CHAPTER VI

This Council, in which all classes of the population will be represented, and in which the delegates elected to the Democratic Conference will also participate, will be given the rightof addressing questions to the government and of securing replies to them in a definite period of time, of working out legislative acts and discussing all those questions which will be presented for consideration by the Provisional Government, as well as those which will arise on its own initiative. Resting on the co-operation of such a Council, the government, preserving, in accordance with its pledge, the unity of the governmental power created by the Revolution, will regard it its duty to consider the great public significance of such a Council in all its acts up to the time when the Constituent Assembly gives full and complete representation to all classes of the population of Russia.

This Preliminary Parliament was really another Duma—that is, it was a very limited parliamentary body. Its life was short and quite uneventful. It assembled for the first time on October 8th and was dispersed by the Bolsheviki on November 7th. When it assembled there were 555 members—the number fixed by the decree of the Provisional Government. Of these, 53 were Bolsheviki, but these withdrew almost at the opening with three others, thus reducing the actual membership of the body to less than five hundred. Even with the Bolsheviki withdrawn, when Kerensky appeared before the Preliminary Parliament on November 6th and made his last appeal, a resolution expressing confidence in his government was carried only by a small majority. Only about three hundred members were in attendance on this occasion, and of these 123 voted the expression of confidence, while 102 voted against it, and 26 declined to vote at all.

The Bolsheviki had forced the United Executive Committee to convene a new All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and the date of its meeting had been fixed at November 7th. While the elections and arrangements for this Congress were proceeding, the Bolsheviki were actively andopenly organizing an uprising. In their papers and at their meetings they announced that on November 7th there would be an armed uprising against the government. Their intentions were, therefore, thoroughly well known, and it was believed that the government had taken every necessary step to repress any attempt to carry those intentions into practice. It was said that of the delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets-numbering 676 as against more than one thousand at the former Congress of peasant Soviets alone—a majority were Bolsheviki. It was charged that the Bolsheviki had intimidated many workers into voting for their candidates; that they had, in some instances, put forward their men as anti-Bolsheviki and secured their election by false pretenses; that they had practised fraud in many instances. It was quite certain that a great many Soviets had refused to send delegates, and that many thousands of workers, and these all anti-Bolsheviki, had simply grown weary and disgusted with the whole struggle. Whatever the explanation might be, the fact remained that of the 676 delegates 390 were generally rated as Bolsheviki, while 230 were Socialist-Revolutionists and Mensheviki. Not all of the Socialist-Revolutionists could be counted as anti-Bolsheviki, moreover. There were fifty-six delegates whose position was not quite clearly defined, but who were regarded as being, if not Bolsheviki, at least anti-government. For the first time in the whole struggle the Bolsheviki apparently had a majority of delegates in a working-class convention.

On the night of the 6th, a few hours before the opening of the Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviki struck the blow they had been so carefully planning. They were not met with the resistance they had expected—for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained. Kerensky recognized that it was useless for him to attempt to carry onthe fight. The Bolsheviki had organized their Red Guards, and these, directed by military leaders, occupied the principal government buildings, such as the central telephone and telegraph offices, the military-staff barracks, and so on. Part of the Petrograd garrison joined with the Bolsheviki, the other part simply refusing to do anything. On the morning of November 7th the members of the Provisional Government were arrested in the Winter Palace, but Kerensky managed to escape. The Bolshevikcoup d'étatwas thus accomplished practically without bloodshed. A new government was formed, called the Council of People's Commissaries, of which Nikolai Lenine was President and Leon Trotzky Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was thus begun. Kerensky's attempt to rally forces enough to put an end to this dictatorship was a pathetic failure, as it was bound to be. It was like the last fitful flicker with which a great flame dies. The masses wanted peace—for that they would tolerate even a dictatorship.

The defenders and supporters of the Bolsheviki have made much of the fact that there was very little bloodshed connected with the successful Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd. That ought not to be permitted, however, to obscure the fundamental fact that it was a militarycoup d'état, the triumph of brute force over the will of the vast majority of the people. It was a crime against democracy. That the people were passive, worn out, and distracted, content to wait for the Constituent Assembly, only makes the Bolshevik crime appear the greater. Let us consider the facts very briefly. Less than three weeks away was the date set for the Constituent Assembly elections. Campaigns for the election of representatives to that great democratic convention were already in progress. It was to be the most democratic constitutional convention that ever existed in any country, its members being elected by the entire population, every man and woman in Russia being entitled to vote. The suffrage was equal, direct, universal, and secret.

Moreover, there was a great democratic reconstruction of the nation actually in progress at the time. The building up of autonomous democratic local governing bodies, in the shape of a new type of zemstvos, was rapidly progressing.The old-time zemstvos had been undemocratic and did not represent the working-people, but the new zemstvos were composed of representatives nominated and elected by universal suffrage, equal, secret, and direct. Instead of being very limited in their powers as the old zemstvos were, the new zemstvos were charged with all the ordinary functions of local government. The elections to these bodies served as an admirable practical education in democracy, making it more certain than would otherwise have been the case that the Russian people would know how to use their new political instrument so as to secure a Constituent Assembly fully representing their will and their desire.

