ASSASSINATION OF THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR

The policy of Lenine, as has already been noted, was one of protesting acquiescence to German outrage and demands; he snarled and assumed indignation, but complied. But this attitude was not by any means participated in by all the radicals. Even Trotzky, it will be remembered, had resigned his post as foreign minister because he had been unable to agree with Lenine on this point.

It was among that ultraradical group, the Socialist Revolutionists, that bitterness against Germany glowed hottest, so hot that its members, though having much in sympathy with the Bolsheviki, split away from them on the peace policy. Kerensky himself had been of this school of politics. In the early days of the autocracy, before the war, it had been this group which had carried on those terrorist activities which had given the Russian Revolution so bad a name among the conservatives of all countries.

Again they resolved to resort to these methods. On July 6, 1918, General Count von Mirbach, the German ambassador to Moscow, was assassinated by members of the Socialist Revolutionist Party.

Among others of the prominent Socialist Revolutionary leaders who were said to have been seized for this crime were Tseretelli, Chernov, Skobelev, and Savinkov, all of whom had been members of the Kerensky Cabinet. On July 12, 1918, it was reported that Chernov was marching on Moscow at the head of an army of peasants.

Contrary to general belief in the Allied countries, Germany was inclined to hold the Lenine Government blameless of the murder of Count von Mirbach, for on July 10, 1918, the Berlin Government announced that it did not intend to hold the Soviet responsible. "The German Government and the nation," the dispatch added, "hope that the Russian Government and people will succeed in nipping the present revolutionary agitation in the bud." In a speech on July 11, 1918, Von Hertling, after having laid the blame to the intrigues of the Allies, said:

"We do not want fresh war with Russia. The present Russian Government wants peace and needs peace, and we are giving it support in this peaceful disposition and aim. On the other hand, it is true that political currents of very varied tendencies are circulating in Russia—movements having the most diverse aims, including the monarchist movement of the Constitutional Democrats and the movement of the Socialist Revolutionaries. We will not commit ourselves to any political countercurrent, but are giving careful attention to the course Russia is steering."

Apparently the personality of Von Mirbach had also something to do with his assassination, for as an intriguer he was reported to be absolutely without conscience. After his death the Constitutional Democrats made an official statement to the effect that he had called to him representatives of their party and, while professing to be upholding the Lenine Government, promised them German aid in overthrowing the Bolsheviki under certain conditions. Germany, he told them, desired a more conservative government in Russia, and if the Constitutional Democrats would be willing to establish a monarchy, under German influence, then they might expect a substantial revision of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, to the advantage of Russia. This offer the Constitutional Democrats had indignantly refused.

Not alone in Great Russia was it that the bitter hatred of the Germans was breaking out into flames. In the middle of June, 1918, it was reported from Kiev that the peasants were breaking out into local disorders and attacking the soldiers who were protecting the wheat-gathering expeditions. A dispatch dated in June, 1918, indicated that these disorders had taken on a more general and better organized aspect; that 40,000 peasants were assembled in an army and were entering the streets of the capital, where they were attacking the garrison and exploding artillery munitions. Later dispatches indicated that the revolt had spread into the Poltava and Chernigov districts, and ten days later the number of armed and officered insurgents was said to number 200,000. At the village of Krinichki, in the province of Ekaterinoslav, the peasants attacked the Germans in big force and a pitched battle took place, the Germans being driven back with a loss of over 1,000 men. In response to a call from the German commander in Kiev it was reported that Germany was obliged to send over a quarter of a million men to reenforce the German and Austrian forces in Ukrainia.