Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy

by John Spargo

There was no struggle, no violence, no sacrifices; the delegates demanded that the guards respect their rights; they demanded to be admitted, and the guards yielded.

In the Tavrichesky Palace the delegates opened their meeting; V.M. Chernov was elected chairman. There were, altogether, about forty delegates present. They realized that there were not enough present to start the work of the Constituent Assembly. It was decided that it would be advisable to await the arrival of the other delegates and start the work of the Constituent Assembly only when a sufficient number were present. Those already there decided to meet daily at the Tavrichesky Palace in order to count all the delegates as they arrived, and on an appointed day to publicly announce the day and hour of the beginning of the activities of the Constituent Assembly.

When the delegates finished their session and adjourned, the old guards had been dismissed for their submissive attitude toward the delegates and replaced by armed civilian followers of Lenine and Trotzky. The latter issued an order to disband the delegates, but there were none to be disbanded.

The following day the government of the Bolsheviki dishonestly and basely slandered the people's representatives in their official announcement which appeared in Pravda. That lying newspaper wrote that the representatives of the people had forced their way into the palace, accompanied by Junkers and the White Guards of the bourgeoisie, that the representatives wanted to take advantage of their small numbers and had begun the work of the Constituent Assembly. Every one knows that this is slanderous as regards the representatives of the people. Such lies and slanders were resorted to by the old régime.

The aim of the slanders and the lies is clear. The usurpers do not want the people's representatives to have the supreme power and therefore are preparing to disband the Constituent Assembly. On the 28th of November, in the evening, having begun to arrest members of the Constitutional-Democratic party, the Bolsheviki violated the inviolability of the Constituent Assembly. On December 3d a delegate to the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist-Revolutionist, Filippovsky, who was elected by the army on the southwestern front, was arrested.

In accordance with their decision reached on November 28th, the delegates gathered at the Tavrichesky Palace on November 29th and 30th. As on the first day, armed soldiers stood guard at the entrance of the palace and would not let any one pass. The delegates, however, insisted and were finally allowed to enter.

On the third day, scenes of brutal violence toward the people's representatives took place at the palace. Peasants were the unfortunate victims of this violence.

When the delegates had ended their session and all that remained was the affixing of the signatures to the minutes, sailors forced their way into the hall; these were headed by a Bolshevik officer, a former commander of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. The commander demanded that the delegates disband. In reply it was stated that the delegates would disband after they had finished their business. Then at the order of the commander the sailors took the delegate Ilyan, elected by the peasants of the Province of Tambov, by the arm and dragged him to the exit. After Ilyan, the sailors dragged out the peasant delegate from the Province of Moscow, Bikov; then the sailors approached Maltzev, a peasant delegate from the Province of Kostroma. He, however, shouted out that he would rather be shot than to submit to such violence. His courage appealed to the sailors and they stopped.

Now all the halls in the Tavrichesky Palace are locked and it is impossible to meet there. The delegates who come to the Tavrichesky Palace cannot even gather in the lobby, for as soon as a group gathers, the armed hirelings of Lenine and Trotzky disperse them. Thus, in former times, behaved the servants of the Czar and the enemies of the people, policemen and gendarmes.

This is not the testimony of correspondents of bourgeois journals; it is from a statement prepared at the time and signed by more than a hundred Socialists, members of the oldest and largest Socialist party in Russia, many of them men whose long and honorable service has endeared them to their comrades in all lands. It is not testimony that can be impeached or controverted. It forms part of the report of these well-known and trusted Socialists to their comrades in Russia and elsewhere. The claim that the elections to the Constituent Assembly were held on the basis of an obsolete register, before the people had a chance to become acquainted with the Bolshevist program, and that so long a time had elapsed since the elections that the delegates could not be regarded as true representatives of the people, was first put forward by the Bolsheviki when the Constituent Assembly was finally convened, on January 18th. It was an absurd claim for the Bolsheviki to make, for one of the very earliest acts of the Bolshevik government, after the overthrow of Kerensky, was to issue a decree ordering that the elections be held as arranged. By that act they assumed responsibility for the elections, and could not fairly and honorably enter the plea, later on, that the elections were not valid.