1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election

1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election

← 1912 25 November 1917[note 1] 1921 →
All 767 seats in the Russian Constituent Assembly 384 seats required for a majority
Turnout	45,879,381 (64%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Viktor Chernov Vladimir Lenin Mykhailo Hrushevsky Party SRs Bolsheviks Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party Leader's seat Tambov Baltic Fleet Kiev Seats won 324 183 110 Popular vote 17,256,911 10,671,387 5,819,395 Percentage 37.6% 23.3% 12.7%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Yuli Martov Alexey Kaledin Pavel Milyukov Party Mensheviks Cossacks Cadet Leader's seat Did not contest Don Cossack Region Petrograd Metropolis Seats won 18 17 16 Popular vote 1,385,500 908,326 2,100,262 Percentage 3.0% 2.0% 4.6%
Winning party by constituency
Composition of the elected legislature

Elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly were held on 25 November 1917, although some districts had polling on alternate days, around two months after they were originally meant to occur, having been organized as a result of events in the February Revolution. They are generally recognised to be the first free elections in Russian history.^[1] The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists; both groups were in favour of a more extensive democracy.^[2]

Various academic studies have given alternative results. However, all indicate that the Bolsheviks were clear winners in the urban centres, and also took around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the Western Front. Nevertheless, the Socialist-Revolutionary party topped the polls, winning a plurality of seats (no party won a majority) on the strength of support from the country's rural peasantry, who were for the most part one-issue voters, that issue being land reform.^[1]

The elections did not produce a democratically-elected government, as the Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a one-party state with all opposition parties banned.^[3][4][5]

Some modern Marxist theoreticians have contested the view that a one-party state was a natural outgrowth of the Bolsheviks' actions.^[6] George Novack stressed the initial efforts by the Bolsheviks to form a government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and bring other parties such as the Mensheviks into political legality.^[7] Tony Cliff argued the Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government dissolved the Constituent Assembly due to a number of reasons. They cited the outdated voter-rolls which did not acknowledge the split among the Socialist Revolutionary party and the assemblies conflict with the elected Russian Congress of the Soviets as an alternative, democratic structure.^[8]

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