Constitution since it was formally adopted in July 1918.

'§ 53. Congresses of Soviets are composed as follows:

(a) Regional: of representatives of the urban and count Soviets, one representative for 25,000 inhabitants of th county, and one representative for 5000 voters of the cities.

'(b) Provincial (Gubernia): of representatives of urba and rural Soviets, one representative for 10,000 inhabitant from the rural districts, and one representative for 200 voters in the city.'

'§ 25. The All-Russian Congress of Soviets is composed o representatives of urban Soviets (one delegate for 25,00 voters), and of representatives of the provincial Congresse of Soviets (one delegate for 125,000 inhabitants).'

Not content with excluding all bourgeois and giving the peasants one-fifth of the voting power of the tow workpeople, the Constitution makes assurance doubly sure by claiming for the government the prerogative of depriving any one of rights which can be used against it

'§ 23. Being guided by the interests of the working class as a whole, the Russian Socialist Federated Republic deprives all individuals and groups of rights which could be utiliseċ by them to the detriment of the Socialist Revolution.'

And this prerogative it has not been slow to use. Or. June 14, 1918, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets voted the exclusion from the Soviets of the Right and Centre Social Revolutionaries, and a little later of the Left Social Revolutionaries, whose alliance had helped the Bolsheviks into power, and whose agrarian programme they had 'conveyed.' Since then local Soviets have frequently been dissolved, when an opposition majority managed to make its appearance. The Men sheviks are apparently not generally deprived of the franchise: in some of the big Moscow factories they can dispense with propaganda, and there are still 40 Menshevik representatives among the 1500 of the Moscow City Soviet. But all the primary elections are by show of hands, and, with a Revolutionary Tribunal in existence, it requires unusual courage to be independent; opponents of the government cannot get halls for their meetings; all their papers are suppressed; and the Bolsheviks monopolise all the known printing presses. That again

eed

of

cit

bitar

Ju seemed to surprise the Labour delegation; but it is in the Constitution, quite nicely expressed :

§ 14. For the purpose of securing freedom of expression to the toiling masses, the Soviet Republic ... turns over to the working people and to the poorest peasantry' (i.e. to the Bolshevik rulers) 'all technical and material means of publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books, etc.'

If in the rural districts an opponent is elected, it is easy to refuse him a railway pass. M. Lenin never wrote anything more to the point than his sentence as far back as 1905: Whoever wants to try any path to Socialism other than political Democracy, he will inevitably come to absurd and reactionary conclusions.'

The last of the novel merits shared by the Soviets with the Paris Commune is that they are 'working bodies,' not mere 'talking shops': they are executive as well as legislative and all that the officials have to do is to carry out their directions. Moreover, the members of the local Soviets each 'represent not more than about five hundred votes'; according to the Constitution (§ 57) the minimum in cities is now a thousand. Representatives are all subject at any moment to the 'right of recall' and replacement. And the whole machinery, we are assured, 'works centripetally; the central body is controlled by the local constituent bodies.' If all this is so, the Soviet system must be vastly superior, from a democratic point of view, to mere parliamentarism. Accordingly, M. Lenin, when meditating his coup d'état, wrote:

every member

'These last few days have brought face to face these two types of representation on one hand the Constituent Assembly, in which one man represents 200,000 wills, and on the other the All-Russian Soviets, whose is so closely connected with the very pulse of the people. The Soviet, being close to the people, must express realities literally, as the people itself expresses them. The Soviet is probably the most important contribution of the Russian Revolution.'

Such is the theory: probably at first the quite honest theory of idealists. But every one who has any experience of large elective bodies knows that it could not be realised in practice. A public meeting, in the very nature of things, cannot be an executive; and the

Soviets of the great cities, like the All-Russian Congres itself, are so big as to be of the nature of public meeting Such gatherings are bound to have committees an officials; and these officials and committees not onl become the executive, but also guide the gatherings i. their decisions. The recent Labour Deputation had a opportunity of seeing what actually takes place nov According to Mr Bertrand Russell, who accompanie them:

