Soviet (council)
A
soviet (
Russian: сове́т,
IPA: literally
co-voice) originally was a
workers' local council in late
Imperial Russia. The first soviet (in this sense),
St Petersburg Soviet, was created by
Volin in
Saint Petersburg in January 1905. The councils were later adopted by the
Bolsheviks, as the basic organizing unit of society.
Originally the soviets were a grassroots effort to practice
direct democracy. Russian Marxists made them a medium for organizing against the state, and between the
February and
October Revolutions, the
Petrograd Soviet was a powerful force. The slogan 'ся власть советам ("All power to the soviets" or "All power to the workers' councils") was popular in opposing the
Provisional Government led by
Kerensky.
Shortly after the
October Revolution, the soviets as organized into a larger body formed the new basis for governing the post-revolutionary society through
soviet democracy. All parties were united in anticipation of a
Constituent Assembly. However, these soviets, rather than the
Constituent Assembly, were seen by Lenin as the fulfillment of the slogan, and he, therefore, in opposition to the will of the soviets and all parties dissolved the Constituent Assembly, which led to the
Russian Civil War. The Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries together held a majority of seats in the Congress of Soviets and formed a coalition government, which lasted until the Left Socialist Revolutionaries left the coalition in 1918. Over time, the independence of the soviets was supplanted by the top-down authority of the increasingly bureacratized ruling regime, based on the strict hierarchy of power within the
CPSU. Despite this, the claim was still made after the rise of
Stalinism that Bolshevik power rested on the collective will of these soviets.
The term also came to be used outside the
Soviet Union by some Marxist-Leninist movements, for example, the
Communist Party of China's efforts in the "
Chinese Soviet Republic" immediately prior to the
Long March.
Based on and in support of view of the state implicit in the Bolshevik use of the term, the word "soviet" naturally extended, or consciously was extended, to mean in effect any body formed by a group of soviets to delegate, up a hierarchy of soviets, the authority to express and effect their will. In this sense, post-Kerensky government bodies at local and
republic levels (but in the
Russian federated republic, local,
republic, and federated republic levels) were called "soviets", and at the top of the hierarchy, the
Supreme Soviet was the nominal core of the Union government of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, officially formed in December
1922.
