As we have seen, it was with the authority and mandate of the overwhelming majority of the organized workers that the Socialists entered the Coalition Ministry.  It was with that mandate that Kerensky undertook the Herculean task of restoring the discipline and morale of the Russian army.  In that work he was the agent and representative of the organized working class.  For this reason, if for no other, Kerensky and his associates were entitled to expect and to receive the loyal support of all who professed loyalty to the working class.  Instead of giving that support, however, the Bolsheviki devoted themselves to the task of defeating every effort of the Provisional Government to carry out its program, which, it must be borne in mind, had been approved by the great mass of the organized workers.  They availed themselves of every means in their power to hamper Kerensky in his work and to hinder the organization of the economic resources of the nation to sustain the military forces.

Kerensky had promised to organize preparations for a vigorous offensive against the Austro-German forces.  That such offensive was needed was obvious and was denied by none except the ultra-pacifists and the Bolsheviki.  The Congress of Soldiers’ Delegates from the Front and the Petrograd Soviet had specifically urged the need of such an offensive, as had most of the well-known peasants’ leaders.  It was a working-class policy.  But that fact did not prevent the Bolsheviki from throwing obstacles in the way of its fulfilment.  They carried on an active propaganda among the men in the army and the navy, urging insubordination, fraternization, and refusal to fight.  They encouraged sabotage as a means of insuring the failure of the efforts of the Provisional Government.  So thoroughly did they play into the hands of the German military authorities, whether intentionally or otherwise, that the charge of being in the pay of Germany was made against them—­not by prejudiced bourgeois politicians and journalists, but by the most responsible Socialists in Russia.

The epic story of Kerensky’s magnificently heroic fight to recreate the Russian army is too well known to need retelling here.  Though it was vain and ended in failure, as it was foredoomed to do, it must forever be remembered with gratitude and admiration by all friends of freedom.  The audacity and the courage with which Kerensky and a few loyal associates strove to maintain Russia in the struggle made the Allied nations, and all the civilized world, their debtors.  Many mistakes were made, it is true, yet it is very doubtful if human beings could have achieved more or succeeded where they failed.  It must be confessed, furthermore, that the governments of the nations with which they were allied made many grievous mistakes on their part.