In precisely the same way as the Ministry during the last years of Czarism would lay before the Duma certain documents and demand that they be approved, so the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets—­the Bolshevik power—­demanded that the Constituent Assembly meekly assent to a document prepared for it in advance.  It was at once a test and a challenge; if the Assembly was willing to accept orders from the Soviet authority and content itself with rubber-stamping the decrees of the latter, as ordered, it could be permitted to go on—­at least for a time.  At the head of the Constituent Assembly, as president, the deputies elected Victor Chernov, who had been Minister of Agriculture under Kerensky.  At the head of the Bolshevik faction was Sverdlov, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Soviets.  He it was who opened the fight, demanding that the following declaration be adopted by the Constituante as the basis of a Constitution for Russia: 

    DECLARATION OF THE RIGHT’S OF THE TOILING AND EXPLOITED
    PEOPLE

    I

    1.  Russia is to be declared a republic of the workers’, soldiers’
    and peasants’ Soviets.  All power in the cities and in the country
    belongs to the Soviets.

    2.  The Russian Soviet Republic is based on the free federation of
    free peoples, on the federation of national Soviet republics.

    II

Assuming as its duty the destruction of all exploitation of the workers, the complete abolition of the class system of society, and the placing of society upon a socialistic basis, and the ultimate bringing about of victory for Socialism in every country, the Constituent Assembly further decides: 

1.  That the socialization of land be realized, private ownership of land be abolished, all the land be proclaimed common property of the people and turned over to the toiling masses without compensation on the basis of equal right to the use of land.

    All forests, mines, and waters which are of social importance, as
    well as all living and other forms of property, and all
    agricultural enterprises, are declared national property.

2.  To confirm the decree of the Soviets concerning the inspection of working conditions, the highest department of national economy, which is the first step in achieving the ownership by the Soviets of the factories, mines, railroads, and means of production and transportation.

    3.  To confirm the decree of the Soviets transferring all banks to
    the ownership of the Soviet Republic, as one of the steps in the
    freeing of the toiling masses from the yoke of capitalism.

4.  To enforce general compulsory labor, in order to destroy the class of parasites, and to reorganize the economic life.  In order to make the power of the toiling masses secure and to prevent the restoration of the rule of the exploiters, the toiling masses will be armed and a Red Guard composed of workers and peasants formed, and the exploiting classes shall be disarmed.

    III