Mechanisms for Promoting Political Decisions as Expressions of the “Will of Society”: The Experience of Latvia in 1917

Abstract

The given paper considers the issue of specific mechanisms or political technologies that were used for promoting political solutions, based on the experience of Latvia in 1917. The democratic reforms that began in March 1917 led to the creation of new institutions of local government, and in the first weeks of work the relationship between the newly formed representative institutions of workers and non-proletarian circles characterized readiness for a pragmatic compromise and mutual concessions. But already in the middle of March, when the role of the exponent of the workers’ aspirations was increasingly appropriated by Social-Democrats Bolsheviks, who only recently returned from exile and emigration, in these relations there has been a shift from a policy of compromise to a course toward confrontation. The turning point in this change of course was the slogan proclaimed in early April by the leader of the Russian Social-Democrats Bolsheviks V. Lenin: „No support to the Provisional Government”. In this situation, in order to present such a sharp turn in their own position as an expression of the moods of the broad masses of society, the main method of the revolutionary struggle of the Latvian Social-Democrats become pre-prepared and skillfully directed congresses and meetings, on which the resolutions, submitted by Social-Democrats and expressing distrust for the Provisional Government, were adopted. The fact, that in the course of the various congresses and meetings held in 1917 these mechanisms for promoting political decisions were similar, indicates that this was not a coincidence or a particular case, but the thoughtful and unified party tactics of the Latvian Social-Democrats Bolsheviks.