Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly

an anti-Soviet organization created in late November 1917 in Russia. The union, headed by the right-wing Socialist Revolutionary V. N. Filippovskii, included right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries, Popular Socialists, Defensist Mensheviks, and some Constitutional Democrats. The union planned to take advantage of the opening of the Constituent Assembly to overthrow Soviet rule. Operating in Petrograd, Moscow, Novgorod, Odessa, Samara, and other cities, it published the newspaper Izvestiia Soiuza zashchity Uchreditel’nogo sobraniia from December 1917 to January 1918 and circulated leaflets advocating struggle against the Bolsheviks.

On the day the Constituent Assembly opened, Jan. 5, 1918, the union organized a demonstration, during which armed clashes broke out between the demonstrators and the Red Guard. However, workers and soldiers did not support the insurgents, and the union’s attempt to turn the demonstration into a revolt was not successful. After the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on Jan. 6(19), 1918, the union was disbanded.