“ Ce qu’il nous faut faire pour vaincre, c’est l’audace,
encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace.”
DANTON, September 1792.

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

IT is time to retrace our steps, return to Petrograd, and resume the strictly historical sequence of events which we have interrupted, advisedly, in order to follow the imperial family, step by step, to its pitiable end.  Both narratives might have been continued, as it were, in parallel columns, as they run concurrently ;  but it has been judged more satisfactory for the reader — if admittedly less chronological — to close the history of the Romanovs before depicting the complicated phases upon which the Revolution itself now enters.  These two currents diverged almost immediately ;  the fortunes of the deposed monarch and the mass movements of the capital never crossed, but swept farther and farther apart.  Both ended in catastrophe for the principal actors, though, in point of time, the monarch survived longer than the Constitutional Democracy which had unhorsed his autocracy.

Beginning on the tenth of March, fully five days before the formal abdication of the Tzar, a series of events occurred which were destined to exercise an important and permanent influence on the direction which the Revolution ultimately took.  With the workmen of the Petrograd factories and shops on general strike, revolutionary meetings and street demonstrations increased in number and frequency; no one as yet seemed to have formulated a constructive political programme, intent as all were on destroying every hated vestige of the old régime.  Loosed from the traditional restraint of the Cossack, — who now joined the universal revolt, — Petrograd gave full vent to an ancient Russian characteristic and indulged an inhibited, centrifugal passion which craved destruction and found satisfaction in mere negation.

“At last !  At last !” shouted a demonstrator, pointing at a red glow in the direction of the Nicolaevsky station.

“What is burning ?”

“The police station.”

“But there is a fire station in the same building.”

“That won’t help.  We are going to destroy all government offices, burn, smash, kill all police, all tyrants, all despots.”

On the Liteiny a new blaze breaks out and is unchecked.  It is the Okroujny Soud, the magnificent building of the High Court of Justice.

“Who started that fire?” someone asks.  “Is it not necessary to have a court building for new Russia ?”

As the frenzy spreads, rioters and looters fall on their natural enemies, the policemen.  The Social Revolutionary, Pitirim Sorokin, tells us that he came on a group of men pitilessly beating a prostrate policeman with butts of revolvers and grinding their victim’s body into the pavement with their boot heels.  “Stop that, you brutes !” cried Sorokin’s companion.  “Arrest the man if you like, but don’t kill him.”

“Who are you to hinder us from killing a Pharaoh ?” the mob yelled.  “Are you also a counter-revolutionary ?”  A few moments later, from a window on the fourth floor of a house where a Tzarist general lodged, a man was tossed to the pavement beneath by revolting soldiers.  His piercing shriek of agony was drowned by shouts of exultation.  “As the body crashed on the stones,” Sorokin writes, “men rushed forward, stamping on it, lashing it with whatever they held in their hands.  Deathly sick with the hideousness of the sight, I ran on, my companion following.” . . . But someone plucked desperately at his sleeve :  “Sorokin !  I know you are generous.  Save me !  In the name of God, save me.”  In this trembling fugitive Sorokin recognized a spy of the Secret Service who, two years previously, had denounced and secured the arrest of the very man from whom he was now begging sanctuary.  “Go home quickly,” answered Sorokin.  “Destroy your uniform and then, if you can, change your lodging. . . . If anything happens, let me know.”

Kerensky passes at the head of a squad of soldiers leading one of the Ministers of the Tzar to prison.  The mob yells imprecations and attempts to tear the victim limb from limb.  “In the name of the Revolution,” cries Kerensky, “I forbid you to touch this man.  It is not for you to judge him.  He and all the others will be tried, and I swear to you that they will receive justice.”

Meanwhile, what of the Duma, the legally elected representative assembly which alone could claim to voice the collective will of the Russian people ?  Much and heated controversy centres about that body, apologists of the monarchy assailing it bitterly as a hotbed of treasonable conspiracy, while neutral historians blame its members severely for the feebleness and indecision of its policy.  Truth is, no one had a clear idea or a political programme, much less a determined will to assume leadership at a moment when the mounting passion of the populace created disorders which needed, above all else, cool heads, alert minds, and eyes that saw something more relevant to Russia’s future than the welcome vision of a toppling throne, burning police stations, and jail deliveries.  Everyone foresaw the Revolution, and no one prepared for it.  Gutchkov’s frank admission is the key to the kaleidoscopic variations that are to follow :  “. . . The destruction of old forms of life was faster than the creation of new forms to replace them.”

