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174 sleepy and that the remaining delegates must stop talking and go home. Thus after one session the Constituent Assembly expired, making a great furor in the Western world, but in the life of Russia hardly a ripple. It had no hold on the people. By the manner of its dying it showed that it had no right to live.

The chief mourners for the Constituent Assembly were the bourgeoisie. It was their last hope. Now it was gone their rage against the Revolution and all its works was implacable. This was quite natural. The Revolution was a catastrophe to them. It declared: "If a man does not work, neither shall he eat." "No one shall have cake until everybody has bread." It dynamited the whole basis of their lives. It took the great estates away from the landlords, the gilt-edged jobs away from the office-holders, the control of banks and factories away from the capitalists. Nobody likes to have things taken away from him. No leisure class gracefully steps down from the roofgarden and goes to work. No privileged class voluntarily resigns any of its privileges. No class steeped in tradition discards the old and gladly embraces the new.

There are of course exceptions to this rule—in Russia some striking ones. The old Czarist general, Nikolayev, declared himself a Bolshevik and took command in the Red Army. Later captured by the Whites at Yamburg he was called upon to deny his faith. He refused. He was tortured—a red star