About the dispersal of the constituent assembly by the Bolsheviks. Dispersal of the constituent assembly The consequence of the dispersal of the constituent assembly was

The Constituent Assembly is a political body of power in Russia, created in 1917. It was convened for the first and last time in 1918 to adopt a constitution. The results of his activities were the conclusion of a peace treaty, the nationalization of land, the recognition of Russia as a democratic republic, and the abolition of the monarchy. However, it did not recognize most of her decrees.

In January 1918, the Bolsheviks dispersed

For representatives of most parties of that time, the creation of this political body was due to the need to rid Russia of an outdated system. The Constituent Assembly had special hopes associated with the creation of a legal democratic state.

Lenin was against the creation of this structure, as he considered the Soviet Republic a more perfect form of government. The stronger the forces that were going to oppose it to Soviet power fought for its creation.

The fate of the Constituent Assembly, as well as the path of development of the country, depended on which parties won the elections. The Bolsheviks began to consider in advance the possibility of dissolving the Constituent Assembly if it promoted anti-Soviet decisions.

According to the election results, the Bolsheviks were inferior to many parties. From November 1917 to January 1918, many attempts were made to delay the convocation of the assembly in order to have time to adopt decrees insuring them in the event that the deputies made decisions against Soviet power. At this time, other parties fought to ensure that the work of the Constituent Assembly took place.

Finally, it began work on January 5 (18 - new style) January 1918. Almost immediately, the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries left the meeting, and soon declared the activities of the meeting counter-revolutionary. Thus, the Constituent Assembly was dispersed.

In order to prevent a re-convocation, during 1918 the Bolsheviks arrested the most active members of the opposition parties.

Another event that caused a wide resonance was the murder of two leaders of the constitutional democratic party - Shingarev and Kokoshkin. This happened on the night from January 6th to 7th.

The dispersal of the Constituent Assembly was another reason for the unleashing. Perhaps this is why the right-wing forces did not put up real resistance to the Bolsheviks when the dissolution was carried out. In other words, the anti-Bolshevik parties hoped to destroy Soviet power by force.

Most members of the Constituent Assembly were arrested and executed by the Bolsheviks during 1918. In addition, the Bolsheviks very quickly took other measures to strengthen their position. The All-Russian Congress of Workers and Peasants was convened, which proclaimed the creation of the Russian Soviet Republic, the principle of equal use of land was approved, and the Declaration of Workers' Rights was adopted.

The Council of People's Commissars was created as a provisional government with powers “until the convening of the Constituent Assembly.” In other words, even after coming to power, the Bolsheviks did not abandon the idea of ​​convening a Constituent Assembly, which was supposed to resolve the issue of the legitimacy of the government. They fulfilled the promise made at the Second Congress of Soviets and did not interfere with the elections of delegates, which took place on November 12, 1917. The Bolsheviks were aware of the popularity of the idea of ​​​​the Constituent Assembly and hoped that it would recognize as legal the decrees adopted at the Second Congress of Soviets. Thus, the legitimacy of Soviet power would be recognized, its support among the masses would be expanded, and the question of the temporary nature of the Soviet government would be removed.

40 million voters out of 95 million included in the lists took part in the elections of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. Their results indicated the popularity of socialist-oriented parties:

40.4% of voters voted for the Socialist Revolutionaries, 24% for the Bolsheviks, 2.6% for the Mensheviks. The Cadets received 4.7% of the votes. The rest were distributed among nationalist petty-bourgeois and bourgeois parties and groups. The Bolsheviks achieved success in both capitals, in almost all major cities, as well as among soldiers and sailors. In Moscow, 50% of voters voted for them, in Petrograd - 45%. They received 61% of the votes for the Northern Fleet, 67% for the Western Front, and 58% for the Baltic Fleet. In the provincial cities as a whole, the Bolsheviks received 36.5% of the votes, the Cadets - 23.9%, and the Socialist Revolutionaries - 14.5%. The Social Revolutionaries had a decisive predominance in the village. The results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly showed that Russia inevitably had to follow the socialist path, and the struggle was only over who would lead this process: the Socialist Revolutionaries or the Bolsheviks.

