“We ourselves are being called the ‘undertakers’ of our own organisation. In reality, we ourselves are the hardest workers in constructing the new Russia…. “When autocracy and the whole bureaucratic régime fell, we set up the Soviets as a barracks in which all the democracy cod find temporary shelter. Now, instead of barracks, we are building the permanent edifice of a new system, and naturally the people will gradually leave the barracks for more comfortable quarters.” 4. TROTZKY’S SPEECH AT THE COUNCIL OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC “The purpose of the Democratic Conference, which was called by the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ was to do away with the irresponsible personal government which produced Kornilov, and to establish a responsible government which would be capable of finishing the war, and ensure the calling of the Constituent Assembly at the given time. In the meanwhile behind the back of the Democratic Conference, by trickery, by deals between Citizen Kerensky, the Cadets, and the leaders of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, we received the opposite result from the officially announced purpose. A power was created around which and in which we have open and secret Kornilovs playing leading parts. The irresponsibility of the Government is offically proclaimed, when it is announced that the Council of the Russian Republic is to be a _consultative_ and not _legislative_ body. In the eighth month of the Revolution, the irresponsible Government creates a cover for itself in this new edition of Bieligen’s Duma. “The propertied classes have entered this Provision Council in a proportion which clearly shows, from elections all over the country, that many of them have no right here whatever. In spite of that the Cadet party, which until yesterday wanted the Provisional Government to be responsible to the State Duma—this same Cadet party secured the independence Assembly the propertied classes will no doubt have as favourable position than they have in this Council, and they will not be able to be irresponsible to the Constituent Assembly.