KERENSKY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 112, 29 January 1918, Page 9

KERENSKY

THE MAN WHO FAILED

A CRITICAL SURVEY According to Mr. Robert Crozier Long, Kerensky was wholly unfitted for a task which would have baffled men of real genius and political training. "Kerensky," says Mr. Long, in the New York "Evening Post," "was neither a clever man nor a man of will. He attained, indeed, the position of dictator, but he was dictator only in the sense in which Nicholas 1.1 was autocrat. He dictated nothing. He was a failure long before the latest revolution registered the fact. _ Ho failed because lie possessed no positive, qualities, except two, which are not essentially qualities of statecraft, though they are useful or necessary complements. These qualities were personality and energy. Thov were sufficient to raise him to power, but they did not qualify him to effect any acts of policy whicli could keep hin\ in power. He was deficient in political principles, knowledge, steadfastness, and moral courage; and, though famous as orator, ho was deficient even in eloquence for his oratory was merely an expression of his personality _ and energy, and was neither political in . its contents nor literary or effectively popular in its form. Energy and personality, hacked hy hick, brought him to power and gave him a certain popularity ; and he stayed in power longer than ho ought to have stayed. His popularity in certain circles survived the exposure of his incapacity. Masterful Manner, "Kerensky's personality was very marked. He had a sufficiently masterful manner to dominate assemblies politically opposed to him and convinced of his utter unfitness and even —as was the ease towards the end —repelled_ hy his excessive vanity. I saw this hrst at the Moscow Congress of August, and later at the first sessions of the Petrograd 'Preliminary Parliament. Nearly all of Russia's ablest men canie to Moscow angry with his incapacity and clamorous for change; against him were the Constitutional Democrats, the Moseow industrial group, the Cossacks (except the Left Cossacks in the Sothe Korniloffites, and all good economic, and financial authorities. "To these critical men lie made a very bad speech, full of egoism, menaces, and inanities.. (An Ally diplomat who translated it told me that he could hardly read it without disgust.) Kerensky then posed absurdly, and grossly insulted several distinguished tlolegafces, anions' them M. It-odsiaiikoj Speaker of the Fourth Duma and in an interchange of retorts with Rod7!ianko he came off second best. But lie continued to dominate the assembly. Similarly he survived the challenge of Komiloff, who is an extraordinarily able, enterprising, and cultivated ninn. and whose whole speech was a veiled condemnation of the Kerensky anarchy. Yet ten minutes after Korniloff had finished speaking everyono forgot what he had said, and Kerensky remained in the centre of the stage. His Affectation of Khaki. "In what .Kerensky's personality consisted it ■ is hard to say ; but it had nothing to do with any intellectual or moral superiority. Physically, Kerensky was effective. _ He is of middle height and thin; is clean-shaven, sallow, and unhealthy, and wears his dark hair cropped short: and standing up over the forehead. After he became Minister for War at tho first reconstruction of the Lvoff Cabinet, ho always wore a "uniform," which was more like the British than the Russian. His slight frame and unhealthy face made a striking contrast with the rough khaki, and there was a popular legend that he was a man of feeble body hut indomitable spirit. He had a harsh voice, and when excited ho screamed ; when at congresses ho screamed at his opponents to stop speaking or sit down; he usually got his way. Undoubtedly his personality was strong enough to qualify Kim -for playing a permanent role in the Revolution had ho had mediocre powers of mind and character, but he had not even these. "Kerensky's second quality, his energy, was great. He was a hard worker, and both before and after tho Revolution gained credit by ceaseless; speechmaking. But energy in itself is not a political quality. The luck factor was that ICeronsky, alone of tho Socialist or Soviet leaders, entered the otherwise bourgeois Cabinet of Prince LvofF. AH power then lay in the Petrograd Soviet's hands, and as link between the two unreconciled factors, power and policy, Kerensky was bound to play a role. His histrionic abilities enabled him to turn this exceptional position to advantage, and as Prince Lvoff, being without power, was bound to fall, it was inevitable that Kerensky should succeed. In a parting statement Prince Lvoff recommended Kerensky for the Premiership, but it is not likely that Lvoff really believed that Kerensky could savo his country—moreljkely he recognised tliat in the prevailing demagogic temper no one but Kerensky would bo tolerated, and his recommendation was morcly the recognising of an inevitable, practically accomplished fact. . • Lachrymose Proclamations. "After personality, energy, and luck had made Premier, ho did nothing to strengthen his position. This position at first was far better than Lvoff's, as the all-powerful Petrograd Soviet then ceased to be an imperium in imperio, and identified itself with the new Cabinet. At first Kerensky, hacked by tho Soviet majority, could . have taken strong measures against tlie anarchy which began to raise its head a month after the revolution. As Vice-President of tho Soviet, ho could have demanded from it military support. This he failed to do; he was terrified by the Bolshevik minority, and he allowed anarchy to continue and grow After tolerating meekly the seizure of private houses and the platonic defiance of Kronstadt undfer its self-appointed dictator, Lamanoff, Kerensky had to tolerate savage and unprovoked murders of officers at Helsingfors and Vyborg, and all ho did against the murderers was to issue lachrymose proclamations. "By the time of the Moscow Congress the Soviets were thoroughly discredited, as a result of, the failure of the moderate Socialist majority in them to take strong measures against the Bolshevik minorities. On the eve of the Congress a Moscow industrial leader called the Soviet rrembers 'lunatics,, incendiary anarchists, and traitors.'' The public was thoroughly disgusted with tho Soviets. Their Russian title, "rabotchiye doputati," which means Workmen's Deputies, was parodied into "sobatcliiye doputati,' meaning Dogs' Deputies. In August this expression was universal in intelligent society.' "Keronsliy's position was meantime shaken with the moderate majority in the Soviets. Failing to get their support for crushing tho Bolsheviki,' lie invited Tvorjiiloff and the military party to send troops to Petrograd. Wlion ho began to doubt whether tho troops at the fiont, by the Bolshevik cries 'Counter-revolution' and 'Return of tho old regime,' would obey Kornilolf's orders, he lost his uerve, repudiated Komiloff, denounced him a traitor, and even publicly proclaimed that he would cxecuto him. Prom this art of treason. Kerensky got no profits. Before the Bolsheviki knew he was in the plot, they had rallied to hi in He released some of them from prison in order to get their party'B j

