All-Russian Congress of Soviets

Origins

The first soviets appeared during the 1905 Revolution as strike councils of workers, but no Congresses of Soviets were convened before 1917 and soviets were not yet organs of state power. After the February Revolution an All-Russian conference of Soviets of workers' and soldiers' deputies met in Petrograd on 11-16 April 1917; on 16 April it elected 10 delegates from the provinces and 6 from the army and navy to the Petrograd Soviet's executive committee, making it the central body of the country's soviets until the First Congress opened.

The first congresses and the transfer of power

The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (16 June - 7 July 1917, Petrograd) gathered 1,090 delegates (822 with voting status) representing 305 soviets; dominated by pro-government Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, it confirmed the Provisional Government's legitimacy and approved the June army offensive. The Second Congress (25-27 October / 7-9 November 1917) opened with 649 delegates (390 Bolsheviks, 160 SRs, 72 Mensheviks); the Menshevik and Right SR delegations walked out, and 505 delegates voted to transfer power to the Soviets. It adopted the Decrees on Peace and Land, abolished the death penalty at the front, and formed the Council of People's Commissars under Lenin together with the VTsIK. The old SR-Menshevik VTsIK declared the Second Congress an illegal "private meeting" whose decisions were not binding on local soviets and army committees. Peasant congresses met separately (the first on 4-28 May 1917); the Third Congress of January 1918 was the first joint workers', soldiers' and peasants' congress.

Constitutional order and decline

Article 49 of the 1918 constitution assigned the Congress and the VTsIK all questions of state significance: adopting, changing and supplementing the constitution, the general direction of domestic and foreign policy, territory and boundaries, the admission and secession of republics, war and peace, the budget and taxes, and the appointment and dismissal of People's Commissars. The Congress and the VTsIK had equal authority on most matters, but only the Congress could amend the constitution and approve the constitutions of autonomous republics, and the VTsIK could decide questions of state significance only when the Congress could not be convoked. The 1918 constitution required at least two convocations a year; the IX Congress of December 1921 set annual convocation. Absent permanent sessions, deputies were not released from their regular work, so congresses met only periodically.

After October 1917 the Congress remained a multi-party body. The Left SRs were banned after their armed resistance and the Mensheviks were a substantial opposition until their 1921 ban, but by 1924 the Bolsheviks were the only legal party. As the Civil War progressed the soviets' authority was progressively reduced, and the rise of Stalinism turned the Congress into a rubber stamp.

The seventeen congresses

Seventeen congresses met between 1917 and January 1937. The IV Congress (14-16 March 1918) ratified the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and sanctioned moving the capital to Moscow; the Left SRs, who voted against, quit the Sovnarkom. The V Congress (4-10 July 1918) adopted the 1918 RSFSR Constitution, saw the Left SR uprising, and had the largest number of delegates, 1,296. The VI Congress (6-9 November 1918) proposed peace talks to the warring states and voted to liquidate the committees of the rural poor. The VII Congress (5-9 December 1919) passed the resolutions "On Peace" and "On the Oppressed Nations," with national-republic delegates participating for the first time. The VIII Congress (22-29 December 1920) approved GOELRO and the Land Code and established the Sowing Committee (posevkomy) and the Council of Labor and Defense statute. The IX Congress (23-28 December 1921) approved the NEP and the first criminal code and was attended by 1,991 delegates (1,630 voting). The X Congress (23-27 December 1922), attended by 1,727 delegates and 488 guests, adopted the decision to form the USSR on 26 December on Stalin's report and elected the RSFSR delegation to sign the treaty. The XI Congress (19-29 January 1924) endorsed the USSR Constitution and decided to amend the 1918 RSFSR Constitution; the XII (7-16 May 1925) adopted the 1925 RSFSR Constitution; the XIII (10-16 April 1927) was attended by 1,603 delegates (1,088 voting). The final XVII Congress (15-21 January 1937, 1,388 delegates) approved the 1937 RSFSR Constitution and instructed the VTsIK to draft the electoral statute and set Supreme Soviet election dates.

Distinctions

The All-Russian Congress of Soviets is not the same body as the Congress of Soviets of the USSR, which governed the whole Soviet Union after its creation in 1922; parallel republican congresses (Belorussian, Ukrainian, Transcaucasian) existed as separate institutions. The first VTsIK elected in 1917 (320 deputies: 123 Mensheviks, 119 SRs, 58 Bolsheviks) was not yet a governing body, and its chairman Chkheidze was not head of state, whereas after October 1917 the Congress-VTsIK system became the state's supreme authority. That is an institutional break, not a continuity to be flattened.

The date of the end

Sources differ on when the institution ended. The English article records its dissolution in 1937, at the end of the 1936-1937 constitutional reform; the Russian article gives abolition on 16 February 1938 as part of a 1936-1938 constitutional reform. Both agree that the last congress was the XVII of January 1937 and that the 1937 RSFSR Constitution replaced the Congress and the VTsIK with a directly elected Supreme Soviet. In either case 1936 does not stand as the terminal year.