Perhaps the greatest blunder that a discriminating posterity will charge to Kerensky's account was the signing of the famous Declaration of Soldiers' Rights. This document, which was signed on May 27th, can only be regarded in the light of a surrender to overpowering forces. In his address to the All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Delegates, on May 18th, speaking for the first time in his capacity as Minister of War, Kerensky had declared, "I intend to establish an iron discipline in the army," yet the Declaration of Soldiers' Rights which he signed nine days later was certain to make any real discipline impossible. Was it because he was inconsistent, vacillating, and weak that Kerensky attached his name to such a document?
Such a judgment would be gravely unjust to a great man. The fact is that Kerensky's responsibility was very small indeed. He and his Socialist associates in the Cabinet held their positions by authority of the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, and they had agreed to be subject to its guidance and instruction. The Soviet was responsible for the Declaration of Soldiers' Rights. Kerensky was acting under its orders. The Soviet had already struck a fatal blow at military discipline by its famous Order Number One, which called on the soldiers not to execute the orders of their officers unless the orders were first approved by the revolutionary authorities—that is, by the Soviet or its accredited agents. That the order was prompted by an intense love for revolutionary ideals, or that it was justified by the amount of treachery which had been discovered among the officers of the army, may explain and even excuse it, but the fact remains that it was a deadly blow at military discipline. The fact that Kerensky's predecessor, Guchkov, had to appear at a convention of soldiers' delegates and explain and defend his policies showed that discipline was at a low ebb. It brought the army into the arena of politics and made questions of military strategy subject to political maneuvering.
The Declaration of Soldiers' Rights was a further step along a road which inevitably led to disaster. That remarkable document provided that soldiers and officers of all ranks should enjoy full civic and political rights; that they should be free to speak or write upon any subject; that their correspondence should be uncensored; that while on duty they should be free to receive any printed matter, books, papers, and so on, which they desired. It provided for the abolition of the compulsory salute to officers; gave the private soldier the right to discard his uniform when not actually on service and to leave barracks freely during "off-duty" hours. Finally, it placed all matters pertaining to the management in the hands of elective committees in the composition of which the men were to have four-fifths of the elective power and the officers one-fifth.
Of course, the Declaration of Soldiers' Rights represented a violent reaction. Under the old régime the army was a monstrously cruel machine; the soldiers were slaves. At the first opportunity they had revolted and, as invariably happens, the pendulum had swung too far. On May 28th the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates issued a declaration in which it was said: "From now on the soldier-citizen is free from the slavery of saluting, and as an equal, free person will greet whomsoever he chooses.... Discipline in the Revolutionary Army will exist, prompted by popular enthusiasm and the sense of duty toward the free country rather than by a slavish salute." If we are tempted to laugh at this naïve idealism, we Americans will do well to remember that it was an American statesman-idealist who believed that we could raise an army of a million men overnight, and that a shrewd American capitalist-idealist sent forth a "peace ship" with a motley crew of dreamers and disputers to end the greatest war in history.
IX
Throughout the first half of June, while arrangements for a big military offensive were being made, and were causing Kerensky and the other Socialist Ministers to strain every nerve, Lenine, Trotzky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and other leaders of the Bolsheviki were as strenuously engaged in denouncing the offensive and trying to make it impossible. Whatever gift or genius these men possessed was devoted wholly to destruction and obstruction. The student will search in vain among the multitude of records of meetings, conventions, debates, votes, and resolutions for a single instance of participation in any constructive act, one positive service to the soldiers at the front or the workers' families in need, by any Bolshevik leader. But they never missed an opportunity to embarrass those who were engaged in such work, and by so doing add to the burden that was already too heavy.
Lenine denounced the offensive against Germany as "an act of treason against the Socialist International" and poured out the vials of his wrath against Kerensky, who was, as we know, simply carrying out the decisions of the Soviet and other working-class organizations. Thus we had the astonishing and tragic spectacle of one Socialist leader working with titanic energy among the troops who had been betrayed and demoralized by the old régime, seeking to stir them into action against the greatest militarist system in the world, while another Socialist leader worked with might and main to defeat that attempt and to prevent the rehabilitation of the demoralized army. And all the while the German General Staff gloated at every success of the Bolsheviki. There was a regular system of communications between the irreconcilable revolutionists and the German General Staff. In proof of this statement only one illustration need be offered, though many such could be cited: At the All-Russian Congress of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, on June 22d, Kerensky read, in the presence of Lenine, a long message, signed by the commander-in-chief of the German eastern front, sent by wireless in response to a declaration of certain delegates of the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates.
At this session Lenine bitterly assailed the proposed offensive. He said that it was impossible for either side to win a military victory, revamping all the defeatist arguments that were familiar in every country. He minimized the loss which Russia had suffered at Germany's hands, and the gains Germany had made in Belgium and northern France, pointing out that she had, on the other hand, lost her colonies, which England would be very unlikely to give back unless compelled to do so by other nations. Taunted with being in favor of a separate peace with Germany, Lenine indignantly denied the accusation. "It is a lie," he cried. "Down with a separate peace! We Russian revolutionists will never consent to it." He argued that there could be only one policy for Socialists in any country—namely, to seize the occasion of war to overthrow the capitalist-class rule in that country. No war entered into by a capitalist ruling class, regardless what its motives, should be supported by Socialists. He argued that the adoption of his policy by the Russian working class would stand ten times the chance of succeeding that the military policy would have. The German working class would compel their government and the General Staff to follow the example of Russia and make peace.
Kerensky was called upon to reply to Lenine. At the time when the restoration of the army required all his attention and all his strength, it was necessary for Kerensky to attend innumerable and well-nigh interminable debates and discussions to maintain stout resistance to the Bolshevik offensive always being waged in the rear. That, of course, was part of the Bolshevist plan of campaign. So Kerensky, wearied by his tremendous efforts to perform the task assigned him by the workers, answered Lenine. His reply was a forensic masterpiece. He took the message of the commander-in-chief of the German eastern front and hurled it at Lenine's head, figuratively speaking, showing how Lenine's reasoning was paralleled in the German propaganda. With merciless logic and incisive phrase he showed how the Bolsheviki were using the formula, "the self-determination of nationalities," as the basis of a propaganda to bring about the dismemberment of Russia and its reduction to a chaotic medley of small, helpless states. To Lenine's statements about the readiness of the German working class to rebel, Kerensky made retort that Lenine should have remained in Germany while on his way to Russia and preached his ideas there.
A few days earlier, at a session of the same Congress, Trotzky and Kamenev had made vigorous assault upon the Coalition Government and upon the Socialist policy with reference thereto. In view of what subsequently transpired, it is important to note that Trotzky made much of the delay in calling together the Constituent Assembly: "The policy of continual postponement and the detailed preparations for calling the Constituent Assembly is a false policy. It may destroy even the very realization of the Constituent Assembly." This profession of concern for the Constituent Assembly was hypocritical, dishonest, and insincere. He did not in the least care about or believe in the Constituent Assembly, and had not done so at any time since the First Revolution of 1905-06. His whole thought rejected such a democratic instrument. However, he and his associates knew that the demand for a Constituent Assembly was almost universal, and that to resist that demand was impossible. Their very obvious policy in the circumstances was to try and force the holding of the Assembly prematurely, without adequate preparation, and without affording an opportunity for a nation-wide electoral campaign. A hastily gathered, badly organized Constituent Assembly would be a mob-gathering which could be easily stampeded or controlled by a determined minority.