The Constituent Assembly was dissolved due to the loss of legitimacy. Quorum

100 years ago, on January 6 (19), 1918, an event occurred that can be considered the day of the establishment of Soviet power with no less reason than October 25. This was the second act of the coup staged by the Bolsheviks with the support of the Left SRs and anarchists. On January 6, the Constituent Assembly was dissolved and ceased to exist, the meetings of which had opened with pomp the day before in Petrograd, in the Tauride Palace.

"Liberal idea"

At the level of slogan phraseology, the Constituent Assembly was revered as a sacred cow by everyone who was involved in the political battles of 1917 - from the Octobrists to the Bolsheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Even Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich postponed the execution of the will of Emperor Nicholas, who had transferred him the supreme power, until the Assembly was convened, making his decision dependent on the will of this institution, thereby legally abolishing not the monarchy, but autocracy, which his holy brother did not want and could not do.

One of the main articles of accusation that the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries brought against the Provisional Government was the postponement of the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Before the premiership of A.F. Kerensky, this accusation was groundless. Such enterprises take time, besides, Russia was at war and part of its territory was occupied by the enemy. But Kerensky, who felt comfortable in the position of the ruler of an agonizing state and seriously dreamed of the role of the Russian Bonaparte, saving the Fatherland from ultimate destruction, is easy to suspect that he deliberately slowed down the election process. The very decision of the Provisional Government, taken on his initiative, to declare Russia a republic, speaks unequivocally of his real attitude to the will of the people through the Constituent Assembly, because it was supposed to be convened to establish the form of state government. And after this act, it turned out that, just as the Bolsheviks put the Constituent Assembly before the fact of the existence of the power of the soviets, which they demanded to recognize and approve, so Kerensky and his comrades wanted the Constituent Assembly to only vote the usurpation they had already carried out - an unauthorized replacement political system.

“If the masses make a mistake with the ballots, they will have to take up another weapon”

Be that as it may, on June 14, 1917, the elections were scheduled for the 17th, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly for September 30, but on August 9, the Provisional Government, at the initiative of Kerensky, decided to postpone the elections to November 12, and the convocation of the Assembly to November 28 1917. The postponement of the elections gave the Bolsheviks another reason to attack the Provisional Government with criticism. How sincere the leaders of the Bolsheviks were in their demands for the speedy convening of the Assembly, this should be judged rather by their deeds than by their propagandistic and polemical statements, but also by some statements. Thus, one of the prominent Bolsheviks, V. Volodarsky, publicly stated that “the masses in Russia have never suffered from parliamentary cretinism” and “if the masses make a mistake with the ballots, they will have to take up another weapon.” And the leader of the Bolsheviks V.I. Lenin, according to the chronicler of the revolution N.N. Sukhanov, after his return to Russia from exile in April 1917, called the Constituent Assembly a "liberal undertaking".

Church and Constituent Assembly

The question of the attitude of the Church to the elections to the Constituent Assembly on September 27 was discussed at the Local Council then sitting in Moscow. Some members of the Council, fearing that the self-withdrawal of the Church from politics would strengthen the position of extreme radicals, called for the direct participation of church authorities in the election campaign. So, A.V. Vasiliev, chairman of the Sobornaya Rossiya society, said: “In order for the Constituent Assembly not to turn out to be non-Russian and non-Christian in its composition, it is necessary to draw up lists of people proposed for election by dioceses ... persons, and by parishes ... tirelessly invite the believing people not to evade elections and vote for the said list. His proposal was supported by Count P.N. Apraksin. Professor B.V. Titlinov, later a renovationist, spoke out against the participation of the Council in the elections, arguing that political speeches violated the church charter of the Council. Prince E.N. Trubetskoy advocated finding the "middle tsarist path." He suggested that the Council "appeal to the people, without relying on any political party, and say definitely that people should be elected, devoted to the Church and Motherland."

This decision was stopped. On October 4, the Local Council addressed the All-Russian flock with a message:

“It is not the first time in our history that the temple of state existence is collapsing, and disastrous turmoil overtakes the Motherland ... The power of the state is not created by the implacability of the parties and class strife, the wounds from a serious war and all-destroying discord are not healed ... A kingdom divided into Xia will become exhausted (Matthew 12: 25) ... Let our people conquer the spirit of wickedness and hatred that overwhelms them, and then, with a friendly effort, they will easily and brightly accomplish their state work. Dry bones will be gathered and clothed in flesh and will come to life at the command of the Spirit… In the motherland, the eye sees the holy land… Let the bearers of the faith be called upon to heal her illnesses.”

Elections and their results

After the fall of the Provisional Government, opponents of the Bolsheviks hoped that the Constituent Assembly would remove them from power, so demands were made from various political parties for the urgent holding of elections. On the one hand, there seemed to be no reason to worry about this. A day after the proclamation of the power of the Soviets, on October 27, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars issued a resolution on holding elections on the date previously scheduled by the Provisional Government - November 12, 1917, but on the other hand, since the peasants, who made up 80 percent of the country's population, basically followed the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Bolshevik leadership was worried about the prospect of losing this election. November 20 at the plenum of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) I.V. Stalin proposed to postpone the convocation of the Constituent Assembly for more late deadline. A more radical initiative was taken by L.D. Trotsky and N.I. Bukharin. They spoke in favor of convening a revolutionary convention of the Bolshevik and Left Socialist-Revolutionary factions of the Assembly, so that this convention would replace the Constituent Assembly itself. But the more moderate members of the Bolshevik Central Committee, L.B. Kamenev, A.I. Rykov, V.P. Milyutin opposed the plan of such a usurpation, and at that time their position prevailed.

The fundamental difference between the elections to the Constituent Assembly and the procedure for the formation of the State Duma and the soviets, abolished by the government of Kerensky, consisted in their universality: the deputies of the State Duma were elected in the order of estate representation, so that the votes of the voters were not equal, and the deputies of the soviets were elected, as can be seen, from the very their names, from workers, soldiers and peasant curias, with non-participation in the elections of persons belonging to the propertied, or, as they were then called, qualified classes, which, of course, did not interfere with people from the nobility, such as Kerensky, Tsereteli, Bukharin, Lunacharsky, Kollontai, or from the bourgeoisie, like Trotsky or Uritsky, to become the chosen ones of the workers, for this it was necessary, however, to enter into parties that declared their commitment to protecting the interests of the workers or peasants.

All adult citizens of Russia had the right to elect deputies to the Constituent Assembly. But voting was carried out according to party lists, and the right-wing parties were banned by the Provisional Government, so that their supporters, for the most part, did not want to participate in the elections, only a few of them decided to vote for the “lesser evil”, which they imagined the Cadets, who by that time had turned out to be on the right flank of the legal political spectrum.

Less than half of the citizens who had the right to vote took part in the elections, which took place on the scheduled date. For the most part, their results were as expected. 715 deputies were elected. The Socialist-Revolutionaries won the victory, having received 370 mandates. 40 deputies made up the faction of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries headed by Spiridonova and Natanson, who finally formalized their break with the party of Savinkov, Kerensky and Chernov on the very eve of the elections and therefore encountered difficulties in forming their electoral list, due to which their electoral results were inferior to the popularity of the party in peasant and soldier environment.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries won the elections to the Constituent Assembly, receiving 370 seats; the Bolsheviks had 175 seats

The Bolsheviks received 175 seats in the Constituent Assembly, making it the second largest faction. The Cadets, who received 17 mandates, and the Mensheviks with their faction of 15 people, mostly representing voters from Georgia, suffered a catastrophic defeat in the elections. Fewer seats went to only the exotic party of popular socialists - 2 deputies. Deputies from national and regional parties received 86 mandates.

The distribution of votes cast for different parties, however, was different in the capitals and in the active army. About 1 million people voted in Petrograd - significantly more than half of the voters - and 45% of them gave their votes to the Bolsheviks, the Socialist-Revolutionaries took only third place there with 17% of them, losing second to the Cadets, who won 27% of the votes in the imperial capital, unlike picture of his crushing defeat in peasant Russia. In Moscow, the Bolsheviks were also in first place, having received almost half of the votes. More than a third of the votes were cast for the Cadets, so that the Socialist-Revolutionaries lost in the capital as well. Thus, the polarization of political sentiments in the capitals was more acute than in the country: the moderate element there consolidated around the Kadet Party, which in the civil war that soon unfolded represented the political face of the White armies. The Bolsheviks came out victorious in the elections on the Western and Northern Fronts and in the Baltic Fleet.

In the "clash of wills and interests"

The ongoing war, the disorganization of transport and other difficulties, inevitable in a country engulfed in unrest, did not allow all the deputies to arrive in the capital at the appointed time. By a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of November 26, it was decided that the quorum necessary for the opening of the Constituent Assembly should be the presence of at least 400 elected deputies.

Anticipating the likely obstruction on the part of the Constituent Assembly of Decrees of the Second Congress of Soviets, the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars took preventive measures in the event of a likely collision with the Constituent Assembly. On November 29, he banned "private meetings" of the deputies of the Constituent Assembly. In response to this action, the Social Revolutionaries formed the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly.

IN AND. Lenin: "The interests of the revolution are higher than the formal rights of the Constituent Assembly"

At a meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, a new bureau of the Bolshevik faction of the Constituent Assembly was formed. Opponents of his dispersal were removed from it. The next day, Lenin drew up the "Theses on the Constituent Assembly", which stated that "convened according to the lists of parties that existed before the proletarian-peasant revolution, under the rule of the bourgeoisie", it "inevitably comes into conflict with the will and interests of the working and exploited classes who started on October 25 a socialist revolution against the bourgeoisie. Naturally, the interests of this revolution are higher than the formal rights of the Constituent Assembly ... Any attempt, direct or indirect, to consider the question of the Constituent Assembly with a formal legal side, within the framework of ordinary bourgeois democracy, without taking into account the class struggle and civil war is a betrayal of the cause of the proletariat and a transition to the point of view of the bourgeoisie. The Social Revolutionaries vigorously campaigned for the slogan "All power to the Constituent Assembly", and one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks, G.E. Zinoviev declared then that "this slogan means 'Down with the Soviets'."

The situation in the country was heating up. On December 23 martial law was declared in Petrograd. In Socialist-Revolutionary circles, the possibility of the physical removal of the Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Trotsky was discussed. But the prospect of an inevitable civil war in this case with negligible chances of success frightened the Socialist-Revolutionary leadership, and the idea of ​​resorting to the practice of terror so familiar to the Socialist-Revolutionaries was rejected.