The Revolution was everyone’s special business in Russia, and hence its excesses became no one’s responsibility.  Ordered by the Emperor to dissolve and disperse on March 12, the Duma obeyed the letter of the ukase by transforming its sessions into “unofficial” sittings called by authority of a Temporary Executive Committee of Members acting on their individual liability.  With the supreme authority of the monarch already repudiated in fact, though not announced in public until seventy-two hours later, this technical abdication by the Duma of its legal headship left the State virtually at the mercy of highest and the most daredevil bidder.  Although in the popular imagination the Duma remained the focal point of the Revolutionary movement, its halls and corridors inundated by surging masses who gravitated toward it in search of inspiration, advice, and active leadership, its overlegalistic hesitation on receipt of the Tzar’s ukase furnished just the necessary interlude for a Jacobin coup d’état.  To be sure, it boldly reassumed its authority at midnight, March 13, only to find that, Russian-like, it was again too late !

The interval brought forth a rival claimant.  The Union of Cooperative Workers of Petrograd — the only legal labor union then in existence — had already, on March 10, summoned delegates from different quarters of the capital to a conference in their headquarters at 144 Nevsky Prospekt.  About thirty-five workmen and a few Social Democrats responded.  There for the first time was heard a demand for the formation of “Soviets” along the lines of the abortive Soviet of Khroustalev Nossar which made itself master of St. Petersburg for a brief space in 1905.  Couriers were dispatched to every factory in the metropolitan area with instructions to organize elections of delegates according to trades and occupations, one representative to be chosen from each thousand workmen, while factories of less than a thousand hands were invited to send one spokesman.  By March 12 the Soviet was ready to bid for the control, of Russia.

On that morning several revolting regiments, in conjunction with insurgent civilians, took possession of the Arsenal, the Central Artillery Bureau, and the prison called “The Crosses.”  From the latter the mob and the troops liberated, not only political prisoners, but all common-law criminals as well.  They then rushed to the Tauride Palace, where the Duma sat ;  Tcheidze, Skobelev, and Kerensky, Socialist members of the Duma, welcomed them, Kerensky himself undertaking to find a room for the accommodation of this self-elected and heterogeneous parliament.  He secured Room No. 12,¹ into which crowded a dozen labor leaders, including the Social Democrats from the Duma ;  a group of factory delegates ;  Bogdanov, and Gvozdev, just out of prison ;  Grinievitch, of the local Menshivist organization ;  Volkov, and Kamensky, delegates of the Union of Petrograd Labor Coöperatives ;  and N.D. Sokolov, who is described by an informed narrator of the events as “representing only himself.”  The inevitable proclamation to the people was the first business of the day : —

Citizens !  The representatives of the workmen, the soldiers, and the population of Petrograd, sitting in the building of the State Duma, by the present give notice that their first session will take place this evening at seven o’clock.  All troops that have gone over to the people must elect on the spot a representative for each company.  Factories must elect one representative per thousand workmen.  Those with less than a thousand workmen send one representative.

The appeal was signed by the temporary Executive Committee of the Soviet of Labor Deputies.

The second proclamation of the Soviet organizers — as yet no plenary session had been held — was a stroke of genius.  The attitude of the army toward this new form of political control was uncertain and gave rise to anxiety in Room No. 12.  There must, then, be a special gesture in the direction of the Petrograd Garrison, which, admittedly, held a Pretorian balance of power.  It was forthcoming immediately : —

Citizens !  The soldiers who have made themselves watchmen of the people’s interests are, since this morning, in the streets, hungry.  The Soviet of Workmen Deputies and Soldiers makes every effort to feed the soldiers, guardians of the people’s interests, but the immediate organization of a commissariat for the troops is very difficult.  The Soviet appeals to you, citizens, begging you to provide for the soldiers’ nourishment, devoting to this purpose all provisions in your possession.

Toward evening, Room 12 began to fill up ;  the two adjoining rooms, 11 and 13, were requisitioned.  Generals and military commanders began to drift in, tiring of the perfervid oratory in the Chamber of the Duma, where parliamentarians vied with sociologists in endless discussion of the psychology of the masses — and missed it.  The realists in Room 12 appointed two of the first-comers to immediate command of the ultimate arguments of Revolution :  the land forces were assigned to Colonel Maslovsky, the navy to Lieutenant Philippovsky.  At 9 P.M., with the Duma still sitting, — and debating as usual, — Tcheidze rang a bell and declared the Soviet of Workmen convened in their first formal session.  It now numbered one hundred and fifty persons.  A Council was appointed, including the Duma Members, Tcheidze and Kerensky ;  an Executive Committee was elected, and various commissions created.  After an all-night session, this parent Soviet issued its first official pronouncement in the pages of a newspaper founded overnight, to be known thereafter as Izvestia.

