Turning to another part of the same important document--Article III,
Chapter VI, Section A, paragraph 25--we find the basis of representation in
the All-Russian Congress of Soviets stated. There are representatives of
town Soviets and representatives of provincial congresses of Soviets. The
former represent the industrial workers; the latter represent the peasants
almost exclusively. It is important, therefore, to note that there is one
delegate for every twenty-five thousand city voters and one for every one
hundred and twenty-five thousand peasant voters! In Section B of the same
Article, Chapter X, paragraph 53, we find the same discrimination: it takes
five peasants' votes to equal the vote of one city voter; it was this
general attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the peasants, dividing them into
classes and treating the great majority of them as petty, rural
bourgeoisie, which roused the resentment of the peasants' leaders. They
naturally insisted that the peasants constituted a distinct class,
co-operating with the proletariat, not to be ruled by it. Even Marie
Spiridonova, who at first joined with the Bolsheviki, was compelled, later
on, to assert this point of view.
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