Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/143

 Rh people and for the soldiers who were in revolt; it undoubtedly did a great deal to give the rising a better organised and more definite character. The first sitting of the Soviet took place on the same day. From the very first the delegates were exceedingly practical and objective; they formulated their task with remarkable clarity. Being conscious that the workers were in the vanguard of the Revolution, they still did not consider themselves as a purely class organisation. They spoke in the name of the people, of the democracy; not in the name of a class. They issued their appeal "to all the inhabitants of Petrograd." On this first Monday, when the Tsar was not yet deposed, and the Provisional Government did not yet exist, they formulated their chief demand: "To join forces an fighting for a complete overthrow of the old order; and for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly."

So much for the Soviet. The other organisation formed in the first days of the Revolution was the Provisional Committee of the Duma. But while the workers were bearing the whole weight of responsibility of revolutionary leadership, and running all the risks, the Duma, as I already mentioned, wavered and hesitated. The Duma did not begin to act until the Revolution was already achieved. Only when the revolutionary army came to the Duma and expressed to Rodzianko the will of the army that the old Government should be swept away—only then did the Duma leaders decide to act. But even then the Duma elements did not break with the Tsar and with Tsarism. Rodzianko still went to the Tsar's Government at its invitation to consult with it. As Mr. Wilton, the great partisan of Rodzianko and the "Duma" theory, says: "He (Rodzianko) hoped to learn from them that the Tsar had summoned a Duma Government. He found all the Ministers assembled, and also the Grand Duke Michael. But they had no news." This consultation would have led to a Government under the Grand Duke Michael as Regent, except for the resistance of the then {{{smallrefs}}