Executive Committee of
the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates played in this respect an important role.
It did all it could to explain to the peasants the complexity of the
problem in order to prevent them from attempting anything anarchistic, or
to attempt a disorganized recovery of lands which could end only with the
further enrichment of peasants who were already rich.

Such was, in its general aspect, the action of the National Soviet of
Peasants' Delegates, which, in the month of August, 1917, addressed,
through the intermediary of the International Socialist Bureau, an appeal
to the democracies of the world. In order to better understand the events
which followed, we must consider for a moment the general conditions which
at that time existed in Russia, and in the midst of which the action of
this organization was taking place.

II

_The Difficulties of the Beginning of the Revolution_

The honeymoon of the Revolution had passed rapidly. Joy gave place to cares
and alarms. Autocracy had bequeathed to the country an unwieldy heritage:
the army and the whole mechanism of the state were disorganized. Taking
advantage of the listlessness of the army, the Bolshevist propaganda
developed and at the same time increased the desire of the soldiers to
fight no more. The disorganization was felt more and more at the front; at
the same time anarchy increased in the interior of the country; production
diminished; the productiveness of labor was lowered, and an eight-hour day
became in fact a five or six-hour day. The strained relations between the
workers and the administration were such that certain factories preferred
to close. The central power suffered frequent crises; the Cadets, fearing
the responsibilities, preferred to remain out of power.

All this created a state of unrest and hastened the preparations for the
election of the Constituent Assembly, toward which the eyes of the whole
country were turned. Nevertheless, the country was far from chaos and from
the anarchy into which further events plunged it. Young Russia, not
accustomed to liberty, without experience in political life and autonomous
action, was far from that hopeless state to which the Bolsheviki reduced it
some months later. The people had confidence in the Socialists, in the
Revolutionary Socialist party, which then held sway everywhere, in the
municipalities, the zemstvos, and in the Soviets; they had confidence in
the Constituent Assembly which w