At the same time active preparations for holding the election of members to the Constituent Assembly were actually under way. The Socialist parties were making special efforts to educate the illiterate voters how to use their ballots correctly. The Provisional Government, on its part, was pushing the preparations for the elections as rapidly as possible. All over the country special courts were established, in central places, to train the necessary workers so that the elections might be properly conducted. Above all, the great problem of the socialization of the land which had been agitated for so many years had now reached the stage at which its solution might almost have been said to be complete. The National Soviet of Peasants, together with the Socialist Revolutionary party, had formulated a law on the subject which represented the aspiration and the best thought of the leaders of the peasants' movement. That law had been approved in the Council of Ministers and was ready for immediate promulgation. Peasant leaders like Chernov, Rakitnikov, Vikhiliaev, and Maslov had put an immense amount of work into the formulation of this law, whichaimed to avoid anarchy, to see to it that instead of an individualistic scramble by the peasants for the land, in small and unorganized holdings, the problem should be scientifically dealt with, lands being justly distributed among the peasant communes, and among the peasants who had been despoiled, and large estates co-operatively organized and managed.

All this the Bolsheviki knew, for it was common knowledge. There is no truth whatever in the claim set up by many of the apologists for the Bolsheviki that they became enraged and resorted to desperate tactics because nothing effective was being done to realize the aims of the Revolution, to translate its ideals into fact. Quite the contrary is true.The Bolshevik insurrection was precipitated by its leaders precisely because they saw that the Provisional Government was loyally and intelligently carrying out the program of the Revolution, in co-operation with the majority of the working-class organizations and their leaders.

The Bolsheviki did not want the ideals of the Revolution to be realized, for the very simple reason that they were opposed to those ideals. In all the long struggle from Herzen to Kerensky the revolutionary movement of Russia had stood for political democracy first of all. Now, at the moment when political democracy was being realized, the Bolsheviki sought to kill it and to set up something else—namely, a dictatorship of a small party of less than two hundred thousand over a nation of one hundred and eighty millions. There can be no dispute as to this aim; it has been stated by Lenine with great frankness. "Just as one hundred and fifty thousand lordly landowners under Czarism dominated the one hundred and thirty millions of Russian peasants, so two hundred thousand members of the Bolshevik party are imposing their proletarianwill on the mass, but this time in the interest of the latter."[23]

Lenine's figures probably exaggerate the Bolshevik numbers, but, assuming them to be accurate, can anybody in his right mind, knowing anything of the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, believe that the substitution of a ruling class of one hundred and fifty thousand by one of two hundred thousand, to govern a nation of one hundred and eighty millions, was the end to which so many lives were sacrificed? Can any sane and sincere person believe that the class domination described by the great arch-Bolshevik himself comes within measurable distance of being as much of a realization of the ideals of the Revolution as did the Constituent Assembly plan with its basis of political democracy, universal, equal, direct, secret, all-determining suffrage? We do not forget Lenine's statement that this new domination of the people by a ruling minority differs from the old régime in that the Bolsheviki are imposing their will upon the mass "in the interest of the latter." What ruling class ever failed to make that claim? Was it not the habit of the Czars, all of them, during the whole revolutionary epoch, to indulge in the pious cant of proclaiming that they were motived only by their solicitude for the interests and well-being of the peasants?

It is a curious illustration of the superficial character of the Bolshevist mentality that a man so gifted intellectually as Lenine undoubtedly is should advance in justification of his policy a plea so repugnant to morality and intelligence, and that it should be quietly accepted by men and women calling themselves radical revolutionists. Some years ago a well-known American capitalist announced with great solemnity that he and men likehimself were the agents of Providence, charged with managing industry "for the good of the people." Naturally, his naïve claim provoked the scornful laughter of every radical in the land. Yet, strange as it may seem, whenever I have pointed out to popular audiences that Lenine asserted the right of two hundred thousand proletarians to impose their rule upon Russia, always, without a single exception, some defender of the Bolsheviki—generally a Socialist or a member of the I.W.W.—has entered the plea, "Yes, but it is for the good of the people!"

If the Bolsheviki had wanted to see the realization of the ideals of the Revolution, they would have found in the conditions existing immediately prior to their insurrection a challenge calling them to the service of the nation, in support of the Provisional Government and the Preliminary Parliament. They would have permitted nothing to imperil the success of the program that was so well advanced. As it was, determination to defeat that program was their impelling motive. Not only did they fear and opposepoliticaldemocracy; they were equally opposed to democracy inindustry, to that democracy in the economic life of the nation which every Socialist movement in the world had at all times acknowledged to be its goal. As we shall see, they united to political dictatorship industrial dictatorship. They did not want democracy, but power; they did not want peace, even, as they wanted power.

The most painstaking and sympathetic study of the Russian Revolution will not disclose any great ideal or principle, moral or political, underlying the distinctive Bolshevik agitation and program. Nothing could well be farther from the truth than the view taken by many amiable people who, while disavowing the actions of the Bolsheviki, seek to mitigate the judgment which mankindpronounces against them by the plea that, after all, they are extreme idealists, misguided, of course, but, nevertheless, inspired by a noble ideal; that they are trying, as John Brown and many others have tried, to realize a great ideal, but have been made incapable of seeing their ideal in its proper perspective, and, therefore, of making the compromises and adjustments which the transmutation of ideals to reality always requires.

