15.05.1997

An abortive counterattack

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, May 10 1917

The imperialist forces in Russia and the Allied countries do not want to admit their defeat at the hands of the Russian Revolution. On May 1 they made a new big attempt to counterattack.

On that day Miliukov, commanding the diplomatic front in Russia, sent out to the Allied governments the text of the declaration made by the provisional government on April 9. He had to do it because the revolutionary democracy of Russia had insisted that that declaration repudiating annexations and indemnities should be communicated to the Allies in order that they too might join in it, whereby the path would be opened for communicating it also to the ‘enemies’.

But Miliukov, while obeying the instructions of the provisional government acting under pressure of the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates, chose to add to the text of the declaration a note of his own in which the Allies were assured that the declaration really did not mean what it said, that Russia was still as ever ready to carry the war to a victorious conclusion, in agreement with the war aims of the Allies ... and that “guarantees and penalties” would be exacted for the security of the future peace.

This was an astounding piece of diplomatic art, and led to an immediate popular outburst supported by the troops of the capital. The provisional government had to intervene. It extended its protective wings over its hapless foreign secretary by assuming collective responsibility for his diplomatic sally, but at the same time consented to issue to the Allies another note explaining in its turn that Miliukov’s essay must be interpreted in a Pickwickian sense as meaning precisely the opposite of what it said.

The compromise was accepted by the executive of the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates by 34 votes against 19, and was sanctioned by the Council itself at a plenary meeting attended by 2,500 members by a majority of 35 votes!

... Not only Miliukov’s, but also the provisional government’s position has now become untenable, and a crisis must be expected at any moment. The revolutionary people of Russia made the usual mistake of allowing clever bourgeois politicians to usurp the reins of power by constituting themselves a provisional government. But this mistake is not at all irreparable. The ordinary issues of such revolutionary situations are in this case rendered still more important and immediate by the question of peace and war, and the logic of the situation will supply to them the only answer possible in such circumstances.

The imperialists at the head of affairs will have to go and the Russian Revolution will also triumph in foreign policy. The moment is close at hand when revolutionary Russia will address to the Allies, over the heads of the Miliukovs and Guchkovs, the straight and simple question: ‘Are you in favour of peace without annexations and indemnities or no?’ and that will decide the war.

It is for us here, as well as in France and Germany, to see to it that the decision is a general one.