News of the
PETROGRAD SOVIET OF WORKMEN DEPUTIES

No. I — March 13, 1917     No. I

TO THE POPULATION OF PETROGRAD AND RUSSIA
FROM THE SOVIET OF WORKMEN’S DEPUTIES

The old authorities brought the country to ruin and the people to starvation.  It became impossible to endure it longer.  The population of Petrograd came out in the streets to express its discontent.  It was met with guns.  Instead of bread, the government of the Tzar gave the people bullets.

But the soldiers have refused to go against the people and have revolted against the government.  Together with the civilians, they have seized the armories, the military stores, and many important government institutions.

The struggle is still going on ;  it must be brought to an end.  The old power must be deposed and replaced by a people’s government.  This is the salvation of Russia.

To secure a victorious end of this struggle in the interests of democracy, the people must create an organization of its own power.

Yesterday, March 12, a Soviet of Workmen Deputies was formed in the Capital.  It consists of representatives elected from the shops and factories, the revolting military detachments, and also from democratic and socialistic parties and groups.

The Soviet of Workmen Deputies now in session at the Imperial Duma faces, as its basic problem, the organization of the people’s forces in the battle for permanent political freedom and self-government in Russia.

The Soviet has appointed district commissars to execute the people’s authority in the districts of Petrograd.

We call upon the inhabitants of the capital to rally around the Soviet, to form district committees, and to take the administration of local affairs in their own hands.

All together, we unite our forces to fight for the complete destruction of the old government, and for the calling of a Constituent Assembly, elected on the basis of a universal, equal, direct, and secret ballot.

THE SOVIET OF WORKERS’ DEPUTIES

On the following day, March 14, representatives of the military units took their places in the Soviet, the title of which was straightway enlarged into “Soviet of Workmen and Soldiers’ Deputies.”

Outmanœuvred at the starting post, the Duma took alarm — and compromised.  An “Executive Committee of the State Duma” was formed, consisting of Rodzianko, Kerensky, Tcheidze, Milyukov, Karaoulov, Konovalov, Nekrassov, Schidlovsky, Dimitrioukov, Rjevsky, Shulgin, and V. Lvov.  These names were communicated to Room 12 with an invitation to consolidate and coöperate.  The Soviet placidly ignored the message and continued to address the people over the head of the Duma, urging the formation of regional Soviets for the administration of local affairs.  The only means of contact between the two competing bodies was the liaison effected by Kerensky and Tcheidze, who retained their membership in both.  Learning that the military section of the Soviet was about to take measures that looked seditious, Rodzianko, at three o’clock in the morning, went in person to their session and proposed a fusion with the military commission of the Duma Committee.  With no available funds of their own, the Soviet leaders judged it opportune to accede to this limited coalition and agreed to the nomination of Colonel Engelhardt, a Duma member, to the Presidency of the Joint Commission.

The following days were spent in endless and complicated negotiations between the legally elected Duma of the land and the illegal Soviet, representing a fraction of the inhabitants of Petrograd ;  the issue was the personnel of the forthcoming Ministry.  For two days the bargaining continued.  Finally, on the fifteenth, a compromise Cabinet was agreed upon and published as “The Provisional Government of Russia”:  Premier and Minister of the Interior, Prince G.E. Lvov, the venerable and veteran leader of the Zemstvo movement ;  Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paul L. Milyukov, leader of the Constitutional-Democratic Party (Cadets) ;  Minister of War and Marine, A.I. Gutchkov, member of the Duma and a leader of the Oktobrist (Conservative) Party, and representative of the Moscow merchant class ;  Minister of Finance, N.B. Terestchenko, a free lance in politics, one of the wealthiest men in Russia and noted as a philanthropist ;  Minister of Agriculture, A.I. Shingariov, Constitutional-Democrat, member of the fourth Duma ;  Minister of Education, Professor A.I. Manuilov, Constitutional-Democrat, well-known University lecturer ;  Minister of Commerce and Industry, A.I. Konovalov, Progressive, publicist, member of the Duma, one of the foremost industrialists and commercial leaders of Moscow ;  Minister of Railways, N. Nekrassov, member of the Duma, leader of the left wing of the Constitutional-Democratic Party ;  Procurator of the Holy Synod, V. Lvov, Moderate Conservative, landed proprietor, and member of the Duma ;  State Controller, Godnev, Oktobrist, veteran publicist from the Volga districts ;  Vice Premier and Minister of Justice, A.F. Kerensky, Social Democrat, an active participant in anti-Tzaristic propaganda among the working and peasant classes.

