Outside Petrograd dual power was less in evidence. In most places a broad alliance of social groups formed committees of public organisations that ejected police and tsarist officials, maintained order and food supply and later oversaw the democratisation of the municipal dumas and rural zemstvos. In March, 79 such committees were set up at provincial level, 651 at county (uezd) level and over 9,000 at township (volost') level.[67] The committee in faraway Irkutsk was typical in defining its task as 'carrying the revolution to its conclusion and strengthening the foundations of freedom and popular power'.[68]Unlike the soviets, whose rising popularity would soon undermine them, the committees were not defined by political partisanship. In the township-level committees in Saratov province, for example, no fewer than three-quarters of members were non-party.[69] In seeking to establish its authority in the localities, the Provisional Government chose to bypass these committees and to appoint provincial and county commissars, many of whom were chairs of county zemstvos who hailed from landed or middle-class backgrounds and who did not command popular favour. Grass-roots pressure to democratise zemstvos and municipal dumas soon built up: by mid-October, dumas had been re-elected in 650 out of 798 towns.[70] The democratisation of the zemstvos and the rise of the soviets spelt the end of the public committees. The Provisional Government never established effective authority in the localities and, as the social and political crisis deepened in summer 1917, power became ever more fragmented. In a crucial sphere such as food supply, for example, the government supply organs, working in tandem with the co-operatives, competed with the respective food-supply commissions of the soviet, the local garrison, trade unions and factory committees.
In the countryside the revolution swept away land captains, township elders and village constables and replaced them with township committees elected by the peasants.[71] By July these were ubiquitous - there being over 15,000 townships across the country - and later some adopted the appellation 'soviet'. The government attempted to strengthen its authority by setting up land and food committees at township level, but these were soon taken over by the peasants. Meanwhile the authority of the village gathering was strengthened, as younger sons, landless labourers, village intelligentsia (scribes, teachers, vets and doctors) and even some women began to participate in its deliberations. The revolution thus substantially reduced the degree of interference in village life by external authority and after October the peasants came to associate this unprecedented degree of self-government with soviet power.
In the course of spring 1917, some 700 soviets were formed, involving around 200,000 deputies.14 By October, 1,429 soviets functioned in Russia, 706 ofwhich consisted ofworkers' and soldiers' deputies, 235 ofworkers', soldiers' andpeas- ants' deputies, 455 of peasants' deputies, and 33 of soldiers' deputies.15 They represented about one-third of the population. Soviets saw themselves as representing the 'revolutionary democracy', a bloc of social groups comprising workers, soldiers and peasants, and often stretching to include white-collar employees and professionals, such as teachers, journalists, lawyers or doctors, and in some cases representatives of ethnic minorities. The Omsk soviet described itself as the 'sole representative of the local proletariat and of the general labouring masses of the local population and army'.16 The basic principles of soviet democracy were that deputies were elected directly by and were subject to immediate recall by those they represented. The Mensheviks and SRs, who were the leading force in the soviets until autumn, saw their function as being to exercise 'control' over local government in the interests of revolutionary democracy. Soviets generally did not see themselves as rivals to elected organs of local government and championed the democratisation of dumas and the speedy election of a Constituent Assembly. In practice, they soon took on tasks of practical administration, concerning themselves with everything from fuel supply, to education, to policing.17 In a small number of cases, soviets declared themselves the sole authority in a particular locality: in Kronstadt the soviet, which consisted of 96 Bolsheviks, 96 non-party deputies,
(ed.), Society and Politics in the Russian Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 12-34; Christopher Read, From Tsar to Soviets (London: UCL Press, 1996), ch. 5.
14 Gerasimenko, 'Transformatsiia', p. 64.
15 N. N. Smirnov, 'The Soviets', in Edward Acton et al. (eds.), Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921 (London: Arnold, 1997), p. 432.
16 Gosarkhiv Omskoi oblasti, f. R-662, op.i, d.8, l.i.
17 Israel Getzler, 'The Soviets as Agents of Democratisation', in Frankel et al., Revolution in Russia, pp. 17-33.
73 Left SRs, I3 Mensheviks and 7 anarchists, caused a furore when it refused to recognise the government in May.[72]
The aspirations of the masses
Liberty and democracy were the watchwords of the February Revolution. New symbols of liberty, of republic and of justice, drawn mainly from the French Revolution and the European socialist and labour movements, made their appearance. 'Free Russia' was personified as a beautiful woman in national costume or as a heroine breaking the chains oftsarism, wearing a laurel wreath, or bearing a shield.[73] These symbols were embraced by all who identified the February Revolution with liberation from autocracy.[74] Red, once a colour to cause the propertied classes to tremble, became an emblem of the revolu- tion.[75] All agreed that, in order to realise freedom, they must organise collectively. 'Organise!' screamed placards and orators on the streets, and as people organised, interest in politics grew exponentially. John Reed, the American journalist who later came to witness the revolution, observed: 'For months in Petrograd, and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In railway-trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu debate, everywhere.'[76]
Yet from the first, the scope of the democratic revolution was in dispute. For the privileged classes, the overthrow of autocracy had been an act of self- preservation necessitated by the need to bring victory in war and engender a renaissance of the Russian people. For the lower classes, liberty and democracy signalled nothing short of a social revolution that would entail the comprehensive destruction of the old order and the construction of a new way of life in accordance with justice and freedom. Even peasants proclaimed themselves free citizens and showed a rudimentary familiarity with notions of a constitution, a democratic republic, civil and political rights. Yet for them, as for the lower classes in general, democracy was principally about solving their pressing socio-economic problems and only secondarily about questions of law and political representation.[77]
67
G. A. Gerasimenko, 'Transformatsiia vlasti v Rossii v 1917 g.',
68
G. A. Gerasimenko,
70
Kh.M.Astrakhan,
71
The discussion of the peasants here and below is based on: J. L. H. Keep,
72
Israel Getzler,
73
P. K. Kornakov, 'Simvolika i ritualy revoliutsii 1917 g.', in
75
B. I. Kolonitskii,
77
Mark D. Steinberg,