The Workshop Of The Revolution. I. N. Steinberg 1953

Chapter III – The Constituent Assembly

The October Revolution brought tremendous exaltation to vast sections of the Russian people. After eight months of frustrated expectations, there was now a profound sense of relief. It is true that there was also great bitterness about the past, great anxiety for the future; but the deepest sensation which October aroused in the people was joy. In city, village and Army, people rejoiced in the fullness of their liberation, in the limitless freedom that now summoned their creative efforts. It was as if the walls of Jericho had crumbled before their eyes. A new life called to them with a thousand voices: from now on “everything is possible to man.” “Everything is possible” did not mean license and willful destruction, but full freedom to satisfy the constructive urges and the noblest ideals of man.

All aspects of existence-social, economic, political, spiritual, moral, familial-were opened to purposeful fashioning by human hands. Ideas for social betterment and progress that had been gathering for generations in Russia and elsewhere seemed to wait on the threshold of the revolution ready to pour forth and permeate the life of the Russian people. The issues were not only social and economic reforms and thorough-going political changes; with equal zeal the awakened people turned to the fields of justice and education, to art and literature. Everywhere the driving passion was to create something new, to effect a total difference with “the old world” and its civilization. It was one of those uncommon moments of self-perception and self- assertion. The storm passed nobody by: neither those who hailed it as a blessing nor those who spurned it as a curse.

But, just as during the February period, history did not permit men to indulge long their enthusiasm and joy. Practical issues demanding immediate action confronted the people. For the October regime was not established with idyllic ease; it passed through a harsh, though short, period of struggle. In Petrograd the new Soviet Government was obliged to pit its strength against an assault by Kerensky. He no longer had a government behind him, but he made contact with improvised military units which were to help him “re-establish order.” This operation was not successful, because it lacked not only the necessary physical power but also the political atmosphere in which to function. As soon as his troops approached the city of Petrograd (which was then burning with a revolutionary fever), they lost their striking power. Men refused to fight, went over to the Soviets.

But in Moscow a “civil war” raged for seven days between adherents of Kerensky and the new Soviet elements. Barricades sprang up in Russia’s former capital and guns blazed. It was characteristic of that period that Social-Revolutionaries were fighting on both sides of the barricades. Victor Rudneff, president of the Moscow City Council, acted for the right wing, while the young officer Yuri Sablin fought in the name of the Left Social-Revolutionaries. But the historic fate of this revolution was already sealed: the soviets triumphed in Moscow as in Petrograd.

The very fact, however, that grave dissensions and divisions e'existed within the socialist camp pointed to future dangers. It was therefore natural that efforts were made almost at once in the victorious camp of the Soviet parties to create a united socialist front. Protesting violently, the Mensheviks and Right Social- Revolutionaries quit the Second Soviet Congress when it proclaimed the Soviet Republic. Thus, the moderates caused the final split in the camp of the working classes and facilitated the establishment eventually of a purely Bolshevik government. The mass movement of October was abandoned to the strangling grip of a one-party “quasi-government.”

The Left Social-Revolutionaries (and the Social-Democrats Internationalists who remained in the Soviet Congress) therefore took it upon themselves to try to create a united socialist government, comprising all shades of opinion from the Right Social- Revolutionaries to the extreme Bolsheviks. Naturally, the basis for such a coalition could not have been a Kerensky-type program, which had vanished like a ghost from the political stage, but only the new historic situation as crystallized at the end of October. But no such unification ever came about.

On November 2, 1917, the Bolshevik Central Committee, with Lenin at its head, passed the following resolution: “We depose that, on the day the present Government was established, we invited three representatives of the Left Social-Revolutionaries and formally suggested their participation in the Government. They declined. And, even though the rejection was not final, they bear the responsibility for the failure to reach an agreement.”

The Left Social-Revolutionaries rejected the offer because they aimed at something more than “agreement” between two victorious parties, theirs and the Bolsheviks. They wanted a unification of all socialists so as to avoid a dictatorship. “It seems to us,” Inamya Truda, Left Social-Revolutionary Party organ, wrote on November 4, 1917, “that one simple word, a word of truth, would be sufficient to link the hands now engaged in party struggle. For the truth is that the workers and the peasants must have no enemies in their own ranks. Let them therefore inform all party committees of their determination to establish a genuine socialist government in which all vital elements are unified.” Let it be remembered that an important group among the Bolshevik leaders-Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Shlyapnikov -advanced the same demand.