The first official act of the new Provisional Government was the issuance of its declaration : —

1.  Full and immediate amnesty for all political, religious, and terroristic crimes, military mutinies, and agrarian offenses, et cetera.  (Followed by abolition of capital punishment on March 25.)

2.  Freedom of speech, the press, meetings, unions, and strikes.  Political liberties to be granted to all men serving in the army within the limits of military requirements.

3.  Cancellation of all restrictions of class, religion, and nationality.

4.  Immediate preparation for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly elected by universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage for the establishment of a formal government and of the Constitution of the country.

5.  The police to be replaced by a people’s militia, with elective chiefs subordinate to the organizations of local self-government.

6.  Members of local self-governing institutions to be elected by universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage.

7.  The units of the army that have taken part in the Revolutionary movement not to be disarmed or removed from Petrograd.

8.  Military discipline to be preserved on parade and on duty.  Soldiers, however, to be free to enjoy all social rights enjoyed by other citizens.

The Provisional Government deems it its duty to add that it has no intention of taking advantage of war time to delay carrying out the aforesaid reforms and measures.²

This duality of control, never fully abolished until November 7, gave time for one deadly stroke that completed the demoralization of the army and unloosed the anarchy that had been seething in its ranks for a year.  I mean the notorious and much discussed “Order Number One.”

On March 14 there was promulgated to the troops of the Petrograd Garrison and wirelessed to the front the following extraordinary command : —

ORDER NUMBER ONE.  MARCH 14, 1917

To the garrison of the Petrograd District, to all guardsmen, soldiers of the line, of the artillery, and of the fleet, for immediate and strict observance, and to the workmen of Petrograd for information.

The Soviet of Workmen and Soldiers’ Deputies has decreed : —

1.  That committees be elected of representatives of the men in all companies, battalions, regiments, artillery parks, batteries, squadrons, and separate services of various military institutions and on the ships of the fleet.

2.  All military units not yet represented on the Soviet of Workmen’s Deputies to elect one representative from each company.  These representatives to provide themselves with written certificates and to report to the Duma at 10 A.M. on March 17.

3.  In all its political activities the military unit is subordinate to the Soviet and to its respective committees.

4.  The orders of the Military Commission of the Duma are to be obeyed only when they are not in contradiction with the orders and decrees of the Soviet.

5.  All arms — rifles, machine guns, armored cars, etc. — are to be at the disposal and under the control of company and battalion committees and should never be handed over to the officers even should they claim them.

6.  On parade and on duty the soldiers must comply with strict military discipline ;  but off parade and off duty, in their political, social, and private life, soldiers must suffer no restriction of the rights common to all citizens.  In particular, saluting when off duty is abolished.

7.  Officers are no longer to be addressed as “Your Excellency,” “Your Honor,” etc.  Instead, they should be addressed as “Mr. General,” “Mr. Colonel,” etc.

8.  Rudeness to soldiers on the part of all ranks and, in particular, addressing them in the second person singular is prohibited, and any infringement of this regulation and misunderstandings between officers and men are to be reported by the latter to the company commanders.

This order is to be read in all companies, battalions, regiments, batteries, and other combatant and noncombatant formations.

(Signed)
THE PETROGRAD SOVIET OF WORKMEN
AND SOLDIERS’ DEPUTIES

From the military point of view, this “printed charter of license” meant practically the transfer of the actual command of operations to committees of soldiers and opened the way for the dismissal of officers by their men.  Who were the authors of this final folly which destroyed discipline and initiated that “melting away” process which was to ensue ?  Interrogated by the present writer, Mr. Kerensky put the entire blame on the Soviet and pointed out that, as the Provisional Government did not come into existence until the night of March 15, no responsibility can be laid on its shoulders.

He insists, moreover, that Colonel Engelhardt, the Temporary Chairman of the Joint Military Commission, had refused categorically to sanction its promulgation.

“Very well,” answered the Delegates to the Soviet, “if you refuse, we will draft it ourselves.”

Intended, moreover, primarily for the soldiers of the Petrograd Garrison, it was radioed to the front by persons whose identity has never been discovered.

