C 96 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE TASK OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 97 Let us take, as an example, the question of the President of the Republic. In a Republic the president appears as the head of the State, just as the monarch represents the head of the State in monarchy. The greatest majority of the republics have had the fundamental laws prepared by representatives of the rich classes, who in the designation of the rights and duties of the presidents have plainly copied those of the monarchs of the European Powers, and the presidents of the republics, therefore, in the majority of cases, represent a special type of temporary monarchs.
For example, the President of the United States of America is the commander in chief of the army and navy and of the national militia. The president of France governs the total army. It does not mean that the presidents themselves lead the armies; it means only that they apthe commanders of the army and navy.
In the fundamental laws of our old regime, the Czar was given plenipotentiary power of command over all the military of Russia, on land and at sea. The presidents of the United States of America have the constitutional right to make treaties with other governments; the same right, according to our old fundamental laws, belonged to the abolished Czar.
The right of a president of the United States to make treaties behind the back of the nation treaties which are binding even if very burdensome to the nation strike mainly the working classes. It is true in the United States treaties, in order to become laws, have to be ratified by a two thirds vote of the members of the Senate. But the American Senate, consisting of politicians and profit makers, does not hesitate for a minute to betray the interests of the people, when it concerns capitalistic gains and profits.
In the United States the ministers are responsible to the president, only there they are not the servants of the people, nor, at least, the servants of the Parliament; they are the servants of the President, somewhat as in Germany they are the servants of the Prussian King (the German Emperor. and as in Czaristic Russia they were the servants of the Czar.
Under such conditions, when a minister pleases and finds favor with the president, he remains in power and at his post, even when it is evident to all that the activity of that minister is detrimental. In the same manner the President of the can retain the whole staff of ministers, even when their actions are not approved by the people. In old Russia the laws had to be sanctioned by the Czar and the Czar did not allow such laws to pass which were undesirable to him and which he did not like.
Just in the same way the President of the United States can, by constitutional right, veto laws made by the Congress (by both houses. Of this right of the President to veto laws passed by the Congress the rich classes avail themselves by using their influence with the president to stop measures which even the Senate considered impolitic to reject. The Russian Czar prorogued the Duma, when it acted against the absolute government. The French president may with the consent of the Senate, prorogue the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate (the French Upperhouse)
consists exclusively of representatives of such classes as are the enemies of the toiling masses, and the Senate is therefore ready at all times to give its consent to the prorogation. adjournment. of the Lower House.
a strong democratic body. It is true, the practice weakens somewhat the influence and pressure of the presidents upon the Houses and ministers, but the principle still remains. It is not difficult therefore to recognize that the presidents of the bourgeois republics are a special type of monarchs, be it monarchs for an hour. Not in vain was the question ventilated in the Constituent Assembly of the of as to whether it would not be in order to make the president term of office last for life. From the presidency for lifetime there is one step only to the right and privilege of the president to leave the Government to his son in inheritance, in addition to the real and personal estate, in addition to the houses, the stocks and bonds, the trained horses and the sporting dogs, as was the case, for example, in old Russia during the reign of the Romanoff Hollsteins and as it is still the case in modern Germany gov.
erned by the Hohenzollerns. With the help of the prerogatives of the presidents the capitalist class and the large land owners in the Republics strengthen their influence in the State, exactly as the industrial capitalists and the big land owners use the rights of the monarchs, to interfere with the legislature, the executive and the judiciary favor of their own interests in the monarchies.
It goes without saying that the Russian Democratic Republic must not follow those samples of the foreign republics. Once the Russian nation took away the Government from the hands of the Czar and put it in the hands of the nation it will not deliver the Governmental power, in whole or in part, even for temporary use, to any individual.
The preparation of the fundamental laws (constitution) of the Russian Republic is the task which the nation bestows upon the Constituent Assembly. As soon as the Constituent Assembly finishes the work of preparation of the republican constitution it will adjourn sine die and its place will be filled by the Legislative Assembly, elected upon the principle of general equal suffrage, and direct and secret ballot. The Legislative Assembly will differ from the Constituent Assembly in its aims only; The Constituent Assembly must deal with the fundamental laws, the Legislative Assembly with the current legislative work.
If the Constituent Assembly represents the whole nation, and if organized state power from the moment the Constituent Assembly convenes acts solely by virtue of the order given by and in the name of the Constituent Assembly, so must the Legislative Assembly, with the same right, represent the whole nation and act in the name of the nation, after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. From the above it follows that all governmental actions, which touch upon and concern vital interests of the people, must originate from the Legislative Assembly. The rights