No sympathizer with Russia—certainly no Socialist—can fail to wish that this indulgent criticism were true. Its acceptance would lighten the darkest chapter in Russian history, and, at the same time, remove from the great international Socialist movement a shameful reproach. But the facts are incompatible with such a theory. Instead of being fanatical idealists, incapable of compromises and adjustments, the Bolsheviki have, from the very beginning, been loudly scornful of rigid and unbending idealism; have made numerous compromises, alliances, and "political deals," and have repeatedly shifted their ground in accordance with political expediency. They have been consistently loyal to no aim save one—the control of power. They have been opportunists of the most extreme type. There is not a single Socialist or democratic principle which they have not abandoned when it served, their political ends; not a single instrument, principle, or device of autocratic despotism which they have not used when by so doing they could gain power. For the motto of Bolshevism we might well paraphrase the well-known line of Horace, and make it read, "Get power, honestly, if you can, if not—somehow or other."

Of course, this judgment applies only to Bolshevism as such: to the special and peculiar methods and ideas which distinguish the Bolsheviki from their fellow-Socialists.It is not to be questioned that as Socialists and revolutionists they have been inspired by some of the great ideals common to all Socialists everywhere. But they differed from the great mass of Russian Socialists so fundamentally that they separated themselves from them and became a separate and distinct party.That which caused this separation is the essence of Bolshevism—not the ideals held in common. No understanding of Bolshevism is possible unless this fundamental fact is first fully understood. Power, to be gained at any cost, and ruthlessly applied, by the proletarian minority, is the basic principle of Bolshevism as a distinct form of revolutionary movement. Of course, the Bolshevik leaders sought this power for no sordid, self-aggrandizing ends; they are not self-seeking adventurers, as many would have us believe. They are sincerely and profoundly convinced that the goal of social and economic freedom and justice can be more easily attained by their method than by the method of democratic Socialism. Still, the fact remains that what social ideals they hold are no part of Bolshevism. They are Socialist ideals. Bolshevism is a distinctive method and a program, and its essence is the relentless use of power by the proletariat against the rest of society in the same manner that the bourgeois and military rulers of nations have commonly used it against the proletariat. Bolshevism has simply inverted the old Czarist régime.

The fairness and justice of this judgment are demonstrated by the Bolsheviki themselves. They denounced Kerensky's government for not holding the elections for the Constituent Assembly sooner, posing as the champions of the Constituante. When they had themselves assumed control of the government they delayed the meeting of the Constituent Assembly and then suppressedit by force of arms! They denounced Kerensky for having restored the death penalty in the army in cases of gross treachery, professing an intense horror of capital punishment as a form of "bourgeois savagery." When they came into power they instituted capital punishment forcivilandpolitical offenses, establishing public hangings and floggings as a means of impressing the population![24]They had bitterly assailed Kerensky for his "militarism," for trying to build up the army and for urging men to fight. In less critical circumstances they themselves resorted to forced conscription. They condemned Kerensky and his colleagues for "interfering with freedom of speech and press." When they came into power they suppressed all non-Bolshevist papers and meetings in a manner differing not at all from that of the Czar's régime, forcing the other Socialist parties and groups to resort to the old pre-Revolution "underground" methods.

The evidence of all these things, and things even worse than these, is conclusive and unimpeachable. It is contained in the records of the Bolshevik government, in its publications, and in the reports of the great Socialist parties of Russia, officially made to the International Socialist Bureau. Surely the evidence sustains the charge that, whatever else they may or may not be, the Bolsheviki are not unbending and uncompromising idealists of the type of John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison, as they are so often represented as being by well-meaning sentimentalists whose indulgence of the Bolsheviki is as unlimited as their ignorance concerning them.

Some day, perhaps, a competent psychologist will attempt the task of explaining the psychology of our fellow-citizens who are so ready to defend the Bolsheviki fordoing the very things they themselves hate and condemn. In any list of men and women in this country friendly to the Bolsheviki it will be found that they are practically all pacifists and anti-conscriptionists, while a great many are non-resistants and conscientious objectors to military service. Practically all of them are vigorous defenders of the freedom of the press, of the right of public assemblage and of free speech. With the exception of a few Anarchists, they are almost universally strong advocates of radical political democracy. How can high-minded and intelligent men and women—as many of them are—holding such beliefs as these give countenance to the Bolsheviki, who bitterly and resolutely oppose all of them? How can they denounce America's adoption of conscription and say that it means that "Democracy is dead in America" while, at the same time, hailing the birth of democracy in Russia, where conscription is enforced by the Bolsheviki? How, again, can they at one and the same time condemn American democracy for its imperfections, as in the matter of suffrage, while upholding and defending the very men who, in Russia, deliberately set out to destroy the universal equal suffrage already achieved? How can they demand freedom of the press and of assemblage, even in war-time, and denounce such restrictions as we have had to endure here in America, and at the same time uphold the men responsible for suppressing the press and public assemblages in Russia in a manner worse than was attempted by the Czar? Is there no logical sense in the average radical's mind? Or can it be that, after all, the people who make up the Bolshevist following, and who are so much given to engaging in protest demonstrations of various kinds, are simply restless, unanchored spirits, for whom the stimulant and excitation of revolt is a necessity? How many are simply victimsof subtle neuroses occasioned by sex derangements, by religious chaos, and similar causes?

