During the march an orderly came to inform me that General Krymov, who was marching at the head of our column, wanted me. I found him with our General Staff busily reading a letter which had just come. Whilst I was still some way off he called out to me: "Great news! At last they have killed that scoundrel Rasputin.!" The newspapers announced the bare facts, letters from the capital gave the details. Of the three assassins, I knew two intimately. What had been their motive? Why, having killed a man whom they regarded as a menace to the country, had they not admitted their action before everyone? Why had they not admitted their action before everyone? Why had they not relied on justice and public opinion instead of trying to hide all trace of the murder by burying the body under the ice? We thought over the news with great anxiety.

Towards the winter of 1916 the bloody struggles which had been waged throughout the summer and autumn drew to a close. We consolidated our position, filled in the gaps in our effective forces, and reorganized generally.

The experience gained from two years of warfare had not been acquired in vain. We had learnt a great deal, and the shortcomings for which we had paid so dearly were now discounted. A number of generals who had not kept pace with modern needs had had to give up their commands, and life had brought other more capable men to the fore. But nepotism, which permeated all spheres of Russian life, still brought unworthy men into important positions too often.

After two years of warfare, the Army was not what it had been. The majority of the original officers and men, especially the infantry, had been killed or put out of action. The new officers, hastily trained, and lacking military education and espirit de corps, could not make satisfactory instructors of the men. They found difficulty in enduring the dangers, fatigue, and privations of life at the front, and war to them meant nothing but suffering. It was impossible for them to inspire the troops and put fresh heart into their men.

Neither were the troops what they had been. The original soldiers, inured to fatigue and privation, and brave in battle, were better than ever; but there were few of them left. The new contingents were by no means satisfactory. The reserve forces were primarily fathers of families who had been dragged away from their villages, and were warriors only in spite of themselves. For they had forgotten that once upon a time they had been soldiers; they hated war, and thought only of returning to their homes as soon as possible.

Those of us who loved our country and the Army were terribly anxious at the continual changes in the Ministry, the conflicts between the Government and the Duma, the ever-increasing number of petitions and appeals addressed to the Tsar by many influential organizations, each one demanding popular control, and, above all, by the alarming rumours concerning certain persons in the Tsar's entourage.

The patriots amongst the High Command suffered deeply as they watched the Tsar making fatal mistakes whilst the danger grew and came ever nearer; they held mistaken views, but they believed in them sincerely; they contemplated the possibility of a revolution from within the Palace to be effected by means of a bloodless coup d'etat.

General Krymov, my immediate superior, was one of those who was strongly in favour of this plan. During the long discussions we had on many an evening he tried again and again to prove to me that things could not go on as they were, that we must prevent a catastrophe, and that we ought to find men who, without a day's delay, would remove the Tsar by means of revolution from within the Palace.

The first thing I noticed in Petersburg was the profusion of red ribbon. Everyone was decorated with it, not only soldiers, but students, chauffeurs, cab-drivers, middle-class folk, women, children, and many officers. Men of some account, such as old generals and former aides-de-camp to the Tsar, wore it too.

I expressed my astonishment to an old comrade of mine at seeing him thus adorned. He tried to laugh it off, and said jokingly: "Why, my dear fellow, don't you know that it's the latest fashion?"

I considered this ridiculous adornment absolutely useless. Throughout my stay in the capital I wore the Tsarevich's badge, the distinguishing mark of my old regiment, on my epaulettes, and, of course, I wore no red rag.

I knew Kornilov personally through having dined with him once at the Tsar's table in Moghilev, and I had spent an hour or two in the same railway-carriage with him.

Small, spare, swarthy, of the Mongolian type, with a little goatee beard and a black moustache, he spoke in short, abrupt sentences. One had only to see him to realize that he was a man of indomitable energy and great breadth of mind.

In the course of the last few months my command had received considerable reinforcements. In spite of heavy losses, its strength was almost normal. We were well supplied with artillery, technical equipment, telephones, telegraphs, and so on, which we had taken from the enemy. When the Reds had succeeded in making themselves masters of the Kuban district they had recourse to conscription there. Now these forced recruits were deserting en masse, and coming over to us to defend their homes. They were good fighters, but once their own village was cleared of Reds, many of them left the ranks to cultivate their land once more.

