Chinese Eastern Railway electoral district (Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917)

The Chinese Eastern Railway electoral district (Russian: округ Китайской Восточной железной дороги) was a constituency created for the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election. The Chinese Eastern Railroad electoral district was located outside the borders of Russia.[1]

Bulletin issued by the Kadet Party branch in Harbin, campaigning for its candidate D. Horvath for the Chinese Eastern Railway seat

In March 1917, in response to the abdication of the Tsar, Lieutenant General Dmitri Horvath (the Chinese Eastern Railroad Zone administrator since 1902) proclaimed an 'All Russian Provisional Government' based in Harbin.[2][3][4] However, Horvath's regime was soon challenged by emergence of soviet power in the Chinese Eastern Railroad Zone (to the dismay of Western powers).[2] Nevertheless, Harbin was far detached from events in Petrograd and a more liberal atmosphere prevailed in Russian politics there; foreign diplomats took note that the monarchist Horvath and the Bolshevik leader Martemyan Ryutin could meet for lunch at the Railway Club in Harbin.[5]

Four candidates were nominated for the Chinese Eastern Railroad seat; Horvath ran as the Kadet candidate, representing the pre-revolutionary status quo. Nikolai Strelkov of the Railwaymens' Union contested as the Menshevik candidate, the Jewish businessman and Chair of the Chinese Eastern Railroad Executive Committee Faytel Volfovich was the SR candidate and the ensign and Harbin Soviet chairman Ryutin the Bolshevik candidate.[6][7][8][5]

The vote was held for the Chinese Eastern Railroad seat on November 29, 1917.[7] The voter turnout stood at around 60%.[6]

According to a contemporary account published in the organ of the Nikolsk-Ussuriysky Soviet (whose totals differ somewhat from the figures of Radkey), the vote in Harbin was won by Strelkov (4,874 votes, 31.74%), followed by Horvath (4,450 votes, 28.98%), Ryutin (4,412 votes, 28.73%) and Volfovich (1,620 votes, 10.55%).[9] In the 26 precincts of the western line, Ryutin was the most vote candidate (5,991 votes, 38.25%), followed by Strelkov (5,845 votes, 37.32%), Volfovich (2,519 votes, 16.08%) and Horvath (1,307 votes, 8.35%).[9] In the four precincts of the eastern line, Ryutin emerged as the winner with 1,461 votes (39.84%), followed by Strelkov (1,187 votes, 32.37%), Volfovich (831 votes, 22.66%) and Horvath (188 votes, 5.13%).[9]

Results
Chinese Eastern Railroad
Party Vote % Seats
List 2 - Mensheviks 13,139 37.37 1
List 3 - Bolsheviks 10,612 30.18
List 4 - Kadets 6,327 18.00
List 1 - Socialist-Revolutionaries 5,081 14.45
Total:' 35,159 1

[10]
Deputies Elected
Strelkov Menshevik

[11]

References
  1. Rex A. Wade (31 July 2004). Revolutionary Russia: New Approaches to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Routledge. pp. 256–257. ISBN 978-1-134-39764-8.
  2. G. Patrick March (1996). Eastern Destiny: Russia in Asia and the North Pacific. ABC-CLIO. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-275-95648-6.
  3. William Shurtleff; H.T. Huang; Akiko Aoyagi (22 June 2014). History of Soybeans and Soyfoods in China and Taiwan, and in Chinese Cookbooks, Restaurants, and Chinese Work with Soyfoods Outside China (1024 BCE to 2014): Extensively Annotated Bibliography and Sourcebook, Including Manchuria, Hong Kong and Tibet. Soyinfo Center. p. 1582. ISBN 978-1-928914-68-6.
  4. James William Morley (1957). The Japanese thrust into Siberia, 1918. Columbia University Press. p. 46.
  5. Wolff, David. Harbin ou le Dernier Avatar de la politique impériale russe in Revue des Études Slaves. 2001. 73-2-3 pp. 293-303
  6. Modern China and its revolutionary process. 1985. p. 590. ISBN 978-0-520-05030-3.
  7. R. K. I. Quested (1982). "Matey" Imperialists?: The Tsarist Russians in Manchuria, 1895-1917. Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong. pp. 296, 311–312.
  8. Геннадий Иванович Андреев; Мария Ермолаевна Плотникова; Владимир Семенович Познанский (1983). Революционное движение на КВЖД в 1917-1922 гг. Наука. p. 38.
  9. Результаты выборов в Учр. Соб, in Известия Совета Рабочих и Солдатских Депутатов г. Никольск-Уссуршскаго, November 24, 1917, p. 4
  10. Oliver Henry Radkey (1989). Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917. Cornell University Press. pp. 148–160. ISBN 978-0-8014-2360-4.
  11. Лев Григорьевич Протасов (2008). Люди Учредительного собрания: портрет в интерьере эпохи. РОССПЭН. ISBN 978-5-8243-0972-0.
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