This resolution led to violent internal warfare. The opposition in Petrograd, led by B. Pavlů, resolutely sided with the National Council and Masaryk, and started a vigorous campaign against the attempt to divide the Czechoslovak revolutionary movement into a Western and an Eastern group. It carried on an extensive agitation, but in spite of its energetic action and the numerous manifestos of agreement with its point of view, in spite of Štefánik’s personal intervention with Pokrovsky, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Russian Government sanctioned Dürich’s statutes for a separatist National Council, and, moreover, granted Dürich and his organization the financial resources for this struggle.
This led to the expulsion of Dürich from the Paris National Council, and a declaration by the opposition groups that they would never acknowledge his leadership. The revolution in March, which broke out a month after Dürich’s statutes had been sanctioned by the Russian Government, immediately changed the situation. The new Russian Government repudiated Dürich and the League itself as well. Under these circumstances an application was made to Milyukov, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the National Council, under Masaryk’s leadership, to be acknowledged as the sole political representative body of the Czechs in Russia. At the same time B. Čermák, the former chairman of the League at Petrograd, was appointed plenipotentiary of the Czechoslovak National Council, and an attempt was made to constitute a branch of it in Russia.
For a short time the League at Kiev was successful in its endeavours, at least to the extent that Milyukov, fearing further blunders which might be caused by a fresh decision, postponed the question of a branch of the National Council until Masaryk’s arrival in Russia, which had now been provisionally announced. The opposition in Petrograd thereupon took fresh steps against the League, and scored a decisive victory at a new congress comprising representatives of the Czechoslovak colonists, soldiers, and prisoners of war.
This congress, which opened at Kiev on May 6, 1917, unanimously adopted the following resolution:
The Czechoslovak National Council, with Professor Masaryk at its head, is the supreme organ of the Czechoslovak national political struggle, and it is therefore the duty of every Czech and Slovak to spbmit to its management.
G