The ravages of Civil War increased economic distress and disintegration. There was not much heavy fighting, but a vast amount of looting and raiding and often wanton destruction, not only of food and goods, but of the means of producing either. By the spring of 1920, after two years and a half of Soviet rule, the situation was almost the exact opposite of what it had been in November, 1917. Political anarchy had been replaced by order and a strong central authority had been restored; but economic self-sufficiency had vanished. The production of food had fallen to a minimum, commerce was utterly stagnant, and the wheels of industry had ceased to turn.

The Polish War might well have been the last straw to break the back of the overburdened Russian camel, but the Bolsheviks, as they showed repeatedly during those cruel years, were never so active and determined as when their cause seemed desperate. The spirit of national patriotism aroused by the Polish invasion enabled them to rally the country's flagging energies. Despite its defeat before Warsaw, the Red Army had enough vigour left in the winter of 1920 to turn savagely against Wrangel, the last of the "White" generals on Soviet soil, and fling him out of the Crimea into the sea.

The Bolsheviks had triumphed; their authority and their Communist system (Military or Militant) was everywhere established, but the cost had been terrific. Not only Moscow and the urban centres, but the whole country had been reduced to destitution, misery and semi-starvation, with the added scourge of pestilence to work greater havoc than the sword of war. There exists documentary evidence to show that Lenin had sweeping reforms in mind at the beginning of 1921, but before they could be formulated popular discontent with intolerable conditions flared out in a revolt of the Red fleet at Kronstadt. The revolt was suppressed by force, and the Bolsheviks ascribed it to the wiles of counter-revolutionary agitators, but for Lenin it was the Writing on the Wall. The echoes of the shots which `liquidated' the Kronstadt mutiny had hardly died away before a fresh and more dangerous outbreak occurred in the Province of Tambof, where the peasants began forcibly to resist the food requisitions. This, too, was described as rebellion fomented by Social-Revolutionaries, but troops sent to suppress it made common cause with the rebels. Lenin acted without delay. He ordered the requisitions to be stopped and rushed into the affected area supplies of kerosene, salt, tools, clothing and other commodities most urgently needed by the peasants, and had them sold in the village markets, which had almost ceased to exist during the period of Military Communism. By sheer force of personality Lenin forced the Communist Party Congress, then in session, to a tacit acceptance of the reopening of markets on a`free trade' basis elsewhere, and informed it that the unpopular requisitions would henceforth be replaced by a tax in kind, "the single food tax", which should average ten to fifteen per cent of the total annual crop. When the Congress ended, it was committed to a new economic programme that would sweep away much of the artificial Communism of the past three years.

The continual advance has reduced the Army's effective force. The rear has become too vast. Disorganization is all the greater because of the re-equipment system which Supreme Headquarters have adopted; they have turned over this duty to the troops and take no share in it themselves.

The war is becoming to some a means of growing rich; re-equipment has degenerated into pillage and peculation. Each unit strives to secure as much as possible for itself, and seizes everything that comes to hand. What cannot be used on the spot is sent back to the interior and sold at a profit. The rolling-stock belonging to the troops has taken on enormous dimensions - some regiments have two hundred carriages in their wake. A considerable number of troops have retreated to the interior, and many officers are away on prolonged missions, busy selling and exchanging loot.

The Army is absolutely demoralized, and is fast becoming a collection of tradesmen and profiteers. All those employed on re-equipment work - that is to say, nearly all the officers - have enormous sums of money in their possession; as a result, there has been an outbreak of debauchery, gambling and wild orgies.

The Polish Army which has been fighting side by side with us against the common enemy of liberty and order has just laid down its arms and signed a preliminary peace with the oppressors and traitors who designate themselves the Soviet Government of Russia. We are now alone in the struggle which will decide the fate not only of our country but of the whole of humanity. Let us strive to free our native land from the yoke of these Red scum who recognize neither God nor country, who bring confusion and shame in their wake. By delivering Russia over to pillage and ruin, these infidels hope to start a world-wide conflagration.

People of Russia! Alone in its struggle against the oppressor, the Russian Army has been maintaining an unequal contest in its defence of the last strip of Russian territory on which law and truth hold sway. Conscious of my responsibility, I have tried to anticipate every possible contingency from the very beginning.

I now order the evacuation and embarkation at the Crimean ports of all those who are following the Russian Army.

I have done everything that human strength can do to fulfill my duty to the Army and the population. We cannot foretell our future fate. We have no other territory than the Crimea. We have no money. Frankly as always, I warn you all of what awaits you. May God grant us strength and wisdom to endure this period of Russian misery, and to survive it.