X

_At the Taurida Palace on the Day of the Opening of the Constituent
Assembly_

The Taurida Palace on that day presented a strange aspect. At every door,
in the corridors, in the halls, everywhere soldiers and sailors and Red
Guards armed with guns and hand-grenades, who at every turn demanded your
pass. It was no easy matter to get into the palace. Nearly all the places
reserved for the public were occupied by the Bolsheviki and their friends.
The appearance of the Taurida Palace was not that of a place where the
free representatives of a free people were going to assemble.

The Bolsheviki delayed as much as possible the opening of the session. It
was only at four o'clock instead of at midday that they deigned to make up
their minds. They and the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left occupied
seats of the extreme left; then came the Revolutionary Socialists, the
Mensheviki, and the other Socialist fractions. The seats on the right
remained vacant. The few Cadets that had been chosen preferred not to come.
In this manner the Constituent Assembly was composed at this first and last
session solely of Socialists. This, however, did not prevent the presence
in the corridors and the session hail of a crowd of sailors and Red Guards
armed, as if it were a question of an assembly of conspirators, enemies of
the Revolution.

From the beginning a fight was started by the election of president. The
majority nominated for the office of president Chernov; the Bolsheviki and
the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left voted against him. The Bolsheviki
did not propose any candidate of their own, and placed before the members
the candidacy of a Revolutionary Socialist of the Left, Marie Spiridonova,
who was totally incapable of fulfilling this role. Afterward several
declarations were read--that of the Bolsheviki, that of the
Socialist-Revolutionists (read by Chernov), that of the Mensheviki (read by
Tseretelli). The partizans of each fraction greeted the reading of their
own declaration with deafening applause (for the audience was one of
"comrades" and did not hesitate to take part in the debates); cat-calls and
shouts greeted the orators of the opposing fractions. Each word of the
declarations of the Socialist-Revolutionists and of the Mensheviki
(declarations which every Socialist could sign) was received with a round
of hisses, shouts, deafening cries, exclamations of contempt for the
Bolsheviki, the sailors, and the soldiers