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Updated: May 22, 2025
It was evident that the new Congress of Soviets would give our party a majority, would correspondingly alter the make-up of the Central Executive Committee, and deprive the fusionists of their most important position. The struggle for the convocation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets assumed the greatest importance for us. They needed this move against both us and Kerensky.
"What, then, is my arraignment of sovietism according to the soviet constitution? The people have no direct vote or voice in government, except the farmers in their local rural soviets and the city dwellers in their urban soviets. The rural, county, provincial, regional, and All-Russian soviets are elected indirectly, and the people have no direct vote in the election.
The Bolsheviki this time did not dare to shoot into the magnificent procession preceded by a long line of coffins. The 10th of January they dispersed the Third All-Russian Congress of Peasants which had placed itself on the side of the Constituent Assembly. The peasants who had come to this Congress knew perfectly well that they would have a fight to uphold, perhaps even to give their lives.
These provincial congresses, exclusively Communist, send their delegates of an All-Russian Congress. There the "theses" of the Central Committee get altered, confirmed, or, in the case of an obviously unpersuaded and large opposition in the party, are referred back or in other ways shelved.
The full text of the resolution, given in a literal translation to preserve as far as possible the style of the original, is an interesting document: "Whereas the Provisional Government, that was brought into power by the overthrow of the autocracy, represents the interests of the liberal and democratic bourgeoisie, but shows a tendency to follow the right line, in the declaration published by it in agreement with the representatives of the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, therefore the all-Russian Conference of Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, while insisting on the need of constant pressure being brought to bear on the Provisional Government to arouse it to the most energetic struggle with the counter-revolutionary forces, and to decisive measures in the direction of an immediate democratization of the entire Russian life, nevertheless recognizes that political expediency dictates support of the Provisional Government by the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies so long as the Provisional Government, in agreement with the Council, moves inflexibly toward the consolidation of the conquests of the revolution and the extension of these conquests."
The convention extends to the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates its warmest appreciation of the latter's self-sacrificing and honest work for the strengthening of the new order in Russia, in the interests of the Russian Democracy and at the same time wishes to see, in the nearest possible future, the above Council transformed into an All-Russian Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates.
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.
This could not be delayed, not only on account of Leopold's birthday, but for a more important reason, which Kuehlmann undoubtedly explained to Czernin: "If we should send our representatives into the Ukraine just now, they might really convince themselves that the Rada does not exist; and then we shall have to face a single All-Russian delegation which would spoil our prospects in the negotiations."... By the Austro-Hungarian delegation we were advised to put principle aside and to place the question on a more practical plane.
There had been created a revolutionary body representing all the organized workers, called the United Executive Committee of the All-Russian Councils of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates, a body of more than three hundred elected representatives of the various Soviets. They represented the views of many millions.
To illustrate these methods of the Dictatorship, I cannot do better than copy into this book some pages of my diary written in March of this year when I was present at one of the provincial conferences which were held in preparation of the All-Russian Communist Conference at the end of the month.
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