The Bolshevik rule began as a reign of terror. We must not make the mistake of supposing that it was imposed upon the rest of Russia as easily as it was imposed upon Petrograd, where conditions were exceptional. In the latter city, with the assistance of the Preobrajenski and Seminovsky regiments from the garrison, and of detachments of sailors from the Baltic fleet, to all of whom most extravagant promises were made, thecoup d'étatwas easily managed with little bloodshed. But in a great many other places the Bolshevist rule was effected in no such peaceful fashion, but by means of a bloody terror. Here, for example, is the account of the manner in which the counter-revolution of the Bolsheviki was accomplished at Saratov, as given by a competent eye-witness, a well-known Russian Socialist whose long and honorable service in the revolutionary movement entitles her to the honor of every friend of Free Russia—Inna Rakitnikov:[25]

Here ... is how the Bolshevistcoup d'étattook place at Saratov. I was witness to these facts myself. Saratov is a big university and intellectual center, possessing a great number of schools, libraries, and divers associations designed to elevate the intellectual standard of the population. The Zemstvo of Saratov was one of the best in Russia. The peasant population of this province, among whom the revolutionary Socialist propaganda was carried on for several years, by the Revolutionary Socialist party, is wide awake and well organized. The Municipality and the Agricultural Committees were composed of Socialists.The population was actively preparing for the elections to the Constituent Assembly; the people discussed the list of candidates, studied the candidates' biographies, as well as the programs of the different parties. On the night of October 28th [November 10th, European calendar], by reason of an order that had come from Petrograd, the Bolshevikcoup d'étatbroke out at Saratov. The following forces were its instruments: the garrison, which was a stranger to the mass of the population, a weak party of workers, and, in the capacity of leaders, some Intellectuals, who, up to that time, had played no rôle in the public life of the town.It was indeed a militarycoup d'état. The city hall, where sat the Socialists, who were elected by equal, direct, and secret universal suffrage, was surrounded by soldiers; machine-guns were placed in front and the bombardment began. This lasted a whole night; some were wounded, some killed. The municipal judges were arrested. Soon after a Manifesto solemnly announced to the population that the "enemies of the people," the "counter-revolutionaries," were overthrown; that the power of Saratov was going to pass into the hands of the Soviet (Bolshevist) of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates.

It was indeed a militarycoup d'état. The city hall, where sat the Socialists, who were elected by equal, direct, and secret universal suffrage, was surrounded by soldiers; machine-guns were placed in front and the bombardment began. This lasted a whole night; some were wounded, some killed. The municipal judges were arrested. Soon after a Manifesto solemnly announced to the population that the "enemies of the people," the "counter-revolutionaries," were overthrown; that the power of Saratov was going to pass into the hands of the Soviet (Bolshevist) of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates.

As soon as the overthrow of the existing authorities was effected and the Bolsheviki, through their Red Guards and other means, were in a position to exert their authority, they resorted to every method of oppression and repression known to the old autocratic régime. They suppressed the papers of the Socialist parties and groups opposed to them, and in some instances confiscated the plants, turned out the editors, and used the papers themselves. In one of his "Letters to the Comrades," published in theRabochiy Put, a few days before the insurrection, Lenine had confessed that Kerensky had maintained freedom of the press and of assemblage. The passage is worth quoting, not only for the information it contains concerning the Kerensky régime, but also because it affords a standard by which to judge the Bolsheviki. Lenine wrote:

The Germans have only one Liebknecht, no newspapers, no freedom of assemblage, no councils; they are working against the intense hostility of all classes of the population, including the wealthy peasants—with the imperialist bourgeoisie splendidly organized—and yet the Germans are making some attempt at agitation;while we, with tens of papers, with freedom of assemblage, with the majority of the Council with us, we, the best situated of all the proletarian internationalists, can we refuse to support the German revolutionists in organizing a revolt?

That it was not the "German revolutionists" who in November, 1917, wanted the Russians to revolt against the Kerensky government, but the Majority Socialists, upon whom Lenine had poured his contempt, on the one hand, and the German General Staff, on the other hand, is a mere detail. The important thing is that Lenine admitted that under the Kerensky government the Russian workers, including the Bolsheviki, were "the best situated of all the proletarian internationalists," and that they had "tens of papers, with freedom of assemblage." In the face of such statements by Lenine himself, written a few days before the Bolshevik counter-revolution, what becomes of the charge that the suppression of popular liberties under Kerensky was one of the main causes of the revolt of the Bolsheviki?

