Creation of the first council of workers' deputies in the city. Council of Workers' Commissioners. After Kornilov's speech

Councils of Working People's Deputies, Councils- elected representative bodies state power in some socialist states, a form of dictatorship of the proletariat.

Elected political organizations working class of Russia, which first emerged during the Revolution of 1905-1907. During the February Revolution of 1917, they were created as bodies of revolutionary power; in most cases, unified Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies were formed.

Elected political organizations of the proletariat of indigenous nationalities Central Asia, arose as a result of the creativity of the masses during the February Revolution of 1917, following the example of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies, with which they were closely associated.

Elected political organizations that first emerged in a number of places in Russia during the Revolution of 1905-1907, following the example of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. During 1917, they were created as bodies of revolutionary power; in most cases, unified Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies were formed; at the fronts, the functions of the Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies were performed.

Elected political organizations that first emerged in a number of places in Russia during the Revolution of 1905-1907, following the example of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. During 1917, they were created as bodies of revolutionary power. After 1917 they merged with the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

Elected political organizations of workers and soldiers of Russia that arose during the February Revolution of 1917. After the victory of the October Revolution of 1917 - the authorities of the working people. They were created on the basis of the experience of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies in 1905-1907. Having gone through a difficult path of development, the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies became Bolshevik by October 1917. With the establishment of Soviet power, the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies merged with the Councils of Peasants' Deputies to form a unified system of Councils of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.

Councils of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies

Elected bodies of state power of the Soviet Republic after the victory of the October Revolution of 1917. With the adoption of the decree on the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army on January 15 (28), 1918, they began to be called the Councils of Workers', Peasants' and Red Army Deputies.

Councils of Workers', Peasants' and Red Army Deputies

Elected bodies of state power of the Soviet Republic since the end of January 1918. By the Constitution of the USSR of 1936, they were renamed the Soviets of Working People's Deputies.

The Soviets arose as a result of the revolutionary creativity of the masses in the revolution of 1905-07 in Russia as bodies for leading the strike struggle of workers and were the embryonic bodies of a new, revolutionary government - the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. During the period of the highest upsurge of the revolution, some Soviets became organs of leadership of the armed uprising. One of the first Soviets was the Council of Commissioners, created by workers during the Ivanovo-Voznesensk strike in May 1905. In the fall of 1905, Soviets of Workers' Deputies arose in many cities and workers' settlements. In Moscow, along with the Workers' Councils, the Council of Soldiers' Deputies was organized; a Council of Soldiers' and Cossacks' Deputies was created in Chita, and a Council of Sailors', Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies was created in Sevastopol. In some rural areas Councils of Peasant Deputies (Tver Province) and peasant committees (in Latvia and Georgia) arose, playing the role of Soviets. In mid-November 1905, there were 562 deputies in the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. The St. Petersburg Council included representatives of the Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, and Mensheviks. Petty-bourgeois parties managed to occupy a leading position in it; they viewed the Soviets not as militant revolutionary organizations of the masses, but as organs local government, as a result of this, the St. Petersburg Council did not become an organ of the armed uprising. In the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies, the Bolsheviks played a leading role: this Council led the Moscow workers, whose struggle marked the beginning of the December armed uprisings. Of the 62 Soviets that arose during the revolution, 47 were headed and influenced by the Bolsheviks, 10 were Menshevik, 1 was Socialist Revolutionary. The Bolsheviks formed the leadership core in the Ivanovo-Voznesensky, Kostroma, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Chita, Krasnoyarsk, Motovilikhinsky (near Perm) and other Soviets. Led by the Bolsheviks, the Soviets acted as a revolutionary power. With the defeat of the Revolution of 1905-07, the Soviets ceased to exist.

