ABSTRACT
The stand taken by the Social Democratic Deputies was not very dissimilar from that of Kerensky and the Trudoviki. Like Kerensky's statement, the Socialist Declaration began with an attack on the horrors of war; praised the international socialist movement "with the German proletariat at its head" for attempts to prevent it; protested that the Russian government by its last minute closing of journals and prohibition of meetings had stopped the Russian proletariat from joining in the effort to avert war. In its outlook for the war's end, the Socialist Declaration departed somewhat from Kerensky's statement, in the direction of a greater degree of pacifism and internationalism. Kerensky, the noted labor lawyer and future rival of Lenin, took up their defense in court and intervened elsewhere on their behalf, even appealing to Foreign Minister Sazonov. The minister offered to forward Kerensky's appeal with its legal documentation to the Tsar, but as Khvostov lasted only two months, nothing came of it.
