On the fateful day of the 18th January, the capital looked just as if a state of siege had been declared. A few days previously, the Bolsheviks had created the so-called Extraordinary Command and the whole district around Smolny had been put under the jurisdiction of Lenin’s henchman Bonch Bruevich. The area around the Tauride Palace was put under the supervision of the Bolshevik commandant Blagonravov. The palace itself was surrounded by troops armed to the teeth - Kronstadt sailors and Latvian riflemen, some of them stationed within the building. All the streets leading to the palace were closed off.
The day-long debate has shown that the Party of Right Socialist-Revolutionaries continues, as it did under Kerensky, to lavish the people with promises of all manner of things; actually it has decided to fight against the power of the workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ Soviets, against the socialist measures, the transfer of land and all implements to the peasants without compensation, the nationalisation of banks, and the repudiation of the state debt. Refusing for a single moment to cover up the crimes of the enemies of the people, we make this announcement of our withdrawal from the Constituent Assembly, leaving it to Soviet power to take the final decision on the attitude to the counter-revolutionary section of the Constituent Assembly.
On the basis of all the achievements of the October Revolution, and in accordance with the Declaration of the Working and Exploited People adopted at the meeting of the Central Executive Committee of January 16, 1918, all power in the Russian Republic belongs to the Soviets and the Soviet institutions. Accordingly, any attempt by any person or institution whatsoever to usurp any of the functions of state power will be regarded as a counter-revolutionary act. All such attempts will be suppressed by every means at the disposal of the Soviet power, including the use of armed force.
Comrades, I greet you as the living embodiment of the Russian proletariat’s determination to fight for the triumph of the Russian revolution, for the triumph of its great slogans not only in this country, but also among the peoples of the whole world. I greet you as the first heroic volunteers of the socialist army, who are to build up a mighty revolutionary army. This army is called upon to safeguard the gains of the revolution and our people’s power, the Soviets of Soldiers’, Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the whole of this new and truly democratic system, against the attacks of all the enemies of the people, who are bending all efforts to destroy the revolution. See more
Comrade Sverdlov! Please, have a talk with Ganetsky on sending a delegation from the Central Executive Committee abroad.
Lenin
We were not able to have much of a “rest” - after four days we had to go to Petersburg. For some reason, memories of the wintry journey have stayed with me, travelling through the Finnish pine forests, the glorious morning and Ilyich’s preoccupied, thoughtful face. He was thinking of the struggle ahead. The question of the Constituent Assembly must be decided soon. It has been arranged for the 18 January.
President Wilson's speech of December 26th has just been delivered to Brest-Litovsk by Colonel Raymond Robins. I'm sending it to you. I hope it will be properly used.
Snow is covering half of our windows now. And yet it isn’t a white Christmas - it’s a black one, a black one. The Constituent Assembly is scheduled for the 18th, but now they are openly stating in their newspapers that it’s “useless”, or should be their “clerk or servant”, or even “broken apart by a revolutionary force.” See more
Dear Citizen Charles DumasSecretary of the French government member Jules Guesde.,
My wife and I recall with great pleasure the time we met you in Paris, rue Bonier. We are very grateful to you for the exchange of ideas and for the very accurate information on the socialist movement in France. See more
From the 29th to the morning of the 3rd I was in Vienna. Two long audiences with the Emperor gave me the opportunity of telling him what had passed at Brest. He fully approves, of course, the point of view that peace must be made, if at all possible. See more
Having heard the report of Comrade Proshyan, who, as a delegate to the Peasants Congress, had a talk with Vinnichenko, Grushevsky, Porsh and others, in their capacity of official representatives of the Rada; and considering that these official representatives of the Rada have expressed their readiness in principle to negotiate an agreement with the Council of People’s Commissars on the basis of recognition by the Council of People’s Commissars of the independence of the people’s Ukrainian republic, and the Rada’s recognition of the counter-revolutionary nature of Kaledin and his accomplices; See more
As the answer to the appeal of the Finnish Government to recognise the independence of the Republic of Finland, the Soviet of People's Commissars, in full accordance with the principle of nations' right to self-determination, propose to the Central Executive Committee that:
The independence of the Republic of Finland as a country is recognised. See more
Two questions now take precedence over all other political questions—the question of bread and the question of peace. The imperialist war, the war between the biggest and richest banking firms, Britain and Germany, that is being waged for world domination, the division of the spoils, for the plunder of small and weak nations; See more
Listen to their loud cries that Soviet power is repudiated by the majority in Russia. You know the worth of all this clamour. There is a flood of telegrams saying that troops are moving on Petrograd, against the gains of the October Revolution. We throw them into the waste-paper basket, being fully aware that we shall not have to wait long for a refutation.
Every direct or indirect attempt to consider the question of the Constituent Assembly from a formal, legal point of view, within the framework of ordinary bourgeois democracy and disregarding the class struggle and civil war, would be a betrayal of the proletariat’s cause, and the adoption of the bourgeois standpoint. See more