Russian Constituent Assembly
Russia's Constituent Assembly declares a federal republic and is dissolved
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Russia's long-awaited elected parliament lasted exactly one sitting. Its final warning was almost bureaucratically mundane: the guard was tired.
One sitting, 18–19 January 1918
On 18 January 1918 the Constituent Assembly met in Petrograd's Tauride Palace with 410 of its 767 elected deputies present, and chose Viktor Chernov as chairman over Maria Spiridonova, 244 to 153. Russia still used the Julian calendar, so accounts following it call these the events of 5–6 January.
Yakov Sverdlov opened the session and presented the Bolshevik-sponsored Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which demanded recognition of Soviet power and its decrees. The Assembly's majority rejected it.
What the deputies who stayed passed
The Bolshevik and Left Socialist-Revolutionary factions withdrew. Those remaining adopted measures on land and peace, and a resolution declaring Russia the Russian Democratic Federative Republic.
That resolution declared an inseparable federal union of peoples and regions whose sovereignty a federal constitution would define. No government was formed under the name before the Assembly was closed.
“The guard is tired”
The Tauride Palace guard commander, Anatoly Zhelezniakov, told Chernov that the guard was tired and the deputies should leave. Chernov completed rapid votes and adjourned the session in the early morning.
There was never a second sitting. The Bolshevik-dominated All-Russian Central Executive Committee formally decreed the Constituent Assembly dissolved on 19 January, on a draft written by Lenin.
Sources
- 1000 Schlüsseldokumente: Decree dissolving the Constituent Assembly, with scholarly introduction
- Resolution on Russia's system of government, adopted 6/19 January 1918
- Lenin: Draft Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
- Victor Serge: Year One of the Russian Revolution — Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes
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What the sources leave uncertain
- Russia still used the Julian calendar. The sitting began on 5 January Old Style/18 January Gregorian and continued into 6 January Old Style/19 January Gregorian.
- The listed Gregorian date is appropriate for the republic resolution, physical dispersal, and formal dissolution, but accounts that use the Russian calendar call these the events of 5–6 January.
- The Assembly proclaimed a constitutional formula but did not establish a functioning government under the new name before it was dissolved.
Checked against
- 1000 Schlüsseldokumente: Decree dissolving the Constituent Assembly, with scholarly introduction
- Resolution on Russia’s system of government, adopted 6/19 January 1918
- Lenin: Draft Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
- Victor Serge: Year One of the Russian Revolution—Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
- Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine: All-Russian Constituent Assembly
- U.S. Office of the Historian: contemporary report of the Decree on Peace