support (these were in prison for complicity in the Nevsky Prospect outbreak of July). But a few days later Kerenskyi's complicity in the Korniloff coup become known, and the Bolsheviki turned fiercely against him as a traitor to the Revolution; and since then his full has been only a question of weeks. No Administrative Initiative. "Kerensky never personally pushed through any reform, or showed any legislative or administrative initiative. The great reforms, 'the five liberties.' the zemstvo extension, the local administrative reforms, and all other measures of value were pushed through or prepared in the time of Prince Lvoff. Kerensky's tremendous energy was spent 011 keeping himself in power. His evil genius here was Nekrassoft. first Minister of Communications, later Vice-President, of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Finance, and finally Governor-General of Finland. Nekrassolf is frivolous, unreliable, p.nrl unprincipled; and for these reasons he kept office of some kind throughout all changes. "His nomination to the important Governorship of Finland, made at a critical momenut of Russo-Finnish relations, was a scandal, the aim of which was to give him employment after ho had made himself impossible at Petrograd. This was all tho more a scandal because he succeeded Michael Alexandrovitch Stakliovitch, one of Russia's brainiest, most vigorous, 1 and most cultivated men, and 0110 -of | the first champions of tho modern Constitutionalist movement. "When Kerensky last March became Miiiistor of Justice ho was apparently a. well-balanced man. After he became Premier, and was flattered by foreigners, and even was prayed for in American churches, 110 lost his head. His posing and posturing were not done, with the art that conceals art, and enemies found him out, and subjected him to merciless satire. They proclaimed that his motive in remaining titular Minister of War after he had surrendered tho real conduct of the War Offico to Savinkoff,, was to continue wearing tho uniform, which emphasised so well his pose of dying eagle, "Ksrcnsky's Pootmon," "Charges like theso are inevitable against eminent men, and I disbelieved them until 1 saw from observation that they were true. In conversation Kerensky laid stress 011 his physical weakness. He postured, and was always photographed, with one hand inserted between the buttons of his tunic,_ and usually with tho other hand behind his back, posing, his critics said, as Napoleon, though in fact he looked far moro like Nelson with the sleeve of a lost arm. pinned across his breast. At Moscow derision was excited by his sitting on an armchair different from the chairs of his colleagues, and by his military and naval secretaries, two young and goodlooking officers, standing motionless and erect behind his chair. Those officers became known as 'Kerensky's footmen.' "Kerensky's speeches were full of himself. He had a craze for phrases such as 'I as your supremo leader,' 'I as your War Minister and your political chief'; and at Moscow he 1 evoked open cries of 'impudent fellow' by making tho confession to his audience 'I have been accused of putting too much faith in humanity; henceforth let no man say that Kerensky has too much- faith.' Newspapers ridiculed his occupancy of the Imperial rooms and Imperial beds in the Winter Palace; the "Zliivoe Slavo,'' organ of the eccentric Alexis Suvorin, published a mock 'Court Chroniquo,' beginning 'His Majesty, Alexander Feodorovitch deigned.' At the Moscow Congress, the scandal became so -pronounced that on the last day the 'footmen' disappeared; and Tseretelli rose and explained solemnly that M. Kerensky by no means claimed that supreme power was inherent in himself; ho understood very well