We soldiers at the front have been in the trenches for more than three years now. There is severe hunger here at the front. We get 1 lb. of bread and 1 oz. of meat.

In the original, one funt and five zolotniki.

We walk around in tatters, like beggars. At night we sit by the barbed wire for six hours at a stretch. We have lost the last shreds of our health, while at home our families are going hungry on their two sotkas of land.

A sotka is a linear measure marking a hundred sazhens (seven hundred feet) along

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roads. It was not normally used as a measure of land but here might indicate the extent of lands in a village as marked out along a road.

We soldiers at the front ask you comrades of the Provisional Government to put a speedy end to the war. It would be good for you comrades of the Provisional Government to do the fighting. When you drink and eat [you get] whatever your heart desires, and bullets and rockets aren't whining over your head, while we soldiers at the front sit by the wire fence at night and in the day we have to stand in the trench—even if you get a few hours of rest every day, the lice never give you any peace. Once more we demand a speedy peace from you the Provisional Government, and if you don't try to do this, Comrade Kerensky, then in the near future we are going to throw down our rifles and leave the front for the rear and destroy you, the Bourgeoisie. You need war and money, but we need life. Once more we demand a speedy peace. For now, that is your primary task. We ask you to carry out our decision. If not, it will be our sword and your head from your shoulders.