Against the tolerance of Kerensky, the arbitrary and despotic methods of the Bolsheviki stand out in strong contrast. Many non-Bolshevist Socialist organs were suppressed; papers containing matter displeasing to the Bolshevik authorities were suspended, whole issues were confiscated, and editors were imprisoned, precisely as in the days of the Czar. It became necessary for the Socialist-Revolutionists to issue their paper with a different title, and from a different place, every day. Here is the testimony of Inna Rakitnikov again, contained in an official report to the International Socialist Bureau:

All the non-Bolshevik newspapers were confiscated or prosecuted and deprived of every means of reaching the provinces; their editors' offices and printing-establishments were looted. After the creation of the "Revolutionary Tribunal" the authors of articles that were not pleasing to the Bolsheviki, as well as the directors of newspapers, were brought to judgment and condemned to make amends or go to prison, etc.The premises of numerous organizations were being constantly pillaged. The Red Guard came there to search, destroying different documents; frequently objects which were found on the premises disappeared. Thus were looted the premises of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist party (27 Galernaia Street) and—several times—the office of the paperDielo Naroda(22 Liteinia Street) ... the office of the paper Volya Naroda, etc.... But the Central Committee ... continued to issue a daily paper, only changing its title, as in the time of Czarism, and thus continued its propaganda....

The premises of numerous organizations were being constantly pillaged. The Red Guard came there to search, destroying different documents; frequently objects which were found on the premises disappeared. Thus were looted the premises of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist party (27 Galernaia Street) and—several times—the office of the paperDielo Naroda(22 Liteinia Street) ... the office of the paper Volya Naroda, etc.... But the Central Committee ... continued to issue a daily paper, only changing its title, as in the time of Czarism, and thus continued its propaganda....

TheYolya Naroda, referred to by Inna Rakitnikov, was the official organ of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. It was raided on several occasions. For example, in January, 1918, the leaders of the party reported that a detachment of Bolshevik Red Guards had broken into the office of the paper, committed various depredations, and made several arrests.[26]Here is another Socialist witness: One of the ablest of the leaders of the Bohemian Socialists in the United States is Joseph Martinek, the brilliant and scholarly editor of the Bohemian Socialist weekly, theDelnicke Listy. He has always been identified with the radical section of the movement. A student of Russian history, speaking the language fluently, it was his good fortune to spend several weeks in Petrograd immediately before and after the Bolshevik counter-revolution. He testifies that the "freedom of the press established by Kerensky" was "terminated by theBolsheviki."[27]This is not the testimony of "capitalist newspapers," but of Socialists of unquestionable authority and standing. TheDielo Narodawas a Socialist paper, and the volunteer venders of it, who were brutally beaten and shot down by Red Guards, were Socialist working-men.[28]When Oskar Tokoi, the well-known revolutionary Finnish Socialist leader, former Prime Minister of Finland, declares that "freedom of assemblage, association, free speech, and free press is altogether destroyed,"[29]the Bolsheviki and their sympathizers cannot plead that they are the victims of "capitalist misrepresentation." The attitude of the Bolshevik leaders toward the freedom of the press has been frankly stated editorially in Pravda, their official organ, in the following words:

The press is a most dangerous weapon in the hands of our enemies. We will tear it from them, we will reduce it to impotence. It is the moment for us to prepare battle. We will be inflexible in our defense of the rights of the exploited. The struggle will be decisive. We are going to smite the journals with fines, to shut them up, to arrest the editors, and hold them as hostages.[30]

Is it any wonder that Paul Axelrod, who was one of the representatives of Russia on the International Socialist Bureau prior to the outbreak of the war, has been forced to declare that the Bolsheviki have "introduced into Russia a system worse than Czarism, suppressing the Constituent Assembly and the liberty of the press"?[31]Or that the beloved veteran of the Russian Revolution,Nicholas Tchaykovsky, should lament that "the Bolshevik usurpation is the continuation of the government by which Czarism held the country in an iron grip"?[32]

Lenine, Trotzky, Zinoviev, and other Bolshevik leaders early found themselves so much at variance with the accepted Socialist position that they decided to change their party name. They had been Social Democrats, a part of the Social Democratic party of Russia. Now ever since Bronterre O'Brien first used the terms "Social Democrat" and "Social Democracy," in 1839, their meaning has been pretty well established. A Social Democrat is one who aims to base government and industry upon democracy. Certainly, this cannot be said to be an accurate description of the position of men who believe in the rule of a nation of one hundred and eighty millions by a small party of two hundred thousand or less—or even by an entire class representing not more than six per cent. of the population—and Lenine and his friends, recognizing the fact, decided to change the name of their group to theCommunist party, by which name they are now known in Russia. Lenine frankly admits that it would be a mistake to speak of this party as a party of democracy. He says:

The word "democracy" cannot be scientifically applied to the Communist party. Since March, 1917, the word democracy is simply a shackle fastened upon the revolutionary nation and preventing it from establishing boldly, freely, and regardless of all obstacles a new form of power; the Council of Workmen's,Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, harbinger of the abolition of every form of authority.[33]

The phrase "harbinger of the abolition of every form of authority" would seem to indicate that Lenine's ideal is that of the old Nihilists—or of Anarchists of the Bakuninist school. That is very far from the truth. The phrase in question is merely a rhetorical flourish. No man has more caustically criticized and ridiculed the Anarchists for their dream of organization without authority than Nikolai Lenine. Moreover, his conception of Soviet government provides for a very strong central authority. It is a new kind of state, but a state, nevertheless, and, as we shall discover, far more powerful than the political state with which we are familiar, exercising far greater control over the life of the individual. It is not to be a democratic state, but a very despotic one, a dictatorship by a small but powerful ruling class. It was not the word "democracy" which Lenine felt to be a "shackle upon the revolutionary nation," but democracy itself.

