Stories soon came to Emmeline’s ears about massive desertions from the army of
one of Britain’s allies, Russia, and of a growing demand from the Russian people
for peace. Such moves were supported by the Bolsheviks, an uncompromising,
Marxist revolutionary group who had opposed the war from the beginning; they
argued that the war exploited the poorest sections of society and served capi-
talist interests, thus sharpening rather than abolishing class differences. The call
to peace was contrary to the policy of Alexander Kerensky, head of the
Provisional Government, who was pledged to continue in the war despite the
fact that, since its outbreak, the Russians had suffered five and a half million
casualties. Kerensky was a Socialist Revolutionary, a member of a more
moderate socialist grouping that grew out of the populist tradition in Russia and
was identified mainly with the peasantry.
From her youth, the struggle for freedom under the autocratic rule of the
Czar had been of interest to Emmeline. When living in Russell Square, London,
many years ago, prominent Russian exiles such as Stepniak and Chaikovsky,
had attended gatherings in her house. Then when she moved back to
Manchester, two Russian women, a mother and daughter, activists in the
workers’ revolution, had visited her. Their stories about the hardship of life
under such an autocracy had deeply moved her.^1 Emmeline had rejoiced in the
overthrow of the Czar in the February 1917 revolution, seeing this as the first
step towards parliamentary democracy. But now she feared that the Provisional
Government would be pressurised to take Russia out of the war, a move that
would have disastrous consequences. A ‘premature peace’, on German terms,
she argued, ‘would rob the Russian people of the freedom for which they have
had their revolution, and would involve them in a far worse slavery than the
old’. Further, it would weaken the Eastern Front, lead also to Britain’s with-
drawal and the collapse of the Allied war strategy. The war had to go on until
‘real freedom’ rather than German domination had been secured.^2 To make
matters worse in Emmeline’s eyes, Sylvia was amongst those campaigning for
British and Russian withdrawal while the prominent Labour Party member
Ramsay MacDonald, who had opposed Britain’s entry into the war and wanted
a negotiated peace, was to visit Russia with some pacifists of the Left.
nancy kaufman
(Nancy Kaufman)
#1