Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/336

 until the final victory from the yoke of capital is won through the international workers' revolt.

As the Constituent Assembly was elected en the basis of the lists of candidates nominated before the November Revolution, when the people as a whole could not yet rise against their exploiters, and did not know the extent of the latter's might of opposition in defending their own privileges, and had not yet begun to create a Socialistic society, the Constituent Assembly would consider it, even from a formal point of view, as unjust to put itself against the Soviet power. The Constituent Assembly is of the opinion that now, in the decisive moment of the struggle of the people against the exploiters, the exploiters cannot have any seat in any of the Government organizations. Power must completely and without exception belong to the people and to the authoriative representatives—to the workers', soldiers' and peasants Soviets.

Supporting the Soviet rule and accepting the orders of the Council of People's Commissaires, the Constituent Assembly acknowledges that its duty is to outline a form for the reorganization of society on a Socialistic basis.

Striving at the same time to organize a free and voluntary, and thereby also a complete and strong union among the toiling classes of all the Russian nationalities, the Constituent Assembly is content to outline the basis of the federation of Russian Soviet Republics, leaving to the people, to workingmen and soldiers, to decide for themselves in their own Soviet meetings, whether they are willing, and on what conditions, to join the federated government and other unions of the Soviet enterprises.

These great principles are to be published without delay and the official representatives of the Soviets are required to read them at the opening of the Constituent Assembly. These principles are the working basis of the Assembly.

The Russan Revolution has from the beginning put to the fore the workers' and peasants' Soviets as a mass organization of all workers and exploited classes, which is the only body capable of directing the struggle of these classes for their complete political and economic liberation. During the first period of the Revolution the Soviets increased, developed and were strengthened, on the