sembly, dispersed by brutal
force, was nevertheless elected by the whole people and ought to exist and
to assemble again as soon as that would be possible; third, to fight
everywhere in the provinces in the defense of the organs of autonomous
administration, which the Bolsheviki dispersed by armed force. During these
few days when the peasants were obliged to assemble in secret and to
station patrols to protect their meetings, they followed those methods of
conspiracy that the Russian Socialists had been obliged to employ when they
fought against the tyranny of autocracy. Returning to their villages, the
peasants bore with them the greatest hate for the Bolsheviki, whom they
considered the personification of tyranny and violence. And they took with
them also a firm resolution to fight against this violence.

The Executive Committee, whose powers were confirmed by the Third Congress,
found itself thus, for the second time, deprived of all its goods, its
premises, and its pecuniary resources; it found itself obliged to lead a
half-clandestine existence, to organize secret assemblies, etc. Miss
Spiridonova, who, in this fight against the peasants that rose to the
defense of the Constituent Assembly, gave proof of intolerance and peculiar
fanaticism, found herself at the head of the "peasants in uniform," sitting
at Smolny, _adopting a decree whereby all the moneys that came by post to
the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasant Delegates defending the
Constituent Assembly were to be confiscated._

The action of the Executive Committee was thus rendered very difficult. But
it continued to fight, to publish an organ, to commission delegates, to
entertain continued relations with the provinces and the country.

XII

_Conclusion_

_Morally, Bolshevism was killed in the eyes of the workers in the course of
these days_ when a peaceful demonstration was fired upon, the Constituent
Assembly dissolved, the Peasant Congress (and, very soon, the Congress of
the Agricultural Committees) dispersed. The Central Committee of the
Revolutionary Socialist party issued an order for new elections to the
Soviets, thinking thus to eliminate automatically the Bolsheviki. And, in
truth, when at Petrograd and in the provinces, these elections began, the
Revolutionary Socialists and the Mensheviki received the majority and the
Bolsheviki were snowed under. But these new elections were thwarted by many
circumstances: first, because of t