The phrase “harbinger of the abolition of every form of authority” would seem to indicate that Lenine’s ideal is that of the old Nihilists—­or of Anarchists of the Bakuninist school.  That is very far from the truth.  The phrase in question is merely a rhetorical flourish.  No man has more caustically criticized and ridiculed the Anarchists for their dream of organization without authority than Nikolai Lenine.  Moreover, his conception of Soviet government provides for a very strong central authority.  It is a new kind of state, but a state, nevertheless, and, as we shall discover, far more powerful than the political state with which we are familiar, exercising far greater control over the life of the individual.  It is not to be a democratic state, but a very despotic one, a dictatorship by a small but powerful ruling class.  It was not the word “democracy” which Lenine felt to be a “shackle upon the revolutionary nation,” but democracy itself.

The manner in which they betrayed the Constituent Assembly will prove the complete hostility of the Bolsheviki to democratic government.  In order to excuse and justify the Bolsheviki’s actions in this regard, their supporters in this country have assiduously circulated two statements.  They are, first, that the Provisional Government purposely and with malicious intent delayed the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, hoping to stave it off altogether; second, that such a long time had elapsed between the elections and the convocation that when the latter date was reached the delegates no longer represented the true feeling of the electorate.

With regard to the first of these statements, which is a repetition of a charge made by Trotzky before the Bolshevik revolt, it is to be noted that it is offered in justification of the Bolshevik coup d’etat.  If the charge made were true, instead of false, as it can easily be shown to be, it would only justify the counter-revolution if the counter-revolution itself were made the instrument for insuring the safety of the Constituent Assembly.  But the Bolsheviki suppressed the Constituent Assembly.  By what process of reasoning do we reach the result that because the Provisional Government delayed the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, which the people desired, a counter-revolutionary movement to suppress it altogether, by force of arms, was right and proper?

With regard to the second statement, which is a repetition of an argument advanced in Russia, it should be sufficient to emphasize a few dates.  The Bolsheviki seized the power of government on November 7th and the elections for the Constituent Assembly took place on November 25th—­nearly three weeks later.  The date set by the Kerensky government for the opening of the Constituent Assembly was December 12th and on that date some forty-odd members put in an appearance.  Recognizing that they could not begin business until a quorum appeared, these decided to wait until at least a quorum should be present.  They did not attempt to do any work.  What happened is told in the following passages from a signed statement by 109 members—­all Socialist-Revolutionists.[34]