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i9i7] M. KERENSKY, DICTATOR
495
kind of executive power even before the Provisional
Government, in which he became Minister of Justice,
was formed* There is a Russian proverb dating from
the eighteenth century, which says : " He who has taken
the stick becomes corporal." Kerensky had at once
become this corporal or rather this commander-in-chief
of the Russian Revolution. At least it appeared so to
others. As a matter of fact he had never been either
the promoter or the conscious leader of this Revolution.
So long as he agreed with the Soviets he had some
power, the moment he disagreed with them he was
powerless. Moreover, he realised that at once, and
until his final downfall he indulged in a game of see-saw
between the Soviets and their adversaries.
Not at all bloodthirsty (I imagine he could not
have killed a fly himself), very much inclined, like
Bonaparte when he had attained supreme power, to
protect the aristocrats who rallied to him, he had at
once an enormous clientele, for who did not rally to
him in Petrograd ? Families well known for their
undisguised sycophancy had hastened to bring this
hereditary servility to the new regime, and as soon as it was
Kerensky who personified this regime, they adored and
fawned on M. Kerensky. The " Dictator," as well as
his new colleagues in the Ministry, made laudable
efforts to save innocent people—even generals and
officers—from ever dangerous prisons and from the
fury of the comrades* There have never been so many
people sent abroad on special missions, civil and
military, and authorised to take considerable sums of
money with them, as during Kerensky’s term of office;
in this way those officers, officials or private individuals,
to whom a longer stay in Russia would have been
dangerous, were sent, or allowed to go, away.
Young M. Terestchenko did his best to help in these
masked flights. He was a man of the world, very well
educated, intelligent, and thoroughly good and sincere.
During the few months that he was in office he
represented "Our Lady of Perpetual Succour" to all
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