that time Minister of Education, more truly a minister of darkness, Count Delyanov, prohibited the taking into the gymnasium of peasants and citizens' children, "kitchen children." Such were the first days of schooling which the "father Czar" gave to his little subject, A. F. Kerensky. Entirely different was the schooling which the mother Volga gave him. The Volga carried to the child not only the "song like a groan," but free songs about the beloved national hero, Stenka Razin, whose famous rock is found in the vicinity of Simbirsk. Who knows whether there was not burned into the childish soul of the future first citizen of free Russia the words of the national song: If there is in Russia even one person, Who with people's falsehood is not acquainted, Who has not oppressed the muzhick, Who loves freedom as his dear mother, And in her name is struggling, Let that one boldly go to enter that rock, And the great cliff, all that Stephan thought, -From " The Rock of Stenka Razin." Kerensky's Gymnasium Years In the year 1889 Kerensky's father was transferred from Simbirsk to Tashkent. With him went also "Sasha Kerensky," as his companions in Tashkent Gymnasium called him. The kindly epithet from the pupils tells better than all the long descriptions how they loved him. In youthful mischievousness and pranks and in “warlike actions" against disliked or ridiculous teachers, as in the joint reading and development circles, he was everywhere and always, to persons of his own age, Sasha Kerensky. Tashkent is the gate to Siberia. The groaning of the political strugglers for free Russia, who were languishing at that time in the galleys or in exile, were near now, and more audible. Sasha Kerensky's ear, attentive to the people's sufferings, with pain took in all the stories about the unendurable situation of the nation's friends martyred by the Czar's prison officials in Siberia's "places of destruction." Punishment and whisperings go upon much freer tongues there than in Central Russia. What George Kennan has since related to us in his famous book about Siberia, still earlier was written in "heart's blood and in the fluid of the nerves on the impressible soul of A. F. Kerensky and printed in his youthful marrow. From all that we have read, heard, and seen of the living outline of Sasha Kerensky the Creator fashioned in him the outline of the whole everlasting picture of the sub-voluntary life of the entire Russian Nation-the laborious, patient, innocent, all-enduring, all-forgiving, much-suffering Russian Nation. And he loved it, that Russian Nation, with all his first passion, an early youth's love, penetrated with deep respect for the first strugglers for the freedom and happiness of the nation. Student Years at Petrograd In 1899 Kerensky finished at Tashkent Gymnasium and entered the Petrograd University under the Law Faculty. The years 1899 and 1900 in our fatherland's life were broken up. The second famine seized the eastern part of Russia and revolutionized the people's thought, placing before them the questions of evolution and revolution. The last ten years of the nineteenth century ran by under the sign of cultural-educational work on behalf of the nation. National books, national newspapers, national reading rooms, national theatres, even national operas, behold the line, sanctioned by law, along which at that time went the activities of the Russian intellect and especially of Russian youth. Political non-legalized activity traveled along the same paths. It was the day of "The Group of Free Labor," G. V. Plechanov, Axelred and Viera Zasulich; the organization, under N. Lenin, of the Russian Social Democratic Party; the organization of the Social Revolutionary Party, with the zealous participation of Gershuny and of the "Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," E. K. BreshkoBreshkovsky. Both of these non-legalized political currents maintained themselves on the icy surface of legalized social life. Under the form of legalized literary Marxism, there were Peter Struve, Bogucharsky-Jakovloff, and others, ("Novoe Slovo" and "Nachalo,") and under legalized nationalism there were N. K. Michaelovsky, V. G. Korolenko, V. V., (Vorontzoff,) and others, ("Russkoe Bogatstvo.") The legally permitted literary struggle of the two fundamental political and social currents awakened the youth and likewise divided them into two political camps. The workingmen's circles, at first " economists" and later "politicals "; peasant circles, at first "social educationals" and later the "political revolutionaries "; circles of "national rights" among the revolutionary formations of the intellectuals-these were the first watercourses of the non-legalized revolutionary work in Russia at the end of the last century. Among these currents of social and national thought Kerensky formed his political convictions. Love of the nation and of the unfortunate people was always growing and broadening in his honest breast. That love pushed him into the party which is nearest to the nation, the party of the peasantry and the workingmen, the party which has written on its flag, "Land and liberty for the whole working nation! By struggle you will obtain your rights!"