as elected on the basis of lists of
candidates nominated before the November Revolution, when the
people as a whole could not yet rise against their exploiters, and
did not know how powerful would be the strength of the exploiters
in defending their privileges, and had not yet begun to create a
Socialist society, the Constituent Assembly considers it, even
from a formal point of view, unjust to oppose the Soviet power.
The Constituent Assembly is of the opinion that at this moment, in
the decisive hour of the struggle of the people against their
exploiters, the exploiters must not have a seat in any government
organization or institution. The power completely and without
exception belongs to the people and its authorized
representatives--the workers', soldiers' and peasants' Soviets.

Supporting the Soviet rule and accepting the orders of the Council
of People's Commissars, the Constituent Assembly acknowledges its
duty to outline a form for the reorganization of society.

Striving at the same time to organize a free and voluntary, and
thereby also a complete and strong, union among the toiling
classes of all the Russian nations, the Constituent Assembly
limits itself to outlining the basis of the federation of Russian
Soviet Republics, leaving to the people, to the workers and
soldiers, to decide for themselves, in their own Soviet meetings,
if they are willing, and on what conditions they prefer, to join
the federated government and other federations of Soviet
enterprise. These general principles are to be published without
delay, and the official representatives of the Soviets are
required to read them at the opening of the Constituent Assembly.

The demand for the adoption of this declaration gave rise to a long and
stormy debate. The leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionists and the
Mensheviki stoutly contended that the adoption of the declaration would be
virtually an abdication of the task for which the Constituent Assembly had
been elected by the people, and, therefore, a betrayal of trust. They could
not admit the impudent claim that an election held in November, based upon
universal suffrage, on lists made up as recently as September, could in
January be set aside as being "obsolete" and "unrepresentative." That a
majority of the Bolshevik candidates put forward had been defeated,
nullified, they argued, the