SOVIET SYSTEM. The Soviet system was not the fruit of speculation upon the theory of representation and government. It had its origin in the daily needs of a revolutionary struggle. It was evolved to fit the political tactics of a subtle realist. It survived because it was well adapted to the requirements of the working class dictatorship which Lenin established in Russia. Its idea has, none the less, something in common with the theoretical views held before the World War by Sorel in France, and by the Guild Socialists in England. The same tendency reappears in the Con stitution of Fascist Italy. All of these systems depart from West ern Democracy by grouping citizens on a functional rather than a territorial basis. Not passive residence in a given area, but the active performance of socially useful work constitutes the qualifi cation of an elector.
The word soviet means council. In their original form, the Rus sian soviets were simply committees of strikers. During the gen eral strike of 1905 an organization suited to the momentary need had to be rapidly improvised. Each factory or workshop in Mos cow and Petrograd constituted a natural unit. Its workers knew each other, possessed common interests and a mass consciousness, and could easily pick leaders and representatives. Each factory chose delegates in a rough ratio to the number of its employees, and these met in a soviet which sat in permanence, and directed the strike. The revolution of 1917 repeated the same tactics, and revived the old mechanism. The Soviets, however, survived the strike, and assumed the task of controlling the weak Provisional Governments, which followed each other from March to Novem ber. They spread to the army, where each battalion chose its soviet of soldiers. They were imitated in the villages. As they spread over Russia, it was natural to link them up in congresses, which could speak for the masses of the population, workers, sol diers and peasants. It was not for any theoretical reason that Lenin preferred them to the democratic Constituent Assembly, as the organ of government after his coup d'etat. He had a
majority in the soviets, whereas his chief rivals, the Social Revolutionaries, dominated the Assembly. History had thrown up a tool admirably suited to the purposes of a working-class dictator ship. A soviet represented only the workers and peasants : the old ruling class could not influence it, or enter it. It could be elected, recalled or re-elected, with ease and without formalities, so that in a time of rapid change, it reflected the mood of the moment. What was, at the start, a method of organizing a class for a sharp political struggle, became after the coup d'etat a machine for governing Russia.
The limitations of the soviet franchise follow inevitably from the root idea of the revolution. The purpose of the soviets is not to elicit the general will of the whole population. That for a Communist is an absurdity. One might as well talk, as Bukharin has put it, of a general will common to sheep and wolves. The purpose of the soviets is to express the will of the workers in their struggle with the bourgeoisie. They are councils of war, and naturally one does not permit the enemy to elect them.
Every adult of either sex is a voter, from 18 years of age, with the exception of those disqualified as bourgeois. These latter include all employers of labour (other than domestic servants and apprentices), all who live by "speculation" (meaning private trade), or by rent or interest, certain classes identified with the old regime (notably priests and members of the Tsarist police), together with criminals and the insane. Brain workers (doctors, teachers, etc.) are grouped by their professions, and vote on the same terms as manual workers. Housewives are recognized as a working group, and vote in the towns in regional units. The exclusions, important in the early days of the revolution, are no longer of much consequence. About 5% of the adult population is disfranchised in the towns, and less than 1% in the villages.