Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/187

Rh revision of treaties and war-aims would at last have been established on a practical footing. But the Soviet was an advocate of adjustment and conciliation. It decided to create a Coalition Government. Moderation unfortunately is not always a virtue. In this case the Soviet was making a grave political mistake, for the Coalition Government bungled the question of peace and the negotiations with the Allies still more than the first, purely bourgeois, Government had done. Probably it was not so much the principle of coalition which was at fault as the structure and organisation of the actual coalition which was formed. In fact the crisis had taken place on the question of foreign policy. The Socialists decided to participate in the Government in order to see that democratic principles were carried out in the foreign policy of the country. They might naturally have been expected to take over the Foreign Office. But in reality foreign affairs were left in the hands of the same party whose policy had, only just before, brought the country to the verge of disaster. I have already said that the democracy were ready to compromise with the bourgeoisie on every question of internal policy if only the Government would energetically pursue a more democratic line in its foreign policy. But they were fooled. The propertied classes preferred to see a Social Revolutionist as Minister of Agriculture, a Social Democrat as Minister of Labour, a Socialist Food Controller, and even a Socialist War Minister, if only they could keep the foreign affairs in their own hands, which