Entry 5 - Lvov, Miliukov

 
Prince Georgy Lvov (1861 - 1925)
Russian Minister of Interior
March 1917 to July 1917 

It certainly would be a wonder to expect anything but confusion from
the men who recently became the leaders of 180 millions. The leaders
are sure they can make wonders.

Prince Lvov! This old squeaking carriage, as Polenov says, is a man
from whom I would not expect anything. It is enough to look at his
beard, with remnants of yesterday's dinner on it, at his small blue
foxy eyes always reddish and always dropping tears. 


Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov (1859 - 1943)
Founder and leader of the Constitutional
Democratic Party, known as the Kadets

Miliukov! Minister of Foreign Affairs! All his experience consists of a continuous 
chain of political breaks and a series of moderately paid, superficial
articles on Balkan questions in a provincial newspaper. 

And, Monsieur Kerensky -- la fine fleur -- the Minister of Justice, a little man with
a single kidney and a double ambition. Insects!

These people would not be able to administer a small country
community, and here they are confronted with three immense
propositions: the Great War, the building up of a new state, and the
fighting of an organized propaganda directed against the war, and
against order.

It was enough for the ladies (and for Maroossia too) to see all of
these people in power, in order to find interesting points, not only
in their political activities, that would not be so bad -- but in their
private lives too. They all already know who these people are,
what they eat, when and where they were born, what their wives and
mistresses look like, etc., etc., up to the most intimate deeds and
traits of their characters. The foreign ladies also take a very keen
interest in those little tea-chats. All prefer to listen to them much
rather than to the events at the front.

Vadbolsky wrote me a letter sent through the "Help the Soldiers"
society. Of course he could not say much. They all realize that
discipline is going down with tremendous speed, at least at the
Northern front. 

The soldiers listen more to what the Council of Deputies 
say than to anything else. This treble power -- the Council,
the Government and the Army Authorities -- must be united, but there is
no one to realize it; and if there were, there would be no possibility
of co-ordinating the different currents.