Soldiers and Officers of the Ryazan Garrison in the Elections to the Ryazan City Duma in 1917

The article analyzes the role of soldiers and officers of spare parts of the Ryazan garrison in the elections of the City Duma councilors. A feature of rear military formations is the constant rotation of the marching troops: some go to the front, others take their place. The study focuses on the admission of the military to participate in voting. The main sources for writing the article were archival documents stored in the State Archive of Ryazan Oblast, many of them are first introduced into scientific discourse. In Ryazan, like in Petrograd, a duality of power was formed after February 1917: a Social Revolutionary headed the Provincial Executive Committee, a Cadet headed the Town Council. Each of these political forces wanted to establish control over the City Duma. The soldiers of the Ryazan garrison very quickly organized themselves, created the "military section", then transformed it into the Council of Soldiers' Deputies, and took a worthy place in the new government. In the elections to the City Duma, their organizers were faced with a serious problem. The lists of the voting soldiers of the Ryazan garrison, compiled for their participation in the elections, changed cardinally on the eve of the voting day. The shift in the marching troops of the solders changed 75% of the voters. The article analyzes the actions of election organizers to resolve the brewing conflict with the soldiers who demanded admissions to participate in the elections. As a compromise, voting for the soldiers was organized in two barracks, but the counting of votes was supposed to be done after receiving a reply to the relevant request addressed to the Provisional Government. However, the position of the latter turned out to be more than strange. Two mutually exclusive telegrams came. One categorically forbade the voting of the soldiers. The second allowed it. The intrigue of the elections was that, given the votes in the barracks, from the 50 seats in the City Duma, the bloc of the Socialist parties received 29 seats, and their main competitors-the Cadets-only 24 seats. Without these votes, the situation changed dramatically: the Cadets received 29 seats and the Socialist bloc had 23 seats. The City Election Commission had to count votes in the district twice: given the soldiers' votes and, after the decision of the Ryazan Regional Court, without taking them into account. The author comes to the conclusion that the soldiers and officers of the Ryazan garrison played an important role in the public and political life of the city. Their participation in the elections of the City Duma councilors directly determined the party structure and the political image of the representative local government.

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