Negotiations with the Mensheviks and the Right Social- Revolutionaries (at that time the most important leaders were Fyodor Dan for the Mensheviks and Abram Gotz for the Right Social-Revolutionaries) continued day and night, but without positive results. The two extreme groups deliberately torpedoed all efforts. While Lenin and Trotsky “participated” in the negotiations, they actually did their best to obstruct them and drag them out, for Lenin’s secret political purpose had never been a united front, but always the Bolshevik Party dictatorship. For their part the moderate socialists utterly failed to comprehend the grandiose scale of the October overturn and still viewed the revolution as a mere party struggle. As a result, they submitted impossible conditions for a united front, primarily that Lenin and Trotsky should have no part in it.

It was amazing. During the February period, the Mensheviks and the Right Social-Revolutionaries had countenanced all possible coalitions with bourgeois parties, even when they were openly reactionary. But the same leaders now rejected indignantly the idea of a socialist coalition, that is, co-operation with the Bolshevik Party, which at that time was still weak and still sought support in other related elements. Lenin’s face for them seemed to eclipse all of the revolution. And again they unwittingly helped prepare the ground for his future dictatorship.

Time did not stand still; almost daily the revolution faced new problems. We felt that the Soviet Government must not remain much longer under the narrow guard of Lenin and Trotsky. The Left Social-Revolutionaries realized the urgent need for broadening the base of the Government, even if hope for a united front should prove illusory. On November 8, a conference of Left Social-Revolutionary Army leaders passed a significant resolution:

“Responsibility for the failure to establish a unified government rests on one hand with the right-wing socialist elements, and on the other hand with the stubborn position taken by a section of the Bolshevik leaders. Because of the ever- deteriorating conditions in the country and Army, the Left Social-Revolutionaries must enter the Soviet Government without waiting for the other parties. Only then will it be possible to ensure the dominion of the entire revolutionary democracy instead of one party only.”

Rapidly this view came to be shared by most in the party: its entry into the government was imminent. And yet it did not happen until a month later. Why? Because the men of the Left Social-Revolutionary Party had only just split off completely from the parent party (before this they had been merely a left- wing faction), and their ranks were being daily swelled by new adherents. They therefore thought it essential, before entering a government, to constitute themselves as an independent party to be known as the Left Social-Revolutionary with its own clearly formulated program and ideological background. The masses who stood behind them demanded that the party emerge as an independent force, separated clearly both from the moderate socialists and from the Bolsheviks. In November, 1917, at its first conference held in Petrograd, the new party was solemnly proclaimed.

And still the Left Social-Revolutionaries did not rush to join the Government until they had consolidated their popular support in the country. In their view, a Soviet government must not be a purely political agreement between parties or their leaders; it was to represent-in direct and continuous contact- the greatest possible number of the working masses. If bolshevism at that time claimed to represent the Russian proletariat (which claim was only partially correct), the Left Social- Revolutionaries could, in a Soviet coalition, represent directly the other, decisive, class of the revolution: that of the toiling peasantry. Despite the fact that large masses of workers (in Petrograd alone no less than 45,000 workers were members of the Left Social-Revolutionary Party) and soldiers and sailors also supported the party, its principal strength lay in the villages. And everybody, even the Bolsheviks, took it for granted that the Left Social-Revolutionaries, through the Minister for Agriculture who was a member of their party, would carry out the socialization of land.

That is why the Left Social-Revolutionaries, during the month of November, gave their attention to the peasant congresses, particularly the Second Congress-a milestone on the road of the October Revolution. It was a dramatic session which tore the peasant class apart. The two camps found their voices in the personalities of Victor Chernov and Maria Spiridonova. Many peasant delegates had arrived at the Second Congress disillusioned by the floundering indecision of the February Government and determined finally to implement their agrarian revolution. The fight was bitter between those who still had faith in the promises and declarations of their former Government spokesman Victor Chernov and those who demanded bold and decisive action in the spirit of the October Revolution. The adherents of the latter faction were in the majority, and the Congress took on a character that was specifically Spiridonova’s.

Thus the party of the Left Social-Revolutionaries, which now had gained the popular support so essential for any coalition with the Bolsheviks, entered the Government with open eyes, seeing clearly both the overt and the latent differences between the two parties. Spiridonova’s concluding speech at the constituent conference of the Left Social-Revolutionary Party clearly expressed this awareness. But since their party considered that the great tasks of the October Revolution overrode those differences, on December io, 1917, seven Left Social-Revolutionaries joined the Council of People’s Commissars.

