Why is the overthrow of the incompetent authority of the old Government to be an achievement, to the memory of which the Provisional Government proposed erecting a monument in the Capital, while the attempt to overthrow the incompetent authority of Kerensky, made by Kornilov, after exhausting all lawful means and after provocation on the part of the Minister-President, is to be counted rebellion?
But the need for a powerful authority is far from being exhausted by the period preceding the Constituent Assembly. Did not the Assembly of 1918 call in vain on the country, not for submission, but simply for protection from physical outrage on the part of the turbulent sailor horde? Yet not a hand was raised in its defence. Let us grant that that Assembly, born in an atmosphere of mutiny and violence, did not express the will of the Russian people and that the future Assembly will reflect that will more perfectly. I think, however, that even those who have the most exalted faith in the infallibility of the democratic principle do not close their eyes to the unbounded possibilities of the future which will be the heritage of such a physical and psychological transformation in the people as is unknown to history and has never yet been investigated by anyone.
Who knows whether it may not be necessary to confirm the democratic principle, the authority itself of the Constituent Assembly, and its commands, by iron and fresh bloodshed....
Be that as it may, the outward recognition of the Provisional Government took place. It would be difficult and useless to separate, in the work of the Government, that which proceeded from its free will and sincere convictions from what bears the stamp of the forcible influence of the Soviet. If Tzeretelli was entitled to declare that “there has never yet been a case when, in important questions, the Provisional Government has not been ready to come to an agreement,” so have we the right to identify their work and their responsibility.
All this activity, volens nolens, bore the character of destruction, not creation. The Government repealed, abolished, disbanded, permitted.... In this lay the centre of gravity of its work. I picture to myself the Russia of that period as a very old house, in need of capital reconstruction. In the absence of means and while waiting for the building season (the Constituent Assembly), the builders began extracting the decayed girders, some of which they did not replace at all, others they replaced with light, temporary props, and others again they reinforced with new baulks without fastenings—the latter means turning out to be the worst. And the house crashed down. The causes of such a method of building were first: the absence of a complete and symmetrical plan among the Russian political parties, the whole energy, mental and will tension of which were directed mainly towards the destruction of the former order. For we cannot give the name of practical plans to the abstract outlines of the party programmes; they are rather lawful or unlawful diplomas for the right of building. Secondly—that the new ruling classes did not possess the most elementary technical knowledge of the art of ruling, as the result of a systematic, age-long setting them aside from these functions. Thirdly—the non-forestalling of the will of the Constituent Assembly, which, in any case, called for heroic measures for its summoning, and therewith no less heroic measures for securing real freedom of election. Fourthly—the odiousness of all that bore the stamp of the old order, even though it were sound at bottom. Fifthly—the self-conceit of the political parties, each of which individually represented the “will of the whole people” and was distinguished by extreme irreconciliableness towards its antagonists.
I might probably continue this list for a long time, but I shall pause on one fact which has a significance which is far from being confined to the past. The Revolution was expected, it was prepared, but no one, not a single one of the political groups had prepared itself for it. And the Revolution came by night, finding everyone, like the foolish virgins in the Gospel, with lamps unlit. One cannot explain and excuse everything by elemental forces alone. No one had troubled to construct beforehand a general plan of the canals and sluices necessary to prevent the inundation from becoming a flood. Not one of the leading parties possessed a programme for the interregnum in the life of the country, a programme which, in its character and scale, could not correspond with normal plans of construction, either in the system of administration or in the sphere of economic and social relations. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the only assets in the possession of the progressive and Socialist blocks on March 27th, 1917, were: for the former—the choice for the post of Minister-President of Prince Lvov, for the latter—the Soviets and Order No. 1. After this began the convulsive, unsystematic vacillation of the Government and of the Soviet.
It is to be regretted that this difference, which constitutes a marked distinction between two periods—the provisional and the constructive—two systems, two programmes, has not yet become sufficiently clear in public consciousness.
The whole period of the active struggle with Bolshevism passed under the sign of the mingling of these two systems, of divergent views and of incapacity to construct a provisional form of authority. It would seem that now, too, the anti-Bolshevist forces, while increasing the divergence of their views and building plans for the future, are not preparing for the process of assuming the power after the downfall of Bolshevism, and will again approach the task with naked hands and wavering mind. Only now the process will be immeasurably more difficult. For the second excuse—after “elemental forces”—for the failure of the Revolution, or rather of its leading men—“the heritage of the Czarist régime”—has paled very much on the background of the sanguinary Bolshevist mist which has enveloped the land of Russia.
The new power (the Provisional Government) was faced by a question of the first importance—the War. On its decision rested the fate of the country. The decision in favour of continuing the alliance and the War rested on ethical motives, which at that time did not rouse any doubts, and on practical motives, which were in some degree disputable. Now, even the former have been shaken, since both the Allies and the enemy have treated the fate of Russia with cruel, cynical egotism. Nevertheless, I have no doubt of the correctness of the decision then taken to continue the War. Many suppositions might be made as to the possibilities of a separate peace—whether that of Brest-Litovsk or one less grievous for the State and for our national self-love. But it is to be thought that such a peace in the spring of 1917 would have led either to the dismemberment of Russia and her economic débâcle (a general peace at the expense of Russia), or to the complete victory of the Central Powers over our Allies, which would have produced incomparably deeper convulsions in their countries than those which the German people are now experiencing. Both in the one case and in the other, no objective data would be present for any change for the better in the political, social and economic conditions of Russian life and any turning of the Russian Revolution into other channels. Only, besides Bolshevism, Russia would have added to her liabilities the hatred of the defeated for many years.