On January 1, 1918, the first and unsuccessful attempt was made on Lenin, but its likely organizer was not the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but the cadet N.V. Nekrasov, who, however, subsequently collaborated with the Soviet authorities. On January 3, a meeting of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was held. It raised the question of the armed overthrow of the power of the Soviets, but such a proposal was not accepted: in the capital there were units that supported the Social Revolutionaries, and among them the Semenovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments, but the soldiers' councils of other regiments of the Petrograd garrison followed the Bolsheviks. The reason for this was that after the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II, the soldiers no longer saw the point in continuing the war. The slogan proclaimed by Lenin "Let's turn the war of peoples into a civil war" was addressed to the European Social Democracy and was not widely known among the soldiers, but his call for an immediate conclusion of peace, which was the quintessence of Bolshevik propaganda, was more attractive to the soldiers than "revolutionary defencism". » Socialist-Revolutionaries. Realizing this, the Socialist-Revolutionary Central Committee limited itself to making a decision on the opening day of the Constituent Assembly on January 5 to hold a peaceful demonstration in its support.

In response, the Bolshevik Pravda on the same day published a decree of the Cheka, signed by Uritsky, a member of the collegium of this institution, which prohibited demonstrations and rallies in the territory adjacent to the Tauride Palace. Fulfilling this decision, a regiment of Latvian riflemen and a Lithuanian regiment occupied the approaches to the palace. On January 5, in Petrograd, supporters of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cadets staged demonstrations in support of the Constituent Assembly. There is extremely contradictory information about the number of their participants: from 10 to 100 thousand people. These demonstrations were broken up by Latvian riflemen and soldiers of the Lithuanian regiment. At the same time, according to information published the next day in Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 21 people died. On the same day, a similar demonstration took place in Moscow, but there, as in the November days when the Bolshevik Soviet seized power, this event entailed great bloodshed. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cadets offered armed resistance to the soldiers who dispersed them. The firefight continued throughout the day, and the number of victims on both sides was 50 people, more than 200 were injured.

First day of meetings

On the morning of 5 (18) January, 410 deputies arrived at the Tauride Palace. At the suggestion of the Bolshevik Skvortsov-Stepanov, the deputies sang the Internationale. Only the Cadets and part of the representatives of national factions refrained from singing, so that the significant majority of the Assembly - the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, the Right and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries - by this singing announced to the country and the world both the “boiling” of their “indignant mind”, and the resolute intention to “tear” (this was the first edition of the Russian translation instead of the later “destroy”) “to the foundation” the old world of “violence” and build a “new world”, in which “who was nothing, will become everything”. The dispute was only about who was to destroy the old world and build a new one - the party of revolutionary terrorists (Socialist-Revolutionaries) or the Bolsheviks.

The session of the Constituent Assembly was opened by the Bolshevik Ya.M. Sverdlov, who served as chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In his speech, he expressed his hope for "full recognition by the Constituent Assembly of all decrees and resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars" and proposed to accept the written by V.I. Lenin draft "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People", in which the form of state government in Russia was designated as "the republic of councils of workers, soldiers and peasants' deputies". The draft also reproduced the main provisions of the resolution adopted by the Second Congress of Soviets on Peace, agrarian reform and workers' control in enterprises.

The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks proposed to elect M.A. Spiridonov. 153 deputies voted for it. V.M. was elected Chairman of the Meeting by a majority of 244 votes. Chernov.

On the first and which turned out to be the last day of the meetings of the Assembly, the Socialist-Revolutionaries V.M. Chernov, V.M. Zenzinov, I.I. Bunakov-Fondaminsky (who later converted to Orthodoxy, died in Auschwitz and was canonized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople), the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries I.Z. Steinberg, V.A. Karelin, A.S. Severov-Odoevsky, the Bolsheviks N.I. Bukharin, P.E. Dybenko, F.F. Raskolnikov, Menshevik I.G. Tsereteli.

The meeting did not end at nightfall. At 3 p.m. on January 6, after the Socialist-Revolutionary and Kadet factions of the Constituent Assembly, together with the smaller factions, finally refused to consider the draft “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People” drawn up by Lenin, by which all power in the country was transferred to the soviets, Raskolnikov, on behalf of the Bolshevik faction, declared : “Not wanting to cover up the crimes of the enemies of the people for a single minute, we ... leave the Constituent Assembly,” and the Bolsheviks left the Tauride Palace. Their example was followed at 4 o'clock in the morning by the Left SR faction. Its representative Karelin, taking the floor, said: “The Constituent Assembly is by no means a reflection of the mood and will of the working masses ... We are going to bring our strength, our energy to Soviet institutions.”

The Constituent Assembly proclaimed Russia a federal democratic republic

As a result of obstruction by the two factions of the Constituent Assembly, its quorum (400 members) was lost. The deputies who remained in the Tauride Palace, chaired by V.M. Chernov, however, decided to continue their work and, almost without discussion, hastily voted for a number of decisions that were fundamental in content but remained only on paper. The Constituent Assembly proclaimed Russia a federal democratic republic - two days earlier, the Soviet All-Russian Central Executive Committee had decreed that the Russian Soviet Republic was a federation of Soviet national republics. The Constituent Assembly issued a law on land, in which it was declared public property; According to this law, private ownership of land was abolished and landed estates were subject to nationalization. This law had no fundamental differences from the decree of the Second Congress of Soviets "On Land", since the main provisions of the decree did not follow the Bolshevik, but the Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian program, which the peasants sympathized with.

The Constituent Assembly also issued a peace appeal calling on the belligerent powers to begin negotiations without delay to end the war. This appeal also had no radical differences from the Bolshevik "Decree on Peace": on the one hand, the Socialist-Revolutionaries had long stood for peace without annexations and indemnities, and on the other hand, the Bolsheviks, in their demand for an immediate peace, did not speak out directly for capitulation, and, as it can be seen from real move events, the Red Army created by the Soviet government, before the conclusion of the Brest Treaty, tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to resist the advance of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops inland.

Moreover, the Constituent Assembly also came out for the introduction of workers' control in factories and factories, and in this it did not differ from the position of the Bolsheviks.

And he divided the Bolsheviks, who ruled the soviets, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who dominated the Constituent Assembly, not yet remaining doctrinal differences, but the question of power. For the Constituent Assembly, the confrontation between the Bolsheviks and the Social Revolutionaries ended with the termination of its meetings.

"The guard is tired"

At the beginning of 5 o'clock in the morning, the head of the guard of the Constituent Assembly, anarchist A. Zheleznyakov, received an order from People's Commissar Dybenko (both of them were from the sailors of the Baltic Fleet) to stop the meeting. Zheleznyakov approached the chairman of the Assembly, Chernov, and told him: "I have received instructions to bring to your attention that all those present leave the meeting room, because the guard is tired." The deputies complied with this demand, deciding to meet again in the Taurida Palace in the evening of the same day, at 5 pm.

When Lenin was informed about the closing of the Constituent Assembly, he suddenly ... laughed. Laughing contagiously, to tears

Bukharin recalled that when Lenin was informed about the closing of the Constituent Assembly, he “asked to repeat something from what had been said about the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and suddenly burst out laughing. He laughed for a long time, repeated to himself the words of the narrator, and kept laughing, laughing. Fun, contagious, to the point of tears. Laughed." Trotsky, another leader of the Bolsheviks, later sneered: the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cadets “carefully developed the ritual of the first meeting. They brought candles with them in case the Bolsheviks put out the electricity, and a large number of sandwiches in case they are deprived of food. So democracy came to the battle with the dictatorship - fully armed with sandwiches and candles.

On the morning of January 6, the Bolshevik Pravda published an article in which the Constituent Assembly was given, to put it mildly, excessive temperamental characteristic, in its bitingness bordering on vulgar abuse, in the style of party propaganda of that era:

“Servants of the bankers, capitalists and landlords ... the serfs of the American dollar, murderers from around the corner, the right SRs demand in the Constituent Assembly all power for themselves and their masters - enemies of the people. In words, as if joining the people's demands: land, peace and control, in reality they are trying to whip the noose around the neck of socialist power and revolution. But the workers, peasants and soldiers will not fall for the bait of the false words of the worst enemies of socialism, in the name of the socialist revolution and the socialist Soviet republic they will sweep away all its open and covert killers.

On the evening of January 6, the deputies of the Constituent Assembly came to the Tauride Palace with the intention of continuing the debate and saw that its doors were locked, and a guard armed with machine guns was stationed near them. The deputies had to disperse to their apartments and hotels, where the visiting members of the Assembly were accommodated. On January 9, 1918, the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was published dated the 6th.

On January 18 (31), the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree according to which all references to the upcoming Constituent Assembly and the temporary nature of the Soviet government itself were eliminated from the acts issued by it. On the same day, a similar decision was made by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

Thus, the experiment with the Constituent Assembly, on which many politicians had staked, ended with a sudden death.

Komuch and Kolchak

But this institution also had a kind of posthumous history. After the conclusion of the Brest peace treaty in Russia, as Lenin predicted, a full-scale civil war began. The Czechoslovak corps, formed from captured soldiers of Austria-Hungary of Czech and Slovak nationalities to participate in hostilities on the side of Russia and the Entente, was subject to disarmament under the terms of the Brest Treaty. But the corps did not obey the corresponding order of the Council of People's Commissars and in the summer of 1918 overthrew the local bodies of Soviet power in the Volga region, in the Southern Urals and in Siberia - where its units were located. With his support, the so-called Komuch was formed in Samara - the Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly, headed by Chernov, from those of his deputies who came to Samara. Similar institutions appeared in Omsk, Ufa and some other cities. These committees formed the regional provisional governments.

A.V. Kolchak: "The dispersal of the Constituent Assembly is the merit of the Bolsheviks, it must be put in their favor"

In September, a State Conference of representatives of regional governments was held in Ufa, at which the All-Russian Directory was established, headed by the Socialist-Revolutionary N.D. Avksentiev. The offensive of the Red Army forced the Directory to move to Omsk. In October, Admiral A.V. arrived in Omsk. Kolchak. On November 4, at the insistence of the British General Knox and with the support of the Cadets, he was appointed Minister of War and Naval Affairs in the government of the directory, and two weeks later, on the night of November 18, a military coup was carried out: the head of the directory, Avksentiev, and its members Zenzinov, Rogovsky and Argunov were arrested and then sent abroad, and Admiral Kolchak issued an order by which he announced his appointment as the Supreme Ruler of Russia. Several members of the Constituent Assembly headed by V.M. Chernov, who gathered at the congress in Yekaterinburg, protested against the coup. In response to A.V. Kolchak issued an order for the immediate arrest of Chernov and other participants in the Yekaterinburg Congress.

The deputies who fled from Yekaterinburg moved to Ufa and there they campaigned against the dictatorship of Kolchak. On November 30, the Supreme Ruler of Russia ordered that the members of the Constituent Assembly be brought to court martial "for attempting to raise an uprising and conduct destructive agitation among the troops." On December 2, a detachment under the command of Colonel Kruglevsky arrested 25 deputies of the Constituent Assembly. In a freight car they were taken to Omsk and thrown into prison there. In an unsuccessful attempt to free them, most of them were killed.

And already as an epilogue to the history of the Constituent Assembly, one can cite the words of Admiral A.V., arrested by the command of the Czechoslovak corps and then transferred to the Bolsheviks. Kolchak, said in January 1920 during interrogation: “I believed that if the Bolsheviks had few positive sides, then the dispersal of this Constituent Assembly is their merit, that this should be put in their favor.