The Constituent Assembly opened on January 5, 1918 in the Tauride Palace in Petrograd. The first meeting began with the singing of the Internationale. The leader of the right Socialist Revolutionaries V.M. was elected chairman of the meeting. Chernov. The Bolsheviks proposed to approve the decrees adopted by the Second Congress of Soviets, and also to recognize the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People written by Lenin and approved on January 3 by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The Bolsheviks were supported by the Left Social Revolutionaries, but these votes were not enough. The proposal of the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries, who dominated the meeting, was accepted to discuss issues of peace, land, management of industry, and the form of state unity. The issue of creating a government was not on the agenda for the meeting. But he would inevitably stand up during the discussion of the issues raised, which threatened the Council of People's Commissars and the Bolshevik Party with the loss of power.

The Bolsheviks did not want to discuss the agenda proposed by the right Socialist Revolutionaries and left the meeting on the night of January 6. The Left Social Revolutionaries followed their example. After their departure, the meeting lost its hard-won quorum. Therefore, when voting on issues by the remaining delegates, there was no general vote count. At five o'clock in the morning the commandant of the Tauride Palace appeared at the meeting and, under the pretext that “the guard was tired,” proposed to clear the premises. The meeting, without discussion and practically without voting, adopted resolutions on peace, land and federation. After this, the delegates dispersed. When they tried to gather for a meeting that same day in the evening, the palace was locked and the guards did not let anyone in. On the night of January 6-7, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree dissolving the Constituent Assembly. This was justified by the fact that it was elected according to lists that were drawn up even before the October Revolution and therefore did not reflect the new balance of political forces. The decree on dissolution was approved by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets. At the suggestion of Ya.M. Sverdlov, on January 18, the congress adopted a resolution to remove from the texts of Soviet laws references to their temporary (“until the convening of the Constituent Assembly”) nature. From that time on, the Council of People's Commissars ceased to be a provisional government.

The dispersal of the Constituent Assembly is the death of the revolution.

The Tsar's manifesto of 1905 brought the existing parties in Russia out of hiding and contributed to the creation of new ones. With all the variety of political platforms and manifestos, they agreed on one thing - the autocracy (or the power of Nicholas II) must be overthrown. What then - there were completely different opinions on this issue - from the overthrow of the Tsar and his replacement by another member of the Romanov family to a democratic republic.
Further, after the collapse of the hated tsarist regime, beautiful-minded intellectuals dreamed of putting power into the hands of the common people, whose representatives would gather at the Constituent Assembly and establish the future state structure of Russia, resolving all issues - from agrarian to national. That’s why the Provisional Government delayed resolving Russia’s pressing issues - so, they say, the Constituent Assembly of the best representatives of the people will gather and solve all the issues, but we are temporary, we cannot decide for the people.
The Bolsheviks decided everything simply - immediate peace (in a country that was the largest participant in the world war), land - to the peasants (as if not understanding what problem the distribution of this land would cause, with the imminent inevitable stratification of the peasants into hardworking, rich, and lazy, poor), factories - to the workers (more precisely, under workers' control, which instantly led to devastation in industry).
If representatives of all parties, except the Bolsheviks, felt a moral responsibility to Russia and its people, weighed and hesitated for a long time before making a decision - how moral is it, and will we not lower the honor of revolutionaries and simply decent people before posterity, before the world community, then the morality of the Bolsheviks was simple - everything that serves the victory of the world revolution, that is, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, is moral.
The completely illegitimate October coup was not recognized by the bourgeois parties, but the Bolsheviks declared their consent to convening the Assembly, hoping that their social demagoguery would lead to the people giving them the majority of delegate seats, but they received less than a quarter. Attempts were made to delay the start of the work of the representative body of the Russian people for as long as possible, but in the end, on January 5, 1918, the meeting opened.
A demonstration of 100,000 people in support of the Assembly was dispersed by force of arms, killing more than 20 people. The soldiers and sailors, who were the main driving force of the revolution, did not really intend to support the Constituent Assembly - if the Bolsheviks advocated immediate peace at any cost, then the majority of the Assembly delegates adhered to the tactics of “revolutionary defencism” - war to the bitter end.
The Social Revolutionaries, although they planned an armed uprising, and even the arrest of Trotsky and Lenin, abandoned this idea, believing that it would cost too much blood.
Before the start of the meeting, the Tauride Palace, where it took place, was filled with revolutionary sailors and soldiers, “security.” At first, the Bolshevik Sverdlov proposed adopting the “Declaration of the Working and Exploited People,” and Lenin proposed singing “The Internationale.” 237 of the 405 delegates refused to even discuss the declaration, but they sang “The Internationale”. The refusal to discuss the “Declaration” meant that the delegates refused to recognize the October Revolution, and the fate of the Constituent Assembly was thereby decided. At three o'clock in the morning the Bolshevik Raskolnikov announced that his faction was leaving the hall, and at five the revolutionary sailor Zheleznyak announced that the guard was tired and it was time for the delegates to disperse.
It was decided to continue the meeting the next day, but the Tauride Palace the next day was locked and surrounded by armed guards, even with artillery guns.

