“Yes, action is needed, but what action? What is to be done now? What would you do if you were to be given authority over the army? You are a common soldier, tell me what you would do?”
“It is too late now,” I answered after thinking a little time. “Two months ago I could have accomplished a great deal. Then they still respected me. Now they hate me.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the War Minister. “Two months ago I might have saved the situation myself, if I had only been here then!”
We then discussed the purpose of my journey. I asked for a transfer to a more active part of the front and for a certificate that the Battalion was to be run without committees. This certificate I obtained from the War Minister without delay, and I still have it in my possession. He also agreed to my first request and promised to look into the matter and issue orders for my transfer.
Kerensky was silent during the conversation. He stood like a ghost, the symbol of once mighty Russia. Four months before he was the idol of the nation. Now almost all had turned against him. As I looked at him I felt I was in the presence of that immense tragedy which was rending my country into fragments. Something seemed to clutch my throat and shake me. I wanted to cry, to sob. My heart dripped blood for Mother Russia. What would I not have done to avert that impending catastrophe? How many deaths would I not have died at that moment?
Here was my country drifting towards an abyss. I could see it sliding down, down, down.... And here were the heads of the Government powerless, helpless, clinging hopelessly to the doomed ship, despairing of salvation, abandoned, forlorn, stricken....
“God only knows the future—shall we ever meet again?” I asked the two men in a stifled voice, as I bade them farewell.
Kerensky, livid, motionless, answered in a hoarse whisper:
“Hardly.”