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As early as April, 1918, the Soviet at Jaroslav was dissolved by the Bolshevik authorities and new elections ordered. In these elections the Mensheviki and the Socialist-Revolutionists everywhere gained an absolute majority. The population here wanted the Constituent Assembly and they wanted Russia to fight on with the Allies.
And when they were asked, "Why do you do this?" they answered, as in the time, still recent, of Czarism: "It is the order. No need to talk." We do not need to rely upon the testimony of witnesses belonging to the Revolutionary Socialist party, the Mensheviki, or other factions unfriendly to the Bolsheviki.
Even the Mensheviki among the Social-Democrats declared themselves in favor of war and the only party remaining firm in condemning all war was that of the Bolsheviki.
And, in truth, when at Petrograd and in the provinces, these elections began, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Mensheviki received the majority and the Bolsheviki were snowed under.
Indeed, the manner in which the moderate counsels of the Mensheviki dominated the Council at a time of great excitement and passion, when extremists might have been expected to obtain the lead, is one of the most remarkable features of the whole story of the Second Russian Revolution. It appeared at this time that the Russian proletariat had fully learned the tragic lessons of 1905-06.
From the Petropavlovsk Fortress, two or three shells from cannons were directed at the Palace. Their thunder was heard at the Smolny. Martof spoke with helpless indignation from the platform of the convention, about civil war and especially about the siege of the Winter Palace, where among the ministers there were oh, horror! members of the Mensheviki party.
More and more extensive became this sabotage, which was organized mostly by Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, and which was supported by funds furnished by the banks and the Allied Embassies. The stronger the Soviet government became in Petrograd, the more the bourgeois groups placed their hopes on military aid from without.
The masses of soldiers in the trenches could not, of course, reach the conclusion that the war, in which they had participated for nearly three years, had changed its character merely because certain new persons, who called themselves "Social-Revolutionists" or "Mensheviki," were taking part in the Petrograd Government.
In other words, these leaders shared the national feeling against Germany, and, had they been free citizens of a democratically governed country, would have loyally supported the war. When the Duma met, on August 8th, for the purpose of voting the war credits, the Social Democrats of both factions, Bolsheviki and Mensheviki, fourteen in number, united upon a policy of abstention from voting.
After all the preceding experience of the coalition, there would seem to be but one way out of the difficulty to break with the Cadets and set up a Soviet government. The relative forces within the Soviets were such at the time that the Soviet's power as a political party would fall naturally into the hands of the Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki. We deliberately faced the situation.
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