Enter Kerensky

At the invitation of an Assistant U. S. Attorney, one Kenneth Simpson, there arrived in Manhattan from Paris last week Alexander Feodorvich Kerensky, to stop with Mr. and Mrs. Simpson at their Park Avenue residence. New York newspapers welcomed M. Kerensky in editorials of praise, of friendship. The Herald Tribune, usually synchronous with the Administration, stated that "Kerensky will have the help and support of all good Americans," Overnight this wiry, medium-sized man, with slightly bowed legs, a cropped head, and habitually narrow, squinting eyes, seemed to have become almost a national hero to the press.

Peroration. Through an interpreter M. Kerensky, who speaks no English, said: "I do not think the agents of Soviet Russia are fomenting trouble in Mexico or elsewhere in foreign countries. They lack the power to do so. ... I, myself, never think of a return to power. My episode is over. But I am continuing and will continue until the last the struggle for human freedom. . . .* Russians must settle their own internal affairs. . . ."

Comet. This was the man and these were the words which came as unheralded as though a comet had struck Manhattan and dissipated far and wide its gaseous tail. Where does the four-month Kerensky regime fit into the 'ten years elapsed since Nicholas II signed his abdication on March 15, 1917? Significant years:

1881. At Simbirsk the wife of a school principal gave birth to Alexander Feodorovich Kerensky, a pale, sickly, bright-eyed child.

1912. After graduating from the University of St. Petersburg and becoming a lawyer famed for his moving and impassioned defense of numerous Socialists, M. Kerensky was elected to the Fourth Duma as a Social Democrat. He belonged to the "Lesser Group" or "Mensheviki" of his party, in contradistinction of the "Larger Group" or "Bolsheviki."/-

1917. Menshevik Kerensky was present in Petrograd** when there began a curiously leaderless and random series of riots and disorders among the people and local soldiery. Between March 8 and March 12 these leaderless disorders reached such a pitch that the Duma found the Tsarist authority had vanished and set up a Temporary Governing Committee which two days later became the Cabinet of Prince Lvov in which M. Kerensky was Minister of Justice. Next day representatives of the Duma obtained the abdication of the Tsar. Russians were all but stupefied that the Tsarist regime was so rotten at the core as to topple after four days of disorder in Petrograd. Troops ordered to shoot down the mobs flung away their guns and embraced the rioters. Never was a revolution less bloody.

Soon M. Kerensky became War Minister, and in May he began an extraordinary oratorical campaign which so far restored the morale of the army that it launched a last desperate offensive against Germany in June. When this failed and the army collapsed the power of the Mensheviki became shadowy; but Minister Kerensky as the outstanding Menshevik leader assumed the Premiership which he held for four months.

Meanwhile the Bolsheviki were strengthened by the return of their exiled leaders from Sweden, Switzerland, the U. S. Their strategy was to give expression to a wide spread craving for peace and land. The German general staff so completely understood this that Bolshevik Lenin was hurried from Switzerland across Germany in a sealed railway car. He was injected as a social virus into Russia by Germany.

Between June and November the All-Russian Congress of "People's Committees" or "Soviets," composed of delegates from all over Russia, transferred its support from Kerensky and his Menshevik War party to Lenin and his Bolshevik peace-and-land faction. Bolshevik propaganda in the army and navy caused many of the troops to obey Lenin rather than Kerensky.

Lenin was elected President of a new Cabinet, called the "Council of People's Commissars," and within little more than a month 193 decrees had been issued to give the people land, abolish titles and give the workers control of the factories.

M. Kerensky fled and rallied perhaps 2,000 troops which nearly succeeded in restoring his regime--so nearly without defense was the Lenin faction at first.

1918. Peace was concluded with Germany at Brest-Litovsk and ratified by the Congress of "People's Committees" on such unfavorable terms that the dissenting "Lesser Group" or Mensheviki withdrew in protest from the Congress, henceforth Bolshevik.

Soon Germany collapsed; and there began intervention in Russia by the Great Powers, assisting the "White Russian" or reactionary Tsarist commanders: Kolchak,* Denikin, Yudenich and Wrangel. This at last pushed the Bolsheviki so close to the wall that they began the "Red Terror."

On July 15 the Tsar and his family were expecting to be rescued by Czechoslovak troops who were advancing toward Ekaterinburg, where the Imperial family were imprisoned. The local "People's Committee" ordered the Tsar and his family executed on July 16--one year after his abdication. Fifteen days later, too late, the Czechoslovaks took Ekaterinburg.

1919. The Allied-"White Russian" forces met with such success that at one time 80% of all Russian railways were in their hands.

1920. By the end of this year War Minister Leon Trotzky had built up the "Red Army" sufficiently to harass and wear down the "White Armies" to vanishing white hopes. Denikin was driven from Ekaterinodar and fled to Constantinople. Baron Wrangel retreated to Sevastopol, lost it, and likewise fled--to turn up recently in Belgium, still "White" (TIME, Dec. 27). The "Red Terror," a series of extraordinary measures resorted to in time of stress, crystallized into the still active Soviet secret police.

1921. Britain made her trade agreement with Russia in March. Republican Germany denounced the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and made a more just peace with Russia in May. Other powers followed suit.

Another famine year increased the distress in Russia, but subsequently the Bolsheviki have gradually consolidated their position under Lenin and his successors.

1923. M. Kerensky offered to return to Russia and submit to imprisonment if the Bolsheviki would release from prison certain Mensheviki.

1925. Mme. Kerensky divorced her husband charging desertion. Soon he founded the newspaper Dni at Paris.

*He edits at Paris the newspaper Dni, organ of the anti-Soviet Russian emigres.

/-Menshe, of course, means "lesser," and bolshe "larger." But the Mensheviki were at this time stronger politically than the Bolsheviki because they were allied with other moderate factions, while the more radical Bolsheviki were constantly weakened by expulsion of their best leaders from Russia by the Tsar's police.

**Changed from St. Petersburg to Petrograd in 1914, to Leningrad in 1920.

*Admiral Alexander Kolchak's regimental commander. Theodore Volkov, 74, was sentenced to death by Soviet authorities for his atrocities during the "White Terror," and shot last week at Ekaterinburg (scene of the Tsar's execution) now called Sverdlovsk