cal measures of the government, when pressure compelled the government to act, which was seldom. The task of internal reorganization could be undertaken either by a strictly bourgeois government, which would have meant a reorganization dominantly in the interests of the bourgeoisie; or by a strictly revolutionary Socialist government acting through the Soviets—a "dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry"—which would have meant a reorganization in the interests of the proletariat and the impoverished peasantry. The Provisional Government paltered on all the vital problems of the Revolution, declaring that these problems should be settled by the Constituent Assembly, and kept postponing the meeting of the Assembly. In the meanwhile it acted in the interests of the bourgeoisie, and tried to undermine the Soviets, particularly the Soldiers' Soviets in the army: the propaganda for an offensive was linked with the propaganda to crush the Soldiers' Soviets. Through the acceptance of coalition and the policy of bourgeois parliamentary procedure the moderates in the Soviets promoted the government's policy of reaction through inaction.
The problem of power was inescapable. The revolutionary impatience of the masses increased in the measure that the Coalition Government evaded the necessity of action and adopted an international policy that allied revolutionary Russia with the reaction and Imperialism of Great Britain, France and Italy. The Government did not simply palter on the issue of peace: it actually repudiated peace, and secretly conspired to continue an imperialistic war—a war still imperialistic, in spite of the flood of words that issued from the mouth of Kerensky about democracy and a permanent peace. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tereschenko, argued that the publication of the secret treaties and agreements concluded between the Czar and Great Britain and France would mean a rupture with the Allies: and yet the Menshevik Tseretelli argued at the All-Russian Soviet Congress in June: "We desire to hasten the conclusion of a new treaty, in which the principles proclaimed by the Russian democracy will be recognized as the basis of the international policy of the Allies." Not only were the secret treaties not published, but the Coalition Government itself used secret diplomacy in making arrangements of its own to continue the war: the policy of revolutionary Russia was made dependent upon the wishes of the Allies.[1]
The words of the Coalition government promised peace, but its acts constituted war. If the publication of the secret treaty agreements would have meant a rupture with the Allies, the acceptance by the Allies in words of the peace formula of revolutionary Russia would have meant—just nothing. The policy of trying to influence the imperialistic governments of the Allies to revise and re-state their war aims in accord with Russia's formula
- ↑ In the matter of publishing the secret treaty agreements. the Kerensky Government also took its cue from the Allies. Tereschenko, who was Kerensky's Minister of Foreign Affairs as he had been Prince Lvov's, said in a secret telegram to the Russian Charge d'Affairs in Paris, dated September 24, 1917: "… a publication of a treaty which is generally known would be completely misunderstood by public opinion and would only give rise to demands for the publication of the agreements which had been concluded during the war. The publication of these, and especially of the Rumanian and Italian treaties, is regarded by our allies as undesirable. In any case we have no intention of putting difficulties in the way of France or of placing Ribot in a still more painful position … no obstacles will be placed in the way of publishing all agreements before or during the war, in the event of the other Allies who are parties to them consenting."
