Union for Constituent Assembly Protection

Categories / Social Life/Political Parties and Organizations
UNION FOR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY PROTECTION, established in Petrograd on 23 October (old style: 6 December) 1917, united members of the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, People's Socialists, Petrograd Central and Regional Dumas, co-operatives, number of trade unions, factories, plants and some military units. The chairman was Socialist-Revolutionary V.N. Filippovsky (naval lieutenant, member of the Petrograd Soviet). It was located at 21 Liteiny Avenue. Members of the Union spread propaganda among the population and soldiers of the garrison (especially of Semenovsky and Izmailovsky regiments and the 5th Armoured Battalion), declared itself against Bolshevik policies, advocating the transfer of power to the Constituent Assembly. For the first week of its existence the Union issued over 200,000 copies of leaflets, from December 1917 to February 1918 published Izvestia..., convened three conferences in Petrograd. Departments of the Union were established in Moscow, Odessa, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and other towns, thus it became the All-Russian Legal Centre against the Bolsheviks' usurpation of the power. At the orders of the All-Russian Extraordinary Committee and Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, several searches were executed at the headquarters of the Union in December 1917, many of its activists were arrested. Under such conditions, the Union together with the Military Commission of Socialist-Revolutionary Party tried in vain to form armed units for the defence of Constituent Assembly, organised mass demonstrations in its support on 28 November (old style: 11 December 1917 and 5 (old style: 18) January 1918. Over 60,000 people, including numerous soldiers and workers of Obukhovsky Plant, took part in the last demonstration, held on the opening day of the Constituent Assembly. On 9 (old style: 22) January 1918 the Union organised a demonstration at the funerals of its members, killed by Red Guards and sailors. The attempt of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and Soviet authorities to arrange a legal process for the arrested Union activists failed: in the middle of January 1918 all of them were released. After the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the Union actually stopped functioning, although the leaflets were published until March 1918.

References: Соколов Б. Защита Всероссийского Учредительного собрания // Архив русской революции. М., 1992. Т. 13. С. 5-70; Протасов Л. Г. Всероссийское Учредительное собрание: История рождения и гибели. М., 1997.

A. M. Kulegin. Filippovsky Vasily Nikolaevich
Liteiny Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 21
Соколов Б. Защита ВсероссийскогоУчредительного собрания // Архив русской революции. М., 1992
Протасов Л. Г. Всероссийское Учредительное собрание: История рождения и гибели. М., 1997 Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment
Izmaylovsky Life Guards Regiment
Obukhovsky Plant