From this whole story it follows with the utmost obviousness that the prospect of establishing a liberal regime in Russia in 1917 was not absolutely visible. Of course, the Bolsheviks were not guaranteed victory in the civil war, but the alternatives were either a military dictatorship or the collapse of the country with the establishment of the most different forms board on its ruins. Even the best possible outcome of the turmoil is the restoration of autocratic rule, with its extremely low probability, although at the end of the civil war the masses, but not politicians, yearned for the lost royal power - was still more real than the establishment in the country liberal democracy.

It would seem that there is no particular reason to regret the defeat of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the battle with another revolutionary party - the Bolsheviks. But from this defeat of theirs follows one and extremely important sad consequence. Party discipline of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, unlike the Social Democrats, did not require them to adhere to Marxism with its atheistic component. Therefore, if we imagine the unrealizable - the assertion of the power of the Constituent Assembly and the Socialist-Revolutionary government formed by it, then the separation of the Church from the state would not have been carried out as hastily as the Bolsheviks did, and the corresponding act would not have been as draconian in nature as the Soviet decree on separation issued by immediately after the approval by the III Congress of Soviets of the decision of the Council of People's Commissars to close the Constituent Assembly.

Russo-Swedish War 1808-1809
Parliamentary system:	constituent Assembly
State:	Russian Soviet Republic Russian Democratic Federal Republic
Chairman:	V. M. Chernov
From party:
Deputies:
Year of foundation:
Previous Parliament:
Subsequent Parliament:	All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the All-Russian Congress of Soviets III All-Russian Congress of Soviets (as a constituent body)
Year of cancellation:
Recent elections:	November 1917
Meeting room address:	Tauride Palace

constituent Assembly- an elected institution, modeled on the Constituent Assembly of the French Revolution, designed to determine the form of government and constitution in Russia after February Revolution. It was dissolved by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of January 6 (19), 1918.

Elections

The convocation of the Constituent Assembly was one of the priorities of the Provisional Government. But it delayed him. After the overthrow of the Provisional Government in October 1917, the question of the Constituent Assembly became paramount for all parties. The Bolsheviks, fearing the discontent of the people, since the idea of ​​convening the Constituent Assembly was very popular, hastened the elections scheduled by the Provisional Government for it. On October 27, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars adopted and published, signed by V. I. Lenin, a resolution on holding general elections to the Constituent Assembly on November 12, 1917, as scheduled.

Not a single decree of the Provisional Government, despite the lengthy preparatory work of the commissions specially created for this purpose, established the exact number of members of the Constituent Assembly necessary for its opening. This quorum was determined only by a resolution of the Leninist Council of People's Commissars of November 26, according to which the Constituent Assembly was to be opened "upon the arrival in Petrograd of more than 400 members of the US", which accounted for more than 50% of the total planned number of members of the Constituent Assembly.

Less than 50% of voters took part in the elections. A total of 715 deputies were elected, of which 370 mandates were received by the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Centrists, 175 by the Bolsheviks, 40 by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, 17 by the Cadets, 15 by the Mensheviks, 86 by deputies from national groups (SRs 51.7%, Bolsheviks 24, 5%, Left SRs - 5.6%, Cadets 2.4%, Mensheviks - 2.1%).

At the same time, since the electoral lists were compiled and approved long before the October Revolution, the Socialist-Revolutionaries - left, right and centrists - took part in the elections single list, and it remained unclear who the voters who preferred the Socialist-Revolutionaries voted for.

In addition, the results of the elections in different regions differed sharply: for example, about 930 thousand people participated in the elections in Petrograd, 45% of the votes were cast for the Bolsheviks, 27% for the Cadets, and 17% for the Socialist-Revolutionaries. In Moscow, the Bolsheviks received 48%, on the Northern Front - 56%, and on the Western - 67%; in the Baltic Fleet - 58.2%, in 20 districts of the North-Western and Central Industrial Regions - a total of 53.1%.

Deciding to dissolve

After the election of the Constituent Assembly, it became clear that it would be Socialist-Revolutionary in its composition. In addition, such politicians as Kerensky, chieftains Dutov and Kaledin, Ukrainian nationalist Petliura ( see List of members of the Constituent Assembly).

The course of the Bolsheviks for radical transformation was under threat. In addition, the Social Revolutionaries were supporters of the continuation of the "war to a victorious end" ("revolutionary defencism"), which led the vacillating soldiers and sailors to disperse the Assembly. The coalition of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries decides to disperse the meeting as "counter-revolutionary". Lenin was immediately sharply opposed to the Assembly. Sukhanov N. N. in his fundamental work “Notes on the Revolution” claims that Lenin, already after his arrival from exile in April 1917, considered the Constituent Assembly a “liberal undertaking”. Commissar for Propaganda, Press and Agitation of the Northern Region Volodarsky goes even further, and declares that "the masses in Russia have never suffered from parliamentary cretinism", and "if the masses make a mistake with the ballots, they will have to take up another weapon."

When discussing Kamenev, Rykov, Milyutin, they act from "pro-founder" positions. Narkomnats Stalin on November 20 proposes to postpone the convocation of the Assembly. People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs Trotsky and co-chairman of the Bolshevik faction in the Constituent Assembly Bukharin propose to convene a "revolutionary convention" of the Bolshevik and Left SR factions, by analogy with the events of the French Revolution. This point of view is also supported by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Natanson.

According to Trotsky,

On November 23, 1917, the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Stalin and Petrovsky, occupy the Commission for elections to the Constituent Assembly, which has already completed its work, appointing M. S. Uritsky as the new commissar in it. 400 people, and according to the decree, the Assembly was to be opened by a person authorized by the Council of People's Commissars, that is, a Bolshevik. Thus, the Bolsheviks managed to delay the opening of the Assembly until the moment when its 400 delegates had gathered in Petrograd.

On November 28, 60 delegates gather in Petrograd, mostly Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, who are trying to start the work of the Assembly. On the same day of the Presovnarkom, Lenin outlawed the Cadets Party by issuing a decree "On the arrest of the leaders of the civil war against the revolution." Stalin comments on this decision with the words: "We must definitely finish off the Cadets, or they will finish us off." The Left SRs, while generally welcoming this step, express dissatisfaction with the fact that such a decision was made by the Bolsheviks without the consent of their allies. The Left Socialist-Revolutionary I. Z. Shteinberg, who, calling the Cadets “counter-revolutionaries”, spoke out sharply against the arrest in this case of the entire party without exception. The Cadet newspaper "Rech" is closed, and two weeks later it reopens under the name "Nash Vek".

On November 29, the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars forbids "private meetings" of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. At the same time, the right SRs form the "Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly."

On the whole, the inner-party discussion ends with Lenin's victory. On December 11, he seeks the re-election of the bureau of the Bolshevik faction in the Constituent Assembly, some of whose members spoke out against the dispersal. December 12, 1917 Lenin draws up the Theses on the Constituent Assembly, in which he declares that “... Any attempt, direct or indirect, to consider the question of the Constituent Assembly from a formal legal side, within the framework of ordinary bourgeois democracy, without taking into account the class struggle and civil war, is a betrayal of the cause of the proletariat and a transition to the point of view of the bourgeoisie”, and the slogan "All power to the Constituent Assembly" was declared the slogan of the Kaledinites. On December 22, Zinoviev declares that under this slogan "is hidden the slogan 'Down with the Soviets'."

On December 20, the Council of People's Commissars decides to open the work of the Assembly on January 5. On December 22, the decision of the Council of People's Commissars is approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In opposition to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries are preparing to convene the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918. On December 23 martial law is introduced in Petrograd.

Already on January 1, 1918, the first unsuccessful attempt on Lenin's life took place, in which Fritz Platten was wounded. A few years later, Prince I. D. Shakhovskoy, who was in exile, announced that he was the organizer of the assassination attempt and allocated half a million rubles for this purpose. Researcher Richard Pipes also points out that one of the former ministers of the Provisional Government, Cadet Nekrasov N.V., was involved in this attempt, but he was “forgiven” and subsequently went over to the side of the Bolsheviks under the name “Golgofsky”.

In mid-January, a second attempt on Lenin’s life was thwarted: a soldier Spiridonov came to Bonch-Bruevich’s reception, stating that he was participating in the conspiracy of the “Union of the Cavaliers of St. George” and was given the task of eliminating Lenin. On the night of January 22, the Cheka arrested the conspirators at 14 Zakharyevskaya Street, in the apartment of “citizen Salova”, but then they were all sent to the front at their personal request. At least two of the conspirators, Zinkevich and Nekrasov, subsequently join the "white" armies.

At a meeting of the Central Committee of the AKP, held on January 3, 1918, it was rejected, "as an untimely and unreliable act", an armed action on the day of the opening of the Constituent Assembly, proposed by the military commission of the party.

First meeting and dissolution

Shooting of a demonstration in support of the assembly

On January 5 (18) Pravda published a resolution signed by a member of the board of the Cheka, since March the head of the PetroChK, Moses Uritsky, by which all rallies and demonstrations in Petrograd were banned in the areas adjacent to the Tauride Palace. It was proclaimed that they would be suppressed military force. At the same time, Bolshevik agitators at the most important factories (Obukhov, Baltiysky, etc.) tried to enlist the support of the workers, but were unsuccessful.

Together with the rear units of the Latvian Riflemen and the Lithuanian Life Guards Regiment, the Bolsheviks surrounded the approaches to the Tauride Palace. Assembly supporters responded with demonstrations of support; according to various sources, from 10 to 100 thousand people participated in the demonstrations.

January 5, 1918 as part of the columns of demonstrators, workers, employees, and the intelligentsia moved towards Tauride and were machine-gunned. From the testimony of the worker of the Obukhov plant D.N. Bogdanov dated January 29, 1918, a participant in a demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly:

GA RF. F.1810. Op.1. D.514. L.79-80

According to official data (Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, January 6, 1918), 21 people were killed, hundreds were wounded. Among the dead were the Social Revolutionaries E. S. Gorbachevskaya, G. I. Logvinov and A. Efimov. A few days later, the victims were buried at the Transfiguration Cemetery.

M. Gorky in "Untimely Thoughts" wrote about this:

... "Pravda" is lying - it knows perfectly well that the "bourgeois" have nothing to rejoice at the opening of the Constituent Assembly, they have nothing to do among 246 socialists of one party and 140 Bolsheviks. Pravda knows that the workers of the Obukhov, Cartridge and other factories took part in the manifestation, that under the red banners of the Russian Social-Democrat. parties to the Tauride Palace were the workers of Vasileostrovsky, Vyborgsky and other districts. It was these workers who were shot, and no matter how much Pravda lied, it would not hide the shameful fact. The "bourgeois" perhaps rejoiced when they saw how the soldiers and the Red Guard were tearing the revolutionary banners out of the hands of the workers, trampling them underfoot and burning them at the stake. But, it is possible that even this pleasant sight did not please all the "bourgeois" anymore, because among them there are honest people who sincerely love their people, their country. One of these was Andrey Ivanovich Shingarev, vilely killed by some beasts. So, on January 5, the unarmed workers of Petrograd were shot. They shot without warning that they would shoot, shot from ambush, through the cracks of fences, cowardly, like real killers. ...

