Constituent Assembly

Definition

A constituent assembly (French: Assemblée constituante) is a representative body convened to draft or revise a constitution. Unlike a standing legislature, it is set up for that specific constituent task and is dissolved once the task is done. In Russia, the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (Russian: Всероссийское учредительное собрание) was the representative body elected to determine the country's state structure.

Background and election

A democratically elected constituent assembly to create a Russian constitution was a central demand of all Russian revolutionary parties before 1905. The Provisional Government of 1917 claimed only provisional authority until an elected Constituent Assembly could establish a permanent government. The election was held as scheduled on 25 November (12 November, Old Style) 1917; more than 60 percent of eligible citizens voted, and the results were incomplete at the time. According to Svyatitsky's partial count of 54 of 79 constituencies, the Socialist Revolutionaries received 17,943,000 votes (40.4 percent) and the Bolsheviks 10,661,000 (24.0 percent). The SRs won massive support in the countryside, while the Bolsheviks won the largest share in the cities. An alternative tally of 70 of 81 districts gives the SRs 17,256,911 votes (37.61 percent, 324 seats) and the Bolsheviks 10,671,387 (23.26 percent, 183 seats); no fully complete account of the results exists.

Session and dissolution

The Assembly met in the Tauride Palace in Petrograd from 4 p.m. to 4:40 a.m. on 18-19 January (5-6 January, Old Style) 1918, sitting for 13 hours. Viktor Chernov was elected chairman with 244 votes against 153 for Maria Spiridonova, and Yakov Sverdlov opened the session on the authority of the Central Executive Committee. The Assembly refused to discuss the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People (the Bolshevik decree was rejected by 237 votes to 136), declared Russia a federal democratic republic, adopted a land law, appealed to the Entente for a democratic peace, and scheduled its next meeting for 5 p.m. on 19 January 1918. Armed guards were present, and weapons were allegedly pointed at delegates. Around 4 a.m. the Commandant of the Tauride Palace, the anarchist sailor Anatoli Zhelezniakov, told Chernov that the guard was tired and proposed closing the meeting; the deputies found the building locked the next day. The Bolshevik-led All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted the decree of dissolution on 6 (19) January; the decree was published on 9 January, and the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved the dissolution on 18 (31) January 1918.

Some sources give the dissolution as 5-6 January Old Style and 18-19 January New Style, so the dating is recorded inconsistently. Accounts also note that Lenin ordered that the Assembly not be dispersed immediately, but that the session be allowed to end and the Tauride Palace then closed.

Bolshevik justification and its evaluation

The Bolsheviks justified the dissolution by arguing that Soviet power was a higher form of democracy than 'bourgeois parliamentarism', and that the Assembly did not truly represent the people because the ballots were drawn up before the split in the SR party. In his speech of 6 January 1918 to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Lenin stated that Soviet power is superior to any parliament, that 'All power to the Soviets' was the people's will, and that an Assembly refusing to recognise the power of the people is dissolved. The dissolution was initially supported by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, who favoured a more extensive democracy; Left SR delegates walked out following the Bolsheviks at 4 a.m.

Assessments differ. Marcel Liebman and others cite the unequal representation of the 1918 Soviet Constitution (one urban delegate per 25,000 voters versus one rural delegate per 125,000) and the instant recall of delegates to argue that the soviets were more democratic. Richard Pipes and Orlando Figes argue that Soviet elections were unfair and that the Bolsheviks created the Third Congress of Soviets as a counter-assembly. The decree of the Bolshevik-led Central Executive Committee stated that the Assembly, elected on lists drawn up before the October Revolution, expressed the old correlation of political forces, and that because the majority party refused to recognise the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People and Soviet power, the Assembly was being dissolved.

Aftermath

Barred from the Tauride Palace, deputies met at the Gurevich High School. The SR Central Committee decided against armed resistance, and socialists returned to Soviet bodies hoping to reconvene the Assembly after winning Soviet re-elections.

On 8 June 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) in Samara with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, declaring it the new supreme authority. Komuch initially consisted of five SRs (Volsky, Brushvit, Klimushkin, Fortunatov, Nesterov), grew to 96 members by the end of September 1918, established an eight-hour working day, and spread its influence to Simbirsk, Kazan, Ufa and Saratov before Red Army defeats. The Ufa State Conference of 8-23 September 1918 transformed Komuch into a Congress of Members of the Constituent Assembly under the Provisional All-Russian Government (the Directory), which was to report to the Assembly once it resumed on 1 January 1919. Kolchak's coup of 18 November 1918 overthrew the Directory and dispersed the Congress meeting in Yekaterinburg. In 1921, 38 members met in Paris and formed an ineffective executive committee.

Comparative cases

France's National Constituent Assembly (July 1789-September 1791) was formed when representatives swore the Tennis Court Oath on 20 June 1789, promising not to adjourn until a constitution was drafted. Denmark's assembly of 1848 (constitution of 1849), Germany's National Assembly elected on 16 February 1919, Italy's assembly elected on 2 June 1946 (constitution of 22 December 1947), Georgia's 1919 assembly (constitution of 1921), and the assemblies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are other instances of the same type.