Forty years ago this week, the only freely elected Parliament in the history of Russia met in Petrograd. For Russia's people, the Constituent Assembly was more than just a word. It was the instrument that was to fashion a new, democratic Russia. The Bolsheviks, seizing power in the October Revolution, permitted the elections already arranged by the Kerensky government, because they thought they would win. They were stunned at the results. Across Russia, an astonishing 50% of the eligibles voted; out of a total of 707 delegates, 370 were Social Revolutionaries, only 775 Bolsheviks. Seventeen hours after it met, the Constituent Assembly was destroyed. Mark Vishniak, senior member of TIME'S Russian desk since 1946, was a Social Revolutionary delegate from the district of Yaroslav, and was elected Secretary of the Constituent Assembly. His retrospective account of what happened the day democracy died in Russia:
JAN. 18, 1918 was an ordinary winter's day in Petrograd. There was neither sun nor wind, nor the specially translucent "Petrograd air." A heavy snow, long since fallen and not swept away, lay in the streets and on rooftops.
That morning I met with the other Social Revolutionary Deputies at a small restaurant not far from the Tauride Palace. Roll was called. Rosettes of red silk and entry tickets were handed out. We exchanged news and rumors—it was said that the delegates who had been arrested by the Reds were now to be released from the Peter Paul Fortress. This Bolshevik "gesture" was widely commented on. It seemed a clear sign of yielding on the part of an unyielding regime. The situation appeared to be developing more favorably than anyone would have, thought.
Vacillating Peasants. A little past noon we set off, walking in an extended column down the middle of the street. It was less than a mile to the palace. The nearer we approached, the more troops we encountered. Each carried a rille, bristled with grenades, was festooned with cartridge belts. Passers-by stopped as we went past, but seldom spoke. After staring at us with sympathetic eyes, they hurried on their way. As we marched, I conferred with V. M. Chernov, one of the SR party leaders.
The courtyard before the 18th century Tauride Palace was filled with artillery, machine guns, field kitchens. All the gates in the high grillwork fence were bolted except a small wicket gate at the extreme left, where we entered, single file. Each ticket of admission was studied by guards newly arrived from Finland and the Kronstadt naval base. There was a second checkup at the towering entrance to the palace, this time by units of a Latvian rifle brigade famed for its loyalty to Bolshevism and brought to Petrograd by Lenin because "the Russian peasant may vacillate if something happens—what's needed is proletarian firmness." At the entrance to the auditorium we passed under a third scrutiny. The footfalls of armed men and the clatter of weapons made the colonnaded hall sound like a barracks.