ime, 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,
making _the one and only postponement_ of 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.

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 Bolshevik _coup d'etat_ took 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