Russia’s revolutionary soul

From ‘The Russian awakening’, 6 July 1917: M. Kerensky, the Russian Minister of War, has kept his word. He promised his Western Allies an early military Offensive and on Monday he was able to telegraph to his Prime Minister, Prince Lvoff: ‘On July 1st the Army of Revolutionary Russia took the offensive with great enthusiasm.’ … We wish our Eastern Allies the best of good fortune in the military sense, but whether their offensive succeeds or fails, for the present its significance is not to be measured merely by a military rule laid upon the map. If in persistence of effort it proves to the world, and especially to our enemies, that the Army of Revolutionary Russia has set out to achieve the liberty of its country by the only human means available — the ultimate defeat of Germany — then, whatever may be the ebbs and flows of fortune on the battlefield, Revolutionary Russia will have found its soul.