The Soviet system was first enshrined in the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918, adopted by the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets. This system included the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, regional, provincial, district and volost congresses of Soviets and Soviets of cities, towns, villages, villages, and in the period between congresses - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR - executive committees of the Soviets. The right to vote and be elected was enjoyed by all citizens of the RSFSR who had reached the age of 18 and engaged in socially useful work, soldiers, and sailors, regardless of religion, nationality, or residence. The deprivation of voting rights was caused by the stubborn struggle of the enemies of the Sov. authorities. Persons who used hired labor for the purpose of making a profit, who lived on unearned income, private traders, monks, clergy, employees and agents of the former police, gendarmerie and security departments, members of the reigning house in Russia, as well as the insane, mentally ill, who were under guardianship, and those convicted of mercenary and other disgraceful crimes.

Communist Party led the activities of the Soviets through party factions created in all Soviet bodies. “The party must make its decisions,” stated the resolution of the Eighth Congress of the RCP(b), through Soviet bodies, within the framework of the Soviet Constitution. The Party tries to direct the activities of the Soviets, but not replace them."

The development of the Soviet system proceeded in close connection with national state building. With the formation of autonomous republics and their regions in the RSFSR local councils united by congresses of the Autonomous Councils. In sovereign Soviet republics(Ukraine, Belarus and others) the highest level of the Soviet system were the Republican Congresses of Soviets, which elected the Central Executive Committee of the republics. Through the system of Councils of national republics and regions, direct and broad participation of the working masses of all nationalities in public administration was ensured.

The Soviets became an example for workers foreign countries. During the revolutionary upsurge that began in Western Europe under the influence of the October Revolution, workers in Hungary, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia began to create organizations similar to the Soviets. At the end of the 20s, Soviets arose in China. Lenin noted that the international significance of the Soviets does not imply their exact copying in other countries - “The Soviet type is not yet the Soviets, as they exist in Russia, but the Soviet type is becoming international.”

With the formation of the Soviet system in 1922, changes occurred that reflected the structure of the multinational union state and were enshrined in the 1924 Constitution of the USSR and the constitutions of the union republics. The All-Union Congress of Soviets became the supreme body of state power; in the period between congresses supreme body power was the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. The supreme bodies of power in the union and autonomous republics were the congresses of Soviets (in the period between congresses - the Central Executive Committees elected by them), local authorities - the regional, regional, provincial, district, district, district and volost congresses of the Soviets (in the period between them - their executive committees) . The peoples of the USSR (most of them for the first time in history) created their national statehood on the basis of the Soviets. In connection with the change in the administrative-territorial division, a restructuring of Soviet bodies was carried out.

The Soviets involved the broad masses in state and public work. The growth of workers' political activity was clearly evident during elections to the Soviets. In the process of liquidation of the private sector and further democratization electoral system in the 1930s, the number of persons deprived of the right to vote decreased sharply; in 1923 in cities there were 8.2% deprived of rights, in 1934 - 2.4%.

Adopted by the Extraordinary Eighth Congress of Soviets of the USSR, it reflected the social and economic changes that occurred in the country as a result of socialist construction after its adoption. The USSR Constitution of 1936 enshrined new system government bodies in the center and locally, transformed the Councils of Workers', Peasants' and Red Army Deputies into Councils of Workers' Deputies, which reflected moral and political unity Soviet society, consisting of two friendly classes - the working class and the collective farm peasantry - and the working intelligentsia. In connection with the liquidation of the exploiting classes in the USSR, all restrictions on voting rights were abolished, and universal, equal and direct elections by secret ballot were introduced. All levels of the Councils are elected directly by voters according to the norm of representation established by the Constitution and the Regulations on Elections to the Councils.

Council of Workers' Commissioners(after 1917 became known as Ivanovo-Voznesensky City Council of Workers' Deputies listen)) - an elected representative body of workers' government that existed in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (now Ivanovo) during the First Russian Revolution from May 15 (28) to July 19 (August 1), 1905. 151 deputies were elected to the Council from factories with more than a thousand workers (one deputy from every 500 people). There are 151 deputies in total. Chairman - A. E. Nozdrin. It is considered the first Council in Russia.