Oh, how they all, after the overthrow of Nicholas II, relied on the Constituent Assembly and sacredly believed in it! They thought that after general fair elections a real, fair government would be elected, meeting the aspirations of the people, and a new happy era would begin. And how naive they all were! They are naive, like children, and they were deceived, like children.

Demonstration in Petrograd in support of the Constituent Assembly.

At first, the Provisional Government of Kerensky deceived whose goal was to establish the most radical left group in power. Kerensky's provisional government was led by secret societies that worked for radical leftist forces. Previously, they contributed to the transportation of Bolsheviks and other revolutionaries from Europe and the USA to Russia. They worked hand in hand.

The provisional government deliberately delayed holding elections. Initially, the elections were scheduled for September 17, then postponed to November 12-14, and the convening of the Assembly to November 28... Then, under the Bolsheviks, to January 18 (5), 1918. It was as if they were deliberately delaying to make it possible for the Bolsheviks to come to power. .. (And how many opportunities did the Provisional Government have to liquidate the leaders of the Bolsheviks! In general, a conspiracy.)

Well, what elections under the Bolsheviks, who have already created an army for themselves! Your army. “A rifle gives birth to power,” as Mao Zedong would later say. Those. The Bolsheviks had that same rifle, and everyone else had promises and rantings.

When people took to the streets to support the Constituent Assembly, they started shooting at them! And what? This is the norm for the Bolsheviks.
"Day", January 19 (06), 1918:

The blood of peaceful demonstrators has been shed. The “workers’” government, from the windows of houses, from roofs and courtyards, in batches and single-handedly, shot the workers who came out to defend the Constituent Assembly. The bloody orgy of Bolshevism began; and death, which the Smolny authorities called to their aid on January 5, will dig a chasm between the Leninist dictatorship and the working class of Petrograd... (it won’t dig a chasm, this is only a modest beginning).

Zinaida Gippius writes:

They are calling from the Northern Hotel: there are huge demonstrations on Nevsky, but they are not allowed further than Liteinaya. One demonstration has already been shot at Liteinaya, at No. 19. The majority of the demonstrators are workers. One member of the Constituent Assembly, one Volyn soldier, several workers were killed, many were wounded. Machine-gun ambushes took place in Protopopov’s places, and they cooked from there. Somewhere near Kirochnaya or Furshtadtskaya, demonstrations of 6 Red Guards were shot. On the roofs... there were sailors sitting. A Red Guard stabbed one young lady in the throat with a bayonet, and when she fell, he finished her off.

The main competitor of the Bolsheviks is the Socialist Revolutionary Viktor Chernov, without weapons. Wants to win through persuasion and calls for fair play. Although he himself is also a decent bastard, leftist to the core, but of a different shade. After the communists seized power, he tried to cling to the new regime. He opposed Kolchak... Emigrated, died in New York in 1952...

Viktor Chernov, leader of the Social Revolutionaries

Chernov writes:

Having gathered not far from the Tauride Palace, we go there, at the appointed noon hour, the main body of about two hundred people. The area in front of the palace is cluttered with light guns, machine guns and “ammunition” - for offensive operations or for withstanding a siege? One narrow side entrance is free: they let you in one at a time, after checking their tickets, and some are asked whether they have weapons with them?..

But inside, in the lobby and corridors, there are armed guards everywhere. A picture of a real military camp. We enter a large meeting room.

