Soviet republic


A soviet republic, also called a council republic, conciliar republic or sovietic republic, is a republic in which the government is formed of soviets and politics are based on soviet democracy. During the Revolutions of 1917–1923, various revolutionary workers' movements across Europe declared independence or otherwise formed governments as soviet republics.
Although the term is usually associated with the republics of the Soviet Union, it was not initially used to represent the political organisation of the Soviet Union, but merely a system of government under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This form of government was based on the principle of unified state power, in which all powers are vested in a supreme organ of state power, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. There were no separation of powers in the Soviet Union throughout its existence. All state organs were elected by, answerable to, and have no separate powers than those granted to them by the Supreme Soviet. By law, all elections at all levels adhered to the leadership of the CPSU prior to demokratizatsiya in the 1980s.

History

The earliest known examples of workers' councils on a smaller scale occurred during the Russian Revolution of 1905, including the Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland, which spread throughout the lands of the Russian Empire; early soviets were active particularly in Central Russia and Congress Poland, where workers took over factories, districts, and sometimes even entire towns or regions before the tsarist authorities reclaimed control.
Near the end of the First World War, soviet republics started appearing on a larger scale as short-lived communist revolutionary governments that were established in what had been the Russian Empire after the October Revolution and under its influence. These states included some such as the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic which won independence from Russia during the civil war period. Others such as the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia later became union republics of the Soviet Union and are now independent states. Still others such as the Kuban Soviet Republic and the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic were absorbed into other polities and no longer formally exist under those names.
In the turmoil following World War I, the Russian example inspired the formation of Soviet republics in other areas of Europe including Hungary, Bavaria, Slovakia and Bremen. Soviets also appeared within towns throughout Poland, known as rady delegatów robotniczych, mostly throughout 1918 and 1919. One year later a Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee was created under the patronage of Soviet Russia with the goal to establish a Soviet republic within Poland. Short-lived Irish Soviets also briefly emerged during the Irish War of Independence, most notably the Limerick Soviet. Soviet republics, most notably the Chinese Soviet Republic, later appeared in China during the early stages of the Chinese Civil War. Other than these cases, "soviet republic" typically refers to the administrative republics of the Soviet Union.

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