—the party of the "social revolutionists." About 1904, the year of Kerensky's finishing with the Law Faculty of Petrograd University, the social revolutionists had already definitely come together in a compact body and sent forth the heroic political martyrs, Karpovich, Balmashoff, Egor Sazonoff, and others. These men took upon their own shoulders the heavy task of freeing their fatherland from the Czar's life-guardsmen, the tyrants of the nation, the Ministers Bogolyepoff, Sipyagin, and Pleve. The Revolution of 1905-06 All his time which was free from studious occupations and social activities A. F. Kerensky spent with the family of L. Baranovsky, a brother of the Tashkent General, Baranovsky. He married Olga Llvovna, the daughter of L. Baranovsky, in the year 1904. After finishing with the university Kerensky turned entirely to social and political activity. The social revolutionists already had a solid organization in Petrograd. To one of its party groups Kerensky united himself, presently paying for this by arrest and imprisonment. Events in the meanwhile were developing. After the punishing" of V. K. Pleve by the social revolutionists on July 25, 1904, and of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexanderovich, Feb. 5, 1905, the Government went backward. There appeared a manifesto on Feb. 18, 1905, about attracting into the Government people clothed with the nation's confidence. About the 6th there was an announcement about the establishment of local councilors, as they were called, the "Bulginsky" Duma, but it did not satisfy a single class of the population. Then this period ended, Oct. 17, 1905, in the granting of a Constitution, with freedom and a legislative Duma. The First Duma met on April 27, 1906, That Duma was the "nation's wrath." The nation had finally met the Government, and expressed to it directly and frankly its thoughts about land and freedom. In answer to this the Czar and his Government dissolved the First Duma. The calling of the Second Governmental Duma was set for February, 1907. All the parties, already fully organized, hastily began to prepare. A. F. Kerensky took an active part in the elections. At that time the party of social revolutionists gave up the idea of " boycotting" the Duma and announced an "entrance into it. In Petrograd was formed a circle of "Land and Liberty," occupied in preparing for the election of "S. Rs." (social revolutionists) to the Second Governmental Duma. In this organization Kerensky was a zealous member. I recall his young, thin figure-lively, active, always burning with internal fire. About him at that time they were saying: "Always in the vanguard with bared breast." His strong speeches burned with the fire of feeling. His characteristically fluent words always astonished with their directness, precision, and quickness; his tactical suggestions carried with them the stamp of Governmental wisdom. The Period of Reaction The Second Duma was scorched in the fire of reaction and espionage. Many of the social democrats and social revolutionists went into prison, into exile, to the galleys, and to the scaffold. On June 3, 1907, a new election law was published, creating a Third Governmental Duma of the nobles. Reaction was violent. Officialism took vengeance on the nation and the nation's friends for the late defeat, and it struck hard. The courts were flooded with political prosecutions; the prisons were filled with arrested men and women. To Siberia and to the galleys long processions were dragged. The executioners could not get through with their hangings. A. F. Kerensky took up the defense of his friends in the party. Having connected himself with one of the most famous members of the bar, and occupying himself solely with judicial work, which he carried on so successfully as to promise him a very high rank in the law, Kerensky turned aside from all this to throw himself into the defense of "politicals" without distinction of party, but most frequently of all on behalf of "S. Rs." Out of all the numerous political trials of the period of reaction the one in which Kerensky shone most brilliantly was that of the Dashnaktzutiuns, a socialistic Armenian party closely allied to the social revolutionists. In this trial the Czar's investigators and judges manufactured false documents. When in 1913 began the famous Beiliss trial, Kerensky offered his advocacy to set forth that matter; and for the bringing out of a resolution of protest he was sentenced by the Government to one month in prison. However, the Government at that time did not succeed in locking him up, for he was already a member of the Fourth Duma. The shooting down of the workingmen in the Lena gold mines of the Lena Association caused such suffering in the soul of Kerensky that he decided to go himself to Lena and investigate the en tire matter. As a result he not only laid the case before the Duma but gave out a separate