Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

THESES ON THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY381bourgeois, and not proletarian, phase, and which weretherefore inevitably bound to disappear under the pressureof the deeper and broader masses of the people—and in theelection of new leading bodies in their place.10. This mighty movement of the exploited people forthe reconstruction of the leading bodies of their organisationshas not ended even now, in the middle of December1917, and the Railwaymen’s Congress, which is still insession, represents one of its stages.11. Consequently, the grouping of the class forces inRussia in the course of their class struggle is in fact assuming,in November and December 1917, a form differingin principle from the one that the party lists of candidatesfor the Constituent Assembly compiled in the middle ofOctober 1917 could have reflected.12. Recent events in the Ukraine (partly also in Finlandand Byelorussia, as well as in the Caucasus) point similarlyto a regrouping of class forces which is taking place in theprocess of the struggle between the bourgeois nationalismof the Ukrainian Rada, the Finnish Diet, etc., on the onehand, and Soviet power, the proletarian-peasant revolutionin each of these national republics, on the other.13. Lastly, the civil war which was started by the Cadet-Kaledin counter-revolutionary revolt against the Sovietauthorities, against the workers’ and peasants’ government,has finally brought the class struggle to a head and hasdestroyed every chance of setting in a formally democraticway the very acute problems with which history hasconfronted the peoples of Russia, and in the first place herworking class and peasants.14. Only the complete victory of the workers and peasantsover the bourgeois and landowner revolt (as expressedin the Cadet-Kaledin movement), only the ruthless militarysuppression of this revolt of the slave-owners can reallysafeguard the proletarian-peasant revolution. The courseof events and the development of the class struggle in therevolution have resulted in the slogan “All Power to theConstituent Assembly!”—which disregards the gains of theworkers’ and peasants’ revolution, which disregards Sovietpower, which disregards the decisions of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Depu-