of the Directorate of Five, which stood as the
All-Russian Government and received its authority from the Constituent
Assembly at Ufa--largely Social Revolutionary in character--and the
Siberian Government, the outcome of the Siberian Districts Duma, which
met at Tomsk and was largely reactionary, with a small mixture of
Socialist opinion. The English and French representatives were genuinely
anxious that a workable compromise should be made between these two
groups and a Cabinet formed that would give confidence to moderate
Russian opinion, and so command Allied recognition with reasonable
prospects of success. This very desirable ambition of the Allied
"politicals" had the sympathy of every friend of Russia, but advice is
one thing, accomplishment another. It was impossible to expect that the
effects of hundreds of years of tyranny and bad government could be
swept away by the waving of a diplomatic wand. The Siberian Government
was largely composed of the "old gang," Revolutionary and Royalist, and
derived its support almost exclusively from the desire of the people to
escape further bloodshed; it was guarded by the Royalist Cossack clans,
as lawless as they are brave. The Ufa Directorate derived its authority
from the moderate Social Revolutionary party composed of the
"Intelligenzia"--republican, visionary, and impractical. Kerensky was,
from all accounts, a perfect representative of this class, verbose and
useless so far as practical reconstructive work was concerned. This
class blamed the unswerving loyalty of the Cossacks and the old army
officers for all the crimes of which the Tsars were guilty, and had
hunted them like rats in cellars and streets during the worst days of
the Second Revolution. The officer and Cossack class cursed Kerensky and
the Social Revolutionaries for destroying the old army and letting free
the forces of anarchy and Bolshevism, which had destroyed the State and
had massacred the manhood of Russia in an orgy of violence and hate.

There should be no mistake made as to the apportionment of blame.
Kerensky is considered by all classes of Russian society as the cause of
all their calamities. They think, rightly or wrongly, that at the
supreme moment when the destiny of his race and country was placed in
his hands he proved traitor to the trust; that had he possessed
one-tenth of the courage of either Lenin or Trotsky millions of Russians
would have been saved from worse than death.

To co