 Lenin argued that the election was not a fair reflection of the people's will, that the electorate had not had time to learn the Bolsheviks' political programme, and that the candidacy lists had been drawn up before the Left Socialist Revolutionaries split from the Socialist Revolutionaries.Nevertheless, the newly elected Russian Constituent Assembly convened in Petrograd in January 1918.Sovnarkom argued that it was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this.