October ii, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
accordance with the woUare ol their country and of Europe. 
And the fact that one of tlie leaders is miUtary by birth and 
training does not necessarily imply that to him the idta ot 
order is nearer and dearer than it is to his opponent, whose 
legal training and traditional party education were not less 
indispensable in coping with the situation. Only in method, 
people thought, was ther.^ difference between them. Whereas 
Korniloff wished to introduce at the ]'"ront the discipline 
which he hoped would afterwards penetrate into the heart of 
the country, Kerenski believed in first restoring peace at the 
heart of the country, and thus ipso facto restoring the health 
of the army. Since this was apparently the only difference 
between the two, progrannnes, people longed for a coalition of 
these two striking and powerful personalities. So after 
e.xamining the question sufficiently tu prevent them from 
condemning either one of the leaders, anxious voices were 
raised asking : " \\'hy not combine the efforts of these two 
protagonists ? Why not have Kerenski at home and Korniloff 
in the firing line ? " 
Foredoomed to Failure 
It is the main object of this article to put before the reader 
some possible explanation as to why, even though the two 
leaders had done evervthing in their power to avoid conflict, 
such a combination was foredoomed to failure. 
Not in the political difference between Kerenski and 
Korniloff do we find the main clue. It is true that to a distant 
observer, the most striking facts are, that before the revolu- 
tion the one leader was an army potentate and the other the 
most progressive member of the Duma, and that behind the 
name of the one, dishonest reactionaries might have hidden 
themselves, just as dishonest extremists might be lurking 
Ijehind the other. This does not imply that either of them 
would refuse to subscribe to the motto of freedom for Russia 
and freedom for Europe. 
However, if not in i)()litics alone, the clue may be sought in 
those realms where changes are less rapid and differences are 
morj profound and weighty than they are in party strife and 
distinctions. If we substitute for the name of Kerenski that 
of the class whose product he is — nam«'ly the Inlelligenlzia, 
and for the name of Korniloff, the term given to the hyper- 
product of age-long Russian militarism- -the present Cossack 
class — then, and then only, w ill the problem stand clear before 
our eyes. 
The Socialists and other working men, the Trudoviks ana 
other peasant parties, followed Kerertski, and many of them 
even made him their mouth-piece, merely because tiiey recog- 
nised, him as one of the Intelligentzia, from whom a protest 
would come better than from one of themselves. Korniloff 
was followed by representatives of the regular army and 
various other institutions, because they recognised in him 
the essentially military spirit and because they thought 
that nothing, for the moment, could so effectually restore 
order as the old military method. Thus in the inmost mind 
of the two groups there were the two essential ideas which 
had always clashed one with another from the ver;j' beginning 
of the Russian State : extreme individualism and extreme 
collectivism. Extreme individualism is at once the vice 
and the virtue of the Intelligentzia. 
As to the meaning of this term, it is almost unnecessary 
to explain it further, in view of the great number of books 
on the subject which have appeared in this country during 
the war. Practically all modern Russian literature, art, 
science and music is the product of the mind of this class, 
lien and women of the aristocracy and men and women of 
the peasant class belong to it only when they cease essentially 
to belong to their own class and become merged in the 
Intelligentzia. The term bourgeoisie has now been applied to 
them by Extrtfne Socialists— the name by which foimerly 
only the aristocracy and bureaucracy were known. But 
this is an abuse of the term which will rectify itself fairly soon. 
The Intelligentzia did not make the conquest of the terri- 
tories which form modern Russia, nor do they directly rule 
the countr\^ but, as is now well known, they are the makers of 
what is called Russian culture, and they have a power of assim- 
ilation unknown in other classes in Russia. Xowhere else 
do tiw representatives of various Eastern and Western 
nationalities, including Jews and Caucasians, mix so success- 
fuUv, hence they arc nowhere less Slavonic or more " modern 
Russian." So far they cannot be accused of having been pah- 
Russian, as were most of the mentbers of the old regime, nor 
ha\e they run after Great Russia supremacy, an idea still 
cherished by many among the military party. 
But however peculiar to Russia tlie class of the Intelli- 
gentzia may be, the meaning of the term is better understood 
in thus country than is the real meaning of the term Cossack. 
\nA, indeed, without reference to histon,-. and an analysis of 
the existing groups of Cossacks, it is difficult to realise that a 
person so called may Ik' a Tungus of pure bloL^l or a Buriat 
of Transbaikalia, or a Ukrainian patriot, or simply a Russian 
peasant born and bred to a military life. 
