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Here it will not be out of place to note, in a few words, the difference between the political role of the Soviets and that of the democratic organs of self-government.
We knew that these committees were no less out of touch with the rank and file of the soldiers than the Central Executive Committee with the local Soviets. The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed commissaries to all railroad depots. These commissaries kept a watchful eye upon all the arriving and departing trains and especially upon the movements of troops.
The Rada, through its delegation, had appealed to the governments of the Central Empires for direct military aid against the Soviets, which had by that time completely defeated the Ukrainians. Thus did the petty-bourgeois democracy of the Ukraine, in its struggle against the working class and the destitute peasants, voluntarily open the gates to foreign invasion.
They prepared the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and they wanted to place the Congress before the accomplished fact. The Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates, and the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates chosen at the first elections answered by the two following appeals: Peasant Comrades!
Only about three hundred members were in attendance on this occasion, and of these 123 voted the expression of confidence, while 102 voted against it, and 26 declined to vote at all. The Bolsheviki had forced the United Executive Committee to convene a new All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and the date of its meeting had been fixed at November 7th.
They conspired to overthrow the Provisional Government. Their plot was to bring about an armed revolt on the 24th of June, when the All-Russian Congress of Soviets would be in session. They planned to arrest the members of the Provisional Government and assume full power. At the same time, all the soldiers at the front were to be called on to leave the trenches.
When the train is on a voyage telegrams announce its arrival beforehand, so that the local Soviets can make full use of its advantages, arranging meetings, kinematograph shows, lectures. I doubt if a more effective instrument of propaganda has ever been devised.
It's rather like the bluff the Soviets ran on the rest of the world for a couple of decades back in the war era, just because they sprawled across half the globe. They were a giant, though it was mostly frozen desert. When the showdown came they didn't have it. They were a pushover. "All right, the next question is why did I choose H. E. instead of going in with everything I had? That's easy, too.
Can we confide to such a Constituent Assembly the destinies of the Russian Revolution? Will it recognize the power of the Soviets? Then came certain hypocritical "ifs." "If," yes, "if" the personnel of the Constituent Assembly is favorable to us; "if" it will recognize the power of the Soviets, it can count on their support. If not it condemns itself to death.
But in the first place, the fate of the Congress depended upon the Petrograd garrison: would it allow Kerensky to surround the Congress of Soviets and disperse it with the assistance of several hundred or thousand military cadets, ensigns and thugs? Did not the very attempt to remove the garrison mean that the Government was preparing to disperse the Congress of Soviets?
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