Influential members of the Soviet likewise disclaim responsibility for the fatal effects which followed.

“Pilates,” retorts General Denikin, “they washed their hands of the writing of their own credo.”  For their words are placed on record, in the report of the secret sitting of the Government, the Commanders-in-Chief, and the Executive Committee of the Workmen and Soldiers’ Deputies, of May 4 (17), 1917 : —

TZERETELLI :  You might, perhaps, understand Order Number One if you knew the circumstances in which it was issued.  We were confronted with an unorganized mob, and we had to organize.

SKOBELEV :  I consider it necessary to explain the circumstances in which Order Number One was issued.  Among the troops that overthrew the old regime, the commanding officers did not join the rebels.  In order to deprive the former of their importance, we were forced to issue Order Number One.  We had inward apprehensions as to the attitude of the front toward the Revolution.  Certain instructions were given, which provoked our distrust.  To-day we have ascertained that this distrust was well-founded.

A member of the Soviet, Joseph Goldenberg, editor of New Life, was still more outspoken.  He said to the French journalist, Claude Anet, “Order Number One was not an error, but a necessity.  It was not drafted by Sokolov.  It is the expression of the unanimous will of the Soviet.  On the day ‘we made the Revolution,’ we understood that if we did not dismember the old army it would crush the Revolution.  We had to choose between the army and the Revolution.  We did not hesitate — we chose the latter, and I dare say that we were right.”

Alarmed by the flood of protesting telegrams from the front recounting the disastrous effects of the Prikaz, the Provisional Government, on March 19, attempted to undo the harm by a proclamation to the army which declared that the Order was not universal and that troops should obey only commanders acting under authority from the Provisional Government.

“The Russian is clever, but always too late.”

The mischief was done and was never undone ;  both Russia and the Allies were soon to feel the results.  Again — as in every conflict with Room No. 12 — the Provisional Government found itself on the losing side.

Was it a bloodless transformation ?  If compared with its historic prototype, the French Revolution, the answer must be a half affirmative.  There was no storming of a Bastille, no taking of a Tuileries, no Vendée.  The nearest approach to a pitched battle was the last stand made by four companies of infantry, one company of Cossacks, two batteries, and a single platoon of machine gunners who took up a position at the Admiralty under the joint command of General Havalov, Commander of the Petrograd Garrison, Beliaev, Minister of War, and the Tzar’s own brother, the Grand Duke Michael.  Their positions though strategically a commanding one for even a thousand men, became untenable because of lack of food and ammunition, but mainly because of the overwhelming artillery power of the revolted garrison, which numbered nearly one hundred and fifty thousand men.  The Royalists retired without battle, leaving the Capital in undisputed possession of the revolutionaries.

But there were frightful acts of vengeance, cowardly slaughter of officers at Kronstadt and in Petrograd, coupled with mob violence of bestial brutality directed against police, public officials, and alleged counter-revolutionaries in the Capital and elsewhere.  The lives lost may have reached a total of five thousand.

Russia now enters upon its first summer as a free nation.  From the Allied Powers came congratulations and expressions of confidence.  On March 22, one week after, the abdication of Nicholas II, Mr. David Francis, American ambassador in Petrograd, acting under instructions from Secretary of State Lansing, waited on Milyukov and announced America’s recognition of the Provisional Government as the de jure Government of Russia.  The same afternoon, to lend solemnity and formality to that historic event, Mr. Francis, accompanied by the entire personnel of the Embassy, returned to the Marensky Palace to meet the assembled Council of Ministers and convey the recognition in official form : —

Mr. President of the Council of Ministers, I have the honor as American ambassador, and as representative of the Government of the United States accredited to Russia, to hereby make formal recognition of the Provisional Government of All the Russias and to state that it gives me pleasure officially and personally to continue intercourse with Russia through the medium of the new government.

May the cordial relations existing between the two countries continue to obtain and may they prove mutually satisfactory and beneficial.

Mr. Francis felt a just pride in being the spokesman of the first people to welcome Russia into the family of free, sovereign, and independent nations.  England, France, and Italy followed suit, within forty-eight hours.  On the second of April, President Wilson, in his memorable speech to the Congress of the United States, confirmed America’s friendship for the Russian people, in words that electrified his hearers : —

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia ?  Russia was known by those who knew her best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instincts, their habitual attitude toward life. . . . Here is a fit partner for a league of honor.

