October revolution of 1917 and reform of city self-government (by the materials of departmental journals)

Abstract

Background. Constant changes in the system of urban self-government necessi-tate the study of reforms of urban self-government bodies after the October Revolution of 1917. Unprecedented changes in the urban management system of the revolutionary era, taking place through the prism of sharp inter-party discussions, make it possible to under-stand the specifics of organizing local government at one of the turning points in the history of domestic statehood. The purpose of the work is to analyze the interaction of the organs of Soviet power – the councils of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies and city councils at the stage of the formation of Soviet power in Russia. Materials and methods. The implementa-tion of research tasks was achieved on the basis of the use of articles of magazines: local self-government “City Business”, the official press organ of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republicа “Bulletin of the NKVD” and the journal of the municipal commission of the Central Committee of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries “Self-Government”. Methodological potential includes: a relatively historical method, the application of which allows us to compare the reaction of various political forces to the reform of local self-government after the October Revolution of 1917; statistical method, the significance of which is obvious for the analysis of changes in the composition of city governments. Results. The positions of the Bolsheviks and so-cialists of the revolutionaries on the problem of reforming local governments were investi-gated. The stages and features of the relationship between the bodies of Soviet power and urban thoughts, as bodies of local self-government, are considered. Conclusions. The study of the process of relations between the bodies of Soviet power and urban thoughts in the pe-riod October 1917 – July 1918 makes it possible to understand the facts of the impossibility of coexistence of these structures on the ground and the integration of urban thoughts into the systems of local bodies of Soviet power, the presence of a strategic goal of eliminating the Soviets of local self-government bodies of pre-revolutionary Russia. The author con-cluded that the potential of urban thoughts and administrations was not disclosed. All forms of compromise of councils and pre-revolutionary bodies of city self-government testified both to the initial weakness of local councils and to the presence of valuable experience in city councils and administrations in solving problems of urban economy, and not to the de-sire to liquidate only those local governments that opposed Soviet power.

Keywords

• city self-government
• soviet power
• city duma
• city government
• socialists-revolutionaries
• people’s commissariat of internal affairs
• october revolution of 1917
• councils of workers and soldiers’ deputies
• people’s commissariat of local self-government
• bolsheviks