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the seats. In the smaller towns, where the Ukrainian population is proportionately higher, the Ukrainians had the relative majority (40 or 45 per cent. Ukrainians, 30 per cent. Jews, 15 or 20 per cent. Russians, and in the western villages a certain percentage of Poles).
(f) The Constituent Assemblies.
One recalls that the Constituent Assembly of former Russia was dissolved by the Bolsheviks who took over the Government in October, and has since been unable to reassemble.
But in almost the whole of former Russia, and especially in the Ukraine, all deputies were elected on the basis of the universal and proportional system in September and October—that is to say, before the coup d'état of the Bolsheviks at Petrograd. These elections had been a manifest victory for the Ukrainians. Of the 150 deputies that the Ukraine had to elect, 115 (being 65 per cent.) represented the Ukrainian party. The other 35 were of different nationality, some 20 were Jews, and the others were Russians or Poles.
In the autumn of 1917 the Central Rada decided to convene the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly. The elections were made in December, 1917, and in January, 1918. Unfortunately the Bolsheviks had made their first invasion of the Ukraine, and in Eastern Ukraine the elections could not take place. Of the 326 deputies who should have been sent to the Constituent Assembly about 250 were elected. They comprised:—
| 190 | Ukrainians. |
| 30 | Russians. |
| 20 | Jews. |
| 10 | Poles and others. |
Thus nearly 80 per cent, were Ukrainians. Of the ten million votes polled eight million were for the Ukrainian party.
In the Government of Kiev the Ukrainians obtained about 1,300,000 votes, whilst all the other parties collected only 250,000 votes.
