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There are numerous, conflicting accounts on the outcome of the November–December 1917 election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly election, which took place in the midst of the First World War and the October Revolution, was the largest exercise of universal suffrage in the history of mankind until that date. Spanning over decades, different historical research projects have been undertaken to try to map the puzzle of outcomes of the election from the various constituencies.

National results summary

The numbers in the table below represent accounts from the voting in 71 out of 81 electoral districts, although not all of those districts have complete voting tallies.

Studies on the Constituent Assembly election outcome

Svyatitsky and Lenin

There are various different accounts of the election result, with varying numbers. Many accounts on the election result originate from N. V. Svyatitsky's account, who was himself elected as an SR deputy to the Constituent Assembly. His article was included in the one-year anniversary symposium of the Russian Revolution organized by the SR party (Moscow, Zemlya i Volya Publishers, 1918). Lenin (1919) describes Svyatitsky's account as extremely interesting. It presented results from 54 electoral districts, covering most of European Russia and Siberia. Notably is lacked details from the Olonets, Estonian, Kaluga, Bessarabian, Podolsk, Orenburg, Yakutsk, Don governorates, as well as Transcaucasus. All in all, Svyatitsky's account includes 36,257,960 votes. According to Lenin, the actual number from said 54 electoral districts was 36,262,560 votes. But Lenin reaffirms that between Svyatitisky's article and his account, the number of votes cast by party is largely identical.

Radkey and Spirin

Later studies often use Svyatitsky's 1918 account as their starting point for further elaboration. L. M. Spirin (1987) uses local newspapers and Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian archival holdings to supplement Svyatitsky, whereas U.S. historian Oliver Henry Radkey predominately uses local newspapers as sources. According to Rabinovitch (2016), Spirin's account is the most complete. According to Arato (2017), Radkey is the most serious historian on the 1917 election.

Radkey uses a number of uses broad categories in presenting the result party-wise: SRs (sometimes distinguished between left/right), Bolsheviks, Mensheviks (sometimes divided between Menshevik-Internationalists and Right-wing pro-war Mensheviks), Other Socialists (with subcategories) Kadets, Special interests (including subcategories peasants, landowners, Cossacks, middle-class, others), Religious (Orthodox, Old Believers, others), Ukrainian (with subcategories), Turkic-Tatar (with subcategories), Other Nationalities (with subcategories).

The main source for the results table is Radkey (1989), who is used as reference for district-wise results unless specified otherwise. List numbers and names are largely taken from the Soviet historian L. M. Spirin's work. Notably, one list has been included that appears in Radkey but not in Spirin (the Molokan list in Taurida, with 885 votes).

Essentially, Radkey uses 5 classifications on the completeness of the district-level electoral result in his study:

From Radkey's account, there are 294,530 "unaccounted" votes, i.e. votes that were registered in totals but without their list identity clarified.

Protasov

A more recent research effort is represented by Russian historian L. G. Protasov, whose 1997 account includes 48,401,962 votes from 75 electoral districts. His estimate is that electoral participation was around 63-64%. In comparison with other historians, Protasov uses the category "Other socialists" to include many of the national minority parties. However, a 2004 account by Protasov puts the total number of accounted votes at 47,167,621.

Protasov records 765 deputies elected from 73 electoral districts; out of them 345 SRs, 47 Ukrainian SRs, 175 Bolsheviks, 17 Mensheviks, 7 Ukrainian Social Democrats, 14 Kadets, 2 Popular Socialists, another 32 Ukrainian socialists (possibly SRs or social democrats), 13 Muslim socialists, 10 Dashnaks, 68 from other national parties, 16 Cossacks, 10 Christians and one clergyman.

District-wise results

The voting figures presented in the tables below are from Radkey (1989), unless stated otherwise. In various districts, Radkey was not able to present a full account of the vote. In many cases the sources available to Radkey did not include all the lists in a specific district, meaning that in the account as a whole smaller parties tend to get underrepresented in many of the district-wise accounts. In some districts Radkey uses different sources for different lists, creating partially incomplete listings.

The names of elected deputies originate from Protasov (2008). Party identity has been simplified. SR lists often included labels such as 'Socialist-Revolutionaries and Congress of Peasants Deputies' or 'Earth and Will', for example, but are here just presented as SR.

Metropolitan cities

Petrograd City

Petrograd city constituted an electoral district of its own, separate from the rest of the Petrograd Governorate. Voter turnout in the capital was estimated at between 69.7% and 72%.

For the Petrograd Metropolitan district, Radkey assigns 861 votes as "unaccounted" for minor lists. Spirin presents lists 5, 10 and 13 with a total vote of 862. In the results tally below, Spirin's data is used for these 3 lists.

Moscow City

The electoral district covered the city of Moscow, separate from Moscow Governorate. Voter turnout in the city was estimated at between 65.4% and 69.7%.