The oldest deputy among us: the old Narodnaya Volya member Shvetsov. He should open the meeting. “The meeting of the Constituent Assembly opens.” A new explosion of deafening noise. Shvetsov leaves the podium and returns to us. Sverdlov takes his place to open the meeting for the second time in the name of the Council of People's Commissars and offer us his “platform” with an ultimatum.

Lenin in the “government box” demonstrates his contempt for the “constituent body” by lying down at full length and taking on the appearance of a man asleep from boredom. I go so far as to threaten to “cleanse the public” of the raging choirs. Despite the absurdity of the threat, because the guards are only waiting for a signal to “clear” the hall of us, it works for a while.

But Bukharin gave a speech. If only you knew how your “gray overcoats” will shoot you:

"Bukharchik"

We, comrades, are now laying the foundation for the life of humanity for millennia. We are all, down to one person, mortal, and now each of us faces one question, which falls on us with all its weight, on the conscience of each: with whom will we be - with Kaledin, with the cadets, with the manufacturers, merchants , directors of accounting banks who support sabotage, who are strangling the working class, or we will be with gray overcoats, with workers, soldiers, sailors, we will be with them shoulder to shoulder, sharing all their fate, rejoicing in their victories, mourning their defeats, welded together by one by the will of socialism, welded together by a common desire to create a strong power of the great Russian Soviet republic, to crush world capital with an iron ring.

(Stalin was also nearby in 1918. In 1938, already from prison, Bukharin persuaded Stalin... to replace the execution with exile to some remote area, where he, under a different name and surname, would continue to work for the benefit of the working people. When he realized the futility of his request - begged to be given morphine for a quick death, so as to “fall asleep and not wake up.”)

Lenin, through the Bolshevik Skvortsov-Stepanov, invited the Assembly to sing “The Internationale,” which was done by all the socialists present, from the Bolsheviks to the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries who sharply opposed them (such is the insignificant “opposition”)

Dybenko writes (he would also be shot in 1937):

At about one o'clock in the morning the Bolsheviks leave the Constituent Assembly. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries still remain. Comrade Lenin is in one of the rooms far from the meeting hall of the Tauride Palace... Regarding the Constituent Assembly, a decision was made: the next day, none of the members of the founders should be allowed into the Tauride Palace, and thus to consider the Constituent Assembly dissolved.

Today's “monarchists” write:

On January 6, 1918, on the day of Epiphany, by decision of the Bolshevik government, the “Constituent Assembly” was dispersed, which, according to the plans of the organizers of the February Revolution, was authorized “by the will of the people” to resolve the issue of the form of government in Russia. It was to the will of this “Constituent Assembly” that Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, the brother of the Sovereign, and other members of the Dynasty who joined (including Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich) illegally transferred the decision on the fate of the Russian monarchy.

Half the population then took part in the Assembly elections. The right-wing (monarchist) parties, defeated back in February, could not participate in them. However, the election results disappointed the Bolsheviks: they received only 23.9% of the vote, while the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) received 40%, the “bourgeois” parties - 29.1%, the Cadets 4.7%, the Mensheviks 2.3%.

The coalition of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries decided to disperse the meeting as “counter-revolutionary.” Lenin was sharply opposed to the Assembly. Sukhanov (Himmer - arrested for half his life, shot in 1940) in his fundamental work “Notes on the Revolution” argued that Lenin, even after his arrival from exile in April 1917, considered the Constituent Assembly a “liberal undertaking.” The Commissioner of Propaganda, Press and Agitation of the Northern Region V. Volodarsky (Goldstein, will be killed in a few months) went even further and stated that “the masses in Russia have never suffered from parliamentary cretinism,” and “if the masses make a mistake with the ballot papers, they will have to take for another weapon."

Trotsky (soon to be expelled from the USSR and then killed in Mexico) subsequently sarcastically remarked the following about the Socialist Revolutionary deputies:

But they carefully developed the ritual of the first meeting. They brought candles with them in case the Bolsheviks turned off the electricity, and a large number of sandwiches in case they were deprived of food.