that he held offico only by the will rf the people. This correction made_ things worse; malicious persons even said that. Tseretelli, who is- a much abler man than Kerensky, was mocking at his chief. His Patriotism Real. "Towards the end, Kerensky's enemies went very far in their attacks: a 'Vetohtrne'e Vremva' writer declared tl\fit 'fivery Russian revolution must have a False Dmitri'; therefore Russia must put up with Kerensky. Kerensky was accused of being a conscious humbug and an adventurer who cared nothing for his country. This_ charge, I am convinced, was untrue; his only defect of conduct was his oxcessivo vanity; but vanity 110 more excluded genuine patriotism in his case than it did in the case of a. really great patriot, Chatham, of whom Macaulay says that, he never admitted visitors to his sick room without first draping his dressinggown picturesquely round his gouty was a bad speaker. His sentences were long and meaningless, and indicated inability to think ncarl, 1 - . and his stylo was empty, turgid, and pretentious. As lie had neither literarv culture nor mother wit, his images were cheap, and familiar; his favourite resource was threaten .j crush 'with blood and iron' and to punish 'mercilessly. _ His nroclamations and interviews during the Kornit-ff rebellion were full of such matter. He held control of audiences, but only audiences of inferior judgment, by. his personality and manner of dominance. I have only once seen any one publicly challenging him. This was the president of the Union of Cavaliers ot bt. George. Skarzhinsky, who, having been denounced as a coward, marched towards Kerensky's seat and was about either to strike or to challenge him when he was led away by General Verkhovsky. Tr "In private conversation Kerensky was not impressive. He spoke in the tone of his proclamations and public speeches, and reminded me of Bismarck's cynical remark that a man who speaks in private as he speaks 111 public has very little in liiin. The only personal remark made by Kerensky to me that remains in my memory was in reply to an inquiry about his health. 'Tf I fail,'" lie said, 'others will carry 011 my wotk.' This lemark "was made at a time when his failure was evident to all; and it indicated that he honestly believed that he was working; for Russia's good. Often Threatened. "Kerensky was- often threatened with assassination, I believe tho threatencrs wore always madmen or fanatics, for lie had no personal enemies. Had the threat been' executed, Russia's position could hardly have been worso than it is, but Kerensky's

reputation would have boon saved. Had he boon killed in tlio first days of we revolution, when lie showed some presence of mind, or, better, after Kornilo'Ps dramatic advance to Kaliseli, an Achievement for which tho parties really responsible did not get credit, his mediocrity and vanity would probably not have been discovered by historians, and 110 would have been immortalised alongside other 'inhoritors of unfulfilled renown' whoso promise was crushed in the bud. "Kerensky if? probably not in personal. danger if caught by his foes. He might ho killed in hot blood by angry soldiers; but he is in no more peril from any judicial process than is General Komiloff, whom lie, in his time, threatened to execute. Russians are not revengeful. Though they show ro horror when innocent are killed as result of indiscriminate shooting in the streets; they revolt from tho notion of taking life according to legal forms. Even the autocracy (except during the Stolypin regime) seldom executed its enemies. Tho Bolsheviki's first act has been 4o reabolish capita! punishment at the front; and capital punishment at the rear was never reestablished after its abolition in March."