s
obvious and was denied by none except the ultra-pacifists and the
Bolsheviki. The Congress of Soldiers' Delegates from the Front and the
Petrograd Soviet had specifically urged the need of such an offensive, as
had most of the well-known peasants' leaders. It was a working-class
policy. But that fact did not prevent the Bolsheviki from throwing
obstacles in the way of its fulfilment. They carried on an active
propaganda among the men in the army and the navy, urging insubordination,
fraternization, and refusal to fight. They encouraged sabotage as a means
of insuring the failure of the efforts of the Provisional Government. So
thoroughly did they play into the hands of the German military authorities,
whether intentionally or otherwise, that the charge of being in the pay of
Germany was made against them--not by prejudiced bourgeois politicians and
journalists, but by the most responsible Socialists in Russia.

The epic story of Kerensky's magnificently heroic fight to recreate the
Russian army is too well known to need retelling here. Though it was vain
and ended in failure, as it was foredoomed to do, it must forever be
remembered with gratitude and admiration by all friends of freedom. The
audacity and the courage with which Kerensky and a few loyal associates
strove to maintain Russia in the struggle made the Allied nations, and all
the civilized world, their debtors. Many mistakes were made, it is true,
yet it is very doubtful if human beings could have achieved more or
succeeded where they failed. It must be confessed, furthermore, that the
governments of the nations with which they were allied made many grievous
mistakes on their part.

Perhaps the greatest blunder that a discriminating posterity will charge to
Kerensky's account was the signing of the famous Declaration of Soldiers'
Rights. This document, which was signed on May 27th, can only be regarded
in the light of a surrender to overpowering forces. In his address to the
All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Delegates, on May 18th, speaking for the
first time in his capacity as Minister of War, Kerensky had declared, "I
intend to establish an iron discipline in the army," yet the Declaration of
Soldiers' Rights which he signed nine days later was certain to make any
real discipline impossible. Was it because he was inconsistent,
vacillating, and weak that Kerensky attached his name to such a document?

Such a judgment would be gravely unjust to a great man