But while all these events were taking place, the wheels of the revolution continued to turn. Vital decisions had to be made, first concerning the most burning issue of all: peace. The Government, of course, stood by the famous formula which had been sent out to the warring world by the very first Petrograd Soviet-"Peace without annexation, without contributions, with the right to self-determination for all nations.” But the October Government was no longer satisfied only with the pronouncement of these words; it immediately went into action. It sent a diplomatic appeal to all combatant governments suggesting an armistice so that peace negotiations might begin.

This action met with resistance from the Russian High Command, which refused to co-operate with the Government. The refusal was tragic, particularly because it resulted in the lynch murder of the Commander in Chief, General Dukhonin, by unruly soldiers. But among the people the call to armistice aroused a powerful echo of sympathy. It was therefore even more tragic that the governments of the Allied powers did not even acknowledge Russia’s suggestion. Hence, Soviet Russia opened negotiations in the fortress of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, Austria and their allies only.

That was the first bitter draught in that exhilarating period when the dream of international peace and friendship among peoples seemed so real. The Soviet delegation, led by Trotsky and Kamenev, and including several Left Social-Revolutionaries, earnestly hoped that the governments of Britain, France and the United States would join them once they had become convinced of the responsible character of the Soviet proposals. How great, for instance, was the joy in Petrograd when the Soviet delegates succeeded at Brest-Litovsk in exacting a German assurance that no troops would be diverted from the Russian front to France, where desperate battles were then being fought. By forcing this agreement, the Soviet Government wanted to convince the world that it did not seek a separate national peace at the expense of the other peoples fighting against Germany.

Then too, the Soviet delegates saw through German plans to dominate Poland and the Baltic countries under pretense of applying the Russian revolutionary formula of “self-determination of nations.” At the negotiating table the Russians exposed the duplicity of the German diplomats and the alleged Polish resolutions they presented. They appealed, over the heads of the cynical imperialist politicians, to the peoples of the world. Unfortunately the Russian voices hardly reached the world. In Brest-Litovsk they themselves were held as in a beleaguered fortress. The Germans and Austrians did everything possible to silence the revolutionary call for an international peace. In Petrograd, and in the thousands of Russian cities and villages, however, people waited with bated breath for every word from Brest-Litovsk. And they soon sensed that real peace was not yet in the offing; the shadow of war again darkened the horizon of the revolution.

And in the meantime a new crisis loomed. The Constituent Assembly was still due to convene. To all political parties, without exception, the forthcoming Assembly seemed like an iceberg, its dangerous bulk hidden beneath the political waves. The moderate socialists hoped that the Constituent Assembly, with the prestige of its majestic name, would overrun the entire Soviet system. The Bolsheviks foresaw a violent collision between these two pretenders to power in revolutionary Russia. Given a chance, they would have prevented this unpredictable Assembly from ever appearing before the people.

The Left Social-Revolutionaries disagreed vehemently. They demanded that the people witness the Assembly-which they had awaited for so long-in action and then decide on its role within the new historic situation, created after October. That is why on December 18, 1917, four Left Social-Revolutionary People’s Commissars-Karelin, Kalegayev, Trutovsky, Steinberg-introduced a written motion that the next session of the Council of People’s Commissars discuss the convening of the Constituent Assembly. The issue was duly discussed in the Government meeting of December 20, 1917, and the following action was decided upon: “The Council of People’s Commissars announces January 5, 1918, as the date of the opening of the Constituent Assembly in the presence of a quorum of 400 deputies.” Two days later the decree was presented to the Central Soviet Executive and passed by all parties, including the moderate socialists, with only two abstentions.

The number four hundred did not account for all deputies elected by the Russian people. It was but half. But, because of the size of the country and the technical difficulties of elections in many provinces, one had to be satisfied with this minimum figure, if only to meet the ever-mounting tension in the country.

The Left Social-Revolutionaries had few illusions about the approaching crisis. They knew that a large section of the deputies would belong to the Social-Revolutionary Party, which represented the most numerous class in the people, that is, the peasants. But had the voters during the elections for the Constituent Assembly known the difference between the right and left wings of the party? The list of candidates for the Social- Revolutionary Party had been made up some time before the October upheaval, when the left wing had had no separate existence. This upheaval had divided the two wings into opposing camps. Would the two come to an agreement in the Constituent Assembly?