So democracy came to fight dictatorship - fully armed with sandwiches and candles. And they were armed to the teeth:

During the second part of the meeting, at three o'clock in the morning, the representative of the Bolsheviks Fyodor Raskolnikov (fleeed from the USSR, died in Nice) announced that the Bolsheviks (in protest against the non-acceptance of the Declaration) were leaving the meeting. On behalf of the Bolsheviks, he declared that “not wanting to cover up the crimes of the enemies of the people for a minute, we declare that we are leaving the Constituent Assembly in order to transfer to the Soviet power of deputies the final decision on the issue of attitude towards the counter-revolutionary part of the Constituent Assembly.”
According to the Bolshevik Meshcheryakov, after the departure of the faction, many of the guard soldiers guarding the Assembly “took their rifles at the ready,” one even “took aim at the crowd of Socialist Revolutionary delegates,” and Lenin personally stated that the departure of the Bolshevik faction of the Assembly “will have such an effect on the soldiers and sailors holding guard, that they will immediately shoot all the remaining Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.” One of his contemporaries, M. Vishnyak, comments on the situation in the meeting room as follows:

Having descended from the platform, I went to see what was happening in the choirs... Separate groups continued to “rally” and argue. Some of the deputies are trying to convince the soldiers of the rightness of the meeting and the criminality of the Bolsheviks. It flashes: “And a bullet for Lenin if he deceives!”

Lenin ordered not to disperse the meeting immediately, but to wait for the meeting to end and then close the Tauride Palace and not allow anyone there the next day. The meeting, however, dragged on until late at night and then into the morning. At 5 o’clock in the morning on January 6 (19), having informed the presiding Socialist Revolutionary Chernov that “the guard is tired” (“I have received instructions to bring to your attention that all those present leave the meeting room because the guard is tired”), the head of security anarchist A. Zheleznyakov closed the meeting, inviting the deputies to disperse...


Dispersal of the meeting in the Tauride Palace.

Servants of bankers, capitalists and landowners, allies of Kaledin, Dutov, slaves of the American dollar, killers from around the corner, the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries demand the establishment. the assembly of all power for themselves and their masters - the enemies of the people.

In words they seem to join the people's demands: land, peace and control, but in reality they are trying to tighten the noose around the neck of socialist power and revolution.

But workers, peasants and soldiers will not fall for the bait of the false words of the worst enemies of socialism; in the name of the socialist revolution and the socialist Soviet republic, they will sweep away all its obvious and hidden killers. (and what a disgusting style! And familiar!)

Bukharin recalled: “On the night of the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, Vladimir Ilyich called me to his place... In the morning, Ilyich asked me to repeat something from what was told about the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and suddenly laughed. He laughed for a long time, repeated to himself the words of the narrator and laughed and laughed. Fun, infectious, to the point of tears. Laughed." (Imagine this laughter of Ilyich. This is the laughter of the devil.)

What happened has not gone away, it continues to exist in other forms, to mimic, but its essence is the same - gangster.

In 2015, activist Vladimir Shpitalev wrote a statement addressed to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yuri Chaika demanding to check the legality of the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly in 1918. In June of the same year, Shpitalev went out on a one-man picket on Red Square with a poster “Bring back the Constituent Assembly.” He was detained and taken to the police station. The trial was scheduled for September, but already in August Shpitalev left Russia due to persecution by the Center for Combating Extremism for an Internet post in which he advocated the release of Oleg Sentsov and the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine. In 2016, Shtalev received political asylum in the Czech Republic.

In the early morning of January 19, 1918, having dispersed the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks unleashed a civil war: the discussion ended, from that day on political issues were resolved on the battlefield

All political parties opposed to the autocracy, from the Cadets to the Bolsheviks, had long dreamed of a Constituent Assembly, a representative body popularly elected to determine the form of government, the state system, the political system, etc.

Before the emperor had time to abdicate the throne, the Provisional Committee of the State Duma (the prototype of the Provisional Government) announced the immediate convening of the Constituent Assembly. And the Provisional Government itself, immediately after its formation, declared the convening of the Constituent Assembly as its top priority. Already on March 13, a decision was made to create a Special Meeting to prepare a law on elections to the Constituent Assembly. The election date is expected any day now.

