complicated in the extreme. The Revolution had promised land to the
peasant, but at the same time, the leading parties demanded that the
peasant should not touch this land until the Constituent Assembly should
meet. At first the peasants waited patiently, but when they began to
lose patience, the coalition ministry showered repressive measures upon
them. Meanwhile the Constituent Assembly was receding to ever remoter
distances. The bourgeoisie insisted upon calling the Constituent
Assembly after the conclusion of peace. The peasant masses were growing
more and more impatient. What we had foretold at the very beginning of
the Revolution, was being realized: the peasants were seizing the land
of their own accord. Repressive measures grew, arrests of revolutionary
land committees began. In certain uyezds (districts) Kerensky
introduced martial law. A line of delegates, who came on foot, flowed
from the villages to the Petrograd Soviet. They complained that they had
been arrested when they attempted to carry out the Petrograd Soviet's
programme and to transfer the estate holder's land into the hands of the
peasant committees. The peasants demanded protection of us. We replied
that we should be in a position to protect them only if the power were
in our hands. From this, however, it followed that the Soviets must
seize the power if they did not wish to become mere debating societies.

"It is senseless to fight for the power of the Soviets six or eight
weeks before the Constituent Assembly," our neighbors on the Right told
us. We, however, were in no degree infected with this fetish worship of
the Constituent Assembly. In the first place, there were no guarantees
that it really would be called. The breaking up of the army, mass
desertions, disorganization of the supplies department, agrarian
revolution--all this created an environment which was unfavorable to the
elections for the Constituent Assembly. The surrender of Petrograd to
the Germans, furthermore, threatened to remove altogether the question