On January 9 (22) a demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly in Moscow was shot down. According to official data (Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1918. January 11), the number of those killed was more than 50, and more than 200 were wounded.

First and last meeting

The session of the Constituent Assembly opened on January 5 (18), 1918 in the Tauride Palace in Petrograd. It was attended by 410 deputies; the majority belonged to the centrist SRs, the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs had 155 mandates (38.5%). The meeting was opened on behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, its chairman Yakov Sverdlov expressed hope for "full recognition by the Constituent Assembly of all decrees and resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars" and proposed to adopt the draft "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People" written by V. I. Lenin, the 1st paragraph of which announced Russia "Republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies". After the Right SRs refused to discuss this question, the Bolsheviks, the Left SRs and some delegates of the national parties left the meeting. The remaining deputies, chaired by the Socialist-Revolutionary leader Viktor Chernov, continued their work and adopted the following resolutions:

• the first 10 points of the agrarian law, which proclaimed the land to be public property;
• an appeal to the belligerent powers to start peace negotiations;
• declaration proclaiming the creation of the Russian Democratic Federative Republic.

Lenin ordered not to disperse the meeting immediately, but to wait until the meeting was over and then close the Tauride Palace and not let anyone in there the next day. The meeting, however, dragged on until late at night, and then until morning. At 5 o'clock in the morning on January 6 (19), having reported that "the guard was tired," the head of security, the anarchist A. Zheleznyakov, closed the meeting, inviting the deputies to disperse. In the evening of the same day, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree dissolving the Constituent Assembly.

On January 18 (31), the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved the decree on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and decided to remove from the legislation indications of its temporary nature ("until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly").

Chairman of the Constituent Assembly

Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov was elected Chairman of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, for whom 244 votes were cast. The second contender was the leader of the Left SR party, Maria Alexandrovna Spiridonova, supported by the Bolsheviks; 153 deputies cast their votes for it.

The murder of Shingarev and Kokoshkin

By the time the meeting was convened, one of the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Party of People's Freedom) and deputy of the Constituent Assembly, Shingarev, was arrested by the Bolshevik authorities on November 28 (the day the Constituent Assembly was supposed to open), on January 5 (18) he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. On January 6 (19) he was transferred to the Mariinsky prison hospital, where on the night of January 7 (20) he was killed by sailors along with another leader of the cadets, Kokoshkin.

End of Constituent Assembly

Although the right-wing parties suffered a crushing defeat in the elections, the defense of the Constituent Assembly became one of the slogans of the White movement.

By the summer of 1918, with the support of the rebellious Czechoslovak Corps, several Socialist-Revolutionary and Pro-Socialist-Revolutionary governments had formed on the vast territory of the Volga region and Siberia, which began an armed struggle against the government created by the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. A number of members of the Constituent Assembly, headed by Viktor Chernov, moved to Samara, where they created the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), another part of the deputies created a committee in Omsk. In September 1918, at the State Conference in Ufa, Komuch, the Provisional Siberian and other regional governments united, electing a temporary All-Russian Directory headed by the right-wing Social Revolutionary N. D. Avksentiev. One of its tasks the Directory proclaimed the restoration of the Constituent Assembly in Russia.

The offensive of the Red Army in August - September 1918 forced the Directory to move to Omsk; however, her desire to gather deputies and announce the opening of the Constituent Assembly, elected in 1917, did not suit the right (monarchists, cadets, etc.), who, even in the absence of Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries, would have been a minority in the Assembly. On November 18, 1918, the Directory was overthrown by the Omsk military; Admiral A. Kolchak, proclaimed the supreme ruler of Russia, declared that his goal was to defeat Bolshevism, and when this happened, he would convene a Constituent National Assembly, but by no means the "party one that was dispersed by the sailor Zheleznyakov" ".

The so-called Congress of members of the Constituent Assembly, which had been in Yekaterinburg since October 1918, tried to protest against the coup, as a result, an order was issued "to take measures for the immediate arrest of Chernov and other active members of the Constituent Assembly who were in Yekaterinburg." Deported from Yekaterinburg, either under guard or under escort of Czech soldiers, the deputies gathered in Ufa, where they tried to campaign against Kolchak. On November 30, 1918, he ordered that the former members of the Constituent Assembly be brought to court-martial "for attempting to raise an uprising and conduct destructive agitation among the troops." December 2nd special detachment under the command of Colonel Kruglevsky, part of the members of the Congress of the Constituent Assembly (25 people) was arrested, taken to Omsk in boxcars and imprisoned. After an unsuccessful attempt at release on December 22, 1918, many of them were shot.

Since the phrase Karaul tired was uttered at 4:20, and the meeting stopped working at 4:40, before that at 4:30 it proclaimed Russia a republic, we can assume that the constituent assembly accepted the recommendation of Mikhail Alexandrovich of March 1

The Constituent Assembly is a representative body in Russia, elected in November 1917 and convened in January 1918 to determine the state structure of Russia. It nationalized the landlords' land, called for the conclusion of a peace treaty, proclaimed Russia a federal democratic republic, thereby abandoning the monarchical form of government. The Assembly refused to consider the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which would endow the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies with state power, thereby making further actions of the Soviets illegitimate. Dispersed by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, the dispersal was confirmed by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies.

The convocation of the Constituent Assembly was one of the priorities of the Provisional Government. The very name of the government "Provisional" came from the idea of ​​"leisure decision" on the structure of power in Russia before the Constituent Assembly. But it delayed him. After the overthrow of the Provisional Government in October 1917, the question of the Constituent Assembly became paramount for all parties. The Bolsheviks, fearing the discontent of the people, since the idea of ​​convening the Constituent Assembly was very popular, hastened the elections scheduled by the Provisional Government for it. On October 27, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars adopted and published, signed by V. I. Lenin, a resolution on holding general elections to the Constituent Assembly on November 12, 1917, as scheduled.
Not a single decree of the Provisional Government, despite the lengthy preparatory work of the commissions specially created for this purpose, established the exact number of members of the Constituent Assembly necessary for its opening. This quorum was determined only by a resolution of the Leninist Council of People's Commissars of November 26, according to which the Constituent Assembly was to be opened "upon the arrival in Petrograd of more than 400 members of the US", which accounted for more than 50% of the total planned number of members of the Constituent Assembly.
As Richard Pipes points out, the Bolsheviks failed to gain control of the Commission for holding elections to the Constituent Assembly; The commission announced that it considers the October uprising illegal and does not recognize the authority of the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars.
By the time the registration of candidate lists for the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, a split occurred in the AKP - the left wing of the party separated and proclaimed the creation of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (Internationalists), but did not have time to put up a separate list. This gave rise to a number of members of the RSDLP (b), led by the then Prime Minister Vladimir Lenin, to put forward a proposal to postpone the elections, but the All-Russian Workers 'and Peasants' Government rejected this proposal.
Less than 50% of voters took part in the elections. A total of 715 deputies were elected, of which 370 seats were received by the right SRs and Centrists, 175 by the Bolsheviks, 40 by the Left SRs, 17 by the Cadets, 15 by the Mensheviks, 86 by deputies from national groups (SRs 51.7%, Bolsheviks 24, 5%, Left SRs - 5.6%, Cadets 2.4%, Mensheviks - 2.1%). The Mensheviks suffer a crushing defeat in the elections, gaining less than 3% of the vote, the lion's share of which is represented by Transcaucasia. Subsequently, the Mensheviks come to power in Georgia.
The results of the elections in different regions differed sharply: for example, in Petrograd, about 930 thousand people participated in the elections, 45% of the votes were cast for the Bolsheviks, 27% for the Cadets, and 17% for the Socialist-Revolutionaries. In Moscow, the Bolsheviks received 48%, on the Northern Front - 56%, and on the Western - 67%; in the Baltic Fleet - 58.2%, in 20 districts of the North-Western and Central Industrial Regions - a total of 53.1%. Thus, the Bolsheviks scored the largest number voices in Petrograd, Moscow, large industrial cities, Northern and Western fronts, as well as the Baltic Fleet. At the same time, the Social Revolutionaries were in the lead at the expense of non-industrial areas and the southern fronts.
Richard Pipes, in his work "The Bolsheviks in the Struggle for Power," draws attention to the significant, in his opinion, the successes of the Kadet party in these elections: by the end of 1917, all right-wing parties ceased their activities, and the Cadets began to attract all the voices of the right, up to supporters of restoration autocratic monarchy. In Petrograd and Moscow, they get second place behind the Bolsheviks, gaining 26.2% and 34.2% of the vote, respectively, and bypass the Bolsheviks in 11 out of 38 provincial cities. At the same time, the Cadets as a whole received only 4.5% of the seats in the Constituent Assembly.

