ly. They firmly maintained their point of view
and resisted all the attempts of the Bolsheviki and the
"Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left" (who followed them blindly) to make
their influence prevail. The speech of Lenine was received with hostility;
as for Trotzky, who, some time before, had publicly threatened with the
guillotine all the "enemies of the Revolution," they prevented him from
speaking, crying out: "Down with the tyrant! Guillotineur! Assassin!" To
give his speech Trotzky, accompanied by his faithful "capotes," was obliged
to repair to another hall.

The Second Peasants' Congress was thus distinctly split into two parties.
The Bolsheviki tried by every means to elude a straight answer to the
question, "Does the Congress wish to uphold the Constituent Assembly?" They
prolonged the discussion, driving the peasants to extremities by every kind
of paltry discussion on foolish questions, hoping to tire them out and thus
cause a certain number of them to return home. The tiresome discussions
carried on for ten days, with the effect that a part of the peasants,
seeing nothing come from it, returned home. But the peasants had, in spite
of all, the upper hand; by a roll-call vote 359 against 314 pronounced
themselves for the defense without reserve of the Constituent Assembly.

Any work in common for the future was impossible. The fraction of the
peasants that pronounced itself for the Constituent Assembly continued to
sit apart, named its Executive Committee, and decided to continue the fight
resolutely. The Bolsheviki, on their part, took their partizans to the
Smolny, declared to be usurpers of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates who
pronounced themselves for the defense of the Constituante, and, with the
aid of soldiers, ejected the former Executive Committee from their premises
and took possession of their goods, the library, etc.

The new Executive Committee, which did not have at its disposition Red
Guards, was obliged to look for another place, to collect the money
necessary for this purpose, etc. Its members were able, with much
difficulty, to place everything upon its feet and to assure the
publication of an organ (the _Izvestya_ of the National Soviet of Peasants'
Delegates determined to defend the Constituent Assembly), to send delegates
into different regions, and to establish relations with the provinces, etc.

Together with the peasants, workmen and Socialist parties and numerous
democratic organi