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1917 Kiev City Duma election

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Fragment of electoral poster of the Russian-Jewish Socialist Bloc (List 1)
Electoral propaganda bulletin of the Bloc of Russian Voters (List 3). Vasily Shulgin appears as the top candidate of List 3
Advert for the Czech list
Electoral propaganda of the Ukrainian Socialist Bloc (List 12)

An election to the Kiev City Duma [uk] was held on 5 August [O.S. 23 July] 1917.[1] The election took place in the aftermath of the February Revolution (with Russia was governed by the Provisional Government), the formation of the Ukrainian Central Rada and the First World War. The election resulted in a victory for the socialist bloc.

Candidate lists

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Eighteen lists of candidates contested the election.[2] A joint socialist list was formed by the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (United Mensheviks), General Jewish Labour Bund and the Polish Socialist Party – Left (PPS-Lewica).[3]

Ahead of the election the Ukrainian socialist parties had decided to launch a list of their own, in protest of what they saw as the 'anti-Ukrainian campaign' in the Russian socialist press.[4] On the other extreme stood the Bloc of Russian Voters, one of the Russian nationalist groups that had emerged in response to the formation of the Central Rada in March 1917.[5][6] Their main electoral slogan was 'Down with Ukraine and Ukrainization'.[6]

The United Jewish Socialist Workers Party (Fareynikte) and the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party (Poalei Zion) had a joint list.[7][8] On the non-socialist side of Jewish politics there was the list of the Jewish Democratic Bloc - a coalition of Zionists, the Orthodox Agudath Yisrael and the non-affiliated Council of United Jewish Organizations.[7][8]

The Polish Executive Committee, dominated by the National Democrats and claiming to be the representative of all Poles, fielded a 'Polish Voters' List'.[9] The Polish Socialist Party – Revolutionary Faction ran a list of their own.[9]

Election result

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There were 307,920 eligible voters, out of whom 178,704 (58%) cast their votes.[10] There were 3,170 invalid votes.[10] Below are two accounts of the election result; an article in the Russian conservative nationalist newspaper Kievlyanin, published 9 August [O.S. 27 July] 1917, and the work 1917 god na Kiyevshchine: khronika sobytiy ('1917 in the Kiev region: a chronicle of events'), published in 1928 by the Institute of Party History of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine. The two sources give identical distribution of seats of elected deputies.

List Results per
Kievlyanin (1917) 		Results per
1917 god na Kiyevshchine (1928) 		Seats
Votes % of votes Votes % of votes Seats
List 1 - Bloc of Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Bund and PPS-Left 64,207 36.58% 63,586 37% 44
List 12 - Bloc of Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party and Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionaries 35,603 20.28% 35,238 20% 24
List 3 - Bloc of Russian Voters 25,418 14.48% 23,032 15% 18
List 4 - People's Freedom Party ('Kadets') 15,170 8.64% 15,078 9% 10
List 10 - Bolsheviks 9,365 5.34% 9,520 6% 7
List 5 - Polish Voters' List 8,471 4.83% 8,893 5% 6
List 8 - Jewish Democratic Bloc 7,076 4.03% 6,741 4% 5
List 2 - Jewish Socialist Bloc (United Jewish Socialist Workers Party, Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party (Poalei Zion)) 4,584 2.61% 4,223 2% 3
List 14 - Kiev Section of Polish Socialists 1,709 0.97% 1,622 - 1
List 15 - Ukrainian Socialists-Federalists and non-party socialists 1,168 0.67% 1,060 - 1
List 17 - Union of Land Leaseholders 606 0.35% 552 - 1
List 7 - Labour People's Socialist Party 424 0.24% - - 0
List 18 - Women Reservists 419 0.24% - - 0
List 16 - Kiev Union of Military Invalids 403 0.23% - - 0
List 9 - Czech People's Party 346 0.20% - - 0
List 11 - Group of Clerks and Deputies of Kiev City Local Government 326 0.19% - - 0
List 6 - List for Starokievsky District, Batyeva Gora and Novovokzalna Street [uk] 172 0.10% - - 0
List 13 - Progressive Democratic Group of inhabitants of Pechersk, Zvirynets and Staronavodnytska Street [uk] 67 0.04% - - 0

[10][2][6][7][8][11][12]

The monarchist list 3 was mainly vote was in the central parts of the city.[12] The socialists obtained better voting numbers in the outskirts and suburbs of the city.[12] The Bolshevik vote was primarily based among workers of Arsenal Factory and Podol and soldiers at the 3rd Air Field.[12] The Bolsheviks got 2,259 votes in Pechersk and 1,536 votes in Lybidsk.[12] In the Shuliavka District the Ukrainian socialist list got 1,104 votes, whilst the Bolsheviks got 10 votes, the monarchists 1 vote and the Russian-Jewish socialist list 1 vote.[3]

Ukrainian parties won a fifth of the seats in the City Duma.[6] 10 out of the 24 deputies for the Ukrainian socialist list were Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionaries.[3] The General Jewish Labour Bund got 7 of the 44 seats won by of the Menshevik-SR-Bund list, Moisei Rafes being one of the Bundist deputies.[7][13][8] Mikhail Balabanov [ru] was one of the Menshevik deputies.[14] Georgy Pyatakov was one of the Bolshevik deputies.[15] Ipolit Fialek [uk], leader of the Polish section of the Kiev City Bolshevik Committee, was one of the elected deputies.[16][17] Kazimierz Domosławski [pl] was the deputy of the Polish Socialist Party in the city duma.[18][19]

