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

486V. I. LENINnelles and Armenia or a piece of Galicia; some who reallylet themselves go, like the famous Milyukov, made maps,well in advance, showing the strip of Eastern Prussia whichwas to be the Russian people’s own reward for the bloodshed by millions of its workers and soldiers. There you havea true picture of the dominant Russian bourgeois-imperialistrepublic of Kerensky, who continued to be regarded as,and in fact was, a member of the Socialist-RevolutionaryParty.The Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’and Soldiers’ Deputies met in late October, by which timethe people were fed up with placating the imperialists, andthe June offensive had cost us hundreds of thousands oflives, and had clearly shown why the war was dragging on,how these secret treaties doomed the soldiers to the slaughter,and why talk of peace remained nothing but talk.That was why the Second All-Russia Congress of Sovietsoverthrew the rule of the bourgeois-imperialist governmentand established Soviet power. The elections to the ConstituentAssembly fell on November 12 and confronted theworkers, soldiers and especially the peasants with a situationin which they had to vote on the old lists, becausethere were no others, and none could be drawn up. So whenwe are now told, “You have dissolved the ConstituentAssembly which represents the majority of the people”,when this is chorused by bourgeois penpushers and newspapersof the Kerensky-socialist stamp, we respond: “Why isit that you cannot make a single straightforward statement tothe people about the argument which I have just set forthand which was contained in the decree dissolving the ConstituentAssembly?” We cannot consider the ConstituentAssembly to be expressive of the people’s will because it waselected on old lists. The workers and especially the peasantsvoted for the Socialist-Revolutionaries as a whole party,but it split after the elections, and appeared before thepeople as two parties: the Right-wingers, who sided withthe bourgeoisie, and the party of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries,who sided with the working class and the workingpeople, and came down on the side of socialism. Did thepeople have any chance to choose between the Right andLeft Socialist-Revolutionaries under the Constituent As-