Deciding to dissolve
After the election of the Constituent Assembly, it became clear that it would be Socialist-Revolutionary in its composition. In addition, politicians such as Kerensky, atamans Dutov and Kaledin, the Ukrainian general secretary of military affairs Petlyura were elected to the Assembly (see List of members of the Constituent Assembly).
The course of the Bolsheviks for radical transformation was under threat. In addition, the Socialist-Revolutionaries were supporters of the continuation of the "war to a victorious end" ("revolutionary defencism"), which persuaded the vacillating soldiers and sailors to disperse the Assembly. The coalition of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries decides to disperse the assembly as "counter-revolutionary". Immediately, Lenin was sharply opposed to the Assembly. Sukhanov N. N. in his fundamental work "Notes on the Revolution" claims that Lenin, already after his arrival from exile in April 1917, considered the Constituent Assembly a "liberal undertaking". Commissar for Propaganda, Press and Agitation of the Northern Region Volodarsky goes even further, and declares that "the masses in Russia have never suffered from parliamentary cretinism" and "if the masses make a mistake with the ballots, they will have to take up another weapon."
When discussing Kamenev, Rykov, Milyutin, they act from "pro-founder" positions. Narkomnats Stalin on November 20 proposes to postpone the convocation of the Assembly. People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs Trotsky and co-chairman of the Bolshevik faction in the Constituent Assembly Bukharin propose to convene a "revolutionary convention" of the Bolshevik and Left SR factions, by analogy with the events of the French Revolution. This point of view is also supported by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Natanson.
According to Trotsky.
Shortly before the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, Mark Natanson, the oldest member of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, came to us and said from the first words: - after all, it will probably be necessary to disperse the Constituent Assembly by force ...
- Bravo! exclaimed Lenin. - That's right, that's right! Will yours go for it?
- We have some hesitation, but I think that in the end they will agree.
On November 23, 1917, the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Stalin and Petrovsky, occupy the Commission for the Elections to the Constituent Assembly, which has already completed its work, appointing M. S. Uritsky as the new commissar in it. 400 people, and according to the decree, the Assembly was to be opened by a person authorized by the Council of People's Commissars, that is, a Bolshevik. Thus, the Bolsheviks managed to delay the opening of the Assembly until the moment when its 400 delegates had gathered in Petrograd.
On November 28, 60 delegates gather in Petrograd, mostly Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, who are trying to start the work of the Assembly. On the same day of the Predsovnarkom, Lenin outlawed the Cadets Party by issuing a decree "On the arrest of the leaders of the civil war against the revolution." Stalin comments on this decision with the words: "We must definitely finish off the Cadets, or they will finish us off." The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, while generally welcoming this step, express dissatisfaction with the fact that such a decision was made by the Bolsheviks without the consent of their allies. The Left Socialist-Revolutionary I. Z. Shteinberg, who, calling the Cadets "counter-revolutionaries", spoke out sharply against the arrest in this case of the entire party without exception. The Cadet newspaper "Rech" is being closed down and reopened two weeks later under the name "Our Century".
On November 29, the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars forbids "private meetings" of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. At the same time, the right SRs form the "Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly."
On the whole, the inner-party discussion ends with Lenin's victory. On December 11, he seeks the re-election of the bureau of the Bolshevik faction in the Constituent Assembly, some of whose members spoke out against the dispersal. On December 12, 1917, Lenin draws up the "Theses on the Constituent Assembly", in which he states that "... Any attempt, direct or indirect, to consider the question of the Constituent Assembly from a formal legal side, within the framework of ordinary bourgeois democracy, without taking into account the class struggle and civil war is a betrayal of the cause of the proletariat and a transition to the point of view of the bourgeoisie", and the slogan "All power to the Constituent Assembly" was declared the slogan of the "Kaledinites". On December 22, Zinoviev declares that under this slogan "is hidden the slogan 'Down with the Soviets'."
On December 20, the Council of People's Commissars decides to open the work of the Assembly on January 5. On December 22, the decision of the Council of People's Commissars is approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In opposition to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries are preparing to convene the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918. On December 23 martial law is introduced in Petrograd.
Already on January 1, 1918, the first unsuccessful attempt on Lenin's life takes place.
In mid-January, the second attempt on Lenin's life is thwarted.
At a meeting of the Central Committee of the AKP, held on January 3, 1918, it was rejected, "as an untimely and unreliable act," an armed uprising on the day of the opening of the Constituent Assembly, proposed by the military commission of the party.
Boris Petrov and I visited the regiment to report to its leaders that the armed demonstration was canceled and that they were asked to "come to the demonstration unarmed so that blood would not be shed."
The second half of the sentence aroused a storm of indignation in them ... “Why are you, comrades, really laughing at us? Or are you joking? .. We are not small children, and if we went to fight the Bolsheviks, we would do if it were quite conscious... But blood... blood, perhaps, would not have been shed if we had come out with a whole regiment armed.
We talked for a long time with the Semyonovites, and the more we talked, the clearer it became that our refusal to take armed action had erected between them and us a blank wall of mutual incomprehension.
"Intellectuals... They are wise, without knowing what. Now it is clear that there are no military people among them."
Trotsky L.D. subsequently sarcastically remarked the following about the Socialist-Revolutionary deputies:
But they carefully developed the ritual of the first meeting. They brought candles with them in case the Bolsheviks turned off the electricity, and a large number of sandwiches in case they were deprived of food. So democracy came to the battle with the dictatorship - fully armed with sandwiches and candles.

First meeting and dissolution
Shooting by the Bolsheviks of a workers' demonstration in support of the assembly
On January 5 (18), Pravda published a decree signed by a member of the collegium of the Cheka, since March the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky M.S., by which all rallies and demonstrations in Petrograd were banned in the areas adjacent to the Tauride Palace. This was done out of fear of any provocations and pogroms, since recently, on December 11, the Tauride Palace was already captured by an armed crowd (Pravda, No. 203 of December 12, 1917). . The SRs intended to withdraw the Semyonovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments, accompanied by the armored cars of the Izmailovsky armored division. Preparations were also made for the "withdrawal from use as hostages" of Lenin and Trotsky. It was not until January 3 that the Central Committee of the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries abandoned these plans. The armored cars were put out of action, as a result of which the soldiers refused to leave the barracks, and it was not possible to enlist the support of the workers. The leadership of the Socialist-Revolutionaries considered it inappropriate to eliminate the leaders of the Bolsheviks, since this would cause "such indignation among the workers and soldiers that it could end in a general pogrom of the intelligentsia. After all, for many, many, Lenin and Trotsky are popular leaders ...".
According to Bonch-Bruyevich, the instructions for dispersing the demonstrators read: “Return unarmed people back. Armed people showing hostile intentions should not be allowed close, persuade them to disperse and not prevent the guard from fulfilling the order given to them. In case of failure to comply with the order, disarm and arrest. Armed resistance to respond with a ruthless armed rebuff. If any workers appear at a demonstration, convince them to the last extreme, as erring comrades going against their comrades and the people's power. At the same time, Bolshevik agitators at the most important factories (Obukhov, Baltiysky, etc.) tried to enlist the support of the workers, but were unsuccessful. The workers remained neutral.
Together with the rear units of the Latvian Riflemen and the Lithuanian Life Guards Regiment, the Bolsheviks surrounded the approaches to the Tauride Palace. Assembly supporters responded with demonstrations of support; according to various sources, from 10 to 100 thousand people participated in the demonstrations. From January 5, 1918, as part of the columns of demonstrators, workers, employees, and intelligentsia moved towards Tauride and were machine-gunned. From the testimony of the worker of the Obukhov plant D.N. Bogdanov dated January 29, 1918, a participant in a demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly:
“I, as a participant in the procession as early as January 9, 1905, must state the fact that I did not see such a cruel reprisal there, what our“ comrades ”were doing, who still dare to call themselves such, and in conclusion I must say that after that I execution and the savagery that the Red Guards and sailors did with our comrades, and even more so after they began to pull out banners and break poles, and then burn them at the stake, I could not understand what country I was in: either in a socialist country, or in the country of savages who are capable of doing everything that the Nikolaev satraps could not do, Lenin's fellows have now done it.
GA RF. F.1810. Op.1. D.514. L.79-80
The number of dead was estimated with a range of 8 to 21 people. The official figure was 21 people (Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, January 6, 1918), hundreds of wounded. Among the dead were the Social Revolutionaries E. S. Gorbachevskaya, G. I. Logvinov and A. Efimov. A few days later, the victims were buried at the Transfiguration Cemetery.
M. Gorky in "Untimely Thoughts" wrote about this:
... "Pravda" is lying - it knows perfectly well that the "bourgeois" have nothing to rejoice at the opening of the Constituent Assembly, they have nothing to do among 246 socialists of one party and 140 Bolsheviks.
Pravda knows that the workers of the Obukhov, Cartridge and other factories took part in the demonstration, that under the red banners of the Russian Social-Democrat. parties to the Tauride Palace were the workers of Vasileostrovsky, Vyborgsky and other districts. It was these workers who were shot, and no matter how much Pravda lied, it would not hide the shameful fact.
The "bourgeois" may have rejoiced when they saw the soldiers and the Red Guard tear the revolutionary banners out of the hands of the workers, trample them underfoot and burn them at the stake. But it is possible that even this pleasant sight did not please all the "bourgeois" anymore, because among them there are honest people who sincerely love their people, their country.
One of these was Andrey Ivanovich Shingarev, vilely killed by some beasts.
So, on January 5, the unarmed workers of Petrograd were shot. They shot without warning that they would shoot, they shot from ambushes, through the cracks of fences, cowardly, like real killers ...
On January 5, a demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly in Moscow was dispersed. According to official data (Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. 1918. January 11), the number of people killed was more than 50, wounded - more than 200. Shooting lasted all day, the building of the Dorogomilovsky Council was blown up, while the chief of staff of the Red Guard of the Dorogomilovsky district P. G. Tyapkin and several Red Guards.

First and last meeting
The session of the Constituent Assembly opened on January 5 (18), 1918 in the Tauride Palace in Petrograd. It was attended by 410 deputies; the majority belonged to the centrist SRs, the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs had 155 mandates (38.5%). The meeting was opened on behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, its chairman Yakov Sverdlov expressed hope for "full recognition by the Constituent Assembly of all decrees and resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars" and proposed to adopt the draft "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People" written by V. I. Lenin, the 1st paragraph of which announced Russia "Republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies". However, the Assembly, by a majority of 237 votes to 146, refuses even to discuss the Bolshevik Declaration.
Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov was elected Chairman of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, for whom 244 votes were cast. The second contender was the leader of the Left SR party, Maria Alexandrovna Spiridonova, supported by the Bolsheviks; 153 deputies cast their votes for it.
Lenin, through the Bolshevik Skvortsov-Stepanov, invites the Assembly to sing the "Internationale", which is done by all the socialists present, from the Bolsheviks to the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries who are sharply opposed to them.
During the second part of the meeting, at three o'clock in the morning, the representative of the Bolsheviks, Fyodor Raskolnikov, declares that the Bolsheviks (in protest against the non-acceptance of the Declaration) are leaving the meeting. On behalf of the Bolsheviks, he declares that "not wanting to cover up the crimes of the enemies of the people for a single minute, we declare that we are leaving the Constituent Assembly in order to transfer the final decision on the question of attitude towards the counter-revolutionary part of the Constituent Assembly to the Soviet power of the deputies."
According to the testimony of the Bolshevik Meshcheryakov, after the departure of the faction, many soldiers guarding the Assembly "took their rifles at the ready", one even "took aim at the crowd of delegates - Socialist-Revolutionaries", and Lenin personally declared that the departure of the Bolshevik faction of the Assembly "would have such an effect on the soldiers and sailors holding the guard, that they would immediately shoot all the remaining Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks." One of his contemporaries, Vishnyak M.V., comments on the situation in the meeting room as follows:
Having descended from the platform, I went to see what was being done in the choirs... Separate groups continue to "rally", to argue. Some of the deputies are trying to convince the soldiers of the rightness of the meeting and the criminality of the Bolsheviks. It flashes: "And a bullet to Lenin, if he deceives!"
Following the Bolsheviks at four o'clock in the morning, the Assembly leaves the Left SR faction, declaring through its representative Karelin that "The Constituent Assembly is in no way a reflection of the mood and will of the working masses ... We are leaving, we are leaving this Assembly ... We are going for in order to bring our forces, our energy to Soviet institutions, to the Central Executive Committee.
The remaining deputies, chaired by the Socialist-Revolutionary leader Viktor Chernov, continued their work and adopted the following resolutions:
the first 10 points of the agrarian law, which proclaimed the land to be public property;
an appeal to the belligerent powers to start peace negotiations;
declaration proclaiming the creation of the Russian Democratic Federative Republic.