North

Arkhangelsk

The electoral district covered the Arkhangelsk Governorate. Radkey's account is missing 4 uezds, representing some 25% of the electorate the Archangel electoral district.

Notably, Arkhangelsk had a different electoral system than the rest of the country, as voters voted for individual candidates rather than party lists. Five parties had fielded their candidates in the constituency; The Kadets fielded Aleksander Isupov and Viktor Bartenev, the Socialist-Revolutionaries (supported by the Peasants' Deputies Soviet) fielded Alexey Ivanov and Mikhail Kvyatkovsky, the Bolsheviks fielded Matvei Muranov and Georgy Oppokov and the Mensheviks fielded Anatoli Zhidkov and Vladimir Bustrem. Pavel Osipov was nominated by a group of citizens from Kurlev volost in Kholmogory uezd.

Olonets

The electoral district covered the Olonets Governorate. Olonets had special electoral system, electing 2 deputies and with each voter having 2 votes.

Vologda

The electoral district covered the Vologda Governorate. Out of the 10 uezds in Vologda electoral district, the account of Rakdey has 1 uezds with a largely incomplete vote count and gaps in coverage in another 2 uezds.

In Vologda the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had a common list. Soviet sources indicated that Social Democratic list was dominated by the Bolsheviks.

North-Western

Petrograd

The electoral district covered the Petrograd Governorate, except for the capital city itself. According to Radkey his account of the result available was incomplete, as data was missing for 7 minor lists. Radkey's account totals 446,273 votes, including 451 unaccounted votes. Soviet historian Spirin has the same account for the three major lists, but adds another 25,462 votes for the smaller lists. Spirin's account is used for the results table below.

Pskov

The electoral district covered the Pskov Governorate. There was a 60.3% voter turnout in the district.

Novgorod

The electoral district covered the Novgorod Governorate. Whilst Novgorod was an agrarian province, the Bolsheviks obtained a good vote. This might have been due to the fact that many inhabitants were accustomed to perform seasonal work in nearby Petrograd. 4 local peasants lists did not qualify to run in the election.

Baltics

Estonia

The electoral district covered the Autonomous Governorate of Estonia.

Voter turnout stood at 56.6% in the Estonia electoral district. The Bolsheviks and Estonian Labour Party had their strongest support in Reval and northern Estonia. Bolsheviks obtained 47.6% of the votes cast in Reval. The Democratic Bloc obtained 53.4% in Tartu, and did also get a good number of votes in southern Estonia. Notably, the Bolsheviks benefited from popular discontent with the failure of the Provisional Government to follow through on its promises of self-determination for Estonia.

Soldiers stationed at garrisons in Estonia didn't vote in the Estonian district, but in the Baltic Fleet constituency.

Livonia

The electoral district covered the Livonia Governorate, as well as the parts of the Courland Governorate not under German occupation. However, at the time Riga was under German occupation so no vote took place there.

In Radkey's account some 9,000 votes are missing from 9 uezds.

White Russia

Vitebsk

The electoral district covered the Vitebsk Governorate.

Minsk

The electoral district consisted of the Minsk Governorate and the parts of the Vilna Governorate and the Kovno Governorate that were not under German occupation. Notably, the soldiers based in the garrison in Minsk voted in the Western Front electoral district rather than the Minsk electoral district. According to Radkey, his count of the result in Minsk is largely complete, only lacking 3 out of 25 volosts Mozyr uezd. These 3 volosts had 16,755 eligible voters.

Mogilev

The electoral district covered the Mogilev Governorate.

According to Radkey the vote count in Mogilev is largely incomplete. He claims to have the data for Gomel (with the votes for all 11 lists), Mogilev (with votes for the 7 most voted lists) and Orsha (with votes for the 6 most votes lists) towns as well as 80 precincts in Gomel uezd (but in these precincts, only the vote for SR and Bolshevik lists). The account of Soviet historian L. M. Spirin, shown to the right in the table and which Radkey did not consider reliable, includes a much greater number of votes accounted for the Mogilev electoral district.

Smolensk

The electoral district covered the Smolensk Governorate. 2 volost-level lists were barred from participating in the election. List no. 3, endorsed by Smolensk Provincial Council of SR Party and the Smolensk Provincial Congress of Peasants Deputies, was headed by E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaia and Andrei Argunov. The Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik lists formed an electoral bloc. Likewise Lists 2 and 4 formed an electoral bloc.

The Bolsheviks won some 75% of the vote in the rural Sychevka uezd, obtaining 23,984 out of 32,007 votes cast in the uezd.

Central Industrial Region

Moscow

The electoral district covered the Moscow Governorate, except for the city of Moscow. According to Radkey's account, only few votes are missing from the summary (one military voting box in Moscow uezd, the votes from a single volost in Bronnitsy uezd and the votes for smaller parties in Serpukhov uezd).

Tver

The electoral district covered the Tver Governorate. Radkey lists the Tver result as 'somewhat incomplete'.