The council appeared in 1905 during the Ivanovo-Voznesensk strikes. Since May 12, there was a strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, in which more than 70 thousand people took part. The Bolsheviks played the leading role in the strike. The strikers demanded an eight-hour working day, higher wages, the abolition of fines, the elimination of factory police, freedom of speech, unions, the press, strikes, the convening of a Constituent Assembly, but they still prevailed economic requirements.

On May 13, a meeting was held at the city government (now Revolution Square), at which the workers put forward their demands to the factory owners. However, the factory owners refused to negotiate with the crowd and insisted that workers elect representatives from each enterprise. In the evening of the same day, a representation norm was established at Talka: one deputy was elected per 500 workers from factories with more than a thousand workers, and elections began by open voting. On this day, 50 people were chosen. On May 15, the elections ended in Talka. 151 deputies were elected, including 25 women. As it turned out later, three (or two: V.P. Barashkov’s affiliation is controversial) deputies were secret police agents. The chairman was the Ivanovo-Voznesensk poet Avenir Evstigneevich Nozdrin. Contrary to the intentions of the factory owners, the deputies refused to conduct separate negotiations at each factory separately, but united into a citywide council. The council consisted almost entirely (with the exception of one employee) of workers, average age deputies was 23 years old.

The council was called upon to lead the strike and negotiations with the authorities and factory owners, as well as organize propaganda of Marxism and revolutionary ideas among the workers. On the evening of May 15, the first meeting of the Council was held in the building of the Meshchansky Council (now known as the House of the First Council), during which the council was guarded by workers. Later the meetings were moved to the shore of Talka. The council created fighting squads and an elected court. On May 20, a workers' militia was created, the leader of which was I. N. Utkin. On May 22, she was sent to maintain order in the city and protect factories from strikebreakers. The legal authorities tried to suppress the strike movement by evicting workers from factory barracks and raising food prices, but the Council tried to counteract this by opening factory shops and supplying food to the strikers. He created a commission for leading strikes, headed by S.I. Balashov, financial and food commissions. Power in the city was partially in the hands of the Council, with whose connivance arson and pogroms of factory owners' houses, shops and shops began in the city, and communications were disrupted in many places. A split emerged in the ranks of the factory owners.

The owners did not satisfy all the workers' demands, but made significant concessions. The working day was reduced to an average of 10.5 hours, wages increased by 10%.

At the end of June, the factory owner P. Gryaznov was the first to make concessions to the workers, and other factory owners soon joined: at the city’s enterprises the working day was shortened by various times (for example, at the Murashkin plant by 1.5 hours, at the Zhokhov plant by half an hour) and now amounted to 10.5 hours on average, wages increased by 10%, pregnant women and nursing mothers received some benefits, and strike participants were promised not to be fired. In view of this, on June 27, the Council adopted a resolution to end the strike from July 1. But at the beginning of July, the factory owners decided to refuse all concessions and organize a lockout in order to suppress the revolutionary movement. Despite the strikers' lack of funds, the rallies resumed. The Council began holding meetings again. The factory owners again made concessions and, although not all demands were met, the workers were satisfied with them. July 19th happened last meeting Ivanovo-Voznesensk Council, at which deputies decided to resume work.

In the spring and summer of 1905, unrest spread to the army and navy. In the Odessa area, the battleship Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky went out for exercises. On June 14, the team refused lunch made from rotten meat. The commander ordered everyone to line up on the deck and called the guard. Suddenly there were shouts among the sailors: “Brothers! Enough of this patience!” At this very moment, one of the officers shot at the sailor leader G.N. Vakulenchuk. The sailors began to crack down on the officers. Power passed into the hands of the rebels. Two more ships joined the Potemkin.

The sailors elected a ship committee headed by A.N. Matyushenko and decided to go to Odessa, where strikes had been going on since June 8. But local authorities took measures to isolate the rebel sailors from the workers.

The Black Sea squadron came out to suppress the uprising, but the sailors’ sympathy for the Potemkinites was so obvious that the squadron was taken to Sevastopl.

