elsewhere.  The claim that the elections to the Constituent Assembly were held on the basis of an obsolete register, before the people had a chance to become acquainted with the Bolshevist program, and that so long a time had elapsed since the elections that the delegates could not be regarded as true representatives of the people, was first put forward by the Bolsheviki when the Constituent Assembly was finally convened, on January 18th.  It was an absurd claim for the Bolsheviki to make, for one of the very earliest acts of the Bolshevik government, after the overthrow of Kerensky, was to issue a decree ordering that the elections be held as arranged.  By that act they assumed responsibility for the elections, and could not fairly and honorably enter the plea, later on, that the elections were not valid.

Here is the story of the struggle for the Constituent Assembly, briefly summarized.  The first Provisional Government issued a Manifesto on March 20, 1917, promising to convoke the Constituent Assembly “as soon as possible.”  This promise was repeated by the Provisional Government when it was reorganized after the resignation of Miliukov and Guchkov in the middle of May.  That the promise was sincere there can be no reasonable doubt, for the Provisional Government at once set about creating a commission to work out the necessary machinery and was for the election by popular vote of delegates to the Constituent Assembly.  Russia was not like a country which had ample electoral machinery already existing; new machinery had to be devised for the purpose.  This commission was opened on June 7, 1917; its work was undertaken with great earnestness, and completed in a remarkably short time, with the result that on July 22d the Provisional Government—­Kerensky at its head—­announced that the elections to the Constituent Assembly would be held on September 30th, and the convocation of the Assembly itself on the 12th of December.  It was soon found, however, that it would be physically impossible for the local authorities all to be prepared to hold the election on the date set—­it was necessary, among other things, to first elect the local authorities which were to arrange for the election of the delegates to the Constituent Assembly—­and so, on August 22d, Kerensky signed the following decree, making the one and only postponement of the Constituent Assembly, so far as the Provisional Government was concerned: 

Desiring to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly as soon as possible, the Provisional Government designated the 30th of September as election-day, in which case the whole burden of making up the election lists must fall on the municipalities and the newly elected zemstvos. The enormous labor of holding the elections for the local institution has taken time.  At present, in view of the date of establishment of the local institutions, on the basis decreed by the government—­direct, general, equal,