t.

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, which aimed 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