Elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly were held on 25 November 1917. Organized as a result of events in the February Revolution, the elections took place two months after they had been originally meant to occur. They are generally recognised as the first free elections in Russian history, though they did not produce a democratically elected government, as the Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a one-party state with all opposition parties banned.Концепция социалистической демократии: опыт реализации в СССР и современные перспективы в СНГ; ; ; ; ; Soviet Union at Encyclopedia Britannica
Various academic studies have given alternative results. However, all indicate that the Bolsheviks were clear winners in the urban centres, and also took around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the Western Front. Nevertheless, the Socialist-Revolutionary party topped the polls, winning a plurality of seats (no party won a majority) on the strength of support from the country's rural peasantry, who were for the most part one-issue voters, that issue being land reform.
Some modern Marxist theoreticians have contested the view that a one-party state was a natural outgrowth of the Bolsheviks' actions. George Novack stressed the initial efforts by the Bolsheviks to form a government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and bring other parties such as the Mensheviks into political legality. Tony Cliff argued the Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government dissolved the Constituent Assembly due to a number of reasons. They cited outdated voter-rolls that did not acknowledge the split within the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the assembly's conflict with the elected Russian Congress of the Soviets as an alternative, democratic structure. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also initially approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists; both groups were in favour of a more extensive democracy.
Background The convocation of a Constituent Assembly had been a long-standing demand of the democratic and popular movements in Tsarist Russia. In the later phase of the February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on March 2, 1917. The Russian Provisional Government was formed and pledged to carry through with holding elections for a Constituent Assembly. Consensus emerged between all major political parties to go ahead with the election. Nevertheless, the various political parties were divided over many details on the organization of the impending election. The Bolsheviks demanded immediate elections, whilst the Socialist-Revolutionaries wanted to postpone the vote for several months for it not to collide with the harvest season. Right-wing forces also pushed for delay of the election.
On March 19, 1917 a mass rally was held in Petrograd, demanding female suffrage. The march gathered some 40,000 participants. The protest was led by Vera Figner and Poliksena Shishkina-Iavein. It moved from the Petrograd City Duma to the Tauride Palace, and the demonstrators refused to vacate the palace grounds before the Provisional Government and the Soviet committed to female suffrage. On July 20, 1917, the Provisional Government issued a decree awarding voting rights for women aged 20 years and above.
In May the political parties agreed on main principles of the election (proportional representation, universal suffrage and secret ballot). A special electoral commission was set up, composed of multiple lawyers and legal experts. The following month September 17, 1917 was set as the election date. The new Constituent Assembly was supposed to have its first meeting on September 30, 1917.
In July the left-wing parties increased their pressure on the Provisional Government, reaching a nearly insurrectionist situation. In the end, the following month the left consented to a further postponement. On August 9, 1917 a new date for the election was set by the Provisional Government: voting on November 12 and the first session of the Constituent Assembly would be held on November 28, 1917.Korolikov, O. P.. Выборы в Учредительное собрание в Псковской губернии (1917 г.)
Between the finalization of candidate lists and the election, the October Revolution broke out. The October Revolution ended the reign of the Provisional Government. A new Soviet government took charge of the country, the Council of People's Commissars. Nevertheless, the new government pledged to go ahead with the election and that its rule remained provisional until its authority would be confirmed by the Constituent Assembly.
Electoral system Electoral Districts of the1917 Russian Constituent Assembly electionNorthern/Northwestern Arkhangelsk Olonets Vologda Petrograd Metropolis Petrograd Pskov NovgorodBaltic/White Russian Estonia Livonia Vitebsk Minsk Mogilev SmolenskCentral Industrial Region Moscow Metropolis Moscow Tver Yaroslavl Kostroma Vladimir Kaluga TulaCentral Black Earth Region Ryazan Oryol Kursk Voronezh Tambov PenzaVolga Nizhni Novgorod Simbirsk Kazan Samara Saratov AstrakhanKama-Ural Vyatka Perm Ufa OrenburgUkraine Kiev Volynia Podolia Chernigov Poltava Kharkov Yekaterinoslav KhersonSouth-Black Sea/Southeastern Bessarabia Taurida Don Cossack Region StavropolCaucasus Kuban-Black Sea Terek-Dagestan Pricaspian TranscaucasusTurkestan Horde Uralsk Turgai Transcaspian Samarkand Amu Darya Syr Darya Fergana SemirechieSiberia Tobolsk Steppes Tomsk Altai Yenisei Irkutsk Transbaikal Priamur Chinese Eastern Railroad Yakutsk KamchatkaMilitary Districts Baltic Fleet Black Sea Fleet Northern Front Western Front South-Western Front Romanian Front Caucasian Front Russian forces in France and the Balkans 81 electoral districts () were formed by the Provisional Government. Electoral districts were generally set up on (pre-revolutionary) governorate or ethnic oblast boundaries. Moreover, there were electoral districts for the different army groups and fleets. There were also an electoral district assigned for the workers at the Chinese Eastern Railroad and one electoral district for the soldiers of the Russian Expeditionary Corps in France and the Balkans (with some 20,000 voters).