New city government

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After the election, Vikenty Dreling (a respected journalist and Menshevik) was elected chairman of the City Duma.[4][20] A secret ballot was held in the City Duma to elect the new mayor - the Socialist-Revolutionary from Moscow Yevgeny Ryabtsov [ru] was an elected with a majority of votes (48 votes) whilst Mykola Porsh of the Ukrainian Bloc obtained 24 votes.[6][20][21] The Menshevik Abram Ginzburg ('Naumov') became the deputy mayor.[7][20][21] Out of the ten members of the city executive, there were only three Ukrainians (Stepan Siropolko [uk], Dmytro Koliukh [uk], Levko Kovalev [uk]).[6] The city government, representing the moderate socialist trend, would face pressure from both Bolshevism and Ukrainian nationalism in the ensuing period.[4]

Gordon M. Hahn (2018) argues that the weak showing of Ukrainian parties in urban elections in the summer of 1917 may have contributed to the Russian Provisional Government's August 1917 decision to reject the draft Ukrainian constitution presented by the Central Rada.[22] By the time of the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election, the Ukrainian Bloc vote in Kiev city increased to 26%.[23]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Olena Palko (26 November 2020). Making Ukraine Soviet: Literature and Cultural Politics under Lenin and Stalin. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-350-14270-1. OCLC 1164825849.
  2. ^ a b А Иргизов (1928). 1917 год на Киевщине: хроника событий. Гос. изд-во Украины. p. 178. OCLC 236224878.
  3. ^ a b c вибори до думе в киіві. Borotba [uk], issue 6-7, 1917. pp. 17-18
  4. ^ a b c Irene Rima Makaryk; Virlana Tkacz, eds. (1 January 2010). Modernism in Kyiv: Kiev/Kyïv/Kiev/Kijów/?ie? : Jubilant Experimentation. University of Toronto Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-1-4426-4098-6. OCLC 1007024021.
  5. ^ Silvio Pons; Andrea Romano, eds. (2000). Russia in the Age of Wars, 1914-1945. Feltrinelli Editore. p. 26. ISBN 9788807990557. OCLC 1059547864.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Дмитро Дорошенко (1954). Історія України, 1917-1923. Булава. p. 117. OCLC 15983699.
  7. ^ a b c d e Oleg Budnitskii (24 July 2012). Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 56–. ISBN 978-0-8122-0814-6. OCLC 1037924041.
  8. ^ a b c d I︠A︡. G. Frumkin; Jacob G. Frumkin; Gregor Aronson; Alekseĭ Aleksandrovich Golʹdenveĭzer, eds. (1966). Russian Jewry: 1917-1967. T. Yoseloff. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-498-06956-7. OCLC 271115.
  9. ^ a b Dr HENRYK JABŁOŃSKI. MINISTERIUM SPRAW POLSKICH UKRAIŃSKIEJ REPUBLIKI LUDOWEJ 1917-1918
  10. ^ a b c Результаты выборов в Киевскую городскую думу. Kievlyanin, July 27, 1917. p. 2
  11. ^ Steven L. Guthier (1990). The Roots of Popular Ukrainian Nationalism: A Demographic, Social and Political Study of the Ukrainian Nationality to 1917. University of Michigan. p. 263. OCLC 165453258.
  12. ^ a b c d e Купчик Я. Вибори гласних до Київської міської думи 23 липня 1917 р.: підготовка, проведення, результати. Вісник Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка. - 2016. - Vol. 1. - pp 38-42.
  13. ^ Hoover Institution Publication, Issue 3. Hoover Institution, Stanford University. 1934. p. 439. OCLC 7263088.
  14. ^ Vladimir Ilʹich Lenin (1970). Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, Volume 39. Gos. izd-vo polit. lit-ry. p. 546. OCLC 254439587.
  15. ^ Jyoti Basu, ed. (1997). Documents of the Communist Movement in India: 1944-1948. National Book Agency. p. 1088. ISBN 9788176260053. OCLC 1129461258.
  16. ^ Александр Яковлевич Манусевич (1965). Польские интернационалисты в борьбе за победу Советской власти в России: февраль-октябрь 1917 г. Наука. p. 321. OCLC 1170320723.
  17. ^ Бош Е. Б. (10 March 2015). Год борьбы: борьба за власть на Украине с апреля 1917 г. до немецкой оккупации. Directmedia. ISBN 9785445832997.
  18. ^ Potapenko, Maksym. (2019). Kazimierz Domosławski's Testimonies on the Activities of the Polish Military Organization in Kyiv in 1915–1918. Intermarum: history, policy, culture. 10.35433/history.11195.
  19. ^ Kievlyanin. July 25, 1917. p. 3
  20. ^ a b c S. L. Volin (1990). Меньшевики на Украине, 1917-1921. Chalidze Publications. p. 16. OCLC 24261131.
  21. ^ a b Стефан Машкевич (5 April 2020). Киев 1917-1920. Прощание с империей. Glagoslav Publications. ISBN 9789660387508. OCLC 1134610930.
  22. ^ Gordon M. Hahn (25 January 2018). Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West and the "New Cold War". McFarland. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-4766-6901-4. OCLC 1001520260.
  23. ^ Andrew Wilson (1997). Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-521-57457-0. OCLC 1170230130.
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