“The Army is falling to pieces. Heroic measures are needed for its salvation: (1) The Provisional Government should recognise its mistakes and its guilt, as it has not understood and estimated the noble and sincere impulse of the officers who had greeted the news of the Revolution with joy, and had sacrificed innumerable lives for their country. (2) Petrograd, entirely detached from the Army, and ignorant of its life and of the historical foundations of its existence, should cease to enact military regulations. Full power must be given to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who should be responsible only to the Provisional Government. (3) Politics must disappear from the Army. (4) The ‘Declaration’ must be rescinded in its fundamentals. Commissars and Committees must be abolished, and the functions of the latter must gradually be altered. (5) Commanding Officers must be restored to power. Discipline and the outward form of order and good conduct must likewise be restored. (6) Appointments to prominent posts must be made not only according to the standard of youth and strength, but also of experience in the field and in administration. (7) Special law-abiding units of all arms must be placed at the disposal of Commanding Officers as a bulwark against mutiny, and against the horrors of possible demobilisation. (8) Military Revolutionary Courts must be established and capital punishment introduced in the rear for the troops and for civilians guilty of the same crimes.
“If you ask me whether these measures are likely to produce good results, I will answer frankly: Yes, but not at once. It is easy to destroy the Army, but time is needed for its reconstruction. The measures I suggest would at least lay the foundations for the creation of a strong Army. In spite of the disruption of the Army, we must continue the struggle, however arduous it may be, and we must even be prepared to retreat into the depths of the country. Our Allies should not count upon immediate relief through our advance. Even in retreating and remaining on the defensive, we are drawing upon us enormous enemy forces, which, were they relieved, would be sent to the Western Front and would crush the Allies and then turn against us. Upon this new Calvary the Russian people and the Russian Army may yet shed rivers of blood and endure privations and misfortunes. But at the end of the Calvary a bright future is in store.
“There is another way. The way of treason. It would give a respite to our martyred country.... But the curse of treachery cannot give us happiness. At the end of that path there is political, moral and economic slavery. The destinies of the country are in the hands of the Army. I now appeal to the Provisional Government represented here by two Ministers:
“You must lead Russia towards truth and enlightenment under the banner of Liberty, but you must give us a real chance of leading the troops in the name of that same Liberty under our old banners. You need have no fear. The name of the autocrat has been removed from these banners as well as from our hearts. It is no longer there. But there is a Mother Country; there is a sea of blood; and there is the glory of our former victories. You have trampled that banner into the dust. The time has now come. Raise the banners and bow to them if your conscience is still within you.”
I had finished. Kerensky rose, shook hands with me, and said: “Thank you, General, for your outspoken and sincere speech.”
In the evidence which Kerensky subsequently gave to the High Commission for the investigation of Kornilov’s movement, the Prime Minister explained this gesture by the fact that he approved, not of the contents of my speech, but of my courage, and that he wished to emphasise his respect for every independent opinion, albeit entirely divergent from the views of the Provisional Government. In substance, according to Kerensky, “General Deniken had for the first time drawn a plan for the Revanche—that music of the future military reaction.” There is in these words a deep misinterpretation. We had not forgotten the Galician retreat of 1915 or its causes, but, at the same time, we could not forgive Kalush and Tarnopol in 1917. It was our duty, our right, and our moral obligation not to wish for either of these contingencies. I was followed by General Klembovsky. I had left the Assembly, and only heard the end of his speech. He described the condition of his Front in terms almost identical to mine, with great restraint, and came to a conclusion that could only have been prompted by deep despair: he suggested that power should be vested at the Front in a kind of peculiar triumvirate consisting of the Commander-in-Chief, a Commissar, and an elected soldier....
General Alexeiev was unwell, spoke briefly, described the condition of the rear, of the reserves and garrison troops, and endorsed the suggestions I had made.
General Ruzsky, who had been undergoing a protracted cure in the Caucasus, and was therefore out of touch with the Army, analysed the situation such as it appeared to him from the speeches that had been made. He quoted a series of historical comparisons between the old Army and the new Revolutionary one with such emphasis and bluntness that Kerensky, in replying, accused Ruzsky of advocating the return to Czarist autocracy. The new men were unable to understand the passionate grief of an old soldier for the Army. Kerensky was probably unaware of the fact that Ruzsky had been repudiated, and also passionately accused by the Reactionary circles of the opposite crime, for the part which he had played in the Emperor’s abdication.