s to say about the Soviets
in its issue of April 5, 1919:

"In fact, there never was either a secret election in Soviet
Russia, or one based on equal suffrage. Elections are usually
conducted at a given factory or foundry at open meetings, by the
raising of hands and always under the knowing eye of the chairman.
The majority of the workers very frequently do not take part in
these elections at all. The rights of a minority are never
recognized, as proportional representation has been rejected.

"As regards direct elections, it is again a mere phrase. The
Central Executive Committee, which is supposed to embody the
supreme administrative organ of the country, was actually being
elected through a four-grade system. Local Soviets send their
representatives to the Provincial Congress, the Provincial Congress
is represented by delegates at the All-Russian Congress, and only
this last body elects the Central Executive Committee. Often the
delegates are not elected by the regular meetings of the Soviets at
all, but are sent by the Executive Committees, cleverly handpicked
by the Bolsheviki after the system of proportional representation
was rejected....

"The exclusion from the Soviets of all who think differently from
the Bolsheviki developed gradually. They 'cleansed' the Soviets in
Perm and Ekaterinburg, in January 1918; in Ufa, Saratov, Samara,
Kazan and Yaroslavl in December, 1917; in Moscow and Petrograd in
February, 1918. They were excluding all Socialists-Revolutionists
and the Mensheviki, to say nothing of the People's Socialists and
members of the Labor Group. Often, when workers demanded new
elections to the Soviet (as happened in Petrograd late in December
of 1917, and early in January, 1918), and such elections did take
place, the Bolsheviki would not permit the newly elected delegates
to enter the building of the Soviet and frequently arrested them.
Gradually only Bolsheviki and Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left
remained in the Soviets. Soon, however, after the assassination in
Moscow of Count Mirbach, the German Ambassador, and the attempt at
rebellion in Moscow early in June, 1918, by the
Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left, the Bolsheviki began to fill
up the prisons with the latter just as they did with the
Socialists-Revol