The manner in which they betrayed the Constituent Assembly will prove the complete hostility of the Bolsheviki to democratic government. In order to excuse and justify the Bolsheviki's actions in this regard, their supporters in this country have assiduously circulated two statements. They are, first, that the Provisional Government purposely and with malicious intent delayed the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, hoping to stave it off altogether; second, that such a long time had elapsed between the elections and the convocation that when the latter date was reached the delegates no longer represented the true feeling of the electorate.

With regard to the first of these statements, which is a repetition of a charge made by Trotzky before the Bolshevik revolt, it is to be noted that it is offered in justification of the Bolshevikcoup d'état. If the charge made were true, instead of false, as it can easily be shown to be, it would only justify the counter-revolution if the counter-revolution itself were made the instrument for insuring the safety of the Constituent Assembly. But the Bolshevikisuppressed the Constituent Assembly. By what process of reasoning do we reach the result that because the Provisional Government delayed the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, which the people desired, a counter-revolutionary movement tosuppress it altogether, by force of arms, was right and proper?

With regard to the second statement, which is a repetition of an argument advanced in Russia, it should be sufficient to emphasize a few dates. The Bolsheviki seized the power of government on November 7th and the elections for the Constituent Assembly took place on November 25th—nearly three weeks later. The date set by the Kerensky government for the opening of the Constituent Assembly was December 12th and on that date some forty-odd members put in an appearance. Recognizing that they could not begin business until a quorum appeared, these decided to wait until at least a quorum should be present. They did not attempt to do any work. What happened is told in the following passages from a signed statement by 109 members—all Socialist-Revolutionists.[34]

On the appointed day and hour of the opening of the session of the Constituent Assembly ... the delegates to the Constituent Assembly who had arrived in Petrograd gathered at the TavricheskyPalace. The elected representatives of the people beheld innumerable banners and large crowds surrounding the palace. This was Petrograd greeting the representatives of the people. At the doors of the palace the picture changed. There stood armed guards and at the orders of the usurpers, the Bolsheviki, they refused to let the delegates pass into the Tavrichesky Palace. It appeared that, in order to enter the building, thedelegates had first to pay respects to the Commissaire, a satellite of Lenine and Trotzky, and there receive special permission. The delegates would not submit to that; elected by the people and equipped with formal authorization, they had the right to freely enter any public building assigned for their meeting. The delegates decided to enter the Tavrichesky Palace without asking the new authorities, and they succeeded in doing so. On the first day the guards did not dare to lift their arms against the people's elected representatives and allowed them to enter the building without molestation.There was no struggle, no violence, no sacrifices; the delegates demanded that the guards respect their rights; they demanded to be admitted, and the guards yielded.In the Tavrichesky Palace the delegates opened their meeting; V.M. Chernov was elected chairman. There were, altogether, about forty delegates present. They realized that there were not enough present to start the work of the Constituent Assembly.It was decided that it would be advisable to await the arrival of the other delegates and start the work of the Constituent Assembly only when a sufficient number were present. Those already there decided to meet daily at the Tavrichesky Palace in order to count all the delegates as they arrived, and on an appointed day to publicly announce the day and hour of the beginning of the activities of the Constituent Assembly.When the delegates finished their session and adjourned, the old guards had been dismissed for their submissive attitude toward the delegates and replaced by armed civilian followers of Lenine and Trotzky. The latter issued an order to disband the delegates, but there were none to be disbanded.The following day the government of the Bolsheviki dishonestly and basely slandered the people's representatives in their official announcement which appeared in Pravda. That lying newspaper wrote that the representatives of the people had forced their way into the palace, accompanied by Junkers andthe White Guards of the bourgeoisie, that the representatives wanted to take advantage of their small numbers and had begun the work of the Constituent Assembly. Every one knows that this is slanderous as regards the representatives of the people. Such lies and slanders were resorted to by the old régime.The aim of the slanders and the lies is clear.The usurpers do not want the people's representatives to have the supreme power and therefore are preparing to disband the Constituent Assembly. On the 28th of November, in the evening,having begun to arrest members of the Constitutional-Democratic party, the Bolsheviki violated the inviolability of the Constituent Assembly. On December 3d a delegate to the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist-Revolutionist, Filippovsky, who was elected by the army on the southwestern front, was arrested.In accordance with their decision reached on November 28th, the delegates gathered at the Tavrichesky Palace on November 29th and 30th. As on the first day, armed soldiers stood guard at the entrance of the palace and would not let any one pass. The delegates, however, insisted and were finally allowed to enter.On the third day, scenes of brutal violence toward the people's representatives took place at the palace. Peasants were the unfortunate victims of this violence.When the delegates had ended their session and all that remained was the affixing of the signatures to the minutes, sailors forced their way into the hall; these were headed by a Bolshevik officer,a former commander of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. The commander demanded that the delegates disband. In reply it was stated that the delegates would disband after they had finished their business. Then at the order of the commander the sailors took the delegate Ilyan, elected by the peasants of the Province of Tambov, by the arm and dragged him to the exit. After Ilyan, the sailors dragged out the peasant delegate from the Province of Moscow, Bikov; then the sailors approached Maltzev, a peasant delegate from the Province of Kostroma. He, however, shouted out that he would rather be shot than to submit to such violence. His courage appealed to the sailors and they stopped.Now all the halls in the Tavrichesky Palace are locked and it is impossible to meet there. The delegates who come to the Tavrichesky Palace cannot even gather in the lobby, for as soonas a group gathers, the armed hirelings of Lenine and Trotzky disperse them. Thus, in former times, behaved the servants of the Czar and the enemies of the people, policemen and gendarmes.

