RUSSIA AND ALLIES. GOVERNMENT POLICY. “NO SEPARATE PEACE.”

PETROGRAD, SUNDAY.

At the General Congress of the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, M. Tseretelli, Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, made the following declaration with regard to the Provisional Government’s foreign policy: We desire to hasten the conclusion of a new treaty, in which the principles proclaimed by the Russian democracy will be recognised as the basis of the international policy of the Allies. Let us employ all possible means to the end that our programme may agree with that of all the Allied Governments so as to avoid a rupture with our Allies. Let us reflect that the worst result of our struggle for universal peace would be a separate peace with Germany, which would destroy the results of the Russian revolution, and be disastrous for the cause of international democracy. A separate peace is, in fact, impossible. Such a peace would bring Russia into a new war on the side of the German coalition, and would mean leaving one coalition only to enter into another. The Minister further described to the Congress the steps taken by the Russian Government for summoning an Inter-allied Conference for the revision of treaties, exclusive, however, of the London Agreement, engaging the Allies not to conclude a separate peace. After speaking in support of the work of M. Kerenski, the Minister proceeded: When the country finds itself menaced by attack from without, it is the duty of the revolutionary army to be on its own accord ready to advance. Inactivity on our front has not consolidated the revolution, but has, on the contrary, enfeebled it. M. Lenin, the Extremist leader, then delivered a long harangue against the Cabinet, its acts, and its attitude, especially as regards the war, and against the appeal by M. Kerenski for an offensive, which M. Lenin characterised as treason to the interests of international Socialism. M. Lenin then recommended measures of an extreme sort, with a view to remedy the situation, and declared that his party was ready to accept office if it were offered. M. Kerenski, the Minister of War, who followed, condemned the doctrine enunciated by M. Lenin, which was, he said, Marxism misinterpreted, and pointed out that the fraternisation with the enemy at the front, advocated by M. Lenin, was a remedy quite after the heart of the German General Staff. He proceeded: We must prove to the Internationale that we are not a negligible quantity, and that we are possessed of a determination which will not allow itself to be dominated by an isolated and unorganised group. The Minister then gave an account of his visit to the front and of the favourable impressions he brought back with him from it, concluding with a defence of his acts as Minister of War so energetic and convincing that the entire Congress, with the exception of the Maximalists, broke out into a long ovation. Captain Azion, formerly of the Sveaborg Fortress Artillery, who took refuge in England after the mutiny at the fortress in 1905, said that he brought greetings to the Congress from the British Independent Labour party and a group of Radical members of the House of Commons. His place should be occupied by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, who, he said, had been prevented from coming by a group of British seamen with the connivance of the British Government. In Mr. Macdonald’s name he called on the Congress to shun a shameful separate peace and devote its efforts to compelling the Imperialist Governments of Great Britain and France to adhere to the principles proclaimed by revolutionary democratic Russia. (Loud applause.) M. Dan, on behalf of the Presidential Bureau, proposed that the Congress should send its greetings to Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, with the hope that that “dauntless fighter for universal peace” would be the guest of the Russian Revolution. It was also proposed to send a greeting to Mr. Maclean, “now sitting in gaol for preaching internationalism.” Both motions were enthusiastically carried. The Congress then entered into a discussion of the position of the Councils of Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Delegates in regard to the Provisional Government. – Reuter.