WI: The Russian Constituent Assembly isn't abolished?

Dude-a-Buck

On November 25th 1917 Russia held what is generally considered to be it's first free election (though some districts held theirs around two months later) when 46m Russians cast their vote for the Russian Constituent Assembly. The results were as followed...

767 seats total. 384 needed for a majority. Only parties with double digit seats listed.
Party of Socialist-Revolutionarys: 324
Bolsheviks: 183
Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionarys: 110
Mensheviks: 18
Cossacks: 17
Kadets: 16
Alash Orda: 15
Armenian Revolutionary Federation: 10
Peasants Lists: 10
Musavat Party: 10

The assembly gathered for its only meeting at 4p.m on January 18 before being illegally dissolved at 5a.m the following morning by the Bolshevik-controlled All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

My question to you is, what if the Assembly was allowed to continue? And how would the Russian Revolution have proceeded under this democratic body?
 
VadisDeProfundis

VadisDeProfundis

Well, who would fight for it? Who would support it? As you write, the Revolution would have to proceed somehow. Who would accept fighting under the banner of this constituent assembly? Because the Bolsheviks had the will, organization and ability to craft alliances and forge their own path to taking charge while abolishing the assembly. Judging by the seat count, you'd need the Socialist Revolutionaries to be able to exert some kind of control. While I'm not well versed in the history of the Russian Revolution, I think the SRs were famously divided, and could not be said to act like a genuine party with central control, as the Bolsheviks were. This makes them ill suited to actually exert some kind of control, no?

But then if this parliament cannot enforce its will, it is going to have to turn to outside help. I don't see why generals or warlords or foreign powers would be amenable to a parliament that they would see as representing socialism and popular democratic control. I think it's really difficult for the Constituent Assembly to be allowed to continue in a meaningful way, ie it having some kind of power. It's easier to see it being abolished in the face of a left wing coup, as IOTL, a right wing coup, some kind of foreign intervention or the total breakdown of what remains of the state. After all, revolutions are very messy.
 

Tom_B

Chernov would try to reunite his party but it would be difficult. In effect it would be a one party coalition government. I could see the Left SR's splitting with some siding with Chernov but others with Lenin.
 
Slime_blob

Slime_blob

Dude-a-Buck said:
I believe that was the original story for Russia in Kaiserrrich.
Click to expand...
Interesting, if Kerensky and Kornilov ends up crushing the leftist opposition, then ngl the right seems a bit appeased to Kerensky as he is like leankng more to the right after he got into power.
 

American Socialist

If I remember correctly, one of the Bolsheviks' justifications for disbanding the Constituent Assembly was that the election had outdated voter-rolls that did not take into account the split between the Right and Left SRs and thustly did not accurately reflect the will of the people so what if the assembly agreed to hold a second election and the Bolsheviks accepted this?
 
EasternRomanEmpire

EasternRomanEmpire

Well it would be dissolved soon after as the Bolsheviks wouldn't really appreciate another political force which would almost certainly criticize them during the Russian Civil War for the Red Terror
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top