THE SITUATION IN RUSSIA.
SINCE we wrote last week the duel for power in Russia between M. Kerensky and General Korniloff has come to an end—or let us rather say that there is a distinct pause in a struggle which may conceivably break out in a new form. On the evidence at present before us, we take much satisfaction in the skill and boldness with which M. Kerensky has controlled the course of events. General Korniloff's military revolt— for such it must be called since it has failed, on the historic is that there is no such thing as successful treason—has been fairly strangled, and he himself s under arrest with twenty- three other Generals. Here it is perhaps worth while to interpose the remark that twenty-three is a surprisingly large number. If each of the twenty-three Generals had even a moderate following, the columns which tried to advance on Petrograd must have been of considerable size. Indeed, it is wise to remember at every point in surveying events in Russia that the Provisional Government have control of the wires, and that General Korniloff's side of the question has scarcely been laid before us. Nevertheless the failure of the revolt is evident, and, as Englishmen can have no other desire than that order should be restored in Russia as quickly and as effectually as possible, they will gladly pin their faith to the man who has been strong enough to govern the situation. All our good wishes go to M. Kerensky, who has proved himself a man of boldness and resource. General Korniloff was also bold, but we imagine that superior skill and intelli- gence were on the side of M. Kerensky. General Korniloff is in a fair way to suffer the fate of Dumouriez, who defied the Commissaries of the French Convention in vain, and in humilia- tion paid the penalty of his rashness. Even the Cossacks, who it was presumed would implicitly obey their Hetman, General Kaledin, did not anything like turn the scale in favour of the revolt. The Cossacks have -refused to obey the order of the Provisional Government to arrest General Kaledin, but that degree of independence is something very different from the successful prosecution of a military counter- revolution. • Last week we said that if M. Kerensky regarded the Soviet (the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates) of Petro- grad as the only horse to back, and if General Korniloff on his side regarded military severity as the only means of restoring order, the issue at all events would be clear. If such an lane had been presented, we confess that we should have had much more sympathy with General Korniloff than we are now able to feel. It would have meant that H. Kerensky, having originally declared his belief in a Coalition Government as the true means of saving Russia, had delivered his conscience to the extremists of the Petrograd Soviet. As it is, however, we have to recognize an extremely good sign—perhaps the best sign of all in the present complications- -in the resistance which M.,. Kerensky has offered to the Eoviet. The Soviet, in effect, held a pistol to his head, and said that if anybody but Socialists of their own type of thought were admitted to the Government, they would make it impossible for the Government to exist. If the Soviet had won their way, our hopes of the immediate future in Russia would have fallen very low. The members seem all to be victims of formulae, all ideologues. It is seldom that one can trace to them a really practical plan. Like Condorcet, they believe that a good law is necessarily good for all men, just as a true proposition is universally true. Napoleon used to say that the real motive of the French Revolution was vanity, and his cynicism would certainly be equal to underlining the remark if he could watch now the orgies of philosophical and political learning which are proceeding at Petrograd. It is an excellent sign, then, that M. Kerensky has refused to be briefed by the Soviet. It is true that he was unable to insist upon a Coalition Government, but none the less he has not given in to the Soviet. His compromise is to establish a Directory of five, and to proclaim Russia a Republic without waiting for the creation of the Constituent Assembly.
It is to be hoped that a Coalition Government may sooner or later appear, for the fact is that the authors of the Revo- lution cannot possibly be excluded from all voice in its development. The French Revolution was a bourgeois Revolution, and the Russian Revolution is not less so. This fact was stated with singular force and daring by General Skobeleff, who bearded the Soviet in their own home and told them exactly what he thought :— " The Russian Revolution," ho said—we quote from a report of the speech telegraphed by Dr. Harold Williams to the Daily Chronicle of Tuesday—"is a bourgeois revolution, and the Government may be either a bourgeois or a Coalition Government. This conception of the Government has been justified during the months of Revo- lution. Now there are three ways before us, either the way we have taken hitherto, or one to the right, or one to the left. There has been a collision between two ideas of government, the personal and the general idea, and democracy has won. Therefore I am con- vinced that the idea of a Coalition Government has also won. We cannot east aside all the bourgeois elements, but only those who have been accomplices in Korniloff's adventure, and if it can be proved that all the Cadets were implicated, then they must be cast aside. We must take our stand on the interests of national defence. and only on this basis can we strengthen the Revolution. If you toll ins that all but ourselves are Counter-Revolutionaries, then say so openly. If that is so, then I consider that the Revolution is now in the agony of death."
These words represent the exact truth ; but they are not, of course, agreeable to the Soviet of Petrograd any more than a similar declaration by a bourgeois in the French Revolution would have satisfied the peasants. If M. Kerensky's inten- tions coincide with General Skobeleff's words, the hopes we have always expressed of the restoration of Russia may justly be raised to a higher pitch.
We imagine that M. Kereneky's exercise of the office of Generalissimo is only temporary. It is not to be expected, of course, that General Klembovsky will be reappointed Commander-in-Chief, even though an inquiry has absolved him of all complicity in General Korniloff's revolt. Mean- while another good sign is the fact that General Alexeieff, one of the most experienced and wisest of Russian soldiers, has become Chief of Staff. The military situation is appreci- ably better than one might have expected after the capture of Riga and the fast advance of the Germans to a point many miles beyond the town on the road to Petrograd. It is said that the Germans might have taken Riga at any moment since the Russian Revolution began. We imagine that the reasons why they did not do so were partly political and partly military. They probably felt that the effect of cap- turing one of the most important of Russian cities would be to unite all Russians: against them. This remains true in the main, even when it is remembered that the population of Riga is largely German in origin. The German General Staff no doubt considered for a time that the safest course was to employ their usual obscure diplomatic arts, and induce the new structure of Russian government to fall of its own weight through an undermining of the foundations. The military reason which held temporarily the hand of the Germans was no doubt lack of man-power. Their troops
on the Russian frontier are neither numerous nor highly trained, and they knew that if they stretched out their lines of communication and occupied important places which would require considerable garrisons, they would be committing themselves to adventures for which they had not the strength. The political reason which operated in the German mind may
now have largely disappeared, but the military reason remains. Only a few weeks will pass before the paralysing Russian winter will shut down upon the scene, and as the Germans
are not yet threatening a serious advance, we may conclude that there is no chance of their reaching the capital. Dvinsk would be a better starting-point than Riga for an advance on Petrograd, and the Germans have not yet reached that place ; on the contrary, the Russians are showing some ability to hold them off. Altogether, the situation in Russia is not only more clear, but rather more favourable, than a week ago.
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