ng the will of
the entire people. It alone is able to reconstitute the unity of
the country.

The majority of the deputies to the Constituent Assembly who had for some
time been elected had arrived in Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki always
retarded the opening. The Socialist-Revolutionist fraction started
conferences with the other fractions on the necessity for fixing a day for
the opening of the Constituante, without waiting the good pleasure of the
Commissaries of the People. They chose the date, December 27th, but the
opening could not take place on that day, the Ukrainian fraction having
suddenly abandoned the majority to join themselves to the Bolsheviki and
the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left. Finally, the government fixed the
opening of the Constituent Assembly for the 5th (18th) of January.

Here is a document which relates this fight for the date of the opening of
the Constituante:

_Bulletin of Members of the Constituent Assembly Belonging to the
Socialist-Revolutionist Fraction. No. 5, Dec. 31, 1917._

_To All the Citizens_:

The Socialist-Revolutionist fraction of the Constituent Assembly
addresses the whole people the present expose of the reasons for
which the Constituent Assembly has not been opened until this day:
it warns them, at the same time, of the danger which threatens the
sovereign rights of the people.

Let it be thus placed in clear daylight, the true character of
those who, under pretext of following the well-being of the
workers, forge new chains for liberated Russia, those who attempt
to assassinate the Constituent Assembly, which alone is able to
save Russia from the foreign yoke and from the despotism which has
been born within.

Let all the citizens know that the hour is near when they must be
ready to rise like one man for the defense of their liberty and
their Constituent Assembly.

For, citizens, your salvation is solely in your own hands.

Citizens! you know that on the day assigned for the opening of the
Constituent Assembly, November 28th, all the
Socialist-Revolutionist deputies who were elected had come to
Petrograd. You know that neither violence of a usurping power nor
arrests of our comrades, by force of arms which were opposed to us
at the Taurida Palace, could prevent us from assembling and
fulfilling our duty.

But the civil war which has spread th