Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Soviets or Parliament.djvu/4



HE fundamental difference between the parliamentary system and the Soviet power is already known. It is known that the Soviets grant no political rights to the non-producing classes. The country is governed by the councils elected by the working population in the place where they work, in the workshops, the mines, and the villages. The capitalists, the landed proprietors, middle-class intellectuals, bankers, stockbrokers, and speculators, merchants and shopkeepers, priests and monks, in short, all who form the black army of capitalism, are deprived of the right to vote and are without political power.

The Constituent Assembly (or Parliament, the members of which are elected to represent territorial constituencies) is the basis of the Parliamentary Republic. The highest sovereignity of the communist republic belongs to the Congress of Soviets.

In what does the one differ from the other?

In the fact that to the Constituent Assembly, not only are the representatives of the workers and peasants elected, but also the representatives