This composition assures it of a
counter-revolutionary spirit. Its destiny is therefore clear. Historic
examples come to its aid. _The victorious people has no need of a
Constituent Assembly. It is above the Constituante_. It has gone beyond
it." The Russian people, half illiterate, were made to believe that in a
few weeks they had outgrown the end for which millions of Russians had
fought for almost a century; that they no longer had need of the most
perfect form of popular representation, such as did not exist even in the
most cultivated countries of western Europe. To the Constituent Assembly,
legislative organ due to equal, direct, and secret universal suffrage, they
opposed the Soviets, with their recruiting done by hazard and their
elections to two or three degrees,[92] the Soviets which were the
revolutionary organs and not the legislative organs, and whose role besides
none of those who fought for the Constituent Assembly sought to diminish.
V
_The Fight Concentrates Around the Constituent Assembly_
This was a maneuver whose object appeared clearly. The defenders of the
Constituent Assembly had evidence of what was being prepared. The peasants
who waited with impatience the opening of the Constituent Assembly sent
delegates to Petrograd to find out the cause of the delay of the
convocation.
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