The Evening Star TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1917.

Evening Star, Issue 16514, 28 August 1917, Page 4

The Evening Star TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1917.

It is the same 3M. Keren'sky, Minister of - War and Russia's RUSSIa'B strong man, who, in the Mortal Danger, early days of March, In tho first flush of popular victory over- Tsardom, told a vast gathering of dheering peoplo that " regens* rated Rusaift will not have recourse to the shameful methods utilised by tho old regime," and who, on Saturday last, told a representative gathering at Moicow that the Government, of which he was a member, would make all those who exceeded tho limit the Government had set upon opposition to their decisions " remember the time of Tsardom." Tho words ax» nok, alona significant in themselves, bub for tho contrast they present to those used by the same speaker less than six months earlier. They aiv, too, full of promise ami hope, making plain as they do the knowledge that the man to whom the eyes of tho nations, as well aa of the Russians, most frequently turn in these trying days is no more obstinate theorist, but one able to recognise facts, to appreciate their relation to tho needs of the hour, and not afraid to advise his countrymen accordingly. A good deal of watar has run under tho Russian bridges of latoj and it is a New Russia, in another sense than that originally attached to tho words, with which the world has to deal to-day. Much history has been written and many things have been done that it would have been well for Russia had they been left undone. How many their number or how disastrous their effect we need not pause to inquire. What is certain, and as sufficient as it is certain, is that more than once the glorious revolution itself—that great awakening of the people—has been threatened with destruction, and a return to the dark days of autocratic barbarism brought ominously near.

The reasons are not far to seek. For a time the peopbj particularly in tho large and crowded centres of population, were intoxicated, as men become who have drunken too freely of new wine. In the words of one Minister: "Russia was like a patient in a high fever ; it 3 temperament could not be higher, and it simply depended on the toughness of the country's constitution whether it survived or not." For a time human folly, credulity, and ignorance had free play. There was a season of riot and disorder, of anarchy let loose, of Kelly gangs at large in Petrograd mansions, of processions of apostles of the new evangel 'through tha streets of the capital carrying banners on which were inscribed the modern equivalents for many century-old cries: "Down with Authority L" "Long five the Social Revolution and the Commune!" Then followed even darker days, marked by what M. Kerensky has described as "the shameful voluntary retreat of the troops." Happily for the Allies, more happily still for Russia, this saturnalia, of domestic imbecility and national madness did not last long. It was checked in time, and the worst. has passed. At least, we are willing to think * so, chiefly because there emerged from the ensuing chaos men of staunch heart and clear vision who were not going to allow their faith to paralyse their practical activities. Quite early M. Kerensky saw where th#' danger lay; not a merely possible but one as real as it would prove terrible unless the brake were swiftly and ruthlessly applied. Two months after his first speech, in which he had pledged the Government not to return to the old regime methods, and had told his "comrades" that

" if ever you begin to doubt me, kill me," M. Kerensky felt compelled to address a conference of delegates from the armies in these terms: "Ino longer feel my former courage. lam no longer sure the Russian people are not rebellious slaves, but responsible citizens-worthy of the Russian nation. . . . If the tragedy and desperateness of the situation are not realised by all, if our State organism does not work like a machine, then all our dreams of liberty, all our ideals, will be thrown back decades, and maybe will be drowned in blood.

. . . We need now the greatest possible sobriety and discipline." How pitifully poor, how irritatingly helpless and hopeless beside so eminently sane a declaration, sound the wordy self-complacencies of the Executive Committee of the Council of Soldiers and Workers' Delegates when replying to a letter received by them from the representatives of Britain," France, and Belgium:

_ At the same time; the Russian revolution has indicated to nations the way of realising this problem (making impossible the horrors of war), notably the union of all the working classes to combat all the attempts of Imperialism to prolong the war m the interest of the well-to-do classes, and to prevent a peace without annexations or indemnities. The working classes of all countries can easily come to a speedy and solid agreement, but only if they are inspired with their own interests and remove the aspirations of Imperialists and militarists, who often hide their true face under a seductive mask.

M. Kereifsky may well have given up the struggle in sheer despair when faced with such tirades of meaningless flatulencies; bnt he kept to his post and his task. The whole world of intelligent mankind, which was at his service, knew that in M. Kerensky Russia had a man who could free his country alike from foes without and foes within. Ex-Secretary of State Efihu Root, fresh from his" own great democracy, in the course of his first Petrograd address, told his hearers that " we who love liberty and would keep it must fight for it, and fight for it now, when the free democracies of the-world may be strong in union, and not delay until they may be beaten down separately in succession." Two months later the same message is again pressed home to the Russian people from the lips of one of their own leaders in their own tongue. *' The State is passing through a period of mortal danger. There is but one way to meet it. The Government are resolved to take it, and will implacably pursue it. A supreme power alone would save the country." The message is among the truest and the best that have yet been spoken by a Russian to his distraught countrymen.