By that time the predominance of our party in the Petrograd Soviet became definite. This was made evident in a dramatic form in connection with the question of the constitution of the Presidential Bureau. At the time when the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks reigned supreme in the Soviets, they tried all they could to isolate the Bolsheviks. Even when we had at least one-third of the total seats on the Petrograd Soviet, they would not admit a single representative of our party to the Presidential Bureau. After the Petrograd Soviet had passed a resolution in favour of a purely Soviet Government by a somewhat precarious majority, our group demanded the constitution of a Coalition Presidency on the basis of proportional representation. The old Bureau, which included Chkheidze, Tsereteli, Kerensky, Skobelev, and Chernov, would not hear of this. It is worthwhile remembering this just now, when the other parties talk of the need of a ‘united democratic front’ and accuse us of exclusiveness. A special meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was called to decide the constitution of the Bureau. Both sides mobilised all their forces and reserves for this struggle. Tsereteli came out with a programmatic speech and argued that the question of the Presidential Bureau was really a question of policy. We thought we should get a little less than half of the votes, and were prepared to consider this as a success. To our own great surprise, the voting by roll-call showed more than a hundred majority in our favour. “During six months,” said Tsereteli, “we stood at the head of the Petrograd Soviet and led it from victory to victory. We hope that you will at least remain half that time at the posts you are about to take up.” A similar change of the directing parties took place in the Moscow Soviet. The provincial Soviets, too, passed one after the other into the hands of the Bolsheviks. The time was getting near for the summoning of an All-Russian Congress of Soviets. But the leading group of the Central Executive Committee was trying all it could to put the Congress off to the dim and distant future, in the hope of making it altogether impossible. It was evident that the new Congress would give our party a majority, would elect a new Central Executive Committee corresponding to the new orientation of the parties, and would rob the Coalitionists of their most important stronghold. The struggle for the calling together of the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets thus became a matter of the greatest importance to us.
As against this, the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries made a proposal for the calling together of a democratic conference. This body, they thought, they would be able to play off both against us and against Kerensky.
The head of the Government had by this time taken up quite an independent and irresponsible position. He had been raised to power in the first period of the Revolution by the Petrograd Soviet. Kerensky had entered the ministry in the first instance without any provisional decision of the Soviet, but the latter subsequently approved of the step. After the first congress of the Soviets the socialist ministers were considered to be responsible to the Central Executive Committee. Their Cadet allies were only answerable to their own party. After the July days, the Central Executive Committee, meeting the wishes of the bourgeoisie, freed the socialist ministers from their responsibility to the Soviets, for the purpose, as it was alleged at the time, of creating a revolutionary dictatorship. This also is worthwhile remembering just now, when the very same people who were concocting the dictatorship of a small circle are now hurling charges and slanders against the dictatorship of a class.
The Moscow State Conference, at which the artificially selected propertied and democratic representatives balanced one another, had for its chief aim the consolidation of Kerensky’s power over the classes and parties. This aim had only been attained in appearance. In reality the Moscow Conference only revealed Kerensky’s complete impotence, for he was almost equally a stranger to the propertied elements and to the lower middle-class democracy. But as the Liberals and the Conservatives applauded his tirades against the democracy, while the coalitionists gave him a great ovation when he very guardedly disowned the counter-revolutionaries, he gained the impression that he was supported by both sides and disposed of unlimited authority. He threatened the workers and the revolutionary soldiers with blood and iron. His policy went still further along the road of conspiracies with Kornilov, which compromised him in the eyes of the coalitionists. Tsereteli, in his characteristically vague diplomatic phrases, spoke of ‘personal’ factors in politics and the necessity of circumscribing them. It was this task that the democratic conference had to discharge, composed as it was of representatives of the Soviets, Municipal Councils, Zemstvos, trade unions and co-operative societies – all selected in an arbitrary manner. The chief problem, however, was to provide for a sufficiently conservative complexion of the Conference, to dissolve the Soviets once for all in the amorphous mass of democracy, and to consolidate their own power by means of this new organisation against the tide of Bolshevism.
It will not be out of place here to note in a few words the difference between the political role of the Soviets and the democratic organs of self-government. Philistines have more than once pointed out to us that the new Municipal Councils and Zemstvos elected by universal suffrage are incomparably more democratic than the Soviets, and possess a more valid right to represent the whole population. This formal democratic criterion, however, has no real meaning in revolutionary times. Revolution is distinguished by this: that the consciousness of the masses undergoes rapid changes. New sections of the population constantly gain experience, revise their views of yesterday, work out new ones, reject old leaders, follow others, and press ever forward. In times of Revolution the (formally) democratic organisations, based on the ponderous mechanism of universal suffrage, inevitably lag behind the development of the political views of the masses. Not so the Soviets. They depend directly on organic groups, such as workshops, factories, mines, companies, regiments, etc. In these cases, of course, there are no such legal guarantees for the perfect accuracy of the elections as in those to Municipal Councils and Zemstvos, but there is the far more important guarantee of the direct and immediate contact of the deputy with his electors. The member of the Town Council or Zemstvo depends on an amorphous mass of electors, who invest him with authority for one year, and then dissolve. The Soviet electors, on the other hand, remain in permanent contact with one another by the very conditions of their life and work; their deputy is always under their direct observation and may at any moment be given new instructions, and, if necessary, may be censured, recalled, and replaced by somebody else.
As the general political evolution of the preceding months of the Revolution had been marked by the growing influence of the Bolsheviks at the expense of the coalitionist parties, it was quite natural that this process should have been reflected most clearly and fully on the Soviets, the Town Councils and Zemstvos, in spite of all their formal democratic character, expressing not so much the sentiments of the masses today as those of yesterday. This explains the gravitation towards the Town Councils and Zemstvos on the part of those parties which have been losing ever more and more their footing in the revolutionary class. This question will again crop up, only on a larger scale, when we come to the Constituent Assembly.