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

NOTES531and adopted a resolution on the withdrawal of the Bolsheviks fromthe Pre- parliament despite resistance on the part of Kamenev,Rykov and other capitulants. On October 7 (20), the opening dayof the Pre- parliament, the Bolsheviks read out a declaration andwalked out. p. 195678The Provisional Government announced the convocation of theConstituent Assembly in its declaration of March 2 (15), 1917.On June 14 (27) it adopted a decision setting the election forSeptember 17 (30), but in August postponed the date to November12 (25).The election was actually held after the October SocialistRevolution at the appointed time and on party lists drawn upbefore the revolution, in accordance with a Provisional Governmentordinance. At the time of the election the bulk of the peoplehad not yet realised the full implications of the socialist revolution,a fact which the Right Socialist- Revolutionaries used to win amajority in the areas remote from the capital and the industrialcentres. The Constituent Assembly was called by the Soviet Governmentand opened in Petrograd on January 5 (18), 1918. Its counterrevolutionarymajority rejected the Declaration of Rights of theWorking and Exploited People, which was placed before it by theAll- Russia Central Executive Committee, and refused to recogniseSoviet power. It was dissolved by a decree of the Central ExecutiveCommittee on January 6 (19). For details see pp. 379- 83, 434- 36,437-41 of this volume. p. 20See Engels’s Revolution and Counter- Revolution in Germany whichwas published in instalments in the New York Daily Tribunein 1851 and 1852. It bore Marx’s signature, who had intended towrite the work but was too busy with his economic studies andasked Engels to do it. Engels consulted Marx on various pointsand submitted the articles for his perusal before dispatchingthem to the paper. The fact that the work was written by Engelscame out later with the publication of their correspondence.p. 21Blanquism—a trend within the French socialist movement ledby Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805- 1881), an outstanding utopiancommunist. “Blanquism expects that mankind will be emancipatedfrom wage slavery, not by the proletarian class struggle, butthrough a conspiracy hatched by a small minority of intellectuals”(see present edition, Vol. 10, p. 392). The trend failed to reckonwith the concrete situation, which must be taken into account ifan insurrection is to succeed, and neglected to establish ties withthe masses. p. 22What Lenin has in mind are the mass demonstrations which tookplace in Petrograd on July 3- 4 (16- 17), 1917. It was a movementof soldiers, sailors and workers, who were incensed at the ProvisionalGovernment for sending troops into a patently hopeless