1 April 1917. Maurice Paleologue

10, Kutuzova embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire

General Kornilov, the new Military Governor of Petrograd, is endeavouring gradually to resume control of the troops of the garrison. The task is all the more arduous because most of the officers have been killed, degraded or forced to fly. He has ordered a review on the Winter Palace Square for this morning and, very judiciously, has selected only the best elements, those units in which discipline has suffered least. Since the fall of the imperial regime, it is the first time that a substantial force has been assembled in regular formation.

From the windows of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs I saw the review with Buchanan and Neratov.

The troops---ten thousand men or so---had a tolerable soldierly bearing and marched past in good order. There were very few officers. All the bands played the Marseillaise, but at a slow pace which made it sound sinister. In each company and squadron I noticed several red banners bearing inscriptions Land and Liberty! . . The Land for the People! . Long live the Social Republic! . . . Ona very small number I read: The War until Victory! Abovethe Winter Palace floated an enormous red flag.

The spectacle was singularly instructive. From the military point of view, I could condense my ideas thus: a force in which the spirit of. discipline has not wholly disappeared but which is thinking less of its military duties than of its hopes of political and social reform.

From the historical and picturesque aspect, I was obsessed by a vivid contrast. I reminded Buchanan and Neratov of the afternoon of the 2nd August, 1914, and that majestic scene when the Emperor appeared on the balcony of this same palace after swearing on the gospel and the holy ikons that he would not sign peace so long as a single enemy soldier stood on Russian soil. In that solemn hour I was at his side: he was grave but smiling. The great square was packed with people---even more so than this morning---soldiers, bourgeois, workmen, moujiks, women, children: and the whole crowd on its knees to receive the blessing of its father the Tsar, sang the hymn, Bojé tsaria kranié.

O temps évanouis, ô splendeurs éclipsées,
O soleils descendus derrière l'horizon!

A consignment of newspapers, the latest of which is eleven days old, has reached me from Paris and strengthens me in a view I took on reading the daily résumés transmitted by telegraph. The French public is enthusiastic for the Russian revolution! Once again our press will have been found wanting in moderation and judgment. I admit of course that as the disappearance of Tsarism is an accomplished fact, we were unquestionably obliged to adapt ourselves to the new state of affairs and to "put a good face on a bad business." It was therefore right and proper that French opinion should appear to receive the Russian revolution with confidence and sympathy. But for Heaven's sake no hosannahs! The Soviet isquite puffed up enough already. These pæons of praise and admiration will turn its head completely. The main fault is evidently that of the censorship which ought to have moderated the zeal of the sycophants.

From a personal letter which the same messenger has brought me I also learn that in the corridors of the Chamber and newspaper offices---and among polite society ---the honour of having brought about the revolution is attributed to Sir George Buchanan his purpose being to put an end to German intrigues. The suggestion is false. Criticisms of myself are appended, as might be expected; men recall that in the old days French diplomacy did not hesitate to resort to great methods on great occasions and did not allow itself to be checked by any vain respect for the principle of legitimacy. My behaviour is being contrasted with the example of my famous predecessor the Marquis de la Chétardie, who in 1741 had no hesitation in associating himself boldly with the national party in destroying German influence and placing Elizabeth Petrovna on the imperial throne.

Before long it will be realized that the revolution is the most damaging blow that could have been inflicted on Russian nationalism.

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This evening, one of my guests at dinner was Prince Scipio Borghese, formerly a radical deputy at the Monte-Citorio, who has just arrived in Petrograd with his daughter, pretty Princess Santa; both are very open-minded and of many-sided intellect and they are anxious to see a revolution---and what a revolution!---at close quarters. My other guests were M. and Madame Polovtsov, Princess Sophie Dolgorouki, Count Sergei Kutusov, Count Nani Mocenigo, Poklevski, etc. . . .

I spoke of the favourable impression made upon me by this morning's review. On the other side of the scale, Polovtsov and Poklevski told me of the deplorable news they have received from the front.

Prince Borghese, with whom I had a long talk after dinner, asked me what characteristics had struck me most in the Russian revolutions, meaning the characteristics which in my opinion distinguish it most forcibly from Western revolutions. I replied:

"First of all you must realize that the Russian revolution has barely begun and that certain forces which are destined to play a tremendous part in it, forces such as land hunger, ethnical antagonisms, social disintegration, the economic débâcle and anti-Jewish passion, are so far at work only in theory. With that reservation, what strikes me most is this":

And I illustrated the following points with various examples:

(1) The fundamental psychological difference between the Latin or Anglo-Saxon revolution and the Slav revolution. The imagination of either of the former is logical and constructive; he destroys to build a new edifice, every part of which he has contemplated and thought out. The imagination of the latter is simply destructive and dispersive; his visions are the very essence of the indefinite.

(2) Eight-tenths of the Russian population cannot read or write, a fact which makes the audiences at public meetings and gatherings particularly responsive to the power of eloquence and the action of the leaders.

(3) Weakness of will is endemic in Russia; all Russian literature goes to prove it. Russians are incapable of persevering in any one course. The war of 1812 was comparatively short. The present war, with its length and its horrors, is too much for the staying power of the national temperament.

(4) Anarchy, with all that it implies in the way of extravagance, sloth and vacillation, is an inebriating passion to a Russian. It also gives him an excuse for endless public demonstrations, in which he satisfies his craving for spectacular and emotional display and his keen instinct for poetry and beauty.

(5) Lastly, the enormous area of the country makes each province a centre of separatism and each town a nucleus of anarchy; the slight authority still possessed by the Provisional Government is thereby totally paralysed.

"But What is the remedy?" Borghese asked.

"The socialists of the allied countries must show their comrades of the Soviet that the political and social conquests of the revolution are lost unless Russia is first saved."

, and others