valuable legal
sanction, the sanction of a democratically elected body expressly charged
with the task of determining the form and manner of government for Free
Russia. Should the Constituent Assembly not be willing, there was an
opportunity for another _coup d'etat_.

In precisely the same way as the Ministry during the last years of Czarism
would lay before the Duma certain documents and demand that they be
approved, so the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets--the Bolshevik
power--demanded that the Constituent Assembly meekly assent to a document
prepared for it in advance. It was at once a test and a challenge; if the
Assembly was willing to accept orders from the Soviet authority and content
itself with rubber-stamping the decrees of the latter, as ordered, it could
be permitted to go on--at least for a time. At the head of the Constituent
Assembly, as president, the deputies elected Victor Chernov, who had been
Minister of Agriculture under Kerensky. At the head of the Bolshevik
faction was Sverdlov, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Soviets.
He it was who opened the fight, demanding that the following declaration be
adopted by the Constituante as the basis of a Constitution for Russia:

DECLARATION OF THE RIGHT'S OF THE TOILING AND EXPLOITED
PEOPLE

I

1. Russia is to be declared a republic of the workers', soldiers'
and peasants' Soviets. All power in the cities and in the country
belongs to the Soviets.

2. The Russian Soviet Republic is based on the free federation of
free peoples, on the federation of national Soviet republics.

II

Assuming as its duty the destruction of all exploitation of the
workers, the complete abolition of the class system of society,
and the placing of society upon a socialistic basis, and the
ultimate bringing about of victory for Socialism in every country,
the Constituent Assembly further decides:

1. That the socialization of land be realized, private ownership
of land be abolished, all the land be proclaimed common property
of the people and turned over to the toiling masses without
compensation on the basis of equal right to the use of land.

All forests, mines, and waters which are of social importance, as
well as all living and other forms of property, and all
agricultural enterprises, are declared national property.

2. To confirm the decree of the Soviets concer