However, the car, which was rapidly picking up speed, suddenly began to sharply slow down. It took a whole month just to form the composition of the Special Meeting of 82 people, which began work only at the end of May. The meeting took three months to develop the Regulations on the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

It was the most democratic election law in the world: all persons over 20 years of age were allowed to vote, regardless of gender, nationality and their social status (for comparison: elections to the councils were multi-stage, indirect, the intelligentsia, entrepreneurs, clergy and non-socialist parties). This looked unusual - at that time women in almost no country in the world had the right to vote (they received voting rights in Great Britain and Germany in 1918, in the USA in 1920, and in France in 1944). Many electoral systems maintained property qualifications or other complex systems of limiting representation.

Campaigning for a constituent assembly in Teatralny Proezd. Photo: RIA Novosti

The elections, originally scheduled for September 17 and the convening of the assembly on September 30, were postponed to November 12 and 28 respectively. What explains such a sharp decline in the pace of preparations for the convening of the Constituent Assembly? Apparently, having made sure that the monarchists do not pose a serious danger to the revolution, the Provisional Government cools down on the idea of ​​​​convening the Constituent Assembly as soon as possible. They are not afraid of the danger “from the left”.

This delay played into the hands of the Bolsheviks. In April-May their political influence was negligible. During the months provided by the Provisional Government, against the backdrop of the collapse of political and economic life, they significantly strengthened their positions in factories and military units, and won a majority in the Soviets. At the same time, they are prudently putting forward the popular slogan about the speedy convening of the Constituent Assembly, they say, with us there will be no delays.

The Bolsheviks take power before the appointed election date. Not without some hesitation, they decide to hold elections to the Constituent Assembly. Probably not everyone remembers that the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars was only a provisional government formed to govern the country, until the convening of the Constituent Assembly. Thus, the Bolsheviks lull the vigilance of most of their opponents, saying that we will not last long, only until the convening of the Constituent Assembly, to which we will immediately submit.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party wins the election with 40% of the votes. The Bolsheviks took second place, receiving 24% of the vote. Third place was taken by the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries - 7.7%. The cadets came fourth. Although the total number of votes they received was low - only 4.7% - they performed very well in major cities. In Petrograd and Moscow, the Cadets took second place after the Bolsheviks. In a number of provincial cities, the party actually arrived first. However, this interest simply drowned in the sea of ​​peasants: they received nothing in the village. The Mensheviks received only 2.6% of the votes.

The elections demonstrated the balance of political forces in Russia. The Bolsheviks won in Petrograd, where their headquarters were located, in Moscow and several industrial central regions, where they had strong branches, in the Baltic Fleet and on several fronts.

The Social Revolutionaries won in all peasant regions, especially the wealthy ones. But they were defeated in almost all cities. It is worth noting that the Social Revolutionaries went to the elections with a single list, despite the fact that by that time a split had already formed in the party and it was divided into right and left - close to the Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, there were few left Socialist Revolutionaries, and the party maintained a majority even without them.

Residents of Moscow at the building of the election commission for the Constituent Assembly of the Pyatnitsky Commissariat on election day in 1917. Photo: RIA Novosti

In national regions, national parties showed good results: in Kazakhstan - Alash Orda, in Azerbaijan - Musavat, in Armenia - Dashnaktsutyun. It is curious that such people as Kerensky, Petlyura, General Kaledin and Ataman Dutov were elected to the Constituent Assembly.

After the defeat in the elections, the Bolsheviks began a decisive struggle against the Constituent Assembly. A few weeks before the start of the meeting, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars, the Cadets Party was outlawed and was unable to take part in the work of the representative body. Lenin speaks in Pravda with theses about the uselessness of the Constituent Assembly.

The day before the start of its work, the Bolsheviks hastily adopted the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People,” which proclaims the Russian Republic to be Soviet. Only a person authorized by the Council of People's Commissars had the right to open a meeting of the Constituent Assembly, i.e. Bolshevik.

To definitely finish off the Assembly, on the same day they adopted a decree “On recognizing as counter-revolutionary actions all attempts to usurp the functions of state power,” which reads:

“All power in the Russian Republic belongs to the Soviets and Soviet institutions. Therefore, any attempt on the part of anyone or any institution to appropriate to itself certain functions of state power will be considered as a counter-revolutionary action. Any such attempt will be suppressed by all means at the disposal of the Soviet government, up to and including the use of armed force.”