Lenin ordered not to disperse the meeting immediately, but to wait until the meeting was over and then close the Tauride Palace and not let anyone in there the next day. The meeting, however, dragged on until late at night, and then until morning. At 5 o'clock in the morning on January 6 (19), informing the presiding Socialist-Revolutionary Chernov that "the guard was tired" ("I received an instruction to inform you that all those present should leave the meeting room because the guard was tired"), the head of security anarchist A. Zheleznyakov closed the meeting, inviting the deputies to disperse. On January 6, at 4:40 am, the delegates disperse, deciding to meet on the same day at 5:00 pm. Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin orders the guards of the Tauride Palace "to prevent any violence against the counter-revolutionary part of the Constituent Assembly and, freely let everyone out of the Tauride Palace, let no one into it without special orders."
Commissar Dybenko declares to the chief of security Zheleznyakov that it is required to disperse the Assembly by force immediately, without waiting for the end of the meeting, in accordance with Lenin's order ("I cancel Lenin's order. Disperse the Constituent Assembly, and tomorrow we will figure it out"). Dybenko himself was also elected to the Constituent Assembly from the Baltic Fleet; At the meeting, he sent a note to the presidium with a joking proposal "to elect Kerensky and Kornilov as secretaries."
On the evening of the same day, January 6, the deputies found the doors of the Tauride Palace locked. At the entrance there was a guard with machine guns and two light artillery pieces. Security said there would be no meeting. On January 9, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, adopted on January 6, was published.
On January 6, 1918, the Pravda newspaper announced that
Servants of bankers, capitalists and landlords, allies of Kaledin, Dutov, serfs American dollar, killers from around the corner, the right SRs demand in the uchr. gathering all the power for himself and his masters - the enemies of the people.
In words, as if joining the people's demands: land, peace and control, in reality they are trying to whip the noose around the neck of socialist power and revolution.
But the workers, peasants and soldiers will not fall for the bait of the false words of the worst enemies of socialism, in the name of the socialist revolution and the socialist Soviet republic they will sweep away all its open and covert killers.
On January 18, the Council of People's Commissars adopts a decree prescribing that all references to the Constituent Assembly be removed from existing laws. On January 18 (31), the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved the decree on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and decided to remove from the legislation indications of its temporary nature (“until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly”).

The murder of Shingarev and Kokoshkin
By the time the meeting was convened, one of the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Party of People's Freedom) and a deputy of the Constituent Assembly, Shingarev, was arrested by the Bolshevik authorities on November 28 (the day the Constituent Assembly was supposed to open), on January 5 (18) he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. On January 6 (19) he was transferred to the Mariinsky prison hospital, where on the night of January 7 (20) he was killed by sailors along with another leader of the cadets, Kokoshkin.

Dispersal of the Constituent Assembly
Although the right-wing parties suffered a crushing defeat in the elections, since some of them were banned and campaigning for them was banned by the Bolsheviks, the defense of the Constituent Assembly became one of the slogans of the White movement.
By the summer of 1918, with the support of the insurgent Czechoslovak Corps, several Socialist-Revolutionary and Pro-Socialist-Revolutionary governments had formed on the vast territory of the Volga region and Siberia, which began an armed struggle against the created

About the Constituent Assembly, elected at the end of 1917 and dissolved by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee at the beginning of 1918, some speak of it as an outstanding event, others reluctantly mention it and claim that it was "a meeting of enemies of the revolution and enemies of the people." But neither was there. When a protracted crisis is observed in a society, the question arises: how to live on? If the authorities do not have confidence in their abilities, then they have to consult with representatives of the people.

A striking example is the Cathedral Code of 1649, drawn up in Russia under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The Code was developed and approved at the Zemsky Sobor by 315 sovereign subjects - from metropolitans, princes and boyars to simply elected people. That code of laws was in effect for more than a hundred years, until Catherine II convened on July 30, 1767 the Legislative Commission, which brought together elected representatives of all estates. Despite the fact that the empress sent her specific proposals to the commission, they were considered for a year and a half. It turned out to be not an easy task to draw up laws in such a way that both the nobility is respected and the mob is not forgotten. Therefore, on December 12, 1768, the queen, under the pretext of starting a war with Turkey, closed the Code. A century later, the anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin spoke about convening a Constituent Assembly to develop a “self-regulating government”. It was picked up by the RSDLP, which in 1903 included the convocation of the Constituent Assembly in its minimum program. But in 1905, during the First Russian Revolution, Soviets arose. Perhaps it was then that Lenin got the idea that even without any "Constituent Assembly" it would be possible to do without ...

The slogan to convene a Constituent Assembly in Russia resurfaced after the February Revolution. But on March 13, the chairman of the Provisional Government, Prince Lvov, promised to convene the Constituent Assembly no earlier than in 3-6 months. The provisional government scheduled the elections for November 12, and the beginning of the convocation of the Assembly - for November 28, 1917. But on November 7, the October Revolution took place, real power passed to the Bolsheviks, Lenin no longer saw much point in the Constituent Assembly and began to advocate the postponement of the elections. Like-minded people in the party objected: the postponement would be understood as the liquidation of the Constituent Assembly. This step will be negatively perceived in the province. Especially vigorously opposed the postponement of Ya.M. Sverdlov, more than others associated with the province. “Lenin, with his position, turned out to be lonely,” writes Trotsky, “he shook his head in displeasure and repeated: a mistake, a clear mistake that could cost us dearly! No matter how much this mistake is worth the head of the revolution ... ". Lenin did not insist on a postponement and began to talk about the possibility of dispersing the Constituent Assembly. Unexpectedly for everyone, this idea was supported by Natanson, one of the leaders of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who declared that "... it will probably be necessary to disperse the Constituent Assembly by force." "Bravo!" - Lenin immediately agreed and began to develop an organizational plan for the implementation of this idea. One may agree or disagree with Trotsky's interpretation of events, but the essence is in the main thing - in the Leninist understanding of democracy. After the dispersal of the Assembly, Lenin, as Trotsky recalls, said: “Of course, it was very risky on our part that we did not postpone the convocation, very, very carelessly. But in the end it worked out better. The dispersal of the Constituent Assembly by the Soviet government is the complete and open liquidation of formal democracy in the name of revolutionary dictatorship. Now the lesson will be repeated.

The results of the elections were extremely unfavorable for the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars. The Bolsheviks received 25% of the vote, the Socialist-Revolutionaries (mostly right) and the Mensheviks - 62%, the Cadets - 13%. But this did not faze the authorities. The defeat was explained by the fact that the meaning of the October Revolution and its conquests was not yet realized in the Russian outback, that the elections were held according to the old electoral lists, where the Right and Left SRs acted as a single party, that violations were allowed during the elections, etc. The Bolsheviks rightly counted on the fact that public opinion would gradually change in favor of the government coalition (Bolsheviks and Left SRs). But, most importantly, the new leadership of the country believed that the revolution was developing according to its own laws, different from the norms of "bourgeois" democracy. Yes, the elections were lost by the Bolsheviks throughout the country. But in its key points: the army, large cities, industrial regions - the Bolsheviks won. This means that real power is on their side, because large political issues are resolved not in remote Russian villages, but in the capitals by armed workers and soldiers. The parties thoroughly prepared for the elections. In 74 civil constituencies (without fronts and fleets), 4,753 applicants were declared (one name could appear in no more than five lists). Of these, there were 642 Cadets, 427 People's Socialists, 596 Mensheviks, 225 Socialist-Revolutionaries, 513 Socialist-Revolutionaries together with representatives of the Peasant Soviets, 238 National Socialists, 589 Bolsheviks. The Socialists made up 60% of all candidates, the right 11.7% (81).

Opponents of the Bolsheviks tried to remove them from power by peaceful, parliamentary means, using the Constituent Assembly for this. The demand for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly was contained in the programs of all revolutionary parties in Russia, including the Bolsheviks. It was believed that after the fall of the monarchy, free democratic elections to the Assembly would be held in the country, which, having expressed the will of the people, would consider the main socio-political issues and "establish" in Russia a new social order. That is why the government formed during the February Revolution was called Provisional, i.e. transitional, which will have to transfer its functions to the legally elected authorities.

The bourgeoisie and the coalition are disrupting the Constituent Assembly! Not a single Bolshevik speech, resolution, declaration, newspaper article could do without this. It can be said that all the agitation was conducted under the banner of the Constituent Assembly and its defense. To the uninformed, this may seem a little strange. After all, Lenin immediately attacked the parliamentary republic and rejected all governments except the Soviets. The slogan "Soviet power", which later became "at the forefront" of Bolshevism, also did not assume that the Soviet government would be a provisional government. This slogan meant, of course, the form of government and "ideal political system". The Constituent Assembly seemed to be definitely ruled out by all this... True, at one time it was better for the opponents of the Constituent Assembly to keep quiet about it. But, it would seem, only as long as the slogan "Soviet power" does not receive sufficient recognition among the masses. By strengthening the positions, it would seem that it was possible to reveal the cards. At least one could continue to remain silent - for the sake of greater purity of one's teaching, in order to avoid confusion and too gross political deception. But no, the Bolshevik Party put things differently: down with the coalition and long live Soviet power in the name of the Constituent Assembly! Firstly, she did not keep silent, but screamed terribly loudly. Secondly, she did this not to the extent of legitimate diplomatic necessity, not at the first unsteady steps, but at the decisive hour, just before the speech, when almost all the active masses were already with her.

Actually, it was not the Bolshevik Party as a whole who had to keep quiet about the Constituent Assembly, but simply its head, Lenin, kept quiet about it and did not show his cards within the Bolshevik Party. Lenin conspired from the party, and the party, without tying up the ends, took the Constituent Assembly at face value and crucified for it. The point was that Lenin, having initially kicked the Constituent Assembly and then decided to remain diplomatically silent about it, soon came up with the idea of ​​using it. Conceived - done. The Constituent Assembly began to cover up the "power of the Soviets." Lenin not only did not keep silent, but shouted along with the party. In his central authority he wrote about "how to ensure the success of the Constituent Assembly". His closest friends, in their most official speeches, made him the starting point of their policy. “If power passes to the Soviets, the fate of the Constituent Assembly will be in safe hands; if the bourgeoisie disrupts the transfer of power to the Soviets, it will also disrupt the Constituent Assembly.” Thus, while agitating, the Bolshevik Party asserted on the columns of its Rabochy Put. But were there people in the world who could not but remember Lenin's kick to the parliamentary republic and the Constituent Assembly? How to deal with this now, before the start of hostilities? Very simply: "Lenin was against the Constituent Assembly and for a republic of Soviets," assert our opponents. The statement is clearly false. Lenin was never "against" the Constituent Assembly. Together with our entire party, from the very first months he exposed the Provisional Government for delaying the Constituent Assembly. That these accusations of ours were correct has now been proven by life... That's all. This is how the "Working Way" explained. Well, how about with new theory state law? After all, one cannot endlessly count on the fact that all those who are ready to follow the Bolsheviks must be gullible, short-sighted and ignorant. After all, it was necessary to have some kind of "theory" that would connect the incompatible, cover up the secrets of diplomacy, cover up the gaping logical void. And such a theory was created - by no means with greater difficulties than the malicious fabrications about Lenin's position were refuted. “A republic of Soviets,” says this theory, “by no means excludes the Constituent Assembly, just as vice versa, a republic of a Constituent Assembly does not exclude the existence of Soviets. If our revolution is not destined to perish, if it is destined to win, then we will see in practice a combined type of a republic of Soviets and a Constituent Assembly...” This article is in Rabochy Put. True, in addition to the central newspaper, the Bolshevik Party at that time also had a draft program. It was impossible to find signs of a "combined type" in it; there was precisely the Soviet workers' and peasants' dictatorship, excluding the bourgeois-parliamentary Constituent Assembly. But it is not important. Everyone understands that it is one thing - a theoretical document for themselves, and another - practical idea for general use.

