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
