| War-time Officers | 1 |
| Clerks | 2 |
| Cadets | 2 |
| Soldiers from the rear | 9 |
| Scribes and men on special duty | 5 |
I will leave their description to Stankevitch, who said: “At first hysterical, noisy, and unbalanced men were elected, who were utterly useless to the Committee....” New elements were subsequently added. “The latter tried consciously, and in the measure of their ability, to cope with the ocean of military matters. Two of them, however, seemed to have been inoffensive scribes in Reserve Battalions, who had never taken the slightest interest in the War, the Army, or the political Revolution.” The duplicity and the insincerity of the Soviet were clearly manifested in regard to the War. The intellectual circles of the Left and of the Revolutionary Democracy mostly espoused the idea of Zimmerwald and of Internationalism. It was natural, therefore, that the first word which the Soviet addressed on March 14, 1917, “To the Peoples of the Whole World,” was:
“PEACE.”
The world problems, infinitely complex, owing to the national, political, and economic interests of the peoples who differed in their understanding of the Eternal Truth, could not be solved in such an elementary fashion. Bethmann-Holweg was contemptuously silent. On March 17th, 1917, the Reichstag, by a majority against the votes of both Social Democratic parties, declined the offer of peace without annexations. Noske voiced the views of the German Democracy in saying: “We are offered from abroad to organise a Revolution. If we follow that advice the working classes will come to grief.” Among the Allies and the Allied Democracies the Soviet manifesto provoked anxiety, bewilderment, and discontent, which were vividly expressed in the speeches made by Albert Thomas, Henderson, Vandervelde, and even the present-day French Bolshevik, Cachin, upon their visits to Russia. The Soviet subsequently added to the word “Peace” the definition, “Without annexations and indemnities on the basis of the self-determination of peoples.” The theory of this formula promptly clashed with the actual question of Western and Southern Russia occupied by the Germans; of Poland, of Roumania, Belgium, and Serbia, devastated by the Germans; of Alsace-Lorraine and Posen, as well as of the servitude, expropriations, and compulsory labour which had been imposed upon all the countries invaded by the Germans. According to the programme of the German Social Democrats, which was at length published in Stockholm, the French in Alsace-Lorraine, the Poles in Posen, and the Danes in Schleswig were only to be granted national autonomy under the sceptre of the German Emperor. At the same time, the idea of the independence of Finland, Russian Poland, and Ireland was strongly advocated. The demand for the restoration of the German colonies was curiously blended with the promises of independence for India, Siam, Korea.
The sun did not rise at the bidding of Chanticleer. The ballon d’essai failed. The Soviet was forced to admit that “time is necessary in order that the peoples of all countries should rise, and with an iron hand compel their rulers and capitalists to make peace.... Meanwhile, the comrade-soldiers who have sworn to defend Russian liberties should not refuse to advance, as this may become a military necessity....” The Revolutionary Democracy was perplexed, and their attitude was clearly expressed in the words of Tchkeidze: “We have been preaching against the War all the time. How can I appeal to the soldiers to continue the War and to stay at the Front?”
