Editing Russian Civil War (section)

=== Constituent Assembly opposition ===
====Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions====
The [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] had been a demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-Bolshevik Right SRs [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|won the elections]] with the majority of the seats,{{Sfn|Carr|1985|pages=111–112}} after which Lenin's ''Theses on the Constituent Assembly'' argued in ''[[Pravda]]'' that formal democracy was impossible because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine and the Kadet-Kaledin uprising. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means".{{Sfn|Carr|1985|pages=113–115}}

On 30 December 1917, the SR [[Nikolai Avksentiev]] and some followers were arrested for organizing a conspiracy. This was the first time Bolsheviks used this kind of repression against a socialist party. ''[[Izvestia]]'' said the arrest was not related to his membership in the Constituent Assembly.{{Sfn|Carr|1985|page=115}}

[[File:Viktor Chernov (1873-1952), Russian revolutionary (small).jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Viktor Chernov]]]]

On 4 January 1918, the [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee]] made a resolution saying the slogan "all power to the constituent assembly" was counterrevolutionary and equivalent to "down with the soviets".{{Sfn|Carr|1985|pages=115–116}}

[[File:Maria Spiridonova.jpg|thumb|right|[[Maria Spiridonova]]]]
The Constituent Assembly met on 18 January 1918. The Right SR [[Viktor Chernov]] was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR [[Maria Spiridonova]] (she would later break with the Bolsheviks and after the decades of [[gulag]], she was shot on Stalin's orders in 1941). The Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a [[one-party state]] with all opposition parties outlawed in 1921.<ref>[https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/kontseptsiya-sotsialisticheskoy-demokratii-opyt-realizatsii-v-sssr-i-sovremennye-perspektivy-v-sng Концепция социалистической демократии: опыт реализации в СССР и современные перспективы в СНГ]</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ulam |first=Adam Bruno |title=The Bolsheviks: the intellectual and political history of the triumph of communism in Russia |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=397}}</ref> A simultaneous demonstration in favor of the Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterwards.{{Sfn|Carr|1985|pages=120–121}}

The first large [[Cheka]] repression involving the killing of [[libertarian socialist]]s in Petrograd began in April 1918. On 1 May 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the Bolshevik police.<ref name="Berkman">{{Cite journal |last=Berkman |first=Alexander |author-link=Alexander Berkman |last2=Goldman |first2=Emma |author-link2=Emma Goldman |date=January 1922 |title=Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists |journal=Freedom |volume=36 |issue=391 |page=4 |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref>

====Constituent Assembly uprising====
The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground organization of "democratic resistance" to the Bolsheviks, composed of the [[Popular Socialists (Russia)|Popular Socialists]] and "personal representatives" of Right Socialist Revolutionaries, [[Constitutional Democratic Party|Kadets]] and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on "state consciousness, patriotism and civil liberties" with the goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yoke.<ref name="WS">{{Cite book |last=Pereira |first=Norman G. O. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73lLeNeICXUC |title=White Siberia: the politics of civil war |date=1996 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-1349-5 |page=65}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lazarski |first=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2gd7F6t2lCcC |title=The lost opportunity: attempts at unification of the anti-Bolsheviks, 1917–1919 – Moscow, Kiev, Jassy, Odessa |date=2008 |publisher=University Press of America |isbn=978-0-7618-4120-3 |location=Lanham |pages=42–43}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Brovkin |first=Vladimir N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mt9qzSvBrI4C |title=Dear comrades: Menshevik reports on the Bolshevik revolution and the civil war |date=1991 |publisher=Hoover Press |isbn=978-0-8179-8981-1 |page=135}}</ref>

On 7 May 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] commenced in [[Moscow]] and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly.<ref name="WS" /> While preparations were under way, the [[Czechoslovak Legion]]s overthrew Bolshevik rule in [[Siberia]], the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]] and the [[Volga River|Volga]] region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On 8 June 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]] (''Komuch'') in [[Samara]] and declared it the new supreme authority in the country.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}<!--See Jonathan D. Smele. Op. cit., p.32 ("Op. cit." means to refer to a work cited earlier in the citations. this means you copied it from a citation list, and are citing something that you have not read. instead you should cite what you read and say it refers to this, or if you can get the original work and look at it then you can cite it directly.)--> The Social Revolutionary [[Provisional Siberian Government (Vladivostok)|Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia]] came to power on 29 June 1918, after the uprising in [[Vladivostok]].