'Although the Moscow Soviet is nominally sovereign Moscow it is really only a body of electors, who choose t Executive Committee of forty, out of whom, in turn, is chose the Presidium, consisting of nine men who have all the powe The Moscow Soviet as a whole meets rarely; the Executiv Committee is supposed to meet once a week, but did not me while we were in Moscow. The Presidium on the contra meets daily. Of course it is easy for the Government exercise pressure over the election of the Executive Committe and again over the election of the Presidium, owing to th absolutely complete suppression of free speech and free press Still more evidently does the vision of a people directh ruling itself fade away when we come to the centra government. Constitutionally the supreme power belong to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. This is elected and meets for a day or so, every six months; and whe it does come together, it is a large assembly whic merely votes its approval, without discussion but wit much band accompaniment, of the decrees put befor it. In the intervals between the Congresses, the All Russian Central Executive Committee is the 'suprem legislative, executive and controlling organ of th Republic' (§§ 30, 31). It is elected by the Congress; i is only required to meet every two months; and, accord ing to the Constitution (§ 28), it consists of not more tha 200 members: the recent visitors to Russia speak o 300. This is the body which in fact most nearly corre sponds to a parliament; and when it is realised that it is the result of a series of indirect elections, so com plicated as to need a genealogical tree to make them intelligible, it is clear that it is a long way off from the ordinary elector. As Dr Haden Guest, one of the secretaries of the Labour Delegation, has written:

'The C. E. C. is much less directly in touch with the people of Russia than the British Parliament with the British people. It is perhaps rather less in touch with the Russian people than are the indirectly elected Port of London Authority, Water Board, or Metropolitan Asylums Board in touch with the people of London.'

In theory, the C. E. C. chooses the Council of People's Commissars, i.e. the Ministry. This Council has the power of issuing decrees, resolutions and orders (§ 38), and must immediately notify them to the C. E. C., which can suspend or revoke them (§§ 39, 40). But, whether this is an effective limitation of the power of the Commissars may be more than doubted when we observe (§41) that measures requiring immediate execution may be enacted directly by the Council of People's Commissars'; and the still more remarkable fact that, between its sessions,

'§ 36. The members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee work in the various departments (People's Commissariats), or execute special orders of the C. E. C.'

A controlling body, most of whose members are ordinarily working under the orders of the Ministers, is not likely to perform its controlling functions independently.

The impression made upon an acute and sympathetic observer, Mr Bertrand Russell, is that the Soviet system is moribund.' M. Lenin we may suppose to have been quite sincere when he declared that his aim was to attract every member of the poor classes to practical participation in the management' of the country's affairs; 'to obtain the free performance of State obligations by every toiler, after he is through with his eight hours of productive work.' But the fact is there are not enough Russians who are convinced Communists, ardent for the common good, and sufficiently intelligent to take part in the work of government, to man the Soviets with voluntary members, exercising an independent judgment of their own. Quite early M. Lenin had to complain that the departments of the Soviets are turning in many places into organs which gradually merge with the commissariats,' i.e. the civil service.

It is hardly necessary to go on to explain the real

Vol. 235.-No. 466.

M

governmental system of Russia to-day. That is pretty well understood, as the result of the recent visit of the Labour Delegation, and of the Reports and books to which it has given rise. The government of Russia whatever it is in form, is run in fact by the Bolshevil organisation, which now calls itself the Communist party and which does not claim to have more than 600,00 members, and probably numbers far less. It consists o fanatics and time-servers: it fills the vast civil servic and enjoys powers and privileges which make lif comfortable even in a Socialist country; and it drive along all the unwieldy mass of nominally representativ councils. Its Congress speaks as master, with no pre tence of subjection to a higher authority: it find necessary' this or that, and it therefore decrees it The Bolshevik leaders realise the danger such powere gives to individuals, especially in a country with the al pervasive tradition of corruption inherited from Czaris days. It is against this that their Extraordinary Com mission is established, quite as much as to beat dow open opponents. But terrorism has never formed a effective instrument of government for a long period and it is probably only terrorism which stands betwee Russia and a government like that of Tammany. Tam many was a society which, in the guise of philanthropy misruled New York, by driving respectable voters awa from the elections and manipulating the votes of th rest. And Tammany had only the municipal taxes and city contracts to play with: it did not control the whole industrial and commercial life of a great nation.

WILLIAM ASHLEY.