Be that as it may, the words “War” and “Advance” had been uttered. They divided the Soviet Socialists into two camps, the “Defeatists” and “Defensists.”[17] Theoretically, only the right groups of the Social Revolutionaries, the popular Socialists, the “Unity” (“Edistvo”) group, and the Labour party (“Trudoviki”) belonged to the latter. All other Socialists advocated the immediate cessation of the war and the “deepening” of the Revolution by means of internal Class War. In practice, when the question of the continuation of the war was put to the vote, the Defensists were joined by the majority of the Social Revolutionaries and of the Social Democrat Mensheviks. The resolutions, however, bore the stamp of ambiguity—neither war nor peace. Tzeretelli was advocating “a movement against the war in all countries, Allied and enemy.” The Congress of the Soviets at the end of May passed an equally ambiguous resolution, which, after demanding that annexations and indemnities should be renounced by all belligerents, pointed out that, “so long as the war lasts, the collapse of the Army, the weakening of its spirit, strength and capacity for active operations would constitute a strong menace to the cause of Freedom and to the vital interests of the country.” In the beginning of June the Second Congress passed a new resolution. On the one hand, it emphatically declared that “the question of the advance should be decided solely from the point of view of purely military and strategical considerations”; on the other hand, it expressed an obviously Defeatist idea: “Should the war end by the complete defeat of one of the belligerent groups, this would be a source of new wars, would increase the enmity between peoples, and would result in their complete exhaustion, in starvation and doom.” The Revolutionary Democracy had obviously confused two ideas: the strategic victory signifying the end of the war and the terms of the Peace Treaty, which might be humane or inhuman, righteous or unjust, far-seeing or short-sighted. In fact, what they wanted was war and an advance, but without a victory. Curiously enough, the Prussian Deputy, Strebel, the editor of Vorwaerts, invented the same formula as early as in 1915. He wrote: “I openly profess that a complete victory of the Empire would not benefit the Social Democracy.”
There was not a single branch of administration with which the Soviet and the Executive Committee did not interfere with the same ambiguity and insincerity, due on the one hand to the fear of any action contrary to the fundamentals of their doctrine, and on the other to the obvious impossibility of putting these doctrines into practice. The Soviet did not, and could not, partake in the creative work of rebuilding the State. With regard to Economics, Agriculture, and Labour, the activities of the Soviet were reduced to the publication of pompous Socialist Party programmes, which the Socialist Ministers themselves clearly understood to be impracticable in the atmosphere of War, Anarchy, and Economic crisis prevailing in Russia. Nevertheless, these Resolutions and Proclamations were interpreted in the factories and in the villages as a kind of “Absolution.” They roused the passions and provoked the desire, immediately and arbitrarily, to put them into practice. This provocation was followed by restraining appeals. In an appeal addressed to the sailors of Kronstadt on May 26th, 1917, the Soviet suggested “that they should demand immediate and implicit compliance with all the orders of the Provisional Government given in the interests of the Revolution and of the security of the country....”
All these literary achievements are not, however, the only form of activity in which the Soviet indulged. The characteristic feature of the Soviet and of the Executive Committee was the complete absence of discipline in their midst. With reference to the special Delegation of the Committee, whose object it was to be in contact with the Provisional Government, Stankevitch says: “What could that Delegation do? While it was arguing and reaching a complete agreement with the Ministers, dozens of members of the Committee were sending letters and publishing articles; travelling in the provinces, and at the Front in the name of the Committee; receiving callers at the Taurida Palace, everyone of them acting independently and taking no heed of instructions, Resolutions, or decisions of the Committee.”
Was the Central Committee of the Soviet invested with actual power? A reply to this question can be found in the appeal of the Organising Committee of the Labour Socialist Democratic Party of July 17th. “The watchword ‘All-Power to the Soviets,’ to which many workmen adhere, is a dangerous one. The following of the Soviets represents a minority in the population, and we must make every effort in order that the Bourgeois elements, who are still willing and capable of joining us in preserving the conquests of the Revolution, shall share with us the burdens of the inheritance left by the old régime, which we have shouldered, and the enormous responsibility for the outcome of the Revolution which we bear in the eyes of the people.” The Soviet, and later the All-Russian Central Committee, could not, and would not, by reason of its composition and their political ideas, exercise a powerful restraining influence upon the masses of the people, who had thrown off the shackles and were perturbed and mutinous. The movement had been inspired by the members of the Soviet, and the influence and authority of the Soviet were, therefore, entirely dependent on the extent to which they were able to flatter the instincts of the masses. These masses, as Karl Kautsky, an observer from the Marxist Camp, has said, “were concerned merely with their requirements and their desires as soon as they were drawn into the Revolution, and they did not care a straw whether their demands were practicable or beneficial to society.” Had the Soviet endeavoured to resist with any firmness or determination whatsoever the pressure of the masses, it would have run the risk of being swept away. Also, day after day and step by step, the Soviet was coming under the influence of Anarchist and Bolshevik ideas.