The Taurida Palace on that day presented a strange aspect.  At every door, in the corridors, in the halls, everywhere soldiers and sailors and Red Guards armed with guns and hand-grenades, who at every turn demanded your pass.  It was no easy matter to get into the palace.  Nearly all the places reserved for the public were occupied by the Bolsheviki and their friends.  The appearance of the Taurida Palace was not that of a place where the free representatives of a free people were going to assemble.

The Bolsheviki delayed as much as possible the opening of the session.  It was only at four o’clock instead of at midday that they deigned to make up their minds.  They and the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left occupied seats of the extreme left; then came the Revolutionary Socialists, the Mensheviki, and the other Socialist fractions.  The seats on the right remained vacant.  The few Cadets that had been chosen preferred not to come.  In this manner the Constituent Assembly was composed at this first and last session solely of Socialists.  This, however, did not prevent the presence in the corridors and the session hail of a crowd of sailors and Red Guards armed, as if it were a question of an assembly of conspirators, enemies of the Revolution.

From the beginning a fight was started by the election of president.  The majority nominated for the office of president Chernov; the Bolsheviki and the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left voted against him.  The Bolsheviki did not propose any candidate of their own, and placed before the members the candidacy of a Revolutionary Socialist of the Left, Marie Spiridonova, who was totally incapable of fulfilling this role.  Afterward several declarations were read—­that of the Bolsheviki, that of the Socialist-Revolutionists (read by Chernov), that of the Mensheviki (read by Tseretelli).  The partizans of each fraction greeted the reading of their own declaration with deafening applause (for the audience was one of “comrades” and did not hesitate to take part in the debates); cat-calls and shouts greeted the orators of the opposing fractions.  Each word of the declarations of the Socialist-Revolutionists and of the Mensheviki (declarations which every Socialist could sign) was received with a round of hisses, shouts, deafening cries, exclamations of contempt for the Bolsheviki, the sailors, and the soldiers.  The speech of Chernov—­president and member of a detested party—­had above all the honor of such a greeting.  As for Tseretelli, he was at first greeted by an inconceivable din, but was able afterward—­his speech was so full of profound sense—­to capture the attention of the Bolsheviki themselves.

A general impression that was extremely distressing came from this historic session.  The attitude of the Bolsheviki was grossly unbecoming and provocative of disdain.  It indicated clearly that the dissolution of the Constituante was, for them, already decided.  Lenine, who continually kept contemptuous silence, wound up by stretching himself upon his bench and pretending to sleep.  Lunotcharsky from his ministerial bench pointed contemptuously with his finger toward the white hair of a veteran of the Revolutionary Socialist party.  The sailors leveled the muzzles of their revolvers at the Socialist-Revolutionists.  The audience laughed, whistled, and shouted.