Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/245

 Gazeta once let slip the Constituent Assembly would be a convention. That is an example of the empty, petty, contemptible bragging of our Menshevik lackeys of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. In order that it shall not resolve itself into a "Frankfort chatterbox" or a first Duma, in order that it be a convention, the Constituent Assembly must have the courage, the ability, the power to strike merciless blows at the counter-revolution, and not to give in to it. In order that it succeed, it is necessary that power sholdshould [sic] be in the hands of the most radical, the most resolute, the most revolutionary class in a given epoch. It is necessary that it be supported by the whole mass of the town and village poor (semi-proletariat). For that purpose, it is necessary, above all, to wage a decisive war against the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

Such are the real, the class conscious and material conditions of a convention. It is sufficient simply to enumerate these conditions precisely and clearly, to understand how laughable is the bragging of Rabochaya Gazeta, how profoundly ridiculous are the constitutional illusions of the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki concerning the Constituent Assembly in contemptorarycontemporary [sic] Russia.

In attacking the petty bourgeois "Socialists" of the year 1848, Marx particularly and violently condemned their uncontrolled phrasemongery about "the people" and the majority of the people in general.

That recollection is very appropriate in considering the second aspect of constitutional illusions, in analyzing the conception of "majority."

In order that the majority should realy rule in a country, it is necessary to have definite, actual conditions, namely: it is necessary that such a form of government be established, such a governmental authority, as would furnish the opportunity to have affairs decided by a majority and to assure the development of that opportunity into reality. From another point of view, it is necessary that the majority, in accordance with its class composition and in relation to any other class within that majority (or outside of it) should be able to direct government co-operatively and successfully. It is evdentevident [sic] to every Marxist that these two real conditions play a decisive role in the question of the majority of the people, and in the course of governmental affairs in accordance with the will of this majority. Nevertheless, all the political literature of the Social