n the days of Milyoukov and Kerensky, Lenin and the
Bolsheviks were demanding the general election of the
constituent assembly. But the Soviets existed then; they had
the power, and I saw foreign ambassadors blunder, and the
world saw Milyoukov and Kerensky fall, partly because they
would not, or could not, comprehend the nature of the
soviet; as Lenin did finally, when, against his theory, he
joined in and expressed the popular repudiation of the
constituent assembly and went over to work with the soviet,
the actual power in Russia. The constituent assembly,
elected by the people, represented the upper class and the
old system. The soviet was the lower class.

The soviet, at bottom, is a natural gathering of the working
people, of peasants, in their working and accustomed
groupings, instead of, as with us, by artificial
geographical sections.

Labor unions and soldiers' messes made up the Soviets in the
cities; poorer peasants and soldiers at the village inn were
the first Soviets in the country; and in the beginning, two
years ago, these lower class delegates used to explain to me
that the "rich peasants" and the "rich people" had their own
meetings and meeting places. The popular intention then was
not to exclude the upper classes from the government, but
only from the Soviets, which were not yet the same. But the
Soviets, once in existence, absorbed in their own class
tasks and their own problems, which the upper class had
either not understood or solved, ignored--no; they simply
forgot the council of empire and the Duma. And so they
discovered (or, to be more exact, their leaders discovered)
that they had actually all the power. All that Lenin and the
other Socialist leaders had to do to carry through their
class-struggle theory was to recognize this fact of power
and teach the Soviets to continue to ignore the assemblies
and the institutions of the upper classes, which, with their
"governments," ministries, and local assemblies, fell,
powerless from neglect.

The Soviet Government sprouted and grew out of the habits,
the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people. It
fitted them. They understand it. They find they can work it
and they like it. Every effort to put something else in its
place (including L