One can only affirm one thing to-day, and that is that without the Revolution the situation would have been even worse than at present, for a separate peace would long ago have been concluded, thanks to the intrigues of the ex-Empress, perjured to all which should have been most dear to her, and of the traitors who surrounded her and conspired with her to baffle, blind, drug and intimidate that unlucky and ill-fated puppet, the ex-Emperor, a man with no will, no force of character; honest in himself but incapable of exacting honesty from those around him, and always agreeing with the last person who had spoken to him.
Her moujiks are the latent force of Russia, not the agitators of her towns and capitals, and they will be the first to see the falseness of the doctrines of the spies with which they are fed to gain this concurrence. May the moujik not recognize too late that he is being lured away—and who lures him? The ignoble Russian Bolo, his pockets filled with German gold, recompense of his treachery. That is the whole story.
The task of the Russian Bolo would not have been as simple if a Tzar worthy of the moment were still there. The moujik no longer has his “Little Father,” of whom he made almost a god. For him he would have died with joy, with all that fanaticism which can possess the Russian soul, that fanaticism would have made of him an invincible soldier—but why should he die for a Kerensky? He is not a “Little Father,” he is a man like himself—and at that he demurs. Can one blame these hardy and simple workers of the great steppes if they find themselves adrift, no longer having either him to adore who was almost their god on earth, or that to venerate which was the religion of their izba[A] for centuries? For the Tzar was not only the head of the State, but also the head of the Religion of his State, the Greek Orthodox Church, as it is called over there. “He is our pope,” Russians often said to me, referring to my Roman Pope.
For who was Kerensky? Kerensky is of the people and a barrister. His father was or is still the master of a small school. A student at the time of the first Revolution in 1905, he was arrested as a Socialist and Revolutionary. No one spoke of him then, he was quite unknown, and he was arrested like many others; but the circumstance has been recalled to-day.
He has often been called “Russia’s strong man”; after the deposition of the Tzar he seized the power. He was a Social Democrat, or Minimalist. His empire over the masses was enormous; but it began to diminish when he developed in statesmanship. The Extremists were not slow to see this, and acted on it. The Soviet, which was supposed to support his Provisional Government, was only composed of so-called Russians, who were simply all Germans and for the most part Jews.
Lenin himself, the chief of the Extremists, Maximalists, is a notorious Hun agent, and is known throughout Europe as a dangerous leader. For some years his activities, though confined to Russia, have been exercised on behalf of Germany. His doctrine may be summed up thus:
1. The immediate conclusion of the war.
2. The handing over of the land to the peasants.
3. The settlement of the economic crisis.
Trotsky is an Extreme Anarchist, well known to the police in most European countries. Before the declaration of war he was at New York, where he spent some months. On his way to Russia, in March 1917, he was detained at Halifax by the English Authorities, who released him on an appeal which came to them from the Russian Government.