The protracted, painful negotiations between the socialist parties concerning the establishment of a unified government had been broken off at the end of November. The moderates had refused to yield on any of their dogmatic conditions because of their intransigence toward the Soviet revolt. And they would all return in the Constituent Assembly: the same personalities, demands, ambitions and emotions. Was any agreement possible?

There was no agreement. When, on January 5, deputies from all over Russia assembled in the Tauride Palace, they were sharply divided. It was a patent fact that the Constituent Assembly was no longer the only sovereign institution as had been intended during the long months of the year 1917; alongside it, and really above it, was the Soviet power. And the most fundamental aspect of the explosive situation was that while the Constituent was still only a political idea and a promise, the Soviet Government had already emerged as a fighting and active force, changing and re-forming the country. The Government was already conducting negotiations for peace; it had already published the decree on land socialization; it had already admitted the workers to the production process.

And so the magnificent hall of the Tauride Palace held the two camps: the “democratic” Social-Revolutionaries and the “Soviets,” the Bolsheviks and Left Social-Revolutionaries. (It is important to emphasize that neither the Mensheviks nor the Kadets played any role in that drama.) Once more the split was immediately apparent in the two names proposed for presidency of the Assembly: the right wing proposed Victor Chernov; the left, Maria Spiridonova. Chernov won the contest by 244 votes against 153 and, in his “speech from the throne,” he gave no indication of a desire to find a common ground with the already existing political reality. Of all possible attitudes toward the Soviets, Chernov (and the Right Social-Revolutionary Party that stood behind him) chose the most dangerous, if not the most foolish, tactic: he simply ignored the Soviets, as if they did not exist at all. His major speech, which naturally encompassed all cardinal issues of the revolution, was delivered with the incredible pretense that the Constituent Assembly had convened in a social vacuum. He announced that negotiations for peace would be started with the Allied powers; that the socialization of land would be carried through; that the federative rights of all nationalities would be proclaimed. Not with a single word did he mention that all these vital tasks were already being realized in the country and followed with intense interest in the whole world.

What did all this mean? By implication it was a challenge to the Soviets and the masses that stood by them. For the Constituent Assembly, the only chance of survival lay in some compromise with the revolutionary forces that had already struck roots. It would have been easy to find some legal, constitutional and political form for such understanding-had but the will been there on both sides. But this one way of averting civil war within the camp of the working people was ignored by the majority. Did it then hope that the Soviets would simply capitulate?

There were no agreements. No common language was found even though both camps had, at the start of this memorable session, sung the Internationale in unison. A tragic pall hung over the agitated Council Chamber. Rarely had so many socialist leaders, martyrs, and fighters of Russia assembled in one place. Hundreds of their names were engraved as living legends in the memory of the people. Despite their opposing views, they were still brothers in a deeper sense. And yet there was no hope of fraternity. The left wing-first the Bolsheviks and much later also the Left Social-Revolutionaries-read statements saying that, under the circumstances, they could not remain in the Assembly and were withdrawing from it. Thus the structure of this institution was crippled.

Chernov continued the session as if nothing had happened and in great haste let the Assembly-without debates-adopt a series of laws based on the program of his major speech. But everybody felt, how unreal, ghostlike were these laws in the heated atmosphere of that moment. It was about four o'clock in the morning of January 6, 1918, when Chernov declared the session officially closed and announced that the Assembly would meet again the next day.

The deputies left the Tauride Palace unmolested and quickly vanished in the city. No attempt was made by the Soviet authorities to disperse them by violence.

The leaders of the Constituent Assembly did not make any determined effort to assemble for a second session-either in the Tauride Palace or elsewhere. They did not follow an example set twelve years earlier, in 1906, by the Kadets and socialist deputies of the first Duma (the Russian parliament). When the Duma was dissolved by czarist decree, they retreated to the Finnish city of Viborg, and from there issued an impassioned appeal to the Russian people calling on them to refuse military service and payment of taxes to the Czar’s Government.

Neither did the masses of Petrograd rise in defense of the Constituent Assembly that January 6, 1918, as many in the country had expected. And that proved more tellingly than any arguments that there was no longer room for the pre-October Constituent Assembly in this new phase of Russian history.