Soviets of 1905

(also soviets of workers’ deputies, soviets of delegates), elective political organizations of the working class in Russia that were formed during the Revolution of 1905–07, originally to supervise strikes. Where the soviets were headed by Bolsheviks, as in Moscow, they became organs for the leadership of armed uprising. The soviets of 1905, as embryonic organs of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, were the prototype of Soviet power (see SOVIETS OF WORKING PEOPLE’s DEPUTIES).