This interpretation of events has two obvious advantages for the Press and for their Russian correspondents. In the first place, it relieves them of responsibility for their two years of silence, during which time they concealed the truth about the real condition of the Russian army from the British public. Secondly, it helps them to discredit the hated Revolution. Having shown that the Revolution and the Socialist parties are guilty of the destruction of the Russian army, the "patriotic" Press can turn to the workers of Britain and France and say: "Look what the Socialists and Revolutionaries have done with the 'brave and gallant army of the Tsar'! Beware!"
But, however convenient it may be for the capitalist Press to blame the Revolution for the decomposition of the army, it is nevertheless a falsehood. The disintegration of the army began long before the Revolution, and the revolutionary democracy is by no means responsible for the process, which was already completed under the old régime. Fraternisation with the enemy, refusal to fight, mass desertions and panic-stricken flight before advancing Germans—these and other symptoms of disintegration in the army, for which the "patriotic" Press would blame the Revolution, the