For 11 days the rebel battleship was at sea under a red flag, and when fuel and food ran out, it surrendered to the Romanian authorities. In the Romanian port of Constanta, the sailors developed an appeal “To the entire civilized world”, in which they demanded an immediate end Russo-Japanese War, overthrow of the autocracy, convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

An important event in the history of the 1905 revolution was the creation of the first Council of Workers' Deputies. On May 12, a strike began in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. It was headed by the head of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk organization of the RSDLP F.A. Afanasyev and 19-year-old student of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute M.V. Frunze.

To lead the strike movement, it was decided to elect a Council of Workers' Deputies, which soon turned into a body of revolutionary power in the city. The council took control of the protection of factories and factories, banned for a certain period the eviction of workers from their apartments, the increase in food prices, closed state-owned wine shops, and monitored order in the city by creating detachments of workers' militia. The Council formed a financial, food, investigative, agitation and propaganda commission, and an armed squad. All over the country, funds were being collected for striking workers. However, tired of more than two months of strike, the workers agreed to go to work at the end of July, as the owners of a number of factories made concessions.

“Union of Unions.” Back in October 1904, the left wing of the “Union of Liberation” began work to unite all streams of the liberation movement. For this purpose, work is being done to create professional and political unions, which have become a form of involving the democratic intelligentsia and employees in political life. By 1905, there were already unions of lawyers, engineers, professors, writers, medical staff, etc. "Osvobozhdenie" claimed a leading role in the liberation movement: they were even included in the governing bodies of the All-Russian Peasant Union. Their influence predominated in the unions of railway employees and workers , office workers, accountants, agronomists, statisticians, teachers, postal and telegraph employees, etc. Different unions put forward different demands, but they also contained general provisions for all unions.

On May 8-9, 1905, a congress was held at which all unions were united into a single “Union of Unions.” It was headed by P.N. Milyukov. The Bolsheviks accused the congress of moderate liberalism and left it.

Four unions in the "Union of Unions" were created not on professional grounds: Peasant, Zemtsev-Constitutionalists (landowners), Union of Jewish Equality and Union of Women's Equality.

At the II Congress of the “Union of Unions” (late May 1905), a decision was made to organize a general political strike together with the revolutionary parties. Being on the left in the liberal-bourgeois camp, the Union of Unions tried to unite all the forces opposing tsarism. He proposed a peaceful, legal way of struggle.

Bulyginskaya Duma. In the conditions of the growing revolution, tsarism undertook another maneuver: on August 6, 1905, the highest manifesto was issued on the establishment of the State Duma. The manifesto said: " The State Duma established for the preliminary development and discussion of legislative proposals, ascending, by the force of fundamental laws, through the State Council to the Supreme Autocratic power."

The Duma was supposed to discuss issues of the budget, states, and some laws, but remained a legislative advisory body. In the elections, preference was given to the peasants "as the predominant... most reliable monarchical and conservative element."

The Duma project was developed under the leadership of Bulygin, so it went down in history under the name “Bulygin”. Most of the Russian population was deprived of voting rights: women, military personnel, workers, students, wandering “foreigners,” etc.

With such an election system, St. Petersburg, with a population of more than 1.5 million people, would provide only 7 thousand voters.

Naturally, a significant part of the supporters of the liberal and revolutionary camp spoke in favor of a boycott of the Bulygin Duma.

Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries was, as we know, an agrarian country with the beginnings of market relations, slowly but surely advancing on the old order. The traditional way of life gradually gave way to emerging capitalism. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of the population Russian Empire peasants continued to make up the population; the proletariat was still extremely weak and few in number.