No official electoral census exists. The estimated population of eligible voters at the time (excluding occupied territories) has been estimated at around 85 million; the number of eligible voters in the districts where polling took place has been estimated at around 80 million.
Each party had a separate ballot with a list with names of candidates, there was no general ballot. The voter would either have received copies of different party lists in advance or at the polling station. The voter would select one list, place it in an envelope, seal it and place it in the box. If any name was scratched, the vote would be invalid.
Voting The voting began on November 12–14, 1917. The election was at the time the largest election organized in history. However, only in 39 districts did the election take place as scheduled. In many districts the voting occurred in late November or early December, and in some remote places the vote took place only in early January 1918.
In spite of war and turmoil, some 47 million voters exercised their franchise, with a national voter turnout of around 64% (per Protasov (2004)). According to Protasov (2004), the countryside generally had a higher voter turnout than the cities. 220 cities across the country, with a combined population of seven million, had a voter turnout of 58%. In agrarian provinces turnout generally ranged from 62 to 80%. In Tambov province urban areas had a turnout of 50.2% while rural areas had 74.5%. According to Radkey (1989) national voter turnout stood at around 55%.
Competing parties Socialist-Revolutionaries The Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs) emerged as the most voted party in the election, swaying the broad majority of the peasant vote. The agrarian programmes of the SR and Bolshevik parties were largely similar, but the peasantry were more familiar with the SRs. The Bolsheviks lacked an organizational presence in many rural areas. In areas where the Bolshevik electoral campaign had been active (for example, near to towns or garrisons) the peasant vote was somewhat evenly divided between SRs and Bolsheviks.
Moreover, whilst the SRs enjoyed widespread support among the peasantry, the party lacked a strong organizational structure in rural areas. The party was highly dependent on peasant union, zemstvos, cooperatives and soviets.
On the issue of war and peace, the SR leadership had vowed not to enter into a separate peace with the Central Powers. The SR leadership condemned the peace talks initiated by the Bolsheviks, but to what extent the SRs were prepared to continue the war was unclear at the time. Along with the Mensheviks, the SRs supported the notion of engaging with other European socialist politicians to find a settlement to the ongoing World War.
The filing of nominations for the election took place just as the split in the SR party was taking place. By late October, when the SR party lists were already set, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries formed a separate party (PLSR). But whilst by the time of the election the Left SRs had constituted a separate party, the split was not completed in local SR party branches until early 1918. The Kazan, Yaroslavl, Kazan and Kronstadt SR organizations went over to the Left SRs en bloc. In Ufa and Pskov the majority in the SR party organization crossed over to the Left SRs. In Petrograd the leftist faction had dominated the SR party branch prior to the October Revolution, but elsewhere the majority in the party organizations remained with the SR party. Notably in some of the locations leftist and rightist SR lists were separately presented (Baltic Fleet, Petrograd, Kazan), the leftists prevailed over the rightists, leading D'Agostino (2011) to argue that had separate right/left SRs lists been presented nationwide the peasantry could have opted for the left (considering that there were no major difference between the factions on their agrarian programmes).
A key Bolshevik argument against the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly once it was elected was that the lists had been finalized before the Left SRs constituted themselves as a separate party, and that if the Left SRs had stood separately the Bolshevik and Left SR would have won the majority vote. This was despite the Left SR's eventual opposition to the closure of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks. Per Serge's account, 40 of 339 elected SR deputies were leftists and 50 belong to Chernov's centrist faction. Smith points out that though the association with Soviet power strengthened the Left PLSR popularity in the countryside, the schism did not transform the PLSR overnight into a large and well-organized political party, and during the following months of 1918 the SR party managed to regain control over some of the soviets and local branches it lost to the left.
Bolsheviks