ABSTRACT
A Soviet Government would have known how to adopt a suitable tone in its negotiations with the Allies, and the question of the revision of treaties and war-aims would at last have been established on a practical footing. But the Soviet was an advocate of adjustment and conciliation. It decided to create a Coalition Government. In this case the Soviet was making a grave political mistake, for the Coalition Government bungled the question of peace and negotiations with the Allies still more than the first, purely bourgeois, Government had done. The Socialists decided to participate in the Government in order to see that democratic principles were carried out in the foreign policy of the country. The propertied classes preferred to see a Social Revolutionist as Minister of Agriculture, a Social Democrat as Minister of Labour, a Socialist Food Controller, and even a Socialist War Minister, if only they could keep the foreign affairs in their own hands, which they did.