Founded in 1871 by merging the village of Ivanovo and Voznesensky Posad, Ivanovo-Voznesensk (after 1932 and still known as Ivanovo) from the very first day of its existence represented a striking contrast to the bulk of ancient Russian settlements. The old flax processing center (Ivanovo), which had long laid claim to the title of the main center of light industry in Europe, being merged with the industrial Voznesensky Posad, immediately began to play important role in the economic life of the Empire. Ivanovo-Voznesensk became a kind of symbol of the new path of old, patriarchal Russia, which lived according to the peasant way of life for many years. Against the backdrop of the continued development of industry, the city also developed rapidly: new large enterprises, a hospital appeared and public library, majestic buildings were built for the new “masters of life” - wealthy merchant-manufacturers. It is not surprising that the proletariat played an important role in the life of the industrial city; by the beginning of the 19th century, more than 30 thousand workers worked at its enterprises, providing luxurious life a small “elite”.

The working conditions of these workers, as you can easily guess, were far from ideal: cramped, dirty barracks for housing, lack of any social insurance, 12-13-hour working day. The logical result of all this was that dissatisfaction with the current situation began to mature among the workers. Already in the 80-90s of the 19th century, the first mass strikes took place in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, and in 1892 the first workers’ circle appeared here, contacts were established with the Bolsheviks (including personally with Lenin), who at that time represented the most consistent revolutionary a movement that placed its main emphasis on the proletariat. In 1901, the Ivanovo-Voznesensk organization joined the “Northern Union”, which stood on the platform of Lenin’s “Iskra”, and after the Second Congress of the RSDLP - into the Northern Committee of the RSDLP, which became a stronghold of the Bolsheviks in the textile region.

Very soon, the Bolsheviks were to take an active part in the mass strike of 1905, during which the first workers' councils in Russian history were born, which continued, in fact, to control power in the city for 72 days (the same amount of time as those who rebelled in Paris during the Paris Commune !). Ivanovo-Voznesensk received the name “Homeland of the First Soviets”. A more detailed account of those events will form the basis of this article.

In 1917, after the October Revolution, Ivanovo region was one of the few areas in which counter-revolutionary forces offered almost no resistance to the young Bolshevik government; we can say that Civil War almost did not touch these places, so unconditionally did the local population, consisting of a significant majority of the proletariat, support the communists. It is also curious that even many of the representatives of the bourgeoisie did not resist and, accordingly, were not subsequently subjected to repression in one way or another. For example, the famous manufacturer Dmitry Burylin, who built a museum with his own money, where numerous exhibits from different countries(including a mummy from Egypt), remained in this very museum as the main curator at the suggestion of Frunze himself after the nationalization of the museum and Burylin’s factory in 1919.

But let’s return to the events of 1905, which had a huge impact not only on the subsequent life of the city, but on the life of the entire huge country as a whole. In April 1905, the third congress of the local party organization was held in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, at which important decisions were made on the preparation of further speeches. On May 9 (which is symbolic in its own way!) at an illegal party conference in the presence of representatives of all factories and factories, it was decided to start a general strike. 26 requirements for factory owners were reviewed and approved, including, first of all, the requirement of an 8-hour working day, the destruction of night and overtime work, establishing a minimum wages etc. and so on. Also included were some political demands: freedom of speech, press, strikes, and unions.

In fact, the workers for the first time moved from scattered and unsystematic actions against the regime to a systematic struggle aimed at overthrowing it; they refused to be mere instruments of profit in the hands of cynical manufacturers who saw workers only as cheap goods. labor, capable of providing them with a luxurious life, the workers sought the right to their own full life, where, in addition to exhausting labor in production, there would be room for something else.

Needless to say that the Bolsheviks had a significant influence on the strike, taking an active part in it? The leader of the local communists at that time was the professional revolutionary Fyodor Afanasyevich Afanasyev, nicknamed Father. Here began the revolutionary path of another famous Bolshevik, whose name later thundered throughout the country - Mikhail Frunze.

On May 12, 1905, a widespread strike began, the next day a meeting was organized, where speeches were made by indignant worker speakers, and demands were presented to the factory owners. On the small river Talka, in the forest, elections to the Soviets began, lasting until May 15. As a result, 151 deputies were elected to the Council, of which 65 represented the Bolsheviks. At the first meeting, held on the same day, the non-party engraver and poet Avenir Nozdrin was elected permanent chairman of the Council. The council led the fight to fulfill 26 workers' demands, demands that came from tens of thousands of working people in the city.

