Russian Constituent Assembly
The All Russian Constituent Assembly[a] (Russian: Всероссийское учредительное собрание, romanized: Vserossiyskoye uchreditelnoye sobraniye) was a constituent assembly convened in Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m., 18–19 January [O.S. 5–6 January] 1918, whereupon it was dissolved by the Bolshevik-led All-Russian Central Executive Committee,[2][3][4][5] proclaiming the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets the new governing body of Russia.[6][7][8]
This article is about the legislative body convened in 1918. For the legislative body convened in 1993, see Constituent Assembly of Russia.
All-Russian Constituent Assembly
Всероссийское Учредительное собрание
1917
1918
VTsIK
All-Russian Congress of Soviets
Provisional All-Russian Government
767
Direct multi-party elections via the proportional representation system (D'Hondt method was used to allocate seats in 81 multi-member districts)
The 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election did not produce a democratically elected government, as the Bolsheviks, who were in power since the October Revolution which occurred prior to the election, subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a one-party state with all opposition parties outlawed.[9][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Some scholars have had a differing view and attributed the establishment of the one-party system in the Soviet Union to the wartime conditions imposed on the Bolshevik government[10] and others have highlighted the initial attempts to form a coalition government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.[11]
Origins[edit]
A democratically elected Constituent Assembly to create a Russian constitution was one of the main demands of all Russian revolutionary parties prior to the Russian Revolution of 1905. In 1906, the Tsar decided to grant basic civil liberties and hold elections for a newly created legislative body, the State Duma. However, the Duma was never authorized to write a new constitution, much less abolish the monarchy. Moreover, the Duma's powers were falling into the hands of the Constitutional Democrats and not the Socialists. The government dissolved the Duma, as was their legal agreement, in July 1906 and, after a new election, in June 1907. The final election law written by the government after the second dissolution on 16 June [O.S. 3 June] 1907 favored the landed and ruling classes. The Duma was therefore widely seen as unrepresentative of the poorer peasants and working classes. Demands for a Constituent Assembly that would be elected on the basis of universal suffrage continued unabated. But what little the Duma could do after 1907 was often vetoed by the Emperor or the appointed upper house of the Russian parliament.
Historical disputes[edit]
According to the 1975 book Leninism under Lenin by Marcel Liebman, the Bolsheviks and their allies had a majority in the Soviets due to its different electoral system. Per the 1918 Soviet Constitution, each urban (and usually pro-Bolshevik) Soviet had 1 delegate per 25,000 voters. Each rural (usually pro-SR) Soviet was only allowed 1 delegate per 125,000 voters. The Bolsheviks justified closing down the Assembly by pointing out that the election did not take into account the split in the SR Party. A few weeks later the Left SR and Right SR got roughly equal votes in the Peasant Soviets. The Bolsheviks also argued that the Soviets were more democratic as delegates could be removed by their electors instantly rather than the parliamentary style of the Assembly where the elected members could only be removed after several years at the next election. The book states that all the elections to the Peasant and Urban Soviets were free and these Soviets then elected the All-Russian Congress of Soviets which chose the Soviet Government, the Second Congress taking place before the Assembly, the Third Congress just after.[63]
Two more recent books using material from the opened Soviet archives, The Russian Revolution 1899-1919 by Richard Pipes and A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes, give a different version. Pipes argues that the elections to the Second Congress were not fair, for example one Soviet with 1,500 members sent 5 delegates which was more than Kiev. He states that both the SRs and the Mensheviks declared this election illegal and unrepresentative. The books state that the Bolsheviks, two days after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, created a counter-assembly, the Third Congress of Soviets. They gave themselves and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries 94% of the seats, far more than the results from the only nationwide parliamentary democratic election in Russia during this time. In a review of Pipes' work, historian Diane P.Koenker considered his interpretation as "fundamentally reactionary" that presents a sympathetic view of imperial forces and depicted Lenin as a "single-minded, ruthless and cowardly intellectual".[64]