Natanson attempted to prove that, by his plan, we would concentrate on ourselves a part of the authority of the Constituent Assembly, but he soon yielded. Lenin occupied himself intensively with the question of the constituents. We have already gained the power and now we have put ourselves in a situation that forces military measures upon us to gain the power anew. He carried on the preparatory work with the greatest care, weighed all the details, and subjected Urizky, who to his great sorrow had been appointed commissar of the Constituent Assembly, to a painful examination. Among other things Lenin ordered the transfer to Petrograd of one of the Lettish regiments consisting almost entirely of workingmen.
Proletarian decision is necessary here.
The Bolshevist deputies of the Constituent Assembly came from all ends of Russia and, at Lenin's insistence and Sverdlof's direction, were assigned to the factories, industrial works, and army corps. But they carefully prepared the ritual for the first meeting. They brought candles with them in case the Bolsheviki cut off the electric light, anil a vast number of sandwiches in case their food be taken from them. Thus democracy entered upon the struggle with dictatorship heavily armed with sandwiches and candles. The people did not give a thought to supporting those who considered themselves their elect, and who in reality were only shadows of a period of the revolution that was Already past.