The factory owners rejected the economic demands of the workers, and simply refused to discuss the political ones. Then the Council decided to contact the Minister of the Interior directly. The strike dragged on. From the very first days, various commissions were created under the Council - strike, food, financial - to help the strikers. A workers' militia appeared to keep order in the city, gradually the Council became a real authority in the city, tens of thousands of textile workers were subordinate to it, even factory owners were forced to reckon with its activities. Up to 70 thousand workers took part in the strike, for whom these events became a kind of political university, where people, who had previously been brought up for many years in the consciousness of eternal obedience to the “tsar and masters,” learned to manage their own lives, make important decisions, and ultimately think on one's own. Slogans were heard more and more often: “Down with autocracy!”, “Workers of all countries, unite!” and etc.

It is not surprising that such events aroused terrible hatred from the governor and other representatives official power, who, not without reason, saw in them a threat to the existence of the power vertical as a whole and hence their own existence (as persons endowed with power and privileges). In the end, the governor called additional troops into the city, and workers' meetings in Talka were banned.

On June 3, armed Cossacks and policemen, led by police chief Kozhelovsky, rode to Talka and staged a bloody massacre. That day, more than 80 people were arrested on Talka, among whom were 44 deputies. However, the authorities did not calculate that such actions would cause a storm of indignation among the workers, who by that time had already learned something and had long ceased to be obedient slaves of the regime. Glass rattled in the mansions of factory owners, and dachas caught fire. The frightened governor was forced to give in: those arrested were released, and meetings on Talka were allowed again.

The factory owners were also forced to make some concessions. At the cost of blood, hunger and enormous effort, the workers achieved a reduction in the working day to ten and a half hours and an increase in wages by 10 percent. On June 27, in Talka, in the presence of all the deputies and the mass of workers, the Council decided to end the strike from July 2 and return everyone to the factories. This was dictated by the fact that the forces of the strikers were exhausted to the last limit, however, as Avenir Nozdrin wrote: “We retreated, but did not surrender, we retreated, but did not run.” The Bolshevik proclamation issued on this occasion said: “The manufacturers are rejoicing. They think that they have broken our solidarity, they think that they have won, that we have surrendered, considering ourselves defeated. But is this true, comrades?... No! Our enemies are mistaken!”

Undoubtedly, the strike was a serious blow to the autocracy and young capitalism in Russia, it showed that people are ready to take to the streets and defend their own convictions, it showed the whole country and, perhaps, the whole world an example of the courageous struggle of workers for their rights, an example of the first steps towards establishing self-government. Here is what Lenin writes about this strike: “The Ivanovo-Voznesensk strike showed the unexpectedly high political maturity of the workers. The unrest in the entire central industrial region was already going on continuously, intensifying and expanding after this strike.” M.V. Frunze later noted the enormous historical meaning strike: “There is no doubt that the Ivanovo-Voznesensk summer strike provided the richest political and organizational material for the creation of the Petrograd, and then the Moscow and other Soviets.”

“Ahead of the entire planet!” - If the USSR became the first state where power, for the first time in history, was in the hands of ordinary workers, workers and peasants, then it was the Ivanovo strike and the Council created during it that can be considered the first prototype of this very power, which later spread throughout the country. After all, it was not for nothing that the power was called Soviet, that is, the power of the Soviets, which began to appear throughout the country. And the first Council was the Workers' Council of Ivanovo-Voznesensk.

