Lenin had another solution: placate the Left SRs by letting the Assembly convene, then manipulate its membership so as to obtain a more compliant body. This would be done by resorting to “recall,” “a basic, essential condition of genuine democracy.”103 By this device, voters in districts which had chosen undesirable delegates would be persuaded to have them recalled and replaced with Bolsheviks and Left SRs. But this was at best a slow procedure, and while it was being put into effect, the Assembly could pass all manner of hostile resolutions.
Lenin finally made up his mind on this matter on December 12, immediately after reaching an accord with the Left SRs: his decision was made public the next day in
The march of events and the development of class war in the Revolution has produced a situation in which the slogan “All Power to the Constituent Assembly” … has, in effect, turned into a slogan of the Kadets, the followers of Kaledin, and their accomplices. It is becoming clear to the whole people that this slogan, in fact, means the struggle for the elimination of soviet authority and that the Constituent Assembly, if separated from soviet authority, would inevitably be condemned to political death.… Any attempt, direct or indirect, to view the question of the Constituent Assembly from a formal juridical point of view … signifies betrayal of the cause of the proletariat and a transition to the point of view of the bourgeoisie.
Nothing in this argument made sense. The elections to the Assembly had taken place, not before October 26, but in the second half of November—that is, only seventeen days earlier: in the interim nothing had happened to invalidate Lenin’s verdict of December 1 that they were the “perfect” reflection of the people’s will. The principal champions of the Assembly were not the Kadets and certainly not the followers of the Cossack general Aleksei Kaledin, the latter of whom wanted to topple the Bolshevik regime by force of arms, but the Socialists-Revolutionaries. By turning out in large numbers at the polling stations, the “whole people,” on whose behalf Lenin claimed to speak, had shown, not that they regarded the Assembly as anti-Soviet, but looked to it with hope and expectation. And as for the claim that the Assembly was antithetical to the rule of the soviets, only people with very short memories could have forgotten that a mere seven weeks earlier, as they were reaching for power, the same Bolsheviks had insisted that soviet rule alone would guarantee the convocation of the Assembly. But here, as always, Lenin’s arguments were not meant to persuade: the key phrase occurred toward the end of the article, that further support for the Assembly was tantamount to treason.
Lenin went on to say that the Assembly could meet only if the deputies were subject to “recall”—that is, if it consented to its composition being arbitrarily altered by the government—and if it further acknowledged, without qualifications, “Soviet authority”—that is, the Bolshevik dictatorship:
Outside these conditions, the crisis connected with the Constituent Assembly can be solved only in a revolutionary manner by means of the most energetic, rapid, firm, and decisive measures on the part of Soviet authority.… Any attempt to tie the hands of Soviet authority in this struggle would signify complicity with the counterrevolution.
On these terms, the Bolsheviks agreed to have the Assembly meet on January 5/18, 1918, provided that at least 400 deputies turned up. At the same time they issued instructions for the convocation three days later (January 8/21) of the Third Congress of Soviets.
The Bolsheviks now launched a noisy propaganda campaign, the theme of which Zinoviev stated in a speech to the CEC on December 22: “We know very well that behind the pretext of the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, under the celebrated slogan ‘All Power to the Constituent Assembly,’ lies concealed the cherished slogan ‘Down with the Soviets.’ ”105 This proposition the Bolsheviks made official by having it adopted by the CEC on January 3, 1918.106
