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A soviet (Russian: сове́т, Russian pronunciation: [sɐˈvʲɛt], "council"^{[trans 1]}) originally was a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia. According to the official historiography of the Soviet Union, the first Soviet (in this sense) was organized during the 1905 Russian Revolution in Ivanovo (Ivanovo region) in May 1905. However in his memoirs Volin claims that he witnessed the creation of the St Petersburg Soviet in Saint Petersburg in January 1905. The councils later evolved under Bolshevik rule, as the main representative units of the state.

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 Вся власть советам (Vsya vlast sovyetam; "All power to the soviets" or "All power to the workers' councils") was used by the Bolsheviks to oppose the Provisional Government led by Kerensky.

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 the 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, Communist 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 Congress of Soviets was the nominal core of the Union government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, officially formed in December 1922. However, the Communist Party officially played the "leading role" in society and the soviets were in practice subordinate to it.

Later, in the Soviet Union local governmental bodies were named "soviet" (sovet: "council") with the adjective indicating of the administrative level, customarily abbreviated : gorsovet (gorodskoy sovet: city council), raysovet/raisovet (rayonny sovet: raion council), selsovet: rural council, possovet (poselkovy sovet: settlement council).

[edit] Translations

[edit] Further reading

• Edward Acton Rethinking the Russian Revolution 1990 Oxford University Press ISBN 0713165308
• Tony Cliff Lenin: All Power to the Soviets 1976 Pluto Press
• Voline The Unknown Revolution Black Rose Books
• Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 2005 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521841550

[edit] See also

• Congress of Soviets
• Workers' council
• Soviet democracy
• Council communism
• Participatory democracy
• Workers' control
• Rada (Ukrainian equivalent)