On the second of April, the veteran labor leader, Samuel Gompers, cabled the greetings of the American Federation of Labor : —

WASHINGTON, April 2, 1917

. . . We send greetings.  The establishment of the liberty of Russia finds a warm spot in the hearts of America’s workers. . . . In the name of America’s workers, whose watchwords are “Justice, Freedom, and Humanity,” we plead that Russia’s workers and masses shall maintain what you have already achieved and practically and rationally solve the problem of to-day and safeguard the future from the reactionary forces who would gladly take advantage of your lack of unity to reestablish the old regime of royalty, reaction, tyranny, and injustice.  Our best wishes are with Russia in her new opportunity.

SAMUEL GOMPERS
President, American Federation of Labor

The effect of the Revolution within Russia was comparable only to the joy created by the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.  “Life is flowing in a heaving, purifying torrent,” wrote an English correspondent from Petrograd.  “Never was any country in the world as interesting as Russia now is.  Old men are saying, ‘Nunc dimittis’;  young men are singing in the dawn ;  and I have met many men and women who seem walking in a hushed sense of benediction.”  The sunshine of freedom flooded men’s souls and exalted their spirits.  It was the romantic moment of the Revolution.  Mr. Kerensky, Minister of Justice and Vice Premier of the Soviet, believed the hour had come for a generous act of universal clemency.  “Send a telegram,” he said to Sorokin, “to the governors of prisons throughout Russia to liberate all political prisoners.”  When written, he signed it :  “Citizen Kerensky.”  The politicals come trooping into Petrograd, followed, alas ! by criminals, hooligans, and international adventurers.

Professor Ross, of the University of Wisconsin, found himself in Siberia during these times.  He reports that something like twenty thousand sledges were needed to transport the exiles out of Northern Siberia.  “It is certain,” he writes, “that up to June 23, 1917, more than a thousand refugees had passed in through Yokohama alone.  I had an opportunity to observe many of these, and their appearance boded ill for their native land.  For the most part, they were of the lowest class of Russian Jews, dirty, sordid, repulsive, not genuine revolutionists at all, but ignorant, self-seeking proletarians.  One of them on our boat tried to smuggle into the country twenty-three pairs of shoes and fifteen pairs of gloves, and made great outcry when he was required to pay duty on these goods.  It was his sort which, on leaving the quarters which had been provided for them at Vladivostok, stole the silver from the table and the blankets and pillows from the beds.  The real revolutionists in New York, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere had protested against the repatriation of these impostors at Russia’s expense, but their protests went unheeded.  It seemed as if the Russian consuls — appointees of the old regime, be it noted — took a malicious pleasure in sending back persons certain to make trouble.”

The news of amnesty, spreading beyond the western frontiers of Russia, penetrates to America, France, England, Germany, and Switzerland.  The tidings reach an undersized, bald-headed Russian exile, of a semi-Mongolian cast of countenance, living at the moment in a second-story room over Herr Kammerer’s cobbler shop, at No. 14 Spiegelgasse, Zurich.  His left eye narrows and a half smile parts his lips as he reaches for a battered valise kept ready for many years against the arrival of just such a summons.  His true name is Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov ;  but he is known in the Revolutionary circles of Europe — and will go down in history — as Nicholas Lenin.

¹ Mr. Kerensky in his account mentions Room 13 ;  other witnesses maintain that Room 12 was the first chosen.  In point of fact, three rooms were eventually used — 11, 12, 13.

² No mention is found of two basic problems :  land and the Church.  On April 2, however, the Provisional Government promulgated its “Agrarian Reform,” designed to hand over the land to those who worked it.  In numerous cases they had already taken it.  Simultaneously, a Central Land Committee began work on a basic “Land Law” for submission to the Constituent Assembly ;  but the peasants regarded the Cadet programme as a half-measure, in no way meeting the land hunger of the moujik.  With the accession of Kerensky to the Premiership, more radical expropriation was contemplated and the decrees prepared.  It remained, however, for the new Bolshevist Government to enact finally the long-awaited confiscatory legislation.
    In the sphere of Church administration, the Provisional Government moved with greater dispatch.  The ecclesiastical, authorities were encouraged to convoke a National Sobor (Council) with a view to reëstablishing the independent functioning of the Church destroyed by Peter the Great through the abolition of the office of Patriarch.  The Council met in the autumn ;  in the early days of November, while firing in the streets announced the downfall of the Provisional Government, the Sobor elected Archbishop Tikhon, Metropolitan of Moscow, to the office of Patriarch of the Orthodox Russian Church, and thus revived an office that had been defunct for two hundred years.