The only thing left for the Constituent Assembly was to assemble its own army. But this meant starting a civil war, which is exactly what the Bolsheviks wanted and the Socialist-Revolutionaries avoided with all their might. On January 3, the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party decided not to use force to defend the Constituent Assembly. Social Revolutionary leader V.M. Chernov sincerely believes that “the Bolsheviks will save before the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.”

In case of armed uprisings, the Bolsheviks brought the most loyal military units to Petrograd: Latvian riflemen and Baltic sailors led by Pavel Dybenko. Any demonstrations were prohibited in the area of ​​the Tauride Palace, and the building was cordoned off by soldiers. However, the Constituent Assembly found many supporters who took to the streets. The Reds simply shot these demonstrations.

Finally, on January 18, 1918, the first and last meeting of the Constituent Assembly began. It looked the least like parliament. The deputies reached their places through numerous cordons of armed soldiers. The building was surrounded by Bolshevik detachments who openly mocked the people's representatives. In fact, they found themselves hostages.

The Bolsheviks initially knew that the meeting would be dispersed. But the delegation was sent there to misbehave and mock. The meeting was opened by the representative of the Bolsheviks, Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Yakov Sverdlov. Viktor Chernov was elected Chairman of the Constituent Assembly, significantly ahead of his competitor, the left Socialist Revolutionary party Maria Spiridonova, supported by a coalition of left Socialist Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks. Representatives of the Reds actually read out an ultimatum, inviting the deputies to unconditionally recognize the power of the Soviets by adopting the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People.” This automatically meant the meaninglessness of the existence of the Constituent Assembly, since it was recognition of the power of the Bolsheviks. The deputies refused to accept the ultimatum, after which the Reds defiantly left the “counter-revolutionary meeting.” Further, the Constituent Assembly approved some decisions previously adopted by the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in particular on the nationalization of landowners' lands, which in meaning corresponded to the "Decree on Land" and a call to the participants in the First World War to begin immediate peace negotiations, which in meaning partly corresponded to the Bolshevik "Decree on Peace."

Lenin instructed the guards to allow the deputies to sit until the end. And the next day, no one is allowed into the building. But I didn’t have the strength to endure it. Therefore, without waiting for the end of the meeting - it lasted until the early morning of the next day - the guards, led by the anarchist Anatoly Zheleznyakov (known to everyone as “sailor Zheleznyak”) dispersed the deputies. The building was cordoned off and no one was allowed in. On the same day, a decree dissolving the assembly was published in Pravda.

The Constituent Assembly ceased to exist by decision of the Council of People's Commissars of Russia. This decision was confirmed by the Third Unifying All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. By the decision of the same congress, all references to the Constituent Assembly were excluded from laws and regulations.

Demonstration in support of the “Constituent Assembly”

But the idea of ​​the meeting did not die. The civil war, in fact, was fought under the White slogan “all power to the Constituent Assembly” and the counter slogan of the Reds “all power to the Soviets.” Subsequently, the transfer of power to the Constituent Assembly - as the last legitimate institution of power - became the main slogan of almost all white armies. And we partially succeeded in doing this. After the uprising of the Czechoslovak Legion, the government of KOMUCH (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly) was proclaimed in the Volga region liberated from the Bolsheviks. KOMUCH became one of the first anti-Bolshevik governments in Russia. It actually included several deputies from the assembly dispersed by the Bolsheviks. The People's Army of KOMUCH was also created, one of whose units was commanded by Kappel.

Later, under the onslaught of the Reds, KOMUCH united with the Provisional Siberian Government, creating a single government - the Directory. As a result of a military coup, it was dissolved, and power passed to its military and naval minister, Kolchak, supported by the military.

The Constituent Assembly turned out to be powerless due to unjustified delay in preparing for its convening. It was important to convene it in the very first months after the February Revolution, before the collapse and chaos had yet reached the stage where they were irreversible, and the Bolsheviks had not gained strength.

The story of the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly clearly points to one important circumstance. Unlike, say, Germany, supporters of totalitarianism in Russia did not win democratic elections. Communist = Soviet power established itself in Russia through violence. The Russian people never chose it voluntarily. As soon as, after 70 years of dominance, the communists risked holding real alternative elections, they were defeated again.