did not give authority to the Soviets. That had always been theirs, by their very nature. It was merely a public open illustration of the change of opinion brought about in the Soviets themselves by the change of opinion in the workingmen and soldiers who elected them. The October Revolution cleared away the waste growths that hid the true Government of Russia from the world, and as the smoke of the short struggle died away, it was seen that that Government had merely to formulate an authority it already possessed.
What is the Republic of the Soviets?
The actual formulation of the Soviet constitution was a matter of practice guided always by the definite principle of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” which I shall briefly discuss in speaking of the Constituent Assembly. There had been a number of small, formal changes or readjustments of interdependent parts in the machine, but I do not think either opponents or supporters of the Soviet Government can quarrel very seriously with the following statement. Every workman, every peasant in Russia has the right to vote in the election of deputies to his local Soviet, which is made up of a number of deputies corresponding to the number of electors. The local Soviets choose their delegates to an All-Russian Assembly of Soviets. This All-Russian Assembly elects its Central Executive Committee, on a basis of approximately one in five of the delegates to the Assembly. This Central Executive Committee controls, appoints and dismisses the People’s Commissaries who are the actual Government. All decrees of state importance are passed by the Central Executive Committee before being issued as laws by the Council of People’s Commissaries.
At each successive All-Russian Assembly of Soviets, the Executive Committee automatically resigns, and the Assembly as a whole expresses its approval or disapproval of what has been done by its representatives and by the Council of Commissaries during the period since the previous All-Russian Assembly, and, electing a new Executive Committee, which in political character accurately corresponds to the
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