Provisional Government should have realised that the failure of the Dardanelles campaign spelt the end of the road for the Russian war effort; and surely Kerensky should have realised that only the utmost ruthlessness would restore the position after such a disastrous mistake? What was he to do?
Inside law courts the position is quite clear. The judge finds the facts honestly, applies the law to those facts, and gives judgment accordingly. His judgment will have the merit of integrity; whether or not it has wisdom or political prudence. Everyone agrees that is the ideal. For a judge to fudge his findings of fact, in order to give a judgment which avoids an inconvenience, either to himself or society, is an abomination; and judicial murder is the worst abomination.
Outside the law courts, the position is not so clear. Let us assume that there was in Russia at the time the equivalent of Habeas Corpus. Should Kerensky have insisted that any application to release those in prison should be given a fair hearing, despite the fact that it might well have succeeded, and if it did, lead to the released men obtaining power; or should he have taken the view that in the precarious circumstances such an application was a laughable waste of time? The situation is so far outside my experience that I prefer to leave the question unanswered. I will content myself with a few generalities. The end does not generally justify the means; on the contrary, unscrupulous means tend to pervert the intended end. But every situation must be decided on its own facts; and there are exceptions to every rule. If it is necessary to break through the conventional pattern of thought of the day, a man acting alone only needs to be ruthless enough to do it. A man acting with others needs the advantage of mutual understanding with them, or better still the miracle of minds that understand each other perfectly: a marriage of minds, like that envisaged by the German General Staff between the army commander and his…