At this session Lenine bitterly assailed the proposed offensive.  He said that it was impossible for either side to win a military victory, revamping all the defeatist arguments that were familiar in every country.  He minimized the loss which Russia had suffered at Germany’s hands, and the gains Germany had made in Belgium and northern France, pointing out that she had, on the other hand, lost her colonies, which England would be very unlikely to give back unless compelled to do so by other nations.  Taunted with being in favor of a separate peace with Germany, Lenine indignantly denied the accusation.  “It is a lie,” he cried.  “Down with a separate peace! We Russian revolutionists will never consent to it.” He argued that there could be only one policy for Socialists in any country—­namely, to seize the occasion of war to overthrow the capitalist-class rule in that country.  No war entered into by a capitalist ruling class, regardless what its motives, should be supported by Socialists.  He argued that the adoption of his policy by the Russian working class would stand ten times the chance of succeeding that the military policy would have.  The German working class would compel their government and the General Staff to follow the example of Russia and make peace.

Kerensky was called upon to reply to Lenine.  At the time when the restoration of the army required all his attention and all his strength, it was necessary for Kerensky to attend innumerable and well-nigh interminable debates and discussions to maintain stout resistance to the Bolshevik offensive always being waged in the rear.  That, of course, was part of the Bolshevist plan of campaign.  So Kerensky, wearied by his tremendous efforts to perform the task assigned him by the workers, answered Lenine.  His reply was a forensic masterpiece.  He took the message of the commander-in-chief of the German eastern front and hurled it at Lenine’s head, figuratively speaking, showing how Lenine’s reasoning was paralleled in the German propaganda.  With merciless logic and incisive phrase he showed how the Bolsheviki were using the formula, “the self-determination of nationalities,” as the basis of a propaganda to bring about the dismemberment of Russia and its reduction to a chaotic medley of small, helpless states.  To Lenine’s statements about the readiness of the German working class to rebel, Kerensky made retort that Lenine should have remained in Germany while on his way to Russia and preached his ideas there.

A few days earlier, at a session of the same Congress, Trotzky and Kamenev had made vigorous assault upon the Coalition Government and upon the Socialist policy with reference thereto.  In view of what subsequently transpired, it is important to note that Trotzky made much of the delay in calling together the Constituent Assembly:  “The policy of continual postponement and the detailed preparations for calling the Constituent Assembly is a false policy.  It may