" This promise was repeated by the Provisional Government when it
was reorganized after the resignation of Miliukov and Guchkov in the
middle of May. That the promise was sincere there can be no reasonable
doubt, for the Provisional Government at once set about creating a
commission to work out the necessary machinery and was for the election by
popular vote of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. Russia was not like
a country which had ample electoral machinery already existing; new
machinery had to be devised for the purpose. This commission was opened on
June 7, 1917; its work was undertaken with great earnestness, and completed
in a remarkably short time, with the result that on July 22d the
Provisional Government--Kerensky at its head--announced that the elections
to the Constituent Assembly would be held on September 30th, and the
convocation of the Assembly itself on the 12th of December. It was soon
found, however, that it would be physically impossible for the local
authorities all to be prepared to hold the election on the date set--it was
necessary, among other things, to first elect the local authorities which
were to arrange for the election of the delegates to the Constituent
Assembly--and so, on August 22d, Kerensky signed the following decree,
making _the one and only postponement_ of the Constituent Assembly, so far
as the Provisional Government was concerned:
Desiring to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly as
soon as possible, the Provisional Government designated the 30th
of September as election-day, in which case the whole burden of
making up the election lists must fall on the municipalities and
the newly elected zemstvos.
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