CapitalismDemocracySocialism

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94 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE TASK OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 95 mocracy; it needs slaves, subjects. Militarism cannot stand democracy; it needs soulless machines, tools of destruction. It needs martial law; and the capitalistic classes of to day everywhere have thrown and are throwing sometimes shamefacedlytheir cherished democracy overboard. Remnants of democratic institutions are still in existence, because they cannot be abruptly eliminated, but they are more and more a thorn in the flesh of modern capitalists and of their monarchical and bureaucratic rulers. Modern capitalism, especially in Germany, will rather fraternize with monarchism, but never with real democracy.
International Socialism alone cannot exist without democracy; democracy and international Socialism are indivisible and inseparable. The resurrection of the social democratic parties, the resurrection of the International, is the only hope of the human race.
Should Germany and Austria fail to respond to the mene tekel on the wall, should Russia fail to establish the real democratic republic, should she fall into the hands of the dictatorship of the Knoute and of the brutal imperialistic and capitalistic drivers then there will be no durable peace, then there will be misery, hatred, falsehood, hypocrisy and death death of civilization, death of real Socialism, death of the brotherhood of man for centuries. regime: To the Emperor of all Russia belongs the supreme, the omnipotent power. To obey his sovereign authority, not only out of fear, but also out of conscience, the God Almighty himself has ordered. the Revolution substituted the inalienable maxim: The supreme power of the Russian State belongs to the people. The people now possess the State Power completely, and the Constituent Assembly must sanction by the fundamental law the existing condition, e. it must establish in Russia a democratic Republic. return to monarchy in Russia is an impossibilty: The people will crush to pieces all those who would try to take away from them the State Power to deliver it to any new tyrant.
It goes without saying that the first action of the Constituent Assembly must be the proclamation of a Republic in Russia. This action would affirm that from now on the Government in Russia belongs to the people.
In order, however, that the power of government should really remain in the hands of the people, the Constituent Assembly must create such a system of republican institutions whereby all the people will at all times control the Government and have a constant power to exert immediate pressure upon it. The task of the Constituent Assembly to create the republican departments of the democratically established government will be a most complicated and responsible one. Therefore it is imperative to start immediately the discussion of these questions, at mass meetings and at election meetings, in order that by the time the Constituent Assembly convenes, the Democracy will be in possession of a carefully prepared plan of organization of the republican institutions.
The republican institutions now existing in Europe, America and Australia can furnish many useful examples in the preparation of this plan.
Still the Russian Democracy cannot limit itself to the plain and simple copying of the institutions of the foreign Republics, mainly and primarily for the reason that the majority of the existing republics are not democratic, but capitalistic, their Government belongs not to the whole nation, but mainly to the well to do part of it. In the majority of cases the republican institutions there are not directed towards inviting the working classes to participate in the life of the State and in the fulfillment of the duties of government, but are directed towards substituting for the will of the people the will and opinions of the representatives of the rich. The results are that the Government in the majority of the Republics is very often active not in the defense of the toiling masses, but in their subjugation. True enough, this subjugation and subjection of the workers is not accomplished with such cruelty as was the case with us in Russia during the reign of the absolute monarchy, nevertheless many of republican institutions of the Old World and of the New World are to be totally rejected by the Russian Democracy, when the Constituent Assembly developes the fundamental principles (Constitution) of our Republic. From the Iswestia)
The cardinal question to occupy the attention of the Constituent Assembly concerns the organization of the State Political Power. The Constituent Assembly must decide how the legislative power is to be organized, e. who shall be our lawmakers; how the executive power is to be organized, e. who shall administer the laws; the Constituent Assembly must also organize the judiciary, e. must declare who is to sit in judgment over Russian citizens for transgression of the laws and who is to defend them and re establish their rights, in any way abrogated.
These three powers, the legislative, the executive and the judicial, combined, represent the quintessence of the Power of the State. The Revolution transferred the State Power in toto to the people. Instead of the imprudent words of the so called fundamental laws of the overthrown