They did not mention the massacres, nor did they
mention the great demonstration at the funeral of the victims, four days
later.
When the Constituent Assembly was formally opened, on January 18th, it was
well known on every hand that the Bolshevik government would use force to
destroy it if the deputies refused to do exactly as they were told. The
corridors were filled with armed soldiers and sailors, ready for action.
The Lenine-Trotzky Ministry had summoned an extraordinary Congress of
Soviets to meet in Petrograd at the same time, and it was well understood
that they were determined to erect this Soviet Congress into the supreme
legislative power. If the Constituent Assembly would consent to this, so
much the better, of course. In that case there would be a valuable legal
sanction, the sanction of a democratically elected body expressly charged
with the task of determining the form and manner of government for Free
Russia. Should the Constituent Assembly not be willing, there was an
opportunity for another _coup d'etat_.
In precisely the same way as the Ministry during the last years of Czarism
would lay before the Duma certain documents and demand that they be
approved, so the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets--the Bolshevik
power--demanded that the Constituent Assembly meekly assent to a document
prepared for it in advance.
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