Introduction Local Government Under the Old Regime

“All Power to the Soviets!” The cry rang out over the Russian Empire in 1917, penetrating to every corner of an over-administered but under-governed polity. Mass assemblies of citizens gathered to devise a new system of governance and to preserve some semblance of order in community life after the fall of Nicholas II’s autocracy. ¹ The early Soviets were of many different configurations and of widely diverse outlooks, some radical in the extreme, others devoted to stability and the status quo. Some were from their inception authoritarian, while many others were models of participatory democracy. However, their history as independent bodies was too brief for the realization of all their governmental potential, for with the Bolshevik seizure of power and the civil war they were caught up in a turmoil that overwhelmed both local self-determination and political pluralism.