Already during the years of Soviet power, it was customary to perpetuate the memory of the rebel workers by establishing the memorial ensemble “Red Talka” on the banks of the river of the same name, where workers’ meetings were held in 1905. The memorial ensemble included: an obelisk monument and a bowl of eternal flame, an alley of heroes with carved on slabsnames of the main participants of the strike, a memorial sign to the leader of the strikers - “Father” F.A. Afanasyev. Also in Ivanovo in 1967, the Museum of the First Council was opened, located inthe historical building of the Meshchanskaya Council. It was here that from May 15 to 18, 1905, 4 meetings of the country’s first citywide Council of Workers’ Deputies were held. The building itself was built in 1904 using funds raised among the city's townspeople, according to the design of engineer I.D. Afanasyev for the city government body - the Meshchanskaya Council.

Unfortunately, during the years of Perestroika the importance of the Memorial and the Museum dropped significantly. The new government, which cultivated anti-Sovietism and in every possible way nurtured the ideas of “market democracy,” had no use for mentioning the glorious past of the city of Ivanovo, associated with the liberation struggle of the proletariat in the name of the future construction of socialism. The museum was closed for re-exposition in the late 90s and reopened only in 2005, however, having lost its independent significance (if previously it was considered a separate museum, it is now assigned to the Ivanovo State History and Local Lore Museum named after D.G. Burylin). Last year (2014, September) the author had the opportunity to visit the museum building itself; to our surprise, the building at that time was hosting... an exhibition of exotic reptiles, and the stands dedicated to the Council were hung with pictures of various kinds of snakes and fish. The memorial ensemble also resides at this moment not in the best condition: the names of many heroes on the stone slabs are so erased that they are almost impossible to read, some monuments have been vandalized.

We, however, hope that the current situation will change, especially considering that many people are reawakening interest in the heroic pages of our, dare I say it, great past. This year (2015) marks exactly 110 years since those events; There are still many specialists in the city, real professionals in their field, who are ready to help in the resumption of the museum’s work; most of the exhibits are available.

In France, for example, they are proud of their history, they honor it, they remember it. The whole world knows about the Paris Commune, but few even in Russia itself know about our little Paris Commune, the first Council, which became an invaluable experience in terms of self-organization of the grassroots. At the time of the next capitalist crisis, which once again exposed the shortcomings market system, the experience of the First Council, which has not lost its relevance in our time, can be very useful for us and for subsequent generations.

SOVIETS (COUNCILS OF WORKERS' DEPUTIES) IN RUSSIA– elected political organizations, an extra-parliamentary form of revolutionary democracy. They arose in the spring of 1905 during the revolution of 1905–1907 as a reaction of the working people to the desire of the tsar and the government to delay the creation of a representative government body of the parliamentary type.

The first forms of Russian democracy of the Soviet type appeared in March - April 1905 at the Nadezhdinsky and Alapaevsky Ural mining plants in the form of strike committees and meetings of authorized representatives. They operated on the scale of mining villages and did not last long. Therefore, the birthplace of the first council is considered to be the city of Ivanovo-Voznesenk, Vladimir province, where, during a strike of 30 thousand textile workers on May 15, 1905, the first citywide Council of Workers' Deputies was created. The strike, offensive in nature, began with workers putting forward economic (introduction of an 8-hour working day, establishing a minimum wage, improving working conditions) and political (convening parliament, introducing democratic freedoms, the right to celebrate May Day) demands. The authorities and entrepreneurs, who declared that they intended to negotiate only with representatives of the workers, and not with an unorganized crowd, in fact, themselves initiated the creation of the first Council of Workers' Deputies.

Being an ideologically Bolshevik body, the Council united young (average age - 23 years) workers who created strike, financial, and food commissions, organized a workers' militia, and ordered the closure of taverns in the city. The council was led by a presidium of 6 people chaired by an educated worker-engraver and poet A.E. Nozdrin (1862–1938). At the “free” workers’ university on the banks of the Talka River, the Council organized speeches by agitators talking about the growing proletarian movement throughout Russia. Having achieved a number of concessions from entrepreneurs (reducing the working day to 10 hours, increasing wages by 10%), the Council organizedly ended the strike after 72 days.

