The Constituent Assembly
Elections in the Caucasus and along the Turkish front for delegates to the Assembly were conducted throughout November, 1917. Though incomplete and poorly organised, it was, nonetheless, the most representative and unhindered election in Transcaucasian history. More than two million voters cast ballots in the following manner: 9
Slate Nr. |
Party |
Votes |
I |
Social Democrat (Menshevik) 10 |
661,934 |
II |
Constitutional Democrat (Kadet) |
25,673 |
III |
Social Revolutionary 11 |
117,522 |
IV |
Dashnaktsoutiun |
558,440 |
V |
Social Democrat (Bolshevik) 12 |
93,581 |
X |
Musavat |
615,816 |
XI |
Moslem Social Democrat (Hummet) |
84,748 |
XII |
Moslem Socialist Bloc |
159,770 |
XIV |
Moslems of Russia (Ittihad) 13 |
66,504 |
On the basis of one delegate per sixty thousand votes, the Menshevik party was allotted eleven places; Musavat, ten; Dashnaktsoutiun, nine; Social Revolutionary party, two, and son on. 14 Chosen to travel to Petrograd by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation were Rostom Zorian, Mikael Hovhannisian, Hamo Ohandjanian, Hakob Zavriev, Kostia Hambartsoumian, Avetik Shahkhatouni, Hovhannes Kachaznouni, Sirakan Tigranian and Koriun Ghazarian. 15 Among them were two premiers and a foreign minister of the future Armenian Republic.
Many of the Transcaucasian delegates were still en route to the capital when the All-Russian Constituent Assembly convened on January 18, 1918. Because it was decidedly anti-Bolshevik in composition, the Assembly was doomed. 16 After the Sovnarkom had taken control of Petrograd, if felt too insecure to forbid the gathering, especially because Lenin's cries of prior months on behalf of the Assembly still echoed throughout the land. Unable to renege, the Bolsheviks nonetheless prepared for the likelihood of an antagonistic majority by announcing support for only a democratically represented Assembly. Clearly, an anti-Communist disposition would be non-representative. Thus, after only one day's existence, the Social Revolutionary-oriented Constituent Assembly was besieged and forcibly dispersed. The "grand illusions" of the provisional Government, the moderate socialist and liberal parties, as well as of most nationality groups, was no more. 17 The gap between Russia and Transcaucasia widened and deepened.
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