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Russia would have simply to fly from one victory to another.
No sooner, in fact, was the chief of the Cadet Party Milioukofî installed in power, than his first step was to solemnly affirm Russia's claims to Constantinople and the Dardanelles; to affirm, in other words, in one of its essential points, a programme of Russian Imperialism; that is to say, a programme of a Russia, with bourgeois power, powerfully supported by a formidable army. Was it possible, in truth, to give greater evidence of an absolute incomprehension of the real state of affairs?
During the few years that I had spent in Russia previous to the war, I had found sufficient opportunity of observing the Cadet Party at work in opposition in order not to be misled by the moderate hopes that were placed upon it on the eve of the Revolution.
The Cadet Party had been, in fact, nothing better than a party of professors; a party deprived of all contact with the people, and which, under the Imperial Regime, had constantly aimed at power; had been very near obtaining it; and had for ever been conducting a systematic opposition (in the worst Western Parliamentary meaning of this word) to all the acts of the Government, whether good or bad, contributing in this way to shake the most honest and capable of ministers, and to substitute them, to the detriment of the State, by less honest and less capable successors. At the same time, and while all this was going on, they. overwhelmed the Minister of Foreign Affairs, at that time, M. Sasonoff, with their unreserved cooperation and support in order to force him
