Legislative Commission – Failed (Pre)Parliament of the South of Russia (1920)

The article is devoted to the history of the creation of the Legislative Commission (LC), which was supposed to become the (pre)parliament of the South of Russia. At the beginning of 1920, the Commander-in-Chief of the White Army A.I. Denikin was forced to make concessions to the Supreme Krug of the Don, Kuban and Terek, a significant part of which were separatists. It was decided to create a Legislative Chamber, before which the ministers of the newly formed South Russian government will be responsible. The Krug also wanted to get legislative power into its own hands before the convening of the Legislative Chamber, but for Denikin such a proposal was unacceptable. The result of the negotiations was the decision to form the LC – the (pre)parliament, which will draft a law on elections to the Chamber and will have temporary legislative powers. The conciliation commission prepared the “Regulations on elections” in the LC, which were supposed to be indirect and carried out according to a simplified system. Elections were to be held in the Cossack and Mountainous regions, as well as in the Stavropol, Taurida and Black Sea governatores. A group of separatist-minded Cossacks made amendments to the “Regulations”, which supposedly contributed to the democratization of the elections, but actually disrupting previous agreements. The elections did not take place in most regions due to the fact that Denikin and Krug could not agree on the text of the electoral law. The only region that elected its representatives was the Taurida governatore. By the end of March 1920, 13 members of the LC were elected, but due to Denikin’s break with the Supreme Krug, the project of the South Russian representative body itself ceased to be relevant.