Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/207

 der Czarism. And immediately the question of the secret treaties came up and became imperative. To restore the "preparedness" of the army under these circumstances meant breaking up the revolutionary-democratic resistance of the soldiers, putting to sleep again their newly-awakened political sense, and, until the "revision" of the old treaties should be announced as a principle, placing the revolutionary army in the service of the same old objects. This task was more than a match for the Octobrist-Bourbon Guchkov, who broke down under it. Nothing less than a "Socialist" would do for this purpose. And he was found in the person of the "most popular" of the ministers, Kerensky.

Citizen Kerensky exposed his theoretical equipment at one of the first sessions of the All-Russian Congress. One can hardly imagine anything more insipid than his provincial, complacent truisms on the French Revolution and on Marxism. Citizen Kerensky's political formulas were characterized neither by originality nor by depth. But he possesses, indisputably, the talent of bestowing upon philistine reaction the necessary revolutionary trimmings. In the person of Kerensky, the intelligent and semi-intelligent bourgeois recognize themselves, in more "representative" form, and in surroundings which are not those of every day, but rather the trappings of melodrama.

By lavishly exploiting his popularity in accelerating the preparedness for an offensive (on the entire imperialistic front of the Allies), Kerensky naturally becomes the darling of the possessing classes. Not only does Minister of Foreign Affairs Tereschenko express himself approvingly of the high esteem in which our Allies hold the "labors" of Kerensky; not only does Rech, which so severely criticizes the ministers of the left, continually emphasize its favoritism toward the minister of the Army and Navy, Kerensky;—but even Rodzianko considers it his duty to point out "the noble, patriotic endeavors which our Minister of the Army and Navy, Kerensky, is engaged in: "this young man" (to quote the words of Rodzianko, the Octobrist chairman of the Duma) "experiences (?) daily a new lease of life, for the benefit of his country and of constructive work." Which glorious circumstance does not, however, in any way prevent Rodzianko from hoping that when the "constructive work" of Kerensky shall have attained a proper eminence, it may be succeeded by Guchkov's labors instead.

Meanwhile, Tereschenko's Department of Foreign Affairs is endeavoring to persuade the Allies to sacrifice their imperialistic