pamphlet, "Truth About Lena -which was immediately confiscated by the Government. Kerensky as a Deputy At the time of the elections for the Fourth Duma, in the 300th year of the House of Romanoff, the socialist political parties almost entirely disappeared from the stage. Their members were scattered like dust; some languished in the galleys, in the prisons, and in exile; some ran across the frontiers; some resorted to living in huts and went into common day labor. The Socialist Revolutionary Party, inasmuch as it was most dangerous to the Government, was visited with the heaviest penalties. The Government sought to thrust a knife into its very heart. What the Czar's executioners could not do was accomplished by his spies-Azeef and his followers. To go to the Fourth Duma under the flag of social revolution was impossible. The situation required conspiracy, the painting of the outside with "protective coloring." Thus arose the "Workingmen," the "labor group." The labor group played the rôle of protective color also in the First Duma for all social revolutionists who did not want to be subjected to party discipline in the matter of "boycotting" the First Duma. A boycott of the First Duma was announced by the social revolutionists because that party considered it necessary to call, not a Duma, but a Constitutional Assembly. Now the labor group had to play the rôle of protective coloring not only for those already emancipated from party discipline, but for those actual members of the party who had decided to serve as a speaking trumpet of the national will in the Fourth Duma. However, that unavoidable ruse of political warfare was seen through by the Czar's Government, and besides Kerensky not a single "S. R." went into the Governmental Duma. Kerensky got into the Fourth Duma from a small town, Volsk, of the Province of Saratov, from the Second Dictrict of the city electors. The Government's spies did not succeed in getting evidence against Kerensky, so that the formal fact of his election was declared in accordance with strict law. Shadowed Everywhere by Spies The Czar's Government decided upon a contest with the nation's friends, who were consequently the Government's sworn enemies, and the means used were the usual ones-its spies. Every step of Kerensky was known to the Police Department: when and where he went, or had gone, how much time he spent, with whom he went out, what he spoke about, what he had done, &c. Because of his liveliness of character and quickness of movement he received from the Police Department the characterizing nickname of "Quick One." The Police Department penetrated by its spies almost into Kerensky's very family. Kerensky took into his family a well-recommended young man, a certain Mitya Alimoff. According to Kerensky's own statement, Alimoff became a "great pet," that is, he was caressed and encouraged and helped in every thing he could do or be, and was sent to study at the Petrograd Psycho-Nerve Institute. Here that Mitya Alimoff was by the Secret Service Department taken as its dirty weapon. It is unknown when or how the unfortunate youth fell into the clutches of the Secret Service; it is only known that he sold Kerensky for 20 rubles a month. When Kerensky learned of this, his grief was boundless. "If you only knew how I pity Mitya," said Kerensky to me. "Indeed, it is not his fault. He is young and inexperienced. It is the fault of these who ruined him. It is the fault of that accursed old rotten organization." When Mitya Alimoff was arrested by the Saratoff Central Committee as a provocator, not long afterward, there was sent to the address of A. F. Kerensky, already Minister of Justice, a telegram: "Shoot, he has confessed." Kerensky immediately answered the Saratoff Committee with an official telegram to this effect: “If it is possible, iberate Alimoff. He will find his judge is own conscience." he labor group organization of the Fourth Duma moved Kerensky up to the rôle of a leader of that faction. I shall not dwell upon his five years' activity in that capacity. I will say only that there was not one question concerning the rights of the people to "land and liberty" which remained unilluminated by Kerensky in the Duma Tribune. Passionate, convincing speeches of the nation's friend, to my regret, reached the nation only in the form of extracts or simply continuous wide empty spaces. They sometimes compelled even the open enemies of the nation, such as Makaroff II. and Zamislovsky, to think. Read or merely turn over the pages of the little book, "Activity of the Faction of the Labor Group in the Fourth Governmental Duma," prohibited and excluded from circulation by the Czar's Government, and you will see how firmly and passionately Kerensky was fighting for the rights of the entire laboring people, especially for the peasantry. In July, 1915, on Kerensky's initiative, there was called at Petrograd, in his rooms, a conference of the representatives of the national currents-labor, national socialists, old and young social revolutionists-for the purpose of working out