15 August 1917. George Buchanan

4, Dvortsovaya embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire (British Embassy)

Letter to the Foreign Ministry

"I have kept you fully informed by telegraph of the various stages of the recent ministerial crisis and of the final reconstruction of the Government. It is an improvement on the old one, and some of the new Ministers are good men. Plekhanoff, who has done excellent work, was to have entered the Government, but the Soviet would not allow it, as they have never forgiven him for saying that he was a patriot before he was a Socialist.

We have come to a curious pass in this country when one welcomes the appointment of a terrorist, who was one of the chief organizers of the murders of the Grand Duke Serge and Plehve, in the hope that his energy and strength of character may yet save the army. Savenkoff is an ardent advocate of stringent measures, both for the restoration of discipline and for the repression of anarchy, and he is credited with having asked Kerensky's permission to go with a couple of regiments to the Tauride Palace to arrest the Soviet. Needless to say that this permission was not given. On the other hand, he is unfortun- ately against re-investing the officers with their former disciplinary powers, and prefers to confer those powers on the Government's commissaries a the front as a safeguard against a possible counter- revolution.

Though the news from the army is better and though everything is quiet at Petrograd, I cannot look upon the situation as satisfactory. The Government lost a unique opportunity of putting down the Bolsheviks once and for all after the disturbances of last month. On my reproaching Tereschenko with this, he said that Kerensky was unfortunately at the front when those disturbances broke out. He had, on his return, remarked that it would have been better had Prince Lvoff delayed for a couple of hours the despatch of troops and guns to protect the members of the Soviet, who on the Monday evening were in danger of being arrested or murdered by the insurgent troops. The Government as a whole does not inspire much con- fidence. Guchkoff takes the gloomiest view of the situation and declares that not only will the army soon be confronted with famine, but that, if the war has to be continued through the winter, it will dissolve and melt away. He told me the other day that the present Government was hopeless and could never save the country. He would, of course, like to get rid of the Socialists and replace them with men from the parties of the right. I replied that no Government could do anything unless it could count on the support of the Petrograd garrison, which as at present disposed was more likely to obey the orders of the Soviet than those of the Government.

I had a long conversation with Prince Kropotkin the other day. He takes a very similar view to what I do of the situation, though he is rather more pessi- mistic than I am about the future, I still hope that Russia .will pull through, though the obstacles in her path — whether they be of a military, industrial or financial character — are appalling. How she is going to find the money to continue the war and to pay the interest on her national debt beats me altogether, and we and the Americans will soon have to face the fact that we shall have to finance her to a very considerable extent if we want to see her carry on through the winter. We cannot, however, be expected to do this till we have proof of her determination to put her house in order by restoring strict discipline in the army and repressing anarchy in the rear. General Komiloff is the only man strong enough to do this, and he has given the Government clearly to understand that unless they comply with his demands and give him the powers which he considers necessary he will resign his command. The danger is that, if he succeeds and acquires a predominant influence with the army, he may become an object of suspicion to the Soviet, whose policy of undermining discipline was originally dictated by the fear of seeing the army become the dominant factor in the country."

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14 August

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New picture of Matisse