. The speech of Chernov--president
and member of a detested party--had above all the honor of such a
greeting. As for Tseretelli, he was at first greeted by an inconceivable
din, but was able afterward--his speech was so full of profound sense--to
capture the attention of the Bolsheviki themselves.

A general impression that was extremely distressing came from this historic
session. The attitude of the Bolsheviki was grossly unbecoming and
provocative of disdain. It indicated clearly that the dissolution of the
Constituante was, for them, already decided. Lenine, who continually kept
contemptuous silence, wound up by stretching himself upon his bench and
pretending to sleep. Lunotcharsky from his ministerial bench pointed
contemptuously with his finger toward the white hair of a veteran of the
Revolutionary Socialist party. The sailors leveled the muzzles of their
revolvers at the Socialist-Revolutionists. The audience laughed, whistled,
and shouted.

The Bolsheviki finally left the Assembly, followed, as might be understood,
by their servants, the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left. The fractions
which remained voted the law proposed by the Socialist-Revolutionists on
the transfer of the lands to common ownership (socialization of the soil).
The sailors and Red Guards attempted several times to interrupt the
session. At five o'clock in the morning they finally demanded with a loud
voice that everybody leave.

"We were obliged to go," said, later, the members of the Constituent
Assembly at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants'
Delegates in recounting these tragic moments, "not that we were afraid of
being shot; we were prepared for that, and each one of us expected it, but
fear of something else which is far worse: for fear of insults and gross
violence. We were only a handful; what was that beside those great big
fellows full of malice toward the Constituante and of defiance for the
'enemies of the people,' the 'servants of the bourgeoisie,' which we were
in their eyes, thanks to the lies and the calumnies of the Bolsheviki?
Careful of our dignity, and out of respect for the place where we were, we
could not permit ourselves to be cuffed, nor that they throw us out of the
Taurida Palace by force--and that is what would have inevitably happened."

It was thus that the Constituent Assembly ended. The
Socialist-Revolutionist fraction maintained an attitude of surprising calm
and respectful b