SOCIALISM SUPREME
Within the church the same overturning of old authorities took place. The new procurator caused to be thrown out the gilded emblems of the autocracy, and priests known to be in sympathy with the revolution were elevated to the offices vacated by the reactionaries. Most of the vast landed estates of the church were confiscated, and the church was relegated to a position in which it could no longer interfere in matters of state. Probably a majority of the radicals would have liked to abolish the church altogether, but even they must have realized that the great body of Russia's population, the peasantry, had not yet arrived at this state of mind, corrupt though they knew the institution to be.
For some weeks while these reforms, in which the vast majority of the people believed, were being promulgated the most enthusiastic harmony prevailed between the two elements constituting the Provisional Government. But those realizing the wide gulf lying between these two elements, the constitutionalists and the revolutionary radicals, were every day expecting the inevitable dissensions to arise. Eventually they came. They would have come much sooner had it not been for the fact that the nation was at war.
The friction which presently began between the two contrasting elements sharing the power of government has undoubtedly been much magnified and distorted by the press in Great Britain and this country, not through malicious intent, but through ignorance of the aims of one of these elements and of Russian character. The two elements in question are, of course, found in all countries, and the dissensions in Petrograd probably caused more bitterness in other countries between these opposing elements than existed in Russia itself. The conservative press of England and America exaggerated to absurdity the program and aims of the radical forces in Russia, while the Socialist press of these same countries was equally unreliable in its partisanship, and would have had its readers believe Prince Lvov and Milukov hardly any improvement on Protopopoff, a view in which it would not have been supported by the most radical Russians. For the true story of this period we must wait yet a while until dispassionate witnesses have had time to present their experiences and observations in permanent form.
Nevertheless, there seems to be no doubt that the wine of freedom did rise to the heads of the ultraradicals, and the Russian radical's ideas often do approach the borders of absurdity. Having obtained democracy in civil life, the extremists among the deputies of the Workingmen's and Soldier's Council wished to extend it in full to the army. Though this army was face to face with the best organized military machine in the world, they demanded the resignation of all the officers, that their places might be filled by the votes of the common soldiers. This rank absurdity the commanders on the front naturally resisted, and it was not allowed to come into practice, but the spirit behind the suggestion did begin to permeate the ignorant, peasants of the rank and file and caused endless demoralization. Animated by the same spirit, many of the workingmen in the factories supplying the army grew restless under the discipline of work and struck for impossible wages. They had always thought that under a Socialist system they would have little work and plenty to eat. Now the social revolution had been accomplished, and these improvements did not materialize. If more disorder and fighting were needed to bring them about, they would supply these deficiencies.
What added to this spirit was the arrival in Russia, early in April, 1917, of the extreme radical Socialist, Lenine. He is generally credited in this country with being an agent of Germany, but men of his type are not easily subsidized, nor would it have been necessary for the Germans to do so. Utterly idealistic, a wild fanatic, unpractical to the point of being unbalanced, he represented that wing of radicalism which lives in Utopias and will give no consideration to things as they are. They preach the doctrine of the brotherhood of man with the same bitterness that many religious sects preach the salvation of the soul. Lenine began his propaganda, together with thirty or more of his followers who arrived with him. They preached an immediate separate peace with Germany and Austria; it was not to the interest of the Russian working classes to fight the Teuton working classes when both were slaves under the same masters, the capitalists of the world. Let the Germans fight their capitalists and the Russians theirs. And even if the Germans did conquer Russia, what did it matter? They would not prove any worse masters than the Russian capitalists. All the working classes of the world should unite and attack the capitalists simultaneously, etc. Undoubtedly Lenine made some impression on the more ignorant workingmen of Petrograd and soldiers of the army, but his significance has been much overestimated in this country. In Russia his influence corresponds somewhat to the influence of Emma Goldman in this country: their followers are more noisy than numerous.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LXXXV
POLICIES PROCLAIMED
The first important cause for dissension between the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Deputies and the Provisional Government occurred on April 7, 1917, when Professor Milukov, speaking as Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated that the occupation of Constantinople and the Dardanelles was essential to the economic prosperity of Russia. Either he underestimated the strength of the Socialist elements, or he did not understand their point of view, for here he proclaimed a principle to which even the mildest Socialist would be opposed: the holding of territory occupied by people of one nationality by a nation whose people are of another nationality.
There was a rising storm of protest, in which even Kerensky joined against his associate in the ministry. The result was that the Provisional Government was compelled to issue the famous statement of its aims in the war, in which it renounced all indemnities and the desire to conquer any foreign territories, at the same time enunciating the rights of all small nationalities to decide their own separate destinies. President Wilson had expressed a very similar formula before the entrance of the United States into the war in the words "peace without victory." Unfortunately this general statement of Socialistic principle lacked the detail necessary to make it applicable to the war situation; nor have the radical forces ever been unanimous enough in their opinions since then to supply these details. There remained, and there still remains, the question as to whether liberating Alsace and Lorraine from the Germans would be the conquest of foreign territory, or whether reparation on the part of Germany for the damage done in Belgium would constitute an indemnity. Must the Armenians remain forever under Turkey, or must armed force be employed to take Armenia away from Turkey, that the Armenians might settle their own destiny? Either course might be interpreted as against or in accordance with the principle enunciated.