\A ho are the Cossacks really ? To what race and nation 
do they belong ? What are the distinctions between the 
Cossacks and the soldiers of the regular anny, or the ordinary 
Russian citizens ? 'Was it nierely an accident that Kornilofi's 
\enture was supported by the bulk of the Cossacks ? Why 
were the Don Cossacks heard of in this coimection more than 
any one of tlie other eleven divisions of the Cossacks of 
Russia ? 
To answer all these questions it is necessary to bear in mind 
that the Cossacks at three different periods in their history 
stood for three different principles. These three stages 
correspond to the following periods of time : 
(i) The end of the fifteenth, the whole of the sixteenth, and 
a great part of the seventeenth centuries ; 
(2) The eighteenth and the first thirty years of the nine- 
teenth centuries; 
(3) The present day. 
The name Cossack is imdoubtedly of Turko-Tartar origin, 
and is strongly reminiscent of the almost identical word 
Kaizak-Kirghis. the name of the powerful tribe of Russian 
Central Asia. Freely translated, this term is usually rendered 
by " free man," " man free as the steppe bird," etc., the idea 
of personal freedom lying at the foundation of the original 
Cossack community. It is often supposed that the original 
Kaiz'ak tribe was a conglomeration of rebels and refugees 
from various Turkish tribes whose strict organisation was re- 
sented by some of their members. The origin of the European 
Cossacks is accounted for in a similar manner. The story 
that they played the role of Eastern Crusaders who united 
to defend the Christian countries of Muscovy, Lithuania, Poland, 
and Roumania against the Tartar hordes, is one of those 
beautiful legends which are unsupported by history. As a 
matter of fact, the very reason for the formation of their 
community was the wish for a ruptine with the countries from 
which they came, that is from Great Russia. Poland, probably 
Roumania and others. 
These rebels may have liad various reasons for fheir dis- 
content. The introduction of a more rigorous serfdom 
is usually assigned as one of these causes, but the new 
economic condition of the modernised States was probably 
a more important factor. It would seem that the whole of 
the first Cossack movement was a protest against the complex 
State organisation and the industrial development that came 
to the East from the West. And indeed, we find that the 
Cossack national community returned to more or less nomadic 
conditions, with hunting, cattle-breeding and trading as its 
sole occupations. The Cossacks were for a long time strongly 
opposed to agriculture. It was not till later that their 
offensi\e and defensive warfare with the Turks forced them 
to adopt a military regime. In any case, it appears to be true 
of the forbears of" the Cossacks that class distinctions did not 
exist, and that they felt themselves to be nationally inde- 
pendent of their original homes. South-eastern Europe be- 
tween the Dnieper, the Don, and the Lower Volga, depopulated 
and devastated by the Tartar invaders, provided them with 
a natural and favourable retreat. 
First Cossack Movement 
It is difficult to form an accurate idea as to their exact racial 
composition, but since the Cossacks settled in Little Russian 
territory, and since the natives of this territory shared the ill- 
feelings' of the Cossacks towards the States of Moscow and 
Poland-Lithuania, it is fairly certain that admixture with the 
Little Russian strengthened the national feeling of the 
Cossacks. Little Russian blood and the Little Russian lan- 
guage would therefore predominate, while fusion with the 
Asiatics must have been very slight, though in dress and mode 
of warfare the Cossacks imitated their Turkish foe. 
The oldest and most military divisions of the Cossacks 
were the Western Ukrainians, Zaporozhians or Syech, who 
lived along the River Dnieper, and the old Don Cossack 
commnuity settled on the River Don. The Don community, 
in contradistinction to the militarv' organisation of th« 
Ukrainians, has had the family group organisation, but both 
were ver\- democratic. At the same time they were very 
obedient to their chiefs, and the concomitants of progress, 
such as agriculture, modem weapons and modern warfare, 
have found access to tHem \-ery slowly. 
All the other old Cossack societies were secessions from 
these two. main groups. The relations of the Ukrainian Cos- 
sacks with Poland and of the- Don Cossacks with Moscow were 
very strained, yet tlies«'. States by their influence, more or 
less diplomatically exercised, did introduce some changes into 
Cossack societies during the seventeenth century. Among 
these changes the most obvious was the introduction of class 
distinctions. The classes were : starshiny, ciders ; donwvityie. 
