Word was even spread among the peasants that
the Congress would meet at Moghilev, and some delegates went there;
but by November 23d about four hundred had gathered in Petrograd,
and the party caucuses had begun....
The first session took place in the Alexander Hall of the Duma
building, and the first vote showed that more than half of all the
delegates were Left Socialist Revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviki
controlled a bare fifth, the conservative Socialist Revolutionaries
a quarter, and all the rest were united only in their opposition to
the old Executive Committee, dominated by Avksentiev, Tchaikovsky
and Peshekhonov....
The great hall was jammed with people and shaken with continual
clamour; deep, stubborn bitterness divided the delegates into angry
groups. To the right was a sprinkling of officers' epaulettes, and
the patriarchal, bearded faces of the older, more substantial
peasants; in the centre were a few peasants, non-commissioned
officers, and some soldiers; and on the left almost all the
delegates wore the uniforms of common soldiers. These last were the
young generation, who had been serving in the army.... The galleries
were thronged with workers-who, in Russia, still remember their
peasant origin....
Unlike the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Executive Committee, in opening
the session, did not recognise the Congress as official; the
official Congress was called for December 13th; amid a hurricane of
applause and angry cries, the speaker declared that this gathering
was merely "Extraordinary Conference".
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