Transcaucasus electoral district (Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917)

The Transcaucasus electoral district (Russian: Закавказский избирательный округ) was a constituency created for the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election. The electoral district covered the Baku Governorate, the Elizavetpol Governorate, the Erivan Governorate, the Kutais Governorate, the Tiflis Governorate, the Batum Oblast, the Kars Oblast, the Sukhum Okrug and the Zakatal Okrug.[3]

Transcaucasus
Former Civilian Constituency
for the All-Russian Constituent Assembly
Former constituency
Created1917
Abolished1918
Number of members36
Number of Uyezd Electoral Commissions45
Number of Urban Electoral Commissions11
Number of Parishes1,450
Sources:[1][2]

Creation of the Transcaucasian constituency

Across Russia, electoral districts for the Constituent Assembly election generally followed governorate or oblast boundaries. But in the southern Caucasus a single constituency was created for six governorates, two oblasts and two okrugs. In the debates in the All-Russian Electoral Commission the Armenian scholar Dr. Nicholas Adontz had argued in favour of creating three separate districts - Armenian, Georgian and Muslim. Muslim representatives had argued against this proposal, and in the end the Russian electoral authorities opted for a single Transcaucasian constituency.[4] By mid-1917 the Central Transcaucasian Commission for the Elections to the Constituent Assembly was set-up, under the aegis of the Special Transcaucasian Committee (OZAKOM).[5]

Voting

The vote was held in Transcaucasus November 26–28, within two weeks of the formation of the Transcaucasian Commissariat (Zavakom).[6] 15 lists were in the fray in Transcaucasus.[7] The three largest parties in Transcaucasus were the Mensheviks, the Musavat Party and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaksiun).[8] Whilst the Mensheviks were the most voted party, in Transcaucasus Menshevism had become intertwined with Georgian nationalism.[9] Soon after the election, the Georgian Mensheviks would become openly nationalistic.[7] The Bolshevik vote came mainly from soldiers at the Baku garrison and blue-collar workers of the same city.[5]

Constituency-wide results
Transcaucasus
Party Vote %
List 1 - Mensheviks 661,934 26.96
List 10 - Musavat Party 615,816 25.08
List 4 - Armenian Revolutionary Federation 558,440 22.74
List 12 - Muslim Socialist Bloc 159,770 6.51
List 3 - Socialist-Revolutionaries 117,522 4.79
List 5 - Bolsheviks 93,581 3.81
List 11 - Hummet 84,743 3.45
List 14 - Ittihad 66,505 2.71
List 8 - Georgian National Democrats 25,733 1.05
List 2 - Kadets 25,637 1.04
List 6 - Georgian Socialist-Federalists 22,754 0.93
List 7 - Armenian Populist Party 15,180 0.62
List 15 - Zionists 7,018 0.29
List 9 - Popular Socialists 570 0.02
List 13 - Transcaucasian Muslims 71 0.00
Total: 2,455,274

[10][6]

Baku Governorate
Ballot of List 10 - Muslim National Committees and the Turkic Democratic Federalist Party "Musavat". In Russian language to the left, in Turkic on the right.

Musavat won most of the Azerbaijani vote in Baku Governorate, followed by Ittihad.[8]

Baku city

The vote in Baku city and its surrounding industrial areas differed greatly from the rest of the governorate, with a strong Bolshevik and Armenian vote.[10] At the oil fields and the garrison the voter participation stood at around 75%, whilst in the city proper around 52%.[10] There were clashes reported between Musavat and Ittihad and between the Muslim Socialist Bloc and Hummet, although no major disruptions on the polling day.[10]

The Bolsheviks obtained 22,276 votes (20.1%), followed by Musavat with 21,752 votes (19.6%), Dashnaks with 20,314 votes (18.3%), SRs with 18,789 votes (16.9%), Kadets with 9,062 votes (8.2%), Ittihad with 7,850 votes (7.1%), Mensheviks 5,667 votes (5.1%), Zionists 2,081 votes (1.9%), Armenian Populists 1,508 votes (1.4%), Muslim Socialist Bloc 903 votes (0.8%), Georgian Socialist-Federalists 456 votes (0.4%), Georgian National Democrats 145 votes (0.1%), Popular Socialists 116 votes (0.1%) and Western Transcaucasian Muslims 3 votes.[11] In the city proper (i.e. excluding the oil fields and the garrison) the Dashnaks obtained the highest vote, 12,517 votes, followed by the Musavat and Bolshevik lists.[10] The Kadet vote in the governorate was centered in Baku city.[10] In the Baku garrison the Bolsheviks got 7,699 voted (70.8%).[11] The Bolsheviks scored an even bigger victory amongst the prisoners at the Baku jail, with 186 out of 198 votes.[10]

Baku uezd

Ittihad won the elections in the rural areas of Baku uezd, in the villages of the Absheron Peninsula.[8] Out of 25,748 votes cast in the uezd, Ittihad obtained 19,812 (76.95%).[10]

Geokchai uezd

In the Geokchai uezd the Musavat list got 27,046 votes (55.42%), Ittihad 14,517 votes (29.75%) and other parties 7,236 votes (14.83%).[10]

Lenkoran uezd

In the Lenkoran uezd the Musavat list obtained 53,910 votes (83.99%), Ittihad 7,625 votes (11.88%), SRs 848 votes (1.32%), Bolsheviks 789 votes (1.23%) and others 1,011 votes (1.57%).[10]

