17 April 1917. Maurice Paleologue

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Maurice Paleologue

10, Kutuzova embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire

The Minister of Justice, Kerensky, came to lunch at the Embassy, with Cachin, Montet and Lafont.

Kerensky accepted my invitation only on condition that he could leave the moment the meal was over, as he had to be with the Soviet at two o'clock. The essential point was that he should meet my three deputies.

The conversation immediately began with the war. Kerensky told us what is the root of his dispute with. Miliukov, i.e., that the Allies must revise their peace terms in order to adapt them to the ideas of the Russian democracy. The arguments with which he supported this theme are those of the "Labour" Party he represents in the Duma, a party which is par excellence that of the peasants and takes for its motto the phrase Lemla i Fola, "Land and Liberty." Apart from this reservation, he was strong on the necessity of continuing the struggle against German militarism.

We heard him out without too much protest. In any case I suspected that, at the bottom of their hearts, my socialist guests more or less agree with him. As for myself, not yet knowing what attitude Albert Thomas has been instructed to adopt towards Russian socialism, I reserved my opinion.

Hardly had coffee been served before Kerensky fled back to the Soviet, where theapostle of international Marxism, the celebrated Lenin, who has come from Switzerland through Germany, was to make his political re-entry.

A disgusting scene was witnessed a few days ago in the Russian Church at Helsingfors. A funeral service was being held for Lieutenant-Commander Polivanov, who was murdered by his crew during the recent disorders. The coffin was open as the orthodox rite prescribes. Suddenly a mob of workmen and sailors burst into the church. The whole lot marched past the catafalque in single file and spat in the dead man's face. The stricken and weeping widow wiped the sullied features with her handkerchief and implored the brutes to cease their infamous behaviour.

But, thrusting her roughly aside, they seized the coffin, turned it upside down, emptied out the corpse, the candles and the wreaths, and left the church bawling the Marseillaise.

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+10

in Petrograd

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