In the morning everything went as usual, the rising hour, prayers, breakfast and drilling. At nine I was informed that General Polovtzev, the adjutant of Kerensky, Captain Dementiev, and several of the women who took an interest in the Battalion, were at the gate. I quickly formed the Battalion. The General greeted us and we saluted. He then shook hands with me and gave orders that the women should be sent into the garden, for he wanted to talk things over with me.
I asked myself, as I led the group of distinguished visitors into the house, what it all meant. “If it means that they have come to persuade me to form a committee,” I thought, “then it will be very hard for me, but I shall resist all persuasion.”
My anticipation proved correct. The General had brought all these patronesses of mine to help him overcome my obstinacy. He immediately launched into an exposition of the necessity for complying with general regulations and introducing the committee system in the Battalion. He argued along the already familiar lines, but I would not yield. He gradually became angry.
“Are you a soldier?” he repeated the question put to me by Kerensky.
“Yes, General!”
“Then why don’t you obey orders?”
“Because they are against the interests of the country. The committees are a plague. They have destroyed our army,” I answered.
“But it is the law of the country,” he declared.
“Yes, and it is a ruinous law, designed to break up the front in time of war.”
“Now I ask you to do it as a matter of form,” he argued in a different tone altogether, perhaps himself realizing the truth of my words. “All the army committees are beginning to make inquiries about you. ‘Who is this Botchkareva?’ they ask, ‘and why is she allowed to command without a committee?’ Do it only for the sake of form. Your girls are so devoted to you that a committee elected by them would never seriously bother you. At the same time it would save trouble.”