1917 Baku City Duma election

1917 Baku City Duma election

29 October 1917

All 100 seats in the Baku City Duma 50 seats needed for a majority

Party Leader % Seats +/– SR-Mensheviks Viktor Chernov 24.10 25 ARF 16.97 17 Bolsheviks Vladimir Lenin 15.40 16 Musavat Mahammad Amin Rasulzade 14.08 14 Ittihad 11.03 11 Kadets Pavel Milyukov 5.74 6 Yedinstvo Georgi Plekhanov 3.55 3 APP 3.24 3 UJEC 3.04 3 KRDO 2.27 2 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.

An election to the Baku City Duma [ru] was held on 11 November [O.S. 29 October] 1917.^[1] Baku was the last major city in Russia to hold local duma elections during 1917.^[2] Notably, the vote was held after October Revolution commenced.^[3]

On 28 April 1915 the Baku City Duma decided to postpone elections for a new duma until the end of the war. The decision was ratified on 16 January 1916. However, with the overthrow of the czarist rule during the 1917 February Revolution, the issue of local elections re-emerged. Under the Provisional Government regulations were issued for the holding of elections of city dumas on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage with secret ballot.^[1]

The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks formed a strong alliance after July 1917, around the principle of 'revolutionary defencism' and set up a joint list for the city duma election.^[3] The Armenian Revolutionary Federation ('Dashnaks') was excluded from alliance.^[3]

However, the holding of the city duma election in Baku suffered long delays. In September 1917, OZAKOM ceded to demands for immediate elections to city duma. However, the city boundaries had remained unchanged, thus leaving the industrial districts outside of the city proper.^[1] The issue of incorporation of the Baku oilfields into the city proper was a key dispute in the run-up to the election. The incumbent city government, Moslem parties and the Kadets opposed incorporation, with the Moslem parties arguing that the oil fields had closer connection with the surrounding villages. The Baku Soviet called for incorporation, and the Bolsheviks actively campaigned for oil field incorporation.^[3]