But the course of events has
been different. The elections for the Constituent Assembly occurred in
the ninth month of the Revolution. By that time the class struggle had
assumed such intensity that it broke the formal frames of democracy by
sheer internal force.
The proletariat drew the army and the peasantry after it. These classes
were in a state of direct and bitter war with the Right Social
Revolutionists. This party, owing to the clumsy electoral democratic
machinery, received a majority in the Constituent Assembly, reflecting
the pre-October epoch of the revolution. The result was a contradiction
which was absolutely irreducible within the limits of formal democracy.
And only political pedants who do not take into account the
revolutionary logic of class relations, can, in the face of the
post-October situation, deliver futile lectures to the proletariat on
the benefits and advantages of democracy for the cause of the class
struggle.
The question was put by history far more concretely and sharply. The
Constituent Assembly, owing to the character of its majority, was bound
to turn over the government to the Chernov, Kerensky and Tseretelli
group. Could this group have guided the destinies of the Revolution?
Could it have found support in that class which constitutes the backbone
of the Revolution? No. The real kernel of the class revolution has come
into irreconcilable conflict with its democratic shell.
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