hould have been driven irresistibly to the point where it must
either renounce its own existence or oppose the Provisional Government.

The dominating spirit and thought of the Soviet was that of international
social democracy. While most of the delegates believed that it was
necessary to prosecute the war and to defeat the aggressions of the Central
Empires, they were still Socialists, internationalists, fundamental
democrats, and anti-imperialists. Not without good and sufficient reason,
they mistrusted the bourgeois statesmen and believed that some of the most
influential among them were imperialists, actuated by a desire for
territorial expansion, especially the annexation of Constantinople, and
that they were committed to various secret treaties entered into by the old
regime with England, France, and Italy. In the meetings of the Soviet, and
in other assemblages of workers, the ugly suspicion grew that the war was
not simply a war for national defense, for which there was democratic
sanction and justification, but a war of imperialism, and that the
Provisional Government was pursuing the old ways of secret diplomacy.

Strength was given to this feeling when Miliukov, the Foreign Minister, in
an interview championed the annexation of Constantinople as a necessary
safeguard for the outlet to the Mediterranean which Russian economic
development needed. Immediately there was an outcry of protest from the
Soviet, in which, it should be observed, the Bolsheviki were already
gaining strength and confidence, thanks to the leadership of Kamenev,
Lenine's colleague, who had returned from Siberian exile. It was not only
the Bolsheviki, however, who protested against imperialistic tendencies.
Practically the whole body of Socialists, Mensheviki and Bolsheviki alike,
agreed in opposing imperialism and secret diplomacy. Socialists loyal to
the national defense and Socialists who repudiated that policy and deemed
it treason to the cause of Socialism were united in this one thing.

The storm of protest which Miliukov's interview provoked was stilled
temporarily when the Premier, Lvov, announced that the Foreign Minister's
views concerning the annexation of Constantinople were purely personal and
did not represent the policy of the Provisional Government. Assurances were
given that the Provisional Government was in accord with the policy of the
Soviet. On April 16th a national congress of the Councils of Workmen's and
Soldiers' De