7. Visionary or clairvoyant

Mid-March 1917

The first Russian Revolution broke out. Abdication of the Tsar, Social Democrat government, Kerensky took power.

September 24, 1917

Henri Lambert wrote another long letter to Colonel House that combined confidence and mental acuity. He described the situation in Russia, which since February 1917 had been overtaken by the events that we now know about. He wrote him that this situation "is very nearly hopeless" and added this incisive judgment, namely, that “Kerensky may be the only possible man in Russia, but he is a sentimental much more than an intellectual idealist, and can therefore only be a second or third rate statesman – whereas a superhuman statesman is needed. That the Russian nation was going to be in anarchy for several years was very nearly a certainty from the first day of the revolution." The facts would soon prove him right. Lenin would be this "superhuman", but at the terrible price that we now know.

November 1917.

The Russian Bolsheviks stepped up their pressure. Collapse of the army, chaos and disturbances of October. Takeover by Lenin November 7, 1917.