But we see that both, contrary to our initial impression, here are not at all crudely primitive, but, on the contrary, very qualified. As you can see, we are not talking about some relatively petty and private deception aimed at point-blank range against their friends and comrades-in-arms. And this is not about a simple childish readiness to be deceived. Here deceit has a mass universal character, a nationwide scale. It is known that mass murder on a state scale is not some kind of reprehensible act, but is valor and feat. Deception in such cases is called diplomacy, or tactics, or politics. For the subject of deceit, it must be considered in the aspect of statesmanship. And so, "down with the coalition" and "long live the power of the Soviets" in the name of the Constituent Assembly! Only when the Soviets have power will the fate of the Constituent Assembly be in safe hands.

Until now, attention has been paid to only one side of the Bolshevik agitation: this side is negative, aimed at the destruction of Kerenskyism. In practice, this was perhaps enough: the will to decisive action could be created among the masses even if only by hatred of the existing order ... But, thank God, we lived in the twentieth century. It could not be our task to cause a spontaneous crushing rebellion. We were not moving towards a spontaneous explosion, but towards a second, workers' and peasants' revolution, which must necessarily have its own positive program. It goes without saying that it must rest on the unshakable foundation of Marxism and the entire experience of the modern working-class movement. This does not mean that the entire program, with its theoretical and practical foundations must be fully manifested in agitation. But all the same, agitation before a decisive battle had to answer the question: what is it for, what will it do, and what will the power of the Soviets give? The power of the Soviets is not only a guarantee of the Constituent Assembly, but also its support. Firstly, "the capitalists and landlords can not only ridicule the Constituent Assembly, but also disperse it, just as the tsar dispersed the first two Dumas." The councils won't allow it. Secondly, the Soviets will be the apparatus for carrying out the plans of the Constituent Assembly. “Imagine that on November 30 it decreed the confiscation of the landed estates. What can city and zemstvo self-governments do to actually implement this demand? Almost nothing. What can the Soviets do? Everyone ... "["Working Way" of October 3]

So, on January 5, 1918, the Constituent Assembly nevertheless took place. The meeting was held in the Tauride Palace, where the The State Duma. The deputies - people's representatives, who received their mandates as a result of the first democratic elections in Russia, sat down in the hall, while spectators, mainly workers and soldiers, gathered on the balconies.

From the very beginning, the Assembly became the scene of clashes between the anti-government majority (Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Cadets) and the minority (Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries) representing the government coalition. The Mensheviks and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries viewed the meeting as supreme body authorities, the embodiment of the sovereign will of the people, in contrast to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, which they considered illegal. Hence the desire to ignore their rulings. For the Bolsheviks and their allies, the recognition of the power of the Assembly would mean a return to the pre-October situation. Therefore, they only waited for an excuse to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. As early as January 3, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets adopted a resolution that, based on the achievements of the October Revolution and in accordance with the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People", all power in the country belongs to the Soviets. Therefore, “any attempt on the part of anyone ... to appropriate one or another function of state power will be considered as a counter-revolutionary act. Any attempt will be suppressed by all means at the disposal of the Soviet government, up to and including the use of armed force. At that moment V.I. Lenin was guided by the interests of the revolution, which were always the highest law for him. It is no coincidence that these days he remembered famous words G.V. Plekhanov, pronounced at the II Congress of the RSDLP: “The success of the revolution is the highest law. And if for the sake of the success of the revolution it was necessary to temporarily restrict the operation of one or another democratic principle, then it would be criminal to stop before such a restriction.

The day of the assembly began with the dispersal of a demonstration in his support. There were 8 killed. But at 4 pm, more than 400 delegates nevertheless entered the White Hall of the Tauride Palace. The meeting has begun. Lenin took a "place of honor" on the steps in front of the podium and, as if conducting, commented on the course of the meeting either with grimaces or with laughter. Skirmishes began immediately. Yakov Sverdlov was the first to take the podium and open the meeting. "The Central Executive Committee of the Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies expresses the hope that the Constituent Assembly will fully recognize all the decrees and resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars" - the first sentence of his speech. Further, Sverdlov declared Russia "... the Russian Soviet Republic, established on the basis of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics ...", and outlined the decrees of the Council of People's Commissars proposed for adoption by the Assembly. On the left - the singing of the "Internationale", on the right - a whistle ...

The speech of its chairman V.M. Chernov, who stated that the results of the elections, victory in them socialist parties demonstrated "the will to socialism of the masses, the working masses of Russia." But socialist construction, the speaker declared, at the same time presupposes a mighty rise in the country's productive forces, and not a "hasty approach to equality in poverty," not gambling and risky experiments on the basis of a general decline, only accelerating decay and ruin.

V.M. Chernov was supported by the Menshevik I.G. Tsereteli, who declared that in the Assembly, which began its work with the singing of the "Internationale", it is not necessary to prove the advantages of socialism over capitalism, the question is different: is socialism possible, feasible now? The Bolsheviks did not try to answer this question. For them, this was a return to the theoretical discussions of the autumn of 1917. On behalf of the Bolshevik faction, F.F. Raskolnikov read out a statement in which the Assembly was accused of being counter-revolutionary because of its refusal to immediately approve the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People", after which the Bolsheviks left the meeting room.

The Left SRs, after the departure of the Bolshevik faction, demanded that the Assembly immediately approve the policy of imprisonment " democratic world through thick and thin". They were objected and reminded that the question of peace, like the question of land, is on the agenda, that draft resolutions on these issues have already been prepared, but they need to be discussed. As if confirming the readiness of the Assembly to deal with these problems, V.M. Chernov announced that he was beginning to announce the "Basic Law on Land." The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries did not want to delay further and, having accused the Assembly of "continuing the policy of hypocrisy and cowardice," they left the meeting room. V.M. Chernov was never able to read the law on land to the end. The head of the guard, sailor A.G., appeared on the podium. Zheleznyakov: "I received instructions that ... all those present should leave the meeting room, because the guard was tired." Shouts were heard: “We don’t need a guard!” V.M. Chernov decided to show firmness and not close the meetings, but soon gave up. He received a note from the leadership of the Socialist-Revolutionary faction, who feared that the lights would be turned off in the hall. In a hurry, without debate, the Assembly approved the read part of the land law, the peace resolution, the appeal to the civilized world, the resolution on the state structure of Russia.

The first law abolished private ownership of land and alienated private land without redemption. The goal of the state was proclaimed to create conditions for the active development of productive forces and the fair distribution of natural benefits among the population. In an appeal to the allies, it was stated about the "unbending will of the people" for an immediate cessation of the war and the conclusion of a universal just peace, it was proposed to start a joint determination of the conditions for this peace. Finally, the creation of the Russian Democratic Federative Republic was proclaimed.

The meeting ended at about five o'clock in the morning on January 6 and was supposed to resume at 17.00. But when the deputies arrived at the appointed time to the Taurida Palace, it turned out to be locked. At the same time, they were introduced to the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the dissolution of the Assembly.

A few days later, on January 10, the Third Congress of Soviets met, which was specially conceived as an alternative to the Constituent Assembly. On it, the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies united with the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, the word "provisional" was excluded from the name of the Soviet government. The congress enthusiastically approved the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People" and other documents proposed to it. Russia was declared the Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In the winter and spring of 1918, elections were held for rural and volost soviets.

Thus, Soviet power was built from top to bottom and acquired a legitimate character. The convocation and dissolution of the Constituent Assembly took place routinely and imperceptibly, except for clashes with shooting by Red Army soldiers and soldiers with a demonstration in his support on the opening day of the Assembly. Such a sad end to Russian parliamentarism was due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the Assembly did not have armed force for its defense, which in those conditions was of decisive importance. Secondly, the leaders of the SR-Menshevik majority, protecting the authority of the “high assembly”, made a number of tactical mistakes, allowing their opponents to present the Assembly as a counter-revolutionary, anti-people institution. Thirdly, they could give little to the "masses" beyond what the latter received from the Bolsheviks. Therefore, the interest of the working people in the Constituent Assembly was weak, they were indifferent to its dissolution.

The collapse of the Constituent Assembly demonstrated the absence in Russia of a basis for creating a democratic state based on the rule of law, and the low political culture of the population. This was clearly demonstrated by the leaders of various political forces at the Assembly itself, where they not only did not look for a way to reconciliation, but also in every possible way emphasized the split of the country into two irreconcilable camps, although the bills of the Constituent Assembly on peace and land, in essence, repeated the Bolshevik decrees on these issues. . There were no opportunities for a symbiosis of direct and representative democracy. Moreover, the dispersed members of the Constituent Assembly did not find "natural" defenders. The peasantry, seeing the opportunity to get land, completely turned away from the institutions of representative democracy, and the bourgeoisie has already relied on naked force.

Conference hall RPS: 279 seats RSDLP (B): 159 seats Local Socialists: 103 seats PNS: 32 seats RSDLP (M): 22 seats TNSP: 6 seats National parties: 68 seats Right parties: 10 seats Others: 28 seats

Constituent Assembly- a representative body in Russia, elected in November 1917 and convened in January 1918 to determine the state structure of Russia.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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✪ Why did the Bolsheviks disperse the Constituent Assembly?

✪ Lecture by A. Zubov "The All-Russian Constituent Assembly of 1917: preparation, elections and results"

✪ Intelligence: Yegor Yakovlev on the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly

✪ Intelligence: Boris Yulin on the dispersal of the constituent assembly

Subtitles

Elections

The convocation of the Constituent Assembly was one of the primary tasks of the Provisional Government (the very name came from the idea of ​​“undecided” power structure in Russia before the Constituent Assembly was held), but it hesitated to do so. After the overthrow of the Provisional Government in October 1917, the question of the Constituent Assembly became paramount for all parties. The Bolsheviks, fearing the discontent of the people, since the idea of ​​convening the Constituent Assembly was very popular, hastened the elections scheduled by the Provisional Government for it. On October 27, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars adopted and published, signed by V.I. Lenin, a resolution on holding, on November 12, 1917, general elections to the Constituent Assembly on the appointed date.