Following the example of the Ivanovo residents, workers of other cities, and then peasants and soldiers, began to create their own Soviets, elected by open or secret voting at rallies and meetings. The main electoral unit of the Soviets became the collectives of the factory, factory, collective farm, Cossack village, military unit, that is, a community of people united by a common cause. Those who could never get into the official administration could also be elected as deputies - women, representatives of non-title nations, members of any parties. Candidates were publicly discussed, deputies were given “instructions”, for failure to comply with which they were recalled. Within the framework of the elected councils, commissions (financial, food, judicial and investigative), as well as people's courts, could be created. The highest bodies of the councils usually became presidiums or executive committees, in which the main backbone were socialists - Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, among whom were those who shared the Bolshevik views expressed by V.I. Lenin: “The councils are not a workers’ parliament and not a body of proletarian self-government, but a military organization to achieve certain goals." Acting like such " militant organizations", The Soviets organized armed uprisings and uprisings against the autocracy, purchased weapons, formed fighting squads, and established connections with soldiers military units. A number of cities in revolutionary Russia, thanks to the Soviets, were able to declare themselves “republics” (Novorossiysk, Krasnoyarsk, Lyubotinskaya, Ruzaevskaya, Chiaturskaya, etc.) and even briefly introduced some democratic freedoms (of speech, assembly, unions) and an 8-hour working day within the territory they controlled. .

In the fall of 1905, city Councils of Workers' Deputies were created in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and their own press organs, the newspaper Izvestia, began to operate under them. Establishing control over railways, industrial and household enterprises, guarded by vigilantes, people's militia, the Soviets of that time embodied the people's dream of a state without officials and relied on the financial support of the people ( cash their fund came from private individuals and revolutionary organizations). The St. Petersburg Council exercised revolutionary democratic power from October 13 to December 3, 1905 (562 deputies represented 200 thousand workers from 181 enterprises and 16 trade unions of the city); Moscow - worked from November 21 to December 15, 1905 (170 deputies represented 80 thousand workers of 184 factories and factories).

In total, during the revolution of 1905–1907, 62 Soviets arose in the country, of which 35 were formed in cities. With the defeat of the revolution of 1905–1907, the Soviets ceased to exist until 1917, when they began to emerge again during the February bourgeois revolution, predetermining the emergence of dual power in Russia. The number of Soviets in the spring of 1917 reached 600, the first united Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies appeared, the first Congress of which took place on June 3–24, 1917.

The October Revolution of 1917 was carried out under the slogan “All power to the Soviets!”, laying the foundation for a new state - the Republic of Soviets, in which the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies merged in 1918 with the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. Both in the RFFR and in the USSR, the Councils of Workers', Peasants' and Red Army Deputies were considered elected bodies of state power. However, as the new Soviet regime strengthened, everyday practice came into conflict with the ideas laid down by the creators of the Soviets of 1905 (participation of everyone in management and training in management for everyone, the possibility of recalling deputies, combining legislative and executive functions in the name of abandoning the “talking shop”). The establishment of party dictatorship, the rapid separation of party leaders from the “party masses” and non-party people, made the functions of the Soviets formal. The leadership of the Soviets passed into the hands of their presidiums and executive committees, actively controlled by party functionaries. At the same time, in the name of the Soviets, the party ideologists sought to emphasize the development of “people's rule”: from 1936 to 1977 they were called Councils of Working People's Deputies, from 1977 - Councils people's deputies.

In 1988, the Congress of People's Deputies (which had not met since the late 1930s and existed during the era of “perestroika” for only three years, 1988–1991, seven congresses) was again declared the highest body of state power in the USSR.

The first step towards the destruction of Soviet power in Russia was taken in March 1990, when the post of president was introduced, the second step was the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, which localized Soviet system to the territory of the Russian Federation. The political crisis of October 3–4, 1993, expressed in an armed confrontation between supporters of the preservation of the Soviet idea and the president, ended with the storming of the building of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation (parliament, the “White House”) by pro-presidential army units and the arrest of the oppositionists.

These events completed the history of Soviet power in Russia (1905–1993).

Irina Pushkareva