Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - Lessons of the Revolution (1918).djvu/12

 Indeed, history seems to show mankind a new form of State organisation which closely approaches the demands of the people, and corresponds with the new order of things ushered in by the Russian Revolution.

These last few days have brought here (in Petrograd) face to face these two types of representation—on one hand the Constituent Assembly, in which one man represents 200,000 wills, and on the other, the, All-Russian Soviets, those direct guards, interpreters and promoters of the social revolution, whose each member is so closely connected with the very pulse of the people. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by the power of the Soviets stirred mo ripple on the faces of the immense sea of the Russian masses; while the threatened curtailment of the powers of the Soviets, two months ago, destroyed the Provisional Government.

Who does not realize how evasive language is: Present day representative government—the parliament—is so skilled in the handling of language that when the people clamor everywhere for peace, they are «persuaded» that peace can only. be achieved by war; when they want a living they are given it at a prohibitive cost, etc. etc. The Soviet, being close to the people, must express realities literally, as the people itself expresses them.

The Soviet is probably the most important contribution of the Russian Revolution.