There was no struggle, no violence, no sacrifices; the delegates demanded that the guards respect their rights; they demanded to be admitted, and the guards yielded.

In the Tavrichesky Palace the delegates opened their meeting; V.M. Chernov was elected chairman. There were, altogether, about forty delegates present. They realized that there were not enough present to start the work of the Constituent Assembly.It was decided that it would be advisable to await the arrival of the other delegates and start the work of the Constituent Assembly only when a sufficient number were present. Those already there decided to meet daily at the Tavrichesky Palace in order to count all the delegates as they arrived, and on an appointed day to publicly announce the day and hour of the beginning of the activities of the Constituent Assembly.

When the delegates finished their session and adjourned, the old guards had been dismissed for their submissive attitude toward the delegates and replaced by armed civilian followers of Lenine and Trotzky. The latter issued an order to disband the delegates, but there were none to be disbanded.

The following day the government of the Bolsheviki dishonestly and basely slandered the people's representatives in their official announcement which appeared in Pravda. That lying newspaper wrote that the representatives of the people had forced their way into the palace, accompanied by Junkers andthe White Guards of the bourgeoisie, that the representatives wanted to take advantage of their small numbers and had begun the work of the Constituent Assembly. Every one knows that this is slanderous as regards the representatives of the people. Such lies and slanders were resorted to by the old régime.

The aim of the slanders and the lies is clear.The usurpers do not want the people's representatives to have the supreme power and therefore are preparing to disband the Constituent Assembly. On the 28th of November, in the evening,having begun to arrest members of the Constitutional-Democratic party, the Bolsheviki violated the inviolability of the Constituent Assembly. On December 3d a delegate to the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist-Revolutionist, Filippovsky, who was elected by the army on the southwestern front, was arrested.

In accordance with their decision reached on November 28th, the delegates gathered at the Tavrichesky Palace on November 29th and 30th. As on the first day, armed soldiers stood guard at the entrance of the palace and would not let any one pass. The delegates, however, insisted and were finally allowed to enter.

On the third day, scenes of brutal violence toward the people's representatives took place at the palace. Peasants were the unfortunate victims of this violence.

When the delegates had ended their session and all that remained was the affixing of the signatures to the minutes, sailors forced their way into the hall; these were headed by a Bolshevik officer,a former commander of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. The commander demanded that the delegates disband. In reply it was stated that the delegates would disband after they had finished their business. Then at the order of the commander the sailors took the delegate Ilyan, elected by the peasants of the Province of Tambov, by the arm and dragged him to the exit. After Ilyan, the sailors dragged out the peasant delegate from the Province of Moscow, Bikov; then the sailors approached Maltzev, a peasant delegate from the Province of Kostroma. He, however, shouted out that he would rather be shot than to submit to such violence. His courage appealed to the sailors and they stopped.

Now all the halls in the Tavrichesky Palace are locked and it is impossible to meet there. The delegates who come to the Tavrichesky Palace cannot even gather in the lobby, for as soonas a group gathers, the armed hirelings of Lenine and Trotzky disperse them. Thus, in former times, behaved the servants of the Czar and the enemies of the people, policemen and gendarmes.

This is not the testimony of correspondents of bourgeois journals; it is from a statement prepared at the time and signed by more than a hundred Socialists, members of the oldest and largest Socialist party in Russia, many of them men whose long and honorable service has endeared them to their comrades in all lands. It is not testimony that can be impeached or controverted. It forms part of the report of these well-known and trusted Socialists to their comrades in Russia and elsewhere. The claim that the elections to the Constituent Assembly were held on the basis of an obsolete register, before the people had a chance to become acquainted with the Bolshevist program, and that so long a time had elapsed since the elections that the delegates could not be regarded as true representatives of the people, was first put forward by the Bolsheviki when the Constituent Assembly was finally convened, on January 18th. It was an absurd claim for the Bolsheviki to make, for one of the very earliest acts of the Bolshevik government, after the overthrow of Kerensky, was to issue a decree ordering that the elections be held as arranged. By that act they assumed responsibility for the elections, and could not fairly and honorably enter the plea, later on, that the elections were not valid.

