"Thank God, it's not a session of the All-Russian central executive committee": from the history of the Russian "parliament" during the epoch of Lenin's dictatorship

This article, based on previously unknown archival documents, looks at the place of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) of Soviets, the first Soviet Parliament, in the hierarchy of the Soviet governmental system, 1918-1920. Main attention is paid to the change in the status and role of the VTsIK after the death of Ya.M. Sverdlov. It concludes that in the course of the inner-party struggle, V.I. Lenin, for the sake of strengthening his personal ditatorship, subordinated the VTsIK to the Council of People's Commissars (the Bolshevik government) and the Central Committee of the RKP(b) (Bolshevik party). As a result the VTsIK actually lost its position as the supreme representative body of the «first workers' and peasants' state».