Besides the local _Soviets,_ elected in every city, town and village of Russia—and in large cities, also Ward _(Raionny) Soviets_—there are also the _oblastne_ or _gubiernsky_ (district or provincial) _Soviets,_ and the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian _Soviets_ in the capital, called from its initials _Tsay-ee-kah._ (See below, “Central Committees”).
Almost everywhere the _Soviets_ of Workers’ and of Soldiers’ Deputies combined very soon after the March Revolution. In special matters concerning their peculiar interests, however, the Workers’ and the Soldiers’ Sections continued to meet separately. The _Soviets_ of Peasants’ Deputies did not join the other two until after the Bolshevik _coup d’etat._ They, too, were organised like the workers and soldiers, with an Executive Committee of the All-Russian Peasants’ _Soviets_ in the capital.
2. _Trade Unions._ Although mostly industrial in form, the Russian labour unions were still called Trade Unions, and at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution had from three to four million members. These Unions were also organised in an All-Russian body, a sort of Russian Federation of Labour, which had its Central Executive Committee in the capital.
3. _Factory-Shop Committees._ These were spontaneous organisations created in the factories by the workers in their attempt to control industry, taking advantage of the administrative break-down incident upon the Revolution. Their function was by revolutionary action to take over and run the factories. The _Factory-Shop Committees_ also had their All-Russian organisation, with a Central Committee at Petrograd, which co-operated with the Trade Unions.
4. _Dumas._ The word _duma_ means roughly “deliberative body.” The old Imperial Duma, which persisted six months after the Revolution, in a democratised form, died a natural death in September, 1917. The _City Duma_ referred to in this book was the reorganised Municipal Council, often called “Municipal Self-Government.” It was elected by direct and secret ballot, and its only reason for failure to hold the masses during the Bolshevik Revolution was the general decline in influence of all purely _political_ representation in the fact of the growing power of organisations based on _economic_ groups.