and terrorism rampant were yet to be met, but that night of the 7th of November ushered in the reign of a group of city workmen and soldiers. A few determined men led them and they backed their leadership with bayonets, street battles, terrorism and machine gun squads in armored cars. They were determined at all costs to attempt a Socialist society in Russia.
"Two hundred thousand members of the Bolshevik party are imposing their proletariat will on the mass," said Lenin, their leader, shortly after the Soviet Revolution. The Russian people were one hundred and eighty millions; one hundred and fifty millions or more of them were peasants; ten million were workingmen. But 200,000 members of one party aided by the few extremist Social Revolutionaries seized the power of Russia and were determined to rule.
The Soviet Revolution was the act of a small minority of the people. It has also been kept alive by undemocratic means. In the January following, the Constituent Assembly, which had been elected by all the people of Russia, met in Petrograd. The Councils of People's Commissars demanded of the Assembly that it declare Russia "to be a Republic of Soviets of workmen's, soldiers' and peasants' Deputies" and that "all the power in the centre and in the provinces belongs to these Soviets."[1] When it refused, it was formally dissolved by the Commissars.
Electoral System.
The new Government is a government of the Soviets. Power is supposed to rest ultimately in the councils of the workmen in their factories or local unions, in the company and regimental meetings of the soldiers, and in
- ↑ Art. I. and II. of the "Declaration of the Rights of the Laboring Exploited People."
