Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917
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1912 ←
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November 25, 1917
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→ 1937
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The elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly that were organised as a result of events in the Russian Revolution of 1917 were held on November 25, 1917 (although some districts had polling on alternate days), around 2 months after they were originally meant to occur. The Bolsheviks believed that it would consolidate their power in the aftermath of the October Revolution, and prove that they had a clear popular mandate to govern. It is generally reckoned as the first truly free election in Russian history.
The result was a clear victory for the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) who polled far more votes than the Bolsheviks. However, the Bolsheviks had captured power in the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks allowed the Constituent Assembly to convene on 18 January 1918. However, the other parties refused to give their support to Lenin's idea of a Soviet Republic. He persuaded the rest of the Bolsheviks to leave in protest with him and later that day, it emerged that he had dissolved the Constituent Assembly after only one day. This action is considered to be the onset of the Bolshevik dictatorship. Within a few months of the assembly's dissolution, all opposition parties had been banned. Following the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, no free elections of any sort would be held in Russia until the 1990 republic election.
Various academic studies have given alternative results but all clearly indicate that whilst the Bolsheviks were clear winners in the urban centres, as well as taking around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the "Western Front", it was the SRs who topped the polls having won the massive support of the country's rural peasantry.
A study by Oliver Henry Radkey found the following breakdown. (Note that the figures for Socialist Revolutionaries includes the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries, while the Cadet figure includes other "rightists" as well. The total number of deputies returned for "Others" includes 39 Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and four Popular Socialists, as well as 77 others from various local groups.)
| Party |
Votes[1] |
Percent |
Deputies |
| Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs) |
17,100,000 |
41.0 |
380 |
| Bolsheviks |
9,800,000 |
23.5 |
168 |
| Constitutional Democratic Party (Cadets) |
2,000,000 |
4.8 |
17 |
| Mensheviks |
1,360,000 |
3.3 |
18 |
| Others |
11,140,000 |
26.7 |
120 |
| Total (turnout 48.44%) |
41,700,000 |
100 |
703 |
| Party |
Votes |
Percent |
| Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs) |
17,943,000 |
40.4 |
| Bolsheviks |
10,661,000 |
24.0 |
| Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party |
3,433,000 |
7.7 |
| Constitutional Democratic Party (Cadets) |
2,088,000 |
4.7 |
| Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party |
662,000 |
1.5 |
| Musavat (Azerbaijan) |
616,000 |
1.4 |
| Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun) (Armenia) |
560,000 |
1.3 |
| Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (Borotbists) |
451,000 |
1.0 |
| Alash Orda (Kazakhstan) |
407,000 |
0.9 |
| Various liberal parties |
1,261,000 |
2.8 |
| Various national minority parties |
407,000 |
0.9 |
| Various socialists |
401,000 |
0.9 |
| Unaccounted |
4,543,000 |
10.2 |
| Region |
Bolshevik vote %[4] |
| Total |
23.4 |
| Baltic Fleet |
62.6 |
| Black Sea Fleet |
20.5 |
| Northern Front |
56.1 |
| Western Front |
66.9 |
| Southwestern Front |
29.8 |
| Romanian Front |
14.8 |
| Petrograd |
45 |
| Moscow |
47.9 |
| Transcaucasia |
4.6 |
| Estonia |
40.4 |
| Livonia |
71.9 |
| Vitebsk |
51.2 |
| Minsk |
63.1 |
| Smolensk |
54.9 |
| Belorussia (previous 3) |
57.5 |
| Siberia |
9.9 |
| Workers |
86.5 |
The Mensheviks got just 3.3% of the national vote, but in the Transcaucasus they got 30.2% of the vote. 41.7% of their support came from the Transcaucasus. In Georgia c.75% voted for them.[5]
References [edit]
