Perhaps the greatest blunder that a discriminating posterity will charge to Kerensky’s account was the signing of the famous Declaration of Soldiers’ Rights.  This document, which was signed on May 27th, can only be regarded in the light of a surrender to overpowering forces.  In his address to the All-Russian Congress of Peasants’ Delegates, on May 18th, speaking for the first time in his capacity as Minister of War, Kerensky had declared, “I intend to establish an iron discipline in the army,” yet the Declaration of Soldiers’ Rights which he signed nine days later was certain to make any real discipline impossible.  Was it because he was inconsistent, vacillating, and weak that Kerensky attached his name to such a document?

Such a judgment would be gravely unjust to a great man.  The fact is that Kerensky’s responsibility was very small indeed.  He and his Socialist associates in the Cabinet held their positions by authority of the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, and they had agreed to be subject to its guidance and instruction.  The Soviet was responsible for the Declaration of Soldiers’ Rights.  Kerensky was acting under its orders.  The Soviet had already struck a fatal blow at military discipline by its famous Order Number One, which called on the soldiers not to execute the orders of their officers unless the orders were first approved by the revolutionary authorities—­that is, by the Soviet or its accredited agents.  That the order was prompted by an intense love for revolutionary ideals, or that it was justified by the amount of treachery which had been discovered among the officers of the army, may explain and even excuse it, but the fact remains that it was a deadly blow at military discipline.  The fact that Kerensky’s predecessor, Guchkov, had to appear at a convention of soldiers’ delegates and explain and defend his policies showed that discipline was at a low ebb.  It brought the army into the arena of politics and made questions of military strategy subject to political maneuvering.

The Declaration of Soldiers’ Rights was a further step along a road which inevitably led to disaster.  That remarkable document provided that soldiers and officers of all ranks should enjoy full civic and political rights; that they should be free to speak or write upon any subject; that their correspondence should be uncensored; that while on duty they should be free to receive any printed matter, books, papers, and so on, which they desired.  It provided for the abolition of the compulsory salute to officers; gave the private soldier the right to discard his uniform when not actually on service and to leave barracks freely during “off-duty” hours.  Finally, it placed all matters pertaining to the management in the hands of elective committees in the composition of which the men were to have four-fifths of the elective power and the officers one-fifth.