The soviet was the lower class.
The soviet, at bottom, is a natural gathering of the working
people, of peasants, in their working and accustomed
groupings, instead of, as with us, by artificial
geographical sections.
Labor unions and soldiers' messes made up the Soviets in the
cities; poorer peasants and soldiers at the village inn were
the first Soviets in the country; and in the beginning, two
years ago, these lower class delegates used to explain to me
that the "rich peasants" and the "rich people" had their own
meetings and meeting places. The popular intention then was
not to exclude the upper classes from the government, but
only from the Soviets, which were not yet the same. But the
Soviets, once in existence, absorbed in their own class
tasks and their own problems, which the upper class had
either not understood or solved, ignored--no; they simply
forgot the council of empire and the Duma. And so they
discovered (or, to be more exact, their leaders discovered)
that they had actually all the power. All that Lenin and the
other Socialist leaders had to do to carry through their
class-struggle theory was to recognize this fact of power
and teach the Soviets to continue to ignore the assemblies
and the institutions of the upper classes, which, with their
"governments," ministries, and local assemblies, fell,
powerless from neglect.
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