revision of treaties and war-aims would at last have been established on a practical footing. But the Soviet was an advocate of adjustment and conciliation. It decided to create a Coalition Government. Moderation unfortunately is not always a virtue. In this case the Soviet was making a grave political mistake, for the Coalition Government bungled the question of peace and the negotiations with the Allies still more than the first, purely bourgeois, Government had done.[1] Probably it was not so much the principle of coalition which was at fault as the structure and organisation of the actual coalition which was formed. In fact the crisis had taken place on the question of foreign policy. The Socialists decided to participate in the Government in order to see that democratic principles were carried out in the foreign policy of the country. They might naturally have been expected to take over the Foreign Office. But in reality foreign affairs were left in the hands of the same party whose policy had, only just before, brought the country to the verge of disaster. I have already said that the democracy were ready to compromise with the bourgeoisie on every question of internal policy if only the Government would energetically pursue a more democratic line in its foreign policy. But they were fooled. The propertied classes preferred to see a Social Revolutionist as Minister of Agriculture, a Social Democrat as Minister of Labour, a Socialist Food Controller, and even a Socialist War Minister, if only they could keep the foreign affairs in their own hands, which
- ↑ Baron Rosen, former Russian Ambassador at Tokyo and Washington, refers to the mistakes of the Coalition Government in the following terms, in a letter to the Novaia Zhizu, October 10th: "This equivocal attitude of the Russian Government has done the interests of the country irreparable harm, because the voice of Russian diplomacy grows weaker with every month of war, and disorganisation goes on increasing. This duplicity of Russian policy on the question of peace and war reveals to the whole world the division of the nation into two camps, the more important of which ardently desires peace, while the other, which comprises an influential minority, obstinately clings to war to the bitter end."
