Form local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, who
will unite all democratic forces, so as to aid the All-Russian
Committee for Salvation in the tasks which it has set itself....
Meanwhile the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd
(See App. XI, Sect. 15) gave an enormous plurality to the
Bolsheviki; so that even the Mensheviki Internationalists pointed
out that the Duma ought to be re-elected, as it no longer
represented the political composition of the Petrograd population....
At the same time floods of resolutions from workers' organisations,
from military units, even from the peasants in the surrounding
country, poured in upon the Duma, calling it "counter-revolutionary,
Kornilovitz," and demanding that it resign. The last days of the
Duma were stormy with the bitter demands of the Municipal workers
for decent living wages, and the threat of strikes....
On the 23d a formal decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee
dissolved the Committee for Salvation. On the 29th, the Council of
People's Commissars ordered the dissolution and re-election of the
Petrograd City Duma:
In view of the fact that the Central Duma of Petrograd, elected
September 2d, ... has definitely lost the right to represent the
population of Petrograd, being in complete disaccord with its state
of mind and its aspirations ... and in view of the fact that the
personnel of the Duma majority, although having lost all political
following, continues to make use of its prerogatives to resist in a
counter-revolutionary manner the will of the workers, soldiers and
peasants, to sabotage and obstruct the normal work of the
Government-the Council of People's Commissars considers it its duty
to invite the population of the capital to pronounce judgment on the
policy of the organ of Municipal autonomy.
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