the groups which constituted it in the policy was not yet exhausted.  But a considerable portion of the Soviets, as well as fractions of other Soviets, fractions composed of the most devoted and experienced fighters, continued to follow the only true revolutionary road; to develop the class organization of the working masses, to direct their intellectual and political life, to develop the political and social aspects of the Revolution, to exert, by all the power of the working class organized into Soviets, the necessary pressure to attain the end that it proposed.  The questions of peace and of war, that of the organization of production and of food-supply, and that of the fight for the Constituent Assembly are in the first place.  The policy of adventure of the groups which seized the power is on the eve of failure.  Peace could not be realized by a rupture with the Allies and an entente with the imperialistic orb of the Central Powers.  By reason of this failure of the policy of the Commissaires of the People, of the disorganization of production (which, among other things, has had as a result the creation of hundreds of thousands of unemployed), by reason of the civil war kindled in the country and the absence of a power recognized by the whole people, the Central Powers tend to take hold in the most cynical fashion of a whole series of western provinces (Poland, Lithuania, Courland), and to subject the whole country to their complete economic, if not political, domination.

The question of provisioning has taken on an unheard-of acuteness; the gross interference in the functioning of organs already created for this object, and the civil war kindled everywhere throughout the country, have completely demoralized the provisioning of wheat in regions where they had none, the north and the army are found on the eve of famine.

Industry is dying.  Hundreds of factories and workshops are stopped.  The short-sighted policy of the Commissaries has caused hundreds of workmen to be thrown on the streets and become unemployed.  The will of the entire people is threatened with being violated.  The usurpers who in October got hold of the power by launching the word of order for a swift convocation of the Constituent Assembly strive hard, now that the elections are over, to retain the power in their hands by arresting the deputies and dissolving the Constituante itself.

All that which the country holds of life, and in the first place all the working class and all the army, ought to rise with arms in their hands to defend the popular power represented by the Constituante, which must bring peace to the people and consolidate by legislative means the revolutionary conquests of the working class.

    In bringing this to your knowledge, the Central Committee chosen
    at the first elections invites you, Comrades, to place yourself
    immediately in agreement with it.