Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/264

 mass of generalities, attacks upon the Right and Left alternating with concessions to the Right and Left; and his statement, "We are determined that Russia shall be ranked among the World Powers" evoked boisterous applause.

Minister of Finance Nekrasov made an attack upon the Revolution's evil influence upon the finances, declaring that the money being expended by the Food Supply Committees and for wage increases was ruining the state and country, and should be stopped. General Kornilov, Commander in Chief of the armies, emphasized the disintegration of the army, and urged drastic measures to restore discipline, among these measures being the practical abolition of the soldiers' committees. He attacked the measures of the Provisional Government introducing democracy into the army, and concluded with a covert threat of allowing an invasion of the country in order to compel the introduction of the necessary measures:

"If decisive measures for the improvement of discipline at the front followed as a result of the devastation of Tarnopol and the loss of Galicia and Bukovina, we must not allow that order in the rear should be a result of the loss of Riga, and that order on the railroads be restored at the price of surrendering Moldavia and Bessarabia to the enemy."

General Kaledine, of the Cossacks, was even bolder than Kornilov, making direct attacks upon the Socialist ministers, and suggested the following measures:

"1.—The army must be kept out of politics. All meetings and assemblies with their party antagonisms must be absolutely forbidden at the front.

"2.—All councils and committees in the army must be abolished at the front as well as behind the lines, except those of the regiments, companies, divisions and other military units, and their rights and duties must be strictly limited to the management of the soldiers' economic affairs.

"3.—The Declaration of Soldiers' Rights must be revised and amplified by a declaration of his duties.

"4.—Discipline in the army must be restored and strengthened by the most decisive measures.

"5.—To insure the fighting capacity of the army, the front and the rear must be recognized as one whole, and all measures required for strengthening discipline at the front must also be applied to the rear.

"6.—The disciplinary rights of superior officers must be restored to them. (Applause from the Right.)

"7.—The army leaders must have their full authority restored.

"8.—At this terrible hour of great reverses at the front and complete disintegration springing from political and economic disruption, the country can be saved from final ruin only by placing full power in the hands of firm, experienced and skilled people not bound by narrow party or group programs, (Loud applause on the Right) not hampered by the necessity of turning back after every step in order to find out whether the various committees and councils approve or disapprove of their acts, (Restlessness on the Left. Applause on the Right.) and who fully recognize that the people as a whole and not separate parties or groups are the sources of sovereign power in the State.

"9.—The Central, as well as local, (government must be undivided. A stop must be put immediately and abruptly to the usurpation of power by the