me to the
Tavrichesky Palace cannot even gather in the lobby, for as soon
as 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 the resignation 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 t