V. I. Lenin

Draft Decree On The Right Of Recall [1]

No elective institution or representative assembly can be
regarded as being truly democratic and really representative of
the people’s will unless the electors’ right to recall those elected is accepted and exercised. This fundamental
principle of true democracy applies to all representative
assemblies without exception, including the Constituent
Assembly.

Because the system of proportional representation is more
democratic than the majority system, it demands more complex
measures for the exercise of the right of recall, that is, the
actual subordination of the elected to the people. But it would
be betraying democracy and abdicating the basic principles and
tasks of the socialist revolution, which has begun in Russia, to
refuse, on that ground, to practise the right of recall, or to
hamper or restrict its exercise in any way. What proportional
representation demands is not a curtailment of the right of
recall but a mere change of form.

Since the system of proportional representation is based on
acceptance of the party system and the conduct of elections by
organised parties, any major change in the balance of class
forces and the relation of classes to parties, especially in the
event of splits within major parties, necessarily produces the
need for a re-election in any electoral district where there is
a clear and obvious discrepancy between the will of the various
classes and their strength, on the one hand, and the party
composition of those elected, on the other. True democracy makes
it imperative that the appointment of re-elections should not
depend only on the institution to be re-elected, that is, that
the desire on the part of those elected to retain their seats
should not work against the exercise of the people’s will
to recall its representatives.

In view of this, the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of
the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
Deputies, resolves:

The Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the
Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies of each electoral district
shall have the right to appoint re-elections to all city,
Zemstvo and all other representative institutions in general,
not excluding the Constituent Assembly. The Soviets shall also
have the right to set the date for the re-elections, which shall
be held in the usual manner, in strict conformity with the
principles of the system of proportional representation.

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Notes:
[1]

Placed before the All—Russia Central Executive Committee on
November 21 (December 4), 1917, by the Bolshevik group. The need
for such a decree was substantiated by Lenin (see pp. 338-40). The right of recall was in principle upheld by a
majority of the Committee; two members voted against, arid one
abstained. The draft was referred to a Co-ordinating Committee
with the participation of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. It
introduced amendments to Lenin's draft, in which the right to
appoint elections was vested in congresses of Soviets of
Workers', Soldiers' amid Peasants Deputies (instead of the
Soviets themselves), while the Soviets were empowered to appoint
elections upon the demand of more than half the electorate in a
given electoral district. The draft worked out by the
Co-ordinating Committee was unanimously adopted by the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee and published in Invests
No. 233 on November 23 (December 6).

Under it, several peasants' and army congresses passed decisions
recalling deputies from the Constituent Assembly. They were
Cadets, Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks. including Avksemrtyev, Gots, Milyukov, and others.