On the whole, the inner-party discussion ended in Lenin's victory. On December 11, he achieved the re-election of the bureau of the Bolshevik faction in the Constituent Assembly, some of whose members spoke out against dispersal. On December 12, 1917, Lenin drew up the Theses on the Constituent Assembly, in which he stated that “... Any attempt, direct or indirect, to consider the question of the Constituent Assembly from a formal legal side, within the framework of ordinary bourgeois democracy, without taking into account the class struggle and civil war, is a betrayal of the cause of the proletariat and a transition to the point of view of the bourgeoisie”, and the slogan "All power to the Constituent Assembly" was declared the slogan of "Kaledintsy". On December 22, Zinoviev declared that under this slogan "is hidden the slogan 'Down with the Soviets'."

On December 20, the Council of People's Commissars decided to open the work of the Assembly on January 5. On December 22, the decision of the Council of People's Commissars was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In opposition to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries were preparing to convene the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918. On December 23 martial law was introduced in Petrograd.

Already on January 1, 1918, the first unsuccessful attempt on Lenin took place, in which Fritz Platten was wounded. A few years later, Prince I. D. Shakhovskoy, who was in exile, announced that he was the organizer of the assassination attempt and allocated half a million rubles for this purpose. Researcher Richard Pipes also indicates that one of the former ministers of the Provisional Government, Cadet N.V. Nekrasov, was involved in this attempt, but he was “forgiven” and subsequently went over to the side of the Bolsheviks under the name “Golgofsky”.

In mid-January, the second attempt on Lenin's life failed: a soldier Spiridonov came to the reception to M. D. Bonch-Bruevich with a confession, declaring that he was participating in the conspiracy of the "Union of St. George Knights" and was given the task of eliminating Lenin. On the night of January 22, the Cheka arrested the conspirators in house 14 on Zakharyevskaya Street, in the apartment of “citizen Salova”, but then they were all sent to the front at their personal request. At least two of the conspirators, Zinkevich and Nekrasov, subsequently joined the White armies.

Boris Petrov and I visited the regiment to report to its leaders that the armed demonstration was canceled and that they were asked to "come to the demonstration unarmed so that blood would not be shed."

The second half of the sentence aroused a storm of indignation in them ... “Why are you, comrades, really laughing at us? Or are you kidding?.. We are not small children, and if we went to fight the Bolsheviks, we would do it quite deliberately ... And blood ... blood, perhaps, would not have been shed if we had come out armed with a whole regiment.

We talked for a long time with the Semyonovites, and the more we talked, the clearer it became that our refusal to take armed action had erected between them and us a blank wall of mutual incomprehension.

“Intellectuals… They are wise, not knowing what they are. Now it is clear that there are no military people between them.

L. D. Trotsky subsequently sarcastically remarked the following about the Socialist-Revolutionary deputies:

But they carefully developed the ritual of the first meeting. They brought candles with them in case the Bolsheviks turned off the electricity, and a large number of sandwiches in case they were deprived of food. So democracy came to the battle with the dictatorship - fully armed with sandwiches and candles.

Dispersal of a demonstration in support of the assembly

According to Bonch-Bruevich, the instructions for dispersing the demonstrators read: “Return the unarmed back. Armed people showing hostile intentions should not be allowed close, persuaded to disperse and not prevent the guard from fulfilling the order given to him. In case of failure to comply with the order - disarm and arrest. Respond to armed resistance with a merciless armed rebuff. In the event that any workers appear at the demonstration, convince them to the last extreme, as erring comrades, going against their comrades and the people's power. ] . At the same time, Bolshevik agitators at the most important factories (Obukhov, Baltiysky, etc.) tried to enlist the support of the workers, but were unsuccessful. The workers remained neutral.

The number of dead was estimated with a range of 8 to 21 people. The official figure was 21 people (Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, January 6, 1918), hundreds were wounded. Among the dead were the Social Revolutionaries E. S. Gorbachevskaya, G. I. Logvinov and A. Efimov. A few days later, the victims were buried at the Transfiguration Cemetery.

On January 5, a demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly in Moscow was dispersed. According to official data (Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1918. January 11), the number of those killed was more than 50, and more than 200 were wounded. The skirmishes lasted all day, the building of the Dorogomilovsky Soviet was blown up, and the chief of staff of the Red Guards of the Dorogomilovsky district P. G. Tyapkin and several Red Guards were killed.

First and last meeting

The session of the Constituent Assembly opened on January 5 (18) at the Tauride Palace in Petrograd. It was attended by 410 deputies; the majority belonged to the centrist SRs, the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs had 155 mandates (38.5%). The meeting was opened on behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee by its chairman Y. Sverdlov, who expressed hope for "full recognition by the Constituent Assembly of all decrees and resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars" and proposed to accept the draft "Declaration  of the rights of the working people and exploited people" written by V. I. Lenin, 1st the clause of which declared Russia a "Republic of Soviets of workers, soldiers and peasant deputies". The declaration repeated the resolution of the Congress of Soviets on agrarian reform, workers' control and peace. However, the Assembly, by a majority of 237 votes to 146, refused even to discuss the Bolshevik Declaration.

Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov was elected Chairman of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, for whom 244 votes were cast. The second contender was the leader of the Left SR party Maria Alexandrovna Spiridonova, supported by the Bolsheviks; 153 deputies cast their votes for it.

Following the Bolsheviks at four o'clock in the morning, the Assembly left the Left Socialist-Revolutionary faction, declaring through its representative Karelin that “The Constituent Assembly is by no means a reflection of the mood and will of the working masses... We are leaving, we are leaving this Assembly... We are going to bring our strength, our energy to Soviet institutions, to the Central Executive Committee.”

The remaining deputies, chaired by the Socialist-Revolutionary leader Viktor Chernov, continued their work and adopted the following documents:

Dispersal of the Constituent Assembly

Servants of bankers, capitalists and landlords, allies of Kaledin, Dutov, serfs of the American dollar, murderers from around the corner, the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries demand in the institutional. the gathering of all power for themselves and their masters - the enemies of the people.
In words, as if joining the people's demands: land, peace and control, in reality they are trying to whip the noose around the neck of socialist power and revolution.

But the workers, peasants and soldiers will not fall for the bait of the false words of the worst enemies of socialism, in the name of the socialist revolution and the socialist Soviet republic they will sweep away all its open and covert killers.

On January 18, the Council of People's Commissars adopts a decree prescribing that all references to the Constituent Assembly be removed from existing laws. On January 18 (31) January, the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved the decree on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and decided to eliminate indications of its temporary nature from the legislation (“until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly”).

"The guard is tired"

"The guard is tired"- a historical phrase allegedly said by the sailor A.G. Zheleznyakov (Zheleznyak) (who was the head of the guard of the Tauride Palace, where the All-Russian Constituent Assembly met) at the closing of the meeting of the Constituent Assembly on January 6 (19), 1918 at 4 hours 20 minutes in the morning.

According to Soviet biography A. G. Zheleznyakova, the situation was as follows:

At 4:20 in the morning, Zheleznyakov ... with a firm step entered the huge, brightly lit hall of the palace, walked past the rows, and went up to the podium. He went up to Chernov, put his strong hand on his shoulder and said loudly:
- Please stop the meeting! The guard is tired and wants to sleep...
The Left Socialist-Revolutionary Fundaminsky, who was delivering his speech at that time with great pathos, froze in mid-sentence, fixing his frightened eyes on the armed sailor.
Coming to his senses after a moment of confusion that seized him at the words of Zheleznyakov, Chernov shouted:
- How dare you! Who gave you the right to do this?!
Zheleznyakov said calmly:
- Your chatter is not needed by the workers. I repeat: the guard is tired!
From the ranks of the Mensheviks someone shouted:
We don't need a guard!
The frightened Chernov began to hurriedly say something to the Secretary of the Constituent Assembly, Vishnyakov.
There was a noise in the hall. Voices rang out from the choirs:
- Correctly! Down with the bourgeois!
- Enough!

According to another documentary official biography A. G. Zheleznyakov, the situation was similar, but less conflicting and more plausible (considering that the Left Social Revolutionaries left the Assembly after the Bolsheviks, and there were practically no spectators left in the choirs):

At about five o'clock in the morning, of the Bolshevik deputies, only Dybenko and a few other people were in the palace. Zheleznyakov again turned to Dybenko:
- The sailors are tired, but there is no end in sight. What if we stop this chatter?
Dybenko thought and waved his hand:
- Finish it, and tomorrow we'll figure it out!
Zheleznyakov entered the hall through the left side entrance, slowly went up to the presidium, went around the table behind him and touched Chernov on the shoulder. Loudly, to the whole hall, in a tone that did not allow for objections, he said:
- The guard is tired. Please stop the meeting and go home.
Chernov muttered something in confusion. The deputies began to make their way to the exit. No one even asked if there would be a next meeting.

Effects

Although the right-wing parties suffered a crushing defeat in the elections, since some of them were banned and campaigning for them was banned by the Bolsheviks, the defense of the Constituent Assembly became one of the slogans of the White movement.

The so-called Congress of members of the Constituent Assembly, located in Yekaterinburg since October 1918, tried to protest against the coup, as a result, an order was issued "to take measures for the immediate arrest of Chernov and other active members of the Constituent Assembly who were in Yekaterinburg." Deported from Yekaterinburg, either under guard or under escort of Czech soldiers, the deputies gathered in Ufa, where they tried to campaign against Kolchak. On November 30, 1918, he ordered that the former members of the Constituent Assembly be brought to court-martial "for attempting to raise an uprising and conduct destructive agitation among the troops." On December 2, a special detachment under the command of Colonel Kruglevsky, some of the members of the Congress of the Constituent Assembly (25 people) were arrested, delivered to Omsk in freight cars and imprisoned. After an unsuccessful attempt at release on December 22, 1918, many of them were shot.

Attitude towards the Constituent Assembly at the beginning of the 21st century

In 2011, the leader of the Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, published an article “Lie and legitimacy”, in which he called the state power in Russia illegitimate, and the way to solve this problem was to convene the Constituent Assembly.

In 2015, activist Vladimir Shpitalev wrote a statement addressed to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Yuri Chaika, demanding to check the legality of the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly in 1918. In June of the same year, Shpitalev went to a solo picket on Red Square with a poster "Return the Constituent Assembly." He was arrested and taken to the police station. The trial was scheduled for September, but already in August, Shpitalev left Russia due to persecution by the Center for Combating Extremism for an Internet post in which he advocated the release of Oleg Sentsov and the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine. In 2016, Shpitalev received political asylum in the Czech Republic.

Timeline of the 1917 Revolution in Russia
Before: Local Council: enthronement of Patriarch Tikhon on November 21 (December 4), 1917; Prohibition of the Cadets on November 28 (December 12), 1917; Formation of a government coalition of Bolsheviks and Left SRs; Foundation of the Supreme Economic Council on December 2 (15), 1917; Base