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Decree on Constituent Assembly dissolution adopted
January 6 (19), 1918 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly which had refused to recognize the Soviet regime and its decrees.
On the eve of the opening of the Constituent Assembly January 3 (16), 1918 the Central Executive Committee adopted a "Declaration of Rights of Working and Exploited People" (later approved by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets), which stated that the power belonged entirely and exclusively to working people and their authorized representation - the Soviets of Workers , Soldiers and Peasants Deputies. In addition, the same day the Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution “On recognition as counterrevolutionary action of all attempts to usurp the functions of the government". The ruling stated: "Based on all the gains of the October Revolution and in accordance with the Declaration of rights of working and exploited people, adopted by the Central Executive Committee on 3 January of this year, all the power in the Russian Republic belongs to the Soviets and Soviet institutions. Therefore, any attempt by anyone else or any establishment to appropriate to itself any function of state power will be regarded as a counter-revolutionary action. Any such attempt will be suppressed by all the means at the disposal of Soviet power including the use of armed force."
According to the data from 67 counties, 44 433 309 people took part in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, held from 12 (25) to 14 (27) November 1917. About 25% of the vote was given to Bolsheviks, about 62% - to the petty-bourgeois Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the Mensheviks, etc., about 13% - to the cadets. V. I. Lenin pointed out that this composition of the Constituent Assembly reflected the old balance of class forces in the country, prevailing on the eve of the October Revolution, which had radically changed by the time of the Constituent Assembly convocation.
The Constituent Assembly began its work in the Tauride Palace at 16 p.m. on 5 (18) January. About 410 deputies out of 715 attended the meeting. At 4:40 a.m. 6 (19) January, after the refusal to accept the ultimatum of the Bolsheviks regarding the recognition of the "Declaration of Rights of Working and Exploited People" and the approval of decrees of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the meeting was dissolved.
The Decree on dissolution of the Constituent Assembly said: "The Russian Revolution, from its very inception, put forward the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies as a mass organization of all the working and exploited classes, the only capable of leading the struggle of these classes for their complete political and economic liberation. ... The working classes had to learn by experience that the old bourgeois parliamentarianism was outdated, that it was completely incompatible with the objectives of socialism, that only class institutions (such as the Soviets), unlike the nationwide ones, were able to defeat the resistance of the propertied classes and lay the foundations of a socialist society".
Lit.: Декрет о роспуске Учредительного Собрания // Декреты Советской власти. Т. I. М., 1957; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/DEKRET/uchred2.htm; Всероссийское Учредительное собрание (1917 г. в документах и материалах). М., – Л., 1930; Декреты Советской власти. Т. I. 25 октября 1917 г. – 16 марта 1918 г. М., 1957; Знаменский О. Н. В. И. Ленин об Учредительном собрании // В. И. Ленин в Октябре и в первые годы Советской власти. Л., 1970; Знаменский О. Н. Всероссийское Учредительное собрание: История созыва и политического крушения. Л., 1976; Лапандин В. А. Комитет членов Учредительного собрания: структура власти и политическая деятельность. Самара, 2003; Протасов Л. Г. Всероссийское Учредительное собрание. М., 1997; Он же. Люди Учредительного собрания: Портрет в интерьере эпохи. М., 2008; Учредительное собрание // Большая Российская энциклопедия; Черкесова Н. Н. Всероссийская по делам о выборах в Учредительное Собрание комиссия (Всевыборы), 3 марта 1917 г. – 1 марта 1918 г. М., 2002.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Elections to the Constituent Assembly [digital collection];
All-Russian Constituent Assembly // 1918: [digital collection].