Protopopov released Sukhomlinov, the former Minister of War who had been justly convicted of treason.  This action, taken, it was said, at the direction of the Czarina, added to the already wide-spread belief that the government was animated by a desire to make peace with Germany.  That the Czar himself was loyal to the Allies was generally believed, but there was no such belief in the loyalty of Protopopov, Sturmer, and their associates.  The nation meantime was drifting into despair and anarchy.  The railway system was deliberately permitted to become disorganized.  Hunger reigned in the cities and the food reserves for the army were deliberately reduced to a two days’ supply.  The terror of hunger spread through the large cities and through the army at the front like prairie fire.

It became evident that Protopopov was carrying out the plans of the Germanophiles, deliberately trying to disorganize the life of the nation and make successful warfare impossible.  Socialists and labor leaders charged that his agents were encouraging the pacifist minority and opposing the patriotic majority among the workers.  The work of the War Industries Committee which controlled organizations engaged in the manufacture of war-supplies which employed hundreds of thousands of workers was hampered in every way.  It is the testimony of the best-known and most-trusted working-class leaders in Russia that the vast majority of the workers, while anxious for a general democratic peace, were opposed to a separate peace with Germany and favored the continuation of the war against Prussianism and the co-operation of all classes to that end.  The pacifists and “defeatist” Socialists represented a minority.  To the minority every possible assistance was given, while the leaders of the working class who were loyal to the war, and who sought to sustain the morale of the workers in support of the war, were opposed and thwarted in their efforts and, in many cases, cast into prison.  The Black Hundreds were still at work.

Socialist leaders of the working class issued numerous appeals to the workers, warning them that Protopopov’s secret police agitators were trying to bring about strikes, and begging them not to lend themselves to such treacherous designs, which could only aid Germany at the expense of democracy in Russia and elsewhere.  It became known, too, that large numbers of machine-guns were being distributed among the police in Petrograd and placed at strategic points throughout the city.  It was said that Protopopov was mad, but it was the methodical madness of a desperate, reactionary, autocratic regime.

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