Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
WHERE THE NEWS ENDS By William Henry Chamberlin The Constituent Assembly of 1918 The 40th anniversary of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, convoked on January 18, 1918 and dissolved by...
...Another is the stampede for the exits wherever there is a chance to get away on the frontiers of the Soviet Empire...
...for the mood of the sailors was by this time such that if a single shot had been fired a massacre would unquestionably have followed...
...They met under the jeers, insults and threats of drunken Kronstadt sailors and other units picked for fanatical devotion to the Bolshevik cause...
...The election took place under circumstances very favorable to the Bolsheviks...
...For the prompt convocation of the Constituent Assembly (without the least indication that it would be dispersed) had been one of the Bolshevik slogans during the interval between the overthrow of the Tsar and their own seizure of power...
...But indirect methods of voting were employed even in the elections to these first two parliaments...
...This was a fairly plausible reflection of the mood of the Russian electorate...
...the safe-conduct assurances to Polish underground leaders, promptly followed by their arrest and torture...
...To the accompaniment of a torrent of abuse and menacing shouts from their guardians, the exhausted deputies began to leave the palace...
...the Yalta and Potsdam promises...
...There has never been another freely elected Constituent Assembly in Russia or in any Communist-ruled country...
...A thousand promises, a thousand lies...
...the luring into captivity of the Hungarian freedom leader, Pal Maleter, again with a phony safe-conduct...
...They were still profiting from the revolutionary intoxication of the year 1917 and from the magic-sounding slogans, "peace" and "land...
...It was one of the first in an unending chain of Communist acts of cynical perfidy...
...So, less than three months after they had seized power by promising, among other things, to convene promptly the Constituent Assembly, the Communists served notice that they would never surrender power if the majority of the people were against them...
...the many non-aggression pacts with neighboring states, signed only to be torn up...
...the session was finally closed under mounting pressure from the sailors...
...No Communist party has ventured to submit its case to a free vote of its subjects...
...But the Assembly was never permitted to function...
...It was the first time in Russian history that a sovereign national parliament was elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage...
...This was certainly the case with the Constituent Assembly...
...Moreover, they were effectively in power, at least in the cities and larger towns...
...Still, the votes seem to have been counted pretty honestly under the auspices of an electoral commission appointed by the Provisional Government before Lenin's seizure of power on November 7. A rough summary of the political complexion of the Assembly showed 25 per cent Bolsheviks, 62 per cent democratic socialists (the Socialist Revolutionary party had most of these) and 13 per cent for parties farther to the right...
...The following statement by Lenin, in a published "Letter to a Comrade" of November 1, 1917, is one of many of similar content which could be cited: "Is it so hard to understand that, with power in the hands of the Soviets, the holding of the Constituent Assembly is assured and its success a certainty...
...One need only recall the promises to foreign governments about stopping Communist propaganda, made only to be broken...
...There is no question but that the safety of the entire Assembly hung, at this moment, by the slenderest thread...
...What can be thought of the IQ of people on both sides of the Atlantic who would take up negotiations with the Soviet chiefs in a mood of bland, trusting confidence...
...The end of the Assembly was vividly described by George F. Kennan in Russia Leaves the War: "At 4:40 a.m...
...WHERE THE NEWS ENDS By William Henry Chamberlin The Constituent Assembly of 1918 The 40th anniversary of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, convoked on January 18, 1918 and dissolved by military force the next day, seems worth recalling...
...This formula of brazen treachery runs like a red thread through the whole history of the Soviet regime...
...While they did not yet dare forbid the meeting of the Assembly or engage in wholesale falsification of the returns, they were already committing acts of tyranny and terrorism, such as outlawing the liberal Cadet party and arresting known opponents...
...The Bolsheviks have said this a thousand times...
...A demonstration in favor of the Assembly was broken up with bloodshed...
...The first two Dumas had been chosen on more liberal principles than the last two, in which the method of voting was rigged to assure the preponderance of representatives of the propertied classes...
...There is another compelling reason why the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly should not be forgotten...
...The delegates found the Tauride Palace in Petro-grad, the building where this first freely elected parliament was to meet, ringed by Bolshevik troops...
...This is one impressive count against the proposition that the Soviet peoples "hug their chains...
Vol. 41 • February 1958 • No. 5
