Soviet, our party put forth the demand to establish a coalition
Executive Committee formed on a proportional basis. The old presiding
body, the members of which were Cheidze, Tseretelli, Kerensky,
Skobeloff, Chernoff, flatly refused this demand. It may not be out of
place to mention this here, inasmuch as representatives of the parties
broken up by the revolution speak of the necessity of presenting one
front for the sake of democracy, and accuse us of separatism. There was
called at that time a special meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, which was
to decide the question of the presiding body's fate. All forces, all
reserves had been mobilized on both sides. Tseretelli came out with a
speech embodying a programme, wherein he pointed out that the question
of the presiding body was a question of orientation. We reckoned that we
would sway somewhat less than half of the vote and were ready to
consider that a sign of our progress. Actually, however, the vote showed
that we had a majority of nearly one hundred. "For six months," said
Tseretelli at that time, "we have stood at the head of the Petrograd
Soviet and led it from victory to victory; we wish that you may hold for
at least half of that time the positions which you are now preparing to
occupy." In the Moscow Soviet a similar change of leadership among the
parties took place.

One after the other the Provincial Soviets joined the Bolshevik
position. The date of convoking the Second All-Russian Congress of
Soviets was approaching. But the leading group of the Central Executive
Committee was striving with all its might to put off the Congress to an
indefinite future time, in order thus to destroy it in advance. It was
evident that the new Congress of Soviets would give our party a
majority, would correspondingly alter the make-up of the Central
Executive Committee, and deprive the fusionists of their most important
position. The struggle for the convocation of the All-Russian Congress