To the soldiers Kerensky brought this challenge:  “You fired on the people when the government demanded.  But now, when it comes to obeying your own revolutionary government, you can no longer endure further sacrifice!  Does this mean that free Russia is a nation of rebellious slaves?” He closed with an eloquent peroration:  “I came here because I believe in my right to tell the truth as I understand it.  People who even under the old regime went about their work openly and without fear of death, those people, I say, will not be terrorized.  The fate of our country is in our hands and the country is in great danger.  We have sipped of the cup of liberty and we are somewhat intoxicated; we are in need of the greatest possible sobriety and discipline.  We must go down in history meriting the epitaph on our tombstones, ‘They died, but they were never slaves.’”

From the Petrograd Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies came I.G.  Tseretelli, who had just returned from ten years’ Siberian exile.  A native of Georgia, a prince, nearly half of his forty-two years had been spent either in Socialist service or in exile brought about by such service.  A man of education, wise in leadership and a brilliant orator, his leadership of the Socialist Group in the Second Duma had marked him as one of the truly great men of Russia.  To the Convention of Soldiers’ Delegates from the Front Tseretelli brought the decisions of the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies, in shaping which he had taken an important part with Tchcheidze, Skobelev, and others.  The Council had decided “to send an appeal to the soldiers at the front, and to explain to them that in order to bring about universal peace it is necessary to defend the Revolution and Russia by defending the front.”  This action had been taken despite the opposition of the Bolsheviki, and showed that the moderate Socialists were still in control of the Soviet.  An Appeal to the Army, drawn up by Tseretelli, was adopted by the vote of every member except the Bolsheviki, who refrained from voting.  This Appeal to the Army Tseretelli presented to the Soldiers’ Delegates from the Front: 

    Comrades, soldiers at the front, in the name of the Revolutionary
    Democracy, we make a fervent appeal to you.

A hard task has fallen to your lot.  You have paid a dear price, you have paid with your blood, a dear price indeed, for the crimes of the Czar who sent you to fight and left you without arms, without ammunition, without bread!

Why, the privation you now suffer is the work of the Czar and his coterie of self-seeking associates who brought the country to ruin.  And the Revolution will need the efforts of many to overcome the disorganization left her as a heritage by these robbers and executioners.

The working class did not need the war.  The workers did not begin it.  It was started by the Czars and capitalists of all countries.