Written: November 4/17, 1917
Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, The Bolshevik revolution, 1917-1918: Documents and materials, Stanford University Press; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934, p. 189.
Translated: Emanuel Aronsberg
Transcription/Markup: Zdravko Saveski
Online Version: marxists.org 2017
In reply to the questions raised the Central Executive Committee resolves that:
1. The Soviet parliament of the toiling masses has nothing in common with the procedure of bourgeois parliaments where different classes and divergent interests meet and where the representatives of the ruling class use rules of procedure for the purpose of parliamentary obstruction.
2. The Soviet parliament cannot deny the Soviet of People's Commissars the right to issue decrees of immediate necessity in the spirit of the general program of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets without first submitting them to the C.E.C.
3. The C.E.C. has general control over all the acts of the Soviet of People's Commissars with the power to recall the government or any member of it.
4. The C.E.C. expresses its regret that the representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left whose members raised the question did not find it possible to associate themselves with the government in the drafting of all the decrees of immediate necessity.