a general tactical platform for an active political struggle with the old administration. At that conference Kerensky stepped forth with brilliant speeches about the pressing necessity of the unity of all national currents and of the regeneration of the party of social revolutionists, and about the working up of a program of the party in connection with Russia's political and economic situation. As a Lecturer and Writer Closely connected with Petrograd, Kerensky, however, did not limit his activity merely to the capital. All vacations of the Duma he usually spent in traveling the provinces, Moscow, Saratoff, Samar, Kazan, Charkov, Volsk, Tashkent, Lena, Samarkand, &c. Where, indeed, was not the "Quick One" making work for the department of police spies? In every place where he was, if the smoldering coals of partisan political work did not at once break into flame, yet all this began to burn in the hearts and minds of "sedimentary" workingmen, awakening in them a common party consciousness, drawing them to a new nearness to the nation, to work for its happiness. I remember in October, 1915, at Samar they received from Kerensky a telegram: "I shall come the 29th, arrange a lecture. Theme: Military Session of the Duma.'" The information was spread. Whispers started. They arranged with those “responsible." They got permission. An old comrade, Joseph Abramovich Tzadikoff, arranged the financial part of the lecture. The "Quick One" arrived. He flew everywhere. With jokes and stories of Petrograd he awakened and sprinkled every one with living water. On the second day came the lecture. The Olympic Theatre was packed with people— workingmen, peasants, intellectuals. A warm, passionate speech was poured forth like a stream during the course of two hours. The situation of the country became clear, clear to painfulness and sorrow. "Oh, how well I have spent this day!" cried Tzadikoff, returning from the lecture and lying down on his bed. Inside of an hour he died of ruptured heart. Kerensky had given him the last joy of his life, joy before dying, originating in the ideal heights of the soul. same I remember another October at the same Samar, the October of 1916. Again a telegram from Kerensky and again the contents. * ** The second part of the lecture was presented by Kerensky with such an uplift that the auditorium fairly shook with thunders of applause. Especially good were the concluding, almost prophetic, words of the lecturer. I recollect them very well. "But on the change of all that old order," said Kerensky, "or rather disorder, will soon follow a new order. It will bring to us democracy, unified economic life, and democracy is already coming. I already clearly hear the steps of the nation. Prepare to meet it. Prepare to go with it, foot with foot and hand in hand." * * * Coming out of the Olympic those who had attended the lecture did not go away, but stayed waiting Kerensky's exit. The youths consulted together to arrange an ovation for him; but he withdrew unnoticed from the building. The huge crowd, dammed up in two streets, did not depart for half an hour. The alarmed police sent out a strong detachment of mounted guards, but they were unnecessary. On finding that Kerensky had already gone, the crowd peacefully departed. If it is added that the whole gross proceeds of the lecture were given by Kerensky to the publication of the national journal of Samar, the News, closed down by the administration afterward at the fifth number, and to the help of political exiles, it is hardly necessary to say that Kerensky's lectures were one of the abounding means for freeing the nation from age-long political and social oppression. Such a burning activity did not permit him to occupy himself diligently with literature; yet he wrote some brilliant articles on political themes. So, for example, in 1905-6 he worked for the journal Burovyestnik. I especially recollect one of his articles, in which he brought out the thought that an election to the Constituent Assembly ought to be held among the soldiers still to be found in Siberia after the war with Japan. Kerensky's book, "Truth About Lena," appeared as an intense cry of a heart sickened by the workingmen's situation. In recent years Kerensky's articles on political questions the appeared in national journals, Zavyety and Severneya Zapisky. On the Eve of Revolution It is a psychic peculiarity of Kerensky that he has a "feeling in the nerves "" for political events, which often amounts to prophetic foresight-what is called intuition, sometimes called the "sixth sense." This faculty of presentiment was shown in Kerensky's speeches in the Duma delivered several months before the revolution. Thus, in the session of Oct. 16, 1916, Kerensky said: Gentlemen, now you yourselves see that all which it is possible to say about a Government, and which it is possible to allege against a Government, all is said. We have heard not from the mouths of those on the left, not from Russian liberals, but from mouths of Octobrists and Conservatives, a declaration that the G |