The word “soviet” in Russian means advice, or counsel. Only in the twentieth century has it taken on the second meaning of a council referring to institutions of government comprised of elected representatives. The absence of such usage prior to 1905 indicates that these institutions lack roots in the political traditions of either the village or the autocracy but are sui generis in Russian history. In what follows, the evolution of local government in the Soviet period will be reviewed to determine whether a sufficient theoretical and legal basis has emerged to allow for the expansion of political participation at this level in the contemporary period.

In fact, the use of the word “soviet,” in its second meaning of a council, referred not to institutions of government but to committees of factory workers, chosen by their peers to negotiate with their employers and with the state during the strikes which emerged around the end of the nineteenth century during Russia's period of nascent industrialization. Such committees would arise on an ad hoc basis, often at the request of management, perform their function of communicating workers' grievances, and then be disbanded, not infrequently with the dismissal from work of those workers who took part.

The emergence of the idea of the soviet as a quasi-permanent body with a political character occurred at the time of the Revolution of 1905. The first of these is generally considered to have appeared in May 1905, in the textile center of Ivanovo–Voznesensk in Vladimir province, about 200 miles northeast of Moscow.