Socialist-Revolutionists.  There were others (such as the Government of Pensa, for example) that elected only Socialist-Revolutionists.  The Bolsheviki had the majority only in Petrograd and Moscow and in certain units of the army.  To violence and conquest of power by force of arms the population answered by the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the people sent to this Assembly, not the Bolsheviki, but, by an overwhelming majority, Socialist-Revolutionists.

Of course, this is the testimony of one who is confessedly anti-Bolshevist, one who has suffered deep injury at the hands of the Bolsheviki of whom she writes.  For all that, her testimony cannot be ignored or laughed aside.  It has been indorsed by E. Roubanovitch, a member of the International Socialist Bureau, and a man of the highest integrity, in the following words:  “I affirm that her sincere and matured testimony cannot be suspected of partizanship or of dogmatic partiality against the Bolsheviki.”  What is more important, however, is that the subsequent conduct of the Bolsheviki in all matters relating to the Constituent Assembly was such as to confirm belief in her statements.

No Bolshevik spokesman has ever yet challenged the accuracy of the statement that an overwhelming majority of the deputies elected to the Constituent Assembly were representatives of the Revolutionary Socialist party.  As a matter of fact, the Bolsheviki elected less than one-third of the deputies.  In the announcement of their withdrawal from the Constituent Assembly when it assembled in January the Bolshevik members admitted that the Socialist-Revolutionists had “obtained a majority of the Constituent Assembly.”

The attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the Constituent Assembly changed as their electoral prospects changed.  At first, believing that, as a result of their successful coup, they would have the support of the great mass of the peasants and city workers, they were vigorous in their support of the Assembly.  In the first of their “decrees” after the overthrow of the Kerensky Cabinet, the Bolshevik “Commissaries of the People” announced that they were to exercise complete power “until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly,” which was nothing less than a pledge that they would regard the latter body as the supreme, ultimate authority.  Three days after the revolt Lenine, as president of the People’s Commissaries, published this decree: 

    In the name of the Government of the Republic, elected by the
    All-Russian Congress of Councils of Workmen’s and Soldiers’
    Delegates, with the participation of the Peasants’ Delegates, the
    Council of the People’s Commissaries decrees: 

    1.  That the elections to the Constituent Assembly shall be held on
    November 25th, the day set aside for this purpose.