Soviets

   The first Soviet was formed in St. Petersburg in 1905 and acted as a form of council for organizing the people in their struggle against the Tsarist regime, and they were important organizations in the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were both prominent in the Soviets as they emerged in different cities, and the Bolsheviks used the slogan (for a period) “All Power to the Soviets.” Soviets were seen as a potential alternative to state power, and Vladimir Ilich Lenin justified the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly after the revolution on the grounds that the Soviets provided a more democratic, not to mention more socialist, form of organization. The significance of the Soviets is underlined by the new name of Russia following the revolution, namely the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or Soviet Union. Outside of the Soviet Union Antonio Gramsci, Karl Korsch, Karl Renner and Antonie Pannekoek all contributed to the theory of Soviets or councils viewing them as revolutionary organizations, models of a future socialist state, or a form of industrial democracy.