CHAPTER V
PAN-SLAVISM AND OUR REVOLUTIONARY ARMY
(Petrograd–Moscow–Kieff–Vladivostok. May 1917—April 1, 1918)
The Russian Revolution.
ALL along I had feared a revolution in Russia; yet, when it came, I was—unpleasantly—surprised. What would be its effect on the Allies and on the waging of the war? The first reports were indefinite and hardly credible. After getting further information and beginning to find my bearings, I sent Milyukoff and Rodzianko, on March 18, 1917, a telegram in which I laid stress on the Slav programme—emphasis by no means superfluous either in Russia or in the West. Since, to my knowledge, one of the Allies, Tsarist Russia, cared nothing for democracy or freedom, it had not been easy for me to say that the objects of Allied policy were the liberation of small peoples and the strengthening of democracy. But now, after the Russian Revolution, I could say unreservedly that a free Russia had a full right to proclaim the freedom of the Slavs. The Slav programme I stated briefly as follows: The unification of the Poles in close association with Russia; the unification of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; and, equally, the unification and liberation of us Czechs and Slovaks. I added that it was a question not only of Slav but also of Latin nations, the French, the Italians and the Roumanians, and of their rightful national ideals. This programme was in harmony with the recent Allied reply to President Wilson and with the views of the Allied political circles which were in sympathy with us. I had also to take into account the position of the post-revolutionary Russian Government and especially of Milyukoff as Foreign Minister. He sent at once a friendly answer.
I have said that the news of the Revolution, and of its rapid course in particular, disquieted me. At that juncture, despite my knowledge of Russia, many of the revolutionary leaders and what they stood for were unknown to me. One may feel fears, have intuitions, imagine a general situation and guess how it will develop, yet not possess, at a given moment, concrete knowledge of realities, of the chief persons at work and of their motives and intentions. This knowledge
