... Nevertheless,
Tchernov remained very popular.
In the stormy debates on the Land question and the Lenin resolution,
the Bolsheviki were twice on the point of quitting the assembly,
both times restrained by their leaders.... It seemed to me as if the
Congress were hopelessly deadlocked.
But none of us knew that a series of secret conferences were already
going on between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the
Bolsheviki at Smolny. At first the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
had demanded that there be a Government composed of all the
Socialist parties in and out of the Soviets, to be responsible to a
People's Council, composed of an equal number of delegates from the
Workers' and Soldiers' organisation, and that of the Peasants, and
completed by representatives of the City Dumas and the Zemstvos;
Lenin and Trotzky were to be eliminated, and the Military
Revolutionary Committee and other repressive organs dissolved.
Wednesday morning, November 28th, after a terrible all-night
struggle, an agreement was reached. The _Tsay-ee-kah,_composed of
108 members, was to be augumented by 108 members elected
proportionally from the Peasants' Congress; by 100 delegates elected
directly from the Army and the Fleet; and by 50 representatives of
the Trade Unions (35 from the general Unions, 10 Railway Workers,
and 5 from the Post and Telegraph Workers). The Dumas and Zemstvos
were dropped.
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