When the army demoralization, fraternization and desertions began to assume recent frightful proportions Kerensky issued a manifesto telling the soldiers what he was prepared to do to deserters. They would not be shot--no, the death penalty was for all time abolished in Russia. But deserters would be treated as traitors. Their families would receive no soldiers’ benefits, and they would not be allowed to participate in the redistribution of land. The Minister-President, for by this time Kerensky was at the head of the Provisional Government, would give the deserters time to get back to their regiments. He named a date about three weeks in advance. But on that day, at the extreme limit, all soldiers must be back in their regiments. This manifesto was issued not once, but three times, as I have stated. Three separate dates were given, three ultimata pronounced. But none of them was even noticed by the demoralized soldiers. On one date, June 18, it is true, Kerensky’s order to advance was obeyed. At all events, the troops advanced on that day and fought a victorious fight. It may have been in response to Kerensky’s order, or it may have been a coincidence. Kerensky’s idealism began to suffer. He began to see his people as an unruly, unreasoning, sanguinary mob. But he loved the mob and could not bring himself to do it violence even for its own good. In July he agreed that Korniloff should be made commander-in-chief of the army, with power to shoot deserters in the face of battle. Korniloff’s demand for full command of the army, both at the front and in the reserve, with power to shoot all slackers, Kerensky would not agree to. However, in that same month of July, 1917, Kerensky had progressed so far that he told the world that he was prepared to save Russia and Russian unity by blood and iron, if argument and reason, honor and conscience, were not sufficient. Apparently they were not sufficient, but where was the blood and iron? Beating Russia into submission would be a big job for anybody just then, and it would be interesting to know just how Kerensky thought he could do it. He was the only man of first rate ability in his ministry, the only strong force. He would have had to have some backing, and where could he get it? The Soviets? They have over and over, after fierce fighting, voted to give Kerensky support. Once they voted to give him supreme power. But they were never in earnest about it, and Kerensky knew it very well. They proved that they were insincere, it seems to me, by their action in October in refusing to support any ministry not made up exclusively of Socialists, and then making such a body subject to criticism and control. “The Germans are at our very gates,” Kerensky told those men. “While you sit talking here, and are refusing to listen to words of reason from your commander-in-chief, your revolution is in danger of destruction. Are there no words of mine to make you see it?”