Tiflis

In Tiflis the Mensheviks got 31,288 votes (36.8%), the Dashnaks 19,595 votes (19.3%), the Bolsheviks 19,172 votes (18.8%), the SRs 11,504 (11.3%), the Kadets 9,565 votes (9.4%), Georgian Federalists-Socialists 3,496 votes (3.4%), Georgian National Democrats 3,282 votes (3.3%), Armenian Populists 1,612 votes (1.6%), Zionists 794 votes (0.8%), Muslim Socialist Bloc 433 votes (0.4%), Hummet 407 votes (0.4%), Musavat 322 votes (0.3%), Popular Socialists 252 (0.2%), Trancaucasian Muslims 4 votes and Ittehad 2 votes.[11] The Bolsheviks quadrupled their vote compared to the July 1917 Tiflis city duma election.[12] In the Tiflis garrison the Bolsheviks got 13,138 votes (44.7%), the SRs 7,734 votes (26.3%), the Mensheviks 4,173 votes (14.2%), the Kadets 1,767 votes (6%), Dashnaks 1,377 votes (4.7%), Georgian Socialist-Federalists 489 votes (1.7%), Musavat 322 votes (1.1%), Georgian National Democrats 192 votes (0.7%), Zioists 55 votes (0.2%), Armenian Populists 52 votes (0.2%), Popular Socialists 47 (0.2%), Hummet 47 votes (0.2%), Western Transcaucasian Muslims 3 votes, Ittehad 2 votes and Muslim Socialist Bloc 1 vote.[11]

Batum

In Batum, the Mensheviks got 6,809 votes (34.6%), the SRs 5,801 votes (29.5%), the Bolsheviks 2,926 votes (14.9%), Dashnaks 1,471 votes (7.1%), Kadets 1,400 votes (7.1%), Georgian Socialist-Federalists 481 votes (2.5%), Georgian National Democrats 328 votes (1.7%), Zionists 300 votes (1.5%), Armenian Populists 105 votes (0.5%), Musavat 46 votes (0.2%), Muslim Socialist Bloc 7 votes and Hummet 1 vote. However, the SR and Bolshevik vote came largely from the city garrison, where the two parties obtained 4,825 votes (44.2% of the garrison vote) and 2,614 votes (24%) respectively.[11]

Deputies elected
Deputies Elected
Bekzadyan Menshevik
Chkheidze Menshevik
Chkhenkeli Menshevik
Djibladze Menshevik
Gegechkori Menshevik
Georgadze Menshevik
Lomtatidze Menshevik
Ramishvili, I. V. Menshevik
Ramishvili, N. V. Menshevik
Skobelev Menshevik
Smirnov Menshevik
Tsereteli Menshevik
Zhordania Menshevik
Zurabov Menshevik
Aghayev Musavat
Jafarov Musavat
Mamedbekov Musavat
Rasulzadeh Musavat
Sultanov Musavat
Topchubashov Musavat
Yusifbeyli Musavat
Akhundov Hummet
Gaidarov Muslim Socialist Bloc
Kantemirov Muslim Socialist Bloc
Safikurdski Muslim Socialist Bloc
Ganiev Ittihad
Atabekyan SR
Lunkevich SR
Ambartsumyan Dashnak
Gazazyan Dashnak
Hovhannisyan-Varandyan Dashnak
Ohanjanyan Dashnak
Shahatunyan Dashnak
Shahnazaryan-Araratyan Dashnak
Zavriev Dashnak
Ter-Ovanesyan (Kachaznuni) Dashnak
Tigranyan Dashnak
Zoryan-Rostom Dashnak
Shaumian Bolshevik

[13]

References
  1. И. С. Малчевский (1930). Всероссийское учредительное собрание. Гос изд-во. pp. 140–142.
  2. Б. Ф Додонов; Е. Д Гринько; О. В.. Лавинская (2004). Журналы заседаний Временного правительства: Сентябрь-октябрь 1917 года. РОССПЭН. pp. 206–208.
  3. Татьяна Евгеньевна Новицкая (1991). Учредительное собрание: Россия 1918 : стенограмма и другие документы. Недра. p. 13.
  4. С. М Исхаков (2004). Российские мусульмане и революция: (весна 1917 г.-лето 1918 г.). Изд-во "Социально-политическая мысль". p. 185. ISBN 978-5-902168-25-6.
  5. The Caucasus & Globalization. CA & CC Press. 2006. p. 91.
  6. Tadeusz Swietochowski (7 June 2004). Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of a National Identity in a Muslim Community. Cambridge University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-521-52245-8.
  7. Oliver Henry Radkey (1989). Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917. Cornell University Press. pp. 129–131. ISBN 978-0-8014-2360-4.
  8. Audrey L. Alstadt (1 September 2013). The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule. Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-9183-8.
  9. Oliver Henry Radkey (1989). Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917. Cornell University Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-8014-2360-4.
  10. Ronald Grigor Suny (12 March 2019). The Baku Commune, 1917-1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution. Princeton University Press. p. 177-178. ISBN 978-0-691-65703-5.
  11. Л. М Спирин (1987). Россия 1917 год: из истории борьбы политических партий. Мысль. pp. 273–328.
  12. Stephen F. Jones (2005). Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883-1917. Harvard University Press. p. 359. ISBN 978-0-674-01902-7.
  13. Лев Григорьевич Протасов (2008). Люди Учредительного собрания: портрет в интерьере эпохи. РОССПЭН. ISBN 978-5-8243-0972-0.
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