This moment is of great historical importance, giving the key to the understanding of many later events. As a whole, deeply democratic in their personnel, views and conditions of life, _rejected by the Revolutionary Democracy_ with incredible harshness and cynicism, and finding no real support in the liberal circles in close touch with the Government, the Russian officers found themselves in a state of tragic isolation. This isolation and bewilderment served more than once afterwards as a fertile soil for outside influences, foreign to the traditions of the officer caste and to its former political character--influences which led to dissension, and in the end to fratricide. For there can be no doubt that all the power, all the organisation, both of the Red and of the White Armies, rested exclusively on the personality of the former Russian officer.
And if afterwards, in the course of three years of conflict, we have witnessed the rise of two conflicting forces in the Russian public life of the anti-Bolshevist camp, we must seek for their original source not in political differences only, but also in that work of Cain towards the officers' caste, which was wrought by the Revolutionary Democracy from the first days of the Revolution.
As everyone realised that the "new order" and the Front itself are on the verge of collapse, it was obvious that officers should have attempted some organisation to meet such a contingency. But the advocates of action were lying in prison; the Chief Council of the Officers' Union, which was best suited for this task, had been broken up by Kerensky in the latter days of August. The majority of the responsible leaders of the Army were perturbed by a terrible and not unfounded fear for the fate of the Russian officers. In this respect the correspondence between General Kornilov and General Doukhonin is very characteristic. After the Bolshevist _coup d'état_ on November 1 (14), 1917, General Kornilov wrote to Doukhonin from his prison in Bykhov:
"Foreseeing the further course of events, I think that it is necessary for you to take such measures as would create a favourable atmosphere, while thoroughly safeguarding Headquarters, for a struggle against the coming Anarchy."