[The following is in regards to the practice of the fledgling Communist Party in Russia to hold local elections in rural areas, which was so openly rigged as to be absolutely comical.]
In many localities, Communist Party cells insisted on approving every candidate who stood for the election. If, these precautions notwithstanding, “kulaks” or other undesirables still managed to win executive positions, as seems frequently to have happened, the Communists resorted to their favorite technique of declaring the election invalid and ordering it repeated. This could be done as often as necessary until the desired results were obtained.
One Soviet historian says that it was not uncommon for three or four or more “elections” to be held in succession. And still, the peasants kept on electing “kulaks” – that is, non-Bolsheviks and anti-Bolsheviks. Thus, in Samara province in 1919 no fewer than 40 percent of the members of the new volost’ soviets turned out to be “kulaks.”
To put an end to such insubordination, the party issued on December 27, 1919, a directive instructing party organizations in the Petrograd region to submit to the rural soviets a single list of “approved” candidates.
Source:
Pipes, Richard. "War on the Village." The Russian Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1990. 741-42. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Gimpel’son, Sovety, 54.
Antonov-Saratovskii, Sovety, I, 129.
Further Reading:
Коммунистическая партия Советского Союза, КПСС (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) / CPSU
большевики (Bolsheviks) / Bolshevists
Сама́рская о́бласть (Samara Oblast)
Петрогра́д (Petrograd) / Ленингра́д (Leningrad) / Санкт-Петербу́рг (Saint Petersburg)
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