District Committees

Categories / Social Life/Political Parties and Organizations
Categories / City Administration/Government Bodies
DISTRICT COMMITTEES of Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party - Communist Party of the Soviet Union, leading organs of district organizations of the Communist Party, were created in workers' blocks of St. Petersburg in the beginning of the 20th century. Before 1917 they had been illegal. In 1902, the city organization of Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party was divided into 6 party districts (Vasileostrovsky, Vyborgsky, Narvsky, Nevsky, Obukhovsky, Peterburgsky), which, in their turn, were divided into sub-districts. From the autumn of 1905 on, district committees were elected by district conferences (meetings), headed by specially appointed party bureaucrats. By March 1907, there were 12 district committees in St. Petersburg, including 2 national committees (Latvian and Estonian), 2 industrial committees (for railroad workers and clerks), and 1 Regional Committee (uniting party organizations of the suburbs). By the beginning of 1917, only 3 district organisations remained - Vyborgsky, Narvsky and Vasileostrovsky. The first legal meetings of members of Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party in Petrograd took place in March 1917, and soon thereafter 10 district committees were created. In 1917-18, 7 more organizations were added, including a sectoral railroad district committee (existed till 1920). At the beginning of 1918, national districts and sub-districts were liquidated; district committees (17 of them) were elected in all-district meetings (conferences). Later on, the number of district committees changed in accordance with the changes in administrative and territorial division of the city; by 1991, their number reached 21. After October 1917, district committees headed the work of district Soviets, and also of all the enterprises and institutions in the territory of the district. After August 1991, district committees were abolished. Their documents for 1917-91 are stored in the Central City Archive of Industrial Documents of St. Petersburg.

N. Y. Cherepenina. Historical and Political Archives of St. Petersburg