Removal of the Constituent Assembly (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Removal of the Constituent Assembly
The November 1917 elections
Despite his earlier attacks on Kerensky for delaying the process, Lenin permitted elections to the Constituent Assembly to proceed in November 1917. Over 41 million votes were cast in what appeared to be a reasonably conducted election. The results revealed the Bolsheviks' limited popular support:
| Party | Votes (millions) | Number of seats | Percentage of vote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Socialist Revolutionaries | 21.8 | 410 (including 40 left-wing) | 53% |
| Bolsheviks | 10.0 | 175 | 24% |
| Kadets | 2.1 | 17 | 5% |
| Mensheviks | 1.4 | 18 | 3% |
| Others | 6.3 | 62 | 15% |
The Socialist Revolutionaries secured an absolute majority, winning more than double the Bolshevik vote share. This outcome presented Lenin with an uncomfortable reality: a democratically elected assembly would not be controlled by the Bolsheviks.
Analyzing the Election Results
The 53% Socialist Revolutionary vote versus the 24% Bolshevik vote demonstrated that the Bolsheviks commanded support from less than a quarter of the electorate. This meant that:
- The Socialist Revolutionaries won more than twice as many votes as the Bolsheviks
- The combined opposition parties (SRs, Kadets, Mensheviks, Others) represented 76% of voters
- The Bolsheviks held only 175 of 682 total seats – far from a majority
These results directly contradicted the Bolshevik claim to represent "the will of the people."
Several factors may explain the election results. The vote occurred during a crisis atmosphere shortly after the October Revolution, when many voters in areas distant from Moscow and Petrograd likely possessed limited understanding of events in the capital or of Bolshevik policies and methods.
The sole meeting of the Assembly: 5 January 1918
Lenin responded to the unfavourable election results by declaring that "elections are nothing" when the Assembly convened on 5 January 1918. By this date, the Kadets (Constitutional Democrats) had already been outlawed for supporting Alexei Kaledin, a Cossack general leading a counter-revolutionary rebellion in the Don region.
The Bolsheviks proposed that the meeting be chaired by a left-wing Social Revolutionary, Maria Spiridonova. However, the right-wing Social Revolutionary majority chose Viktor Chernov as chairman instead. Chernov, a former Minister of Agriculture under the Provisional Government, later fled to the United States and published an account of the Assembly's only meeting in the socialist magazine New Leader (January 1948).
According to Chernov's testimony, the Tauride Palace corridors were occupied by armed guards when delegates arrived. He delivered his inauguration address amid constant interruptions and hostile cries from Bolshevik supporters. Lenin demonstrated open contempt by lounging in his chair and behaving in a manner Chernov described as bored to death. When Chernov called a midday recess, members discovered that armed guards had sealed the palace doors and positioned machine guns outside. This marked the end of Russia's first democratically elected parliament.
The Use of Armed Force Against Democracy
The deployment of armed guards and machine guns to prevent elected representatives from continuing their work represented a decisive moment in Soviet history. This action demonstrated that the Bolsheviks were willing to use military force to suppress democratic institutions when those institutions threatened their hold on power. The single-day existence of Russia's first democratic parliament revealed the fundamental incompatibility between Bolshevik ideology and genuine representative government.
Forcible closure and consequences
The Constituent Assembly was closed by force and never reconvened. When civilians protested this action, armed forces fired on demonstrators, killing 12 people. This violent suppression contradicted the Marxist principle of power belonging to the people, yet Lenin had anticipated this contradiction in State and Revolution, where he argued for the necessity of a strong party to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and eliminate bourgeois attitudes remaining after the revolution.
By 1919, Lenin could state with satisfaction that "The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly means the complete and open repudiation of democracy in favour of dictatorship. This will be a valuable lesson."
Lenin's 1919 statement reveals his deliberate rejection of democratic principles. Far from viewing the Assembly's dissolution as a regrettable necessity, he celebrated it as an instructive demonstration that dictatorship must replace democracy to achieve socialist goals.
Justifications and alternative perspectives
Lenin maintained that his government represented a higher form of democracy than the Assembly, claiming to embody the will of the people. However, critics both within Russia and internationally challenged this assertion.
The German socialist Rosa Luxemburg, writing in The Russian Revolution (1918), offered a contrasting interpretation. She acknowledged that democratic institutions possessed limitations but argued that the solution lay in more democracy, not less. Luxemburg contended that eliminating democracy in favour of rule by a single party would stop the "very living source from which alone can come correction of all the innate shortcomings of social institutions" – namely, "the active, untrammelled, energetic political life of the broadest masses of the people."
Rosa Luxemburg's Critique
Luxemburg's perspective is particularly significant because it came from within the socialist movement. As a committed Marxist revolutionary herself, she could not be dismissed as a bourgeois critic. Her warning that single-party rule would eliminate the capacity for self-correction proved remarkably prescient, anticipating many problems that would plague Soviet governance throughout its existence. She argued that genuine socialism required democratic participation, not its suppression.
Some Bolsheviks themselves expressed concern about Lenin's actions, suggesting internal recognition that forcibly dissolving an elected assembly represented a departure from democratic principles.
Establishing one-party control
The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly formed part of a broader pattern of suppressing political opposition. The Bolsheviks implemented several measures that progressively eliminated competing parties and voices:
October 1917: A press decree restricted the ability of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries to publish their own newspapers, limiting their capacity to communicate with supporters or criticise Bolshevik policies.
July 1918: The definition of bourgeoisie was broadly applied to include employers, priests, and anyone the Bolsheviks considered "middle class" or deemed untrustworthy. These groups lost their voting rights in the new soviet government structure.
1921: All other political parties were formally banned, completing the transition to single-party rule.
The Escalating Suppression of Opposition
The progression from press censorship to disenfranchisement to outright bans followed a clear pattern. Each measure made it progressively more difficult for opposition groups to organize, communicate, or participate in political life. By 1921, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries – once major political forces – had been completely silenced. This systematic elimination of political pluralism ensured that no democratic challenge to Bolshevik power could emerge through legal means.
This escalating suppression made it increasingly difficult for opposition groups such as the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries to function at all. The removal of the Constituent Assembly thus represented the first step in establishing what became a one-party Communist dictatorship that would characterise Soviet government throughout the period to 1953.
Key Points to Remember:
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The November 1917 elections gave the Socialist Revolutionaries 53% of the vote compared to the Bolsheviks' 24%, demonstrating limited popular support for Lenin's party.
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The Constituent Assembly met only once, on 5 January 1918, before being forcibly closed with armed guards and machine guns. Twelve civilians were killed when they protested this action.
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Lenin justified dissolving the Assembly by arguing it represented outdated liberal democracy, whereas his "dictatorship of the proletariat" embodied true representation of the working class, as outlined in his work State and Revolution.
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The closure formed part of systematic suppression of opposition: press censorship (October 1917), disenfranchisement of the "bourgeoisie" (July 1918), and the banning of all other political parties (1921).
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Critics like Rosa Luxemburg argued that eliminating democratic institutions in favour of single-party rule would prevent genuine correction of social problems through mass political participation.