Here is the story of the struggle for the Constituent Assembly, briefly summarized. The first Provisional Government issued a Manifesto on March 20, 1917, promising to convoke the Constituent Assembly "as soon as possible." This promise was repeated by the Provisional Government when it was reorganized after theresignation of Miliukov and Guchkov in the middle of May. That the promise was sincere there can be no reasonable doubt, for the Provisional Government at once set about creating a commission to work out the necessary machinery and was for the election by popular vote of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. Russia was not like a country which had ample electoral machinery already existing; new machinery had to be devised for the purpose. This commission was opened on June 7, 1917; its work was undertaken with great earnestness, and completed in a remarkably short time, with the result that on July 22d the Provisional Government—Kerensky at its head—announced that the elections to the Constituent Assembly would be held on September 30th, and the convocation of the Assembly itself on the 12th of December. It was soon found, however, that it would be physically impossible for the local authorities all to be prepared to hold the election on the date set—it was necessary, among other things, to first elect the local authorities which were to arrange for the election of the delegates to the Constituent Assembly—and so, on August 22d, Kerensky signed the following decree, makingthe one and only postponementof the Constituent Assembly, so far as the Provisional Government was concerned:

Desiring to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly as soon as possible, the Provisional Government designated the 30th of September as election-day, in which case the whole burden of making up the election lists must fall on the municipalities and the newly elected zemstvos.The enormous labor of holding the elections for the local institution has taken time. At present, in view of the date of establishment of the local institutions, on the basis decreed by the government—direct, general, equal, and secret suffrage—the Provisional Government has decided:To set aside as the day for the elections to the Constituent Assembly the 25th of November, of the year 1917, and as the date for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly the 12th of December, of the year 1917.

To set aside as the day for the elections to the Constituent Assembly the 25th of November, of the year 1917, and as the date for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly the 12th of December, of the year 1917.

Notwithstanding this clear and honorable record, we find Trotzky, at a Conference of Northern Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, on October 25th, when he well knew that arrangements for holding the Constituent Assembly elections were in full swing, charging that Kerensky was engaged in preventing the convocation of the Constituent Assembly! He demanded at that time that all power should be taken from the Provisional Government and transferred to the Soviets. These, he said, would convoke the Assembly on the date that had been assigned, December 12th.

The Bolshevikcoup d'étattook place, as already noted, less than three weeks before the date set for the elections, for which every preparation had been made by the government and the local authorities. It was at the beginning of the campaign, and the Bolsheviki had their own candidates in the field in many places. It was a foregone conclusion that the Constituent Assembly brought into being by the universal suffrage would be dominated by Socialists. There was never the slightest fear that it would be dominated by the bourgeois parties. What followed is best told in the exact language of a protest to the International Socialist Bureau by Inna Rakitnikov, representative of the Revolutionary Socialist party, which was, be it remembered, the largest and the oldest of the Russian Socialist parties:

Thecoup d'étatwas followed by various other manifestations of Bolshevist activity—arrests, searches, confiscation of newspapers, ban on meetings. Bands of soldiers looted the country houses in the suburbs of the city; a school for the children ofthe people and the buildings of the Children's Holiday Settlement were also pillaged. Bands of soldiers were forthwith sent into the country to cause trouble there.... The bands of soldiers who were sent into the country used not only persuasion, but also violence,trying to force the peasants to give their votes for the Bolshevik candidates at the time of the elections to the Constituent Assembly; they tore up the bulletins of the Socialist-Revolutionists, overturned the ballot-boxes, etc.... The inhabitants of the country proved themselves in all that concerned the elections wide awake to the highest degree. There were hardly any abstentions;90 per cent. of the population took part in the voting. The day of the voting was kept as a solemn feast; the priest said mass; the peasants dressed in their best clothes; they believed that the Constituent Assembly would give them order, laws, the land. In the Government of Saratov, out of fourteen deputies elected, there were twelve Socialist-Revolutionists. There were others (such as the Government of Pensa, for example) that elected only Socialist-Revolutionists. The Bolsheviki had the majority only in Petrograd and Moscow and in certain units of the army. To violence and conquest of power by force of arms the population answered by the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the people sent to this Assembly, not the Bolsheviki, but, by an overwhelming majority, Socialist-Revolutionists.

Of course, this is the testimony of one who is confessedly anti-Bolshevist, one who has suffered deep injury at the hands of the Bolsheviki of whom she writes. For all that, her testimony cannot be ignored or laughed aside. It has been indorsed by E. Roubanovitch, a member of the International Socialist Bureau, and a man of the highest integrity, in the following words: "I affirm that her sincere and matured testimony cannot be suspected of partizanship or of dogmatic partiality against the Bolsheviki." What is more important, however, is that the subsequent conduct of the Bolsheviki in all matters relating to the Constituent Assembly was such as to confirm belief in her statements.

No Bolshevik spokesman has ever yet challenged theaccuracy of the statement that an overwhelming majority of the deputies elected to the Constituent Assembly were representatives of the Revolutionary Socialist party. As a matter of fact, the Bolsheviki elected less than one-third of the deputies. In the announcement of their withdrawal from the Constituent Assembly when it assembled in January the Bolshevik members admitted that the Socialist-Revolutionists had "obtained a majority of the Constituent Assembly."

The attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the Constituent Assembly changed as their electoral prospects changed. At first, believing that, as a result of their successfulcoup, they would have the support of the great mass of the peasants and city workers, they were vigorous in their support of the Assembly. In the first of their "decrees" after the overthrow of the Kerensky Cabinet, the Bolshevik "Commissaries of the People" announced that they were to exercise complete power "until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly," which was nothing less than a pledge that they would regard the latter body as the supreme, ultimate authority. Three days after the revolt Lenine, as president of the People's Commissaries, published this decree:

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