Though differing in a greater or lesser degree in its understanding of the social problems which the Revolution had to solve, though guilty, perhaps, along with Russian society, of many mistakes, yet the Russian Liberal Press showed an exceptional unanimity in the more important questions of a constitutional and national character: full power to the Provisional Government, Democratic reforms in the spirit of the programme of March 2nd,[25] war until victory along with the Allies, an All-Russia Constituent Assembly as the source of the supreme power and of the constitution of the country. In yet another respect has the Liberal Press left a good reputation behind it in history: in the days of lofty popular enthusiasm, as in the days of doubt, vacillation and general demoralisation, which distinguished the Revolutionary period of 1917, no place was found in it, nor in the Right Press either, for the distribution of German gold....
The appearance, on a large scale, of the new Socialist Press was accompanied by a series of unfavourable circumstances. It had no normal past, no traditions. Its prolonged life below the surface, the exclusively destructive method of action adopted by it, its suspicious and hostile attitude towards all authority, put a certain stamp on the whole tendency of this Press, leaving too little place and attention for creative work. The complete discord in thought, the contradictions and vacillation which reigned both within the Soviet and also among the party groups and within the parties, were reflected in the Press, just as much as the elemental pressure from below of irresistible, narrowly egotistic class demands; for neglect of these demands gave rise to the threat, which was once expressed by the "beauty and pride of the Revolution," the Kronstadt sailors to Tchernov, the Minister: "If you will not give us anything, Michael Alexandrovitch will." Finally, the Press was not uninfluenced by the appearance in it of a number of such persons as brought into it an atmosphere of uncleanness and perfidy. The papers were full of names, which had emerged from the sphere of crime, of the Secret Police and of international espionage. All these gentlemen--Tchernomazov (a provocator in the Secret Police and director of the pre-Revolutionary _Pravda_), Berthold (the same and also editor of the _Communist_), Dekonsky, Malinovsky, Matislavsky, those colleagues of Lenin and Gorky--Nahamkes, Stoutchka, Ouritsky, Gimmer (Soukhanov), and a vast number of equally notorious names--brought the Russian Press to a hitherto unknown degree of moral degradation.