a democratic council of workers that collaborate to make political and economic decisions

an organ of struggle of the proletariat whose delegates are directly elected and revocable in rank-and-file assemblies, which include all workers, small- holders, peasants, soldiers, housewives, unemployed and other oppressed sectors of the area

a political organization, not a nationality

a system of councils that report to an apex council and implement a predetermined outcome, often by consensus, affecting a region or neighborhood

Russian word meaning council.

Council of workers formed to seize city government in Petrograd in 1917; basis for early political organization of Russian Revolution. (p. 890)

A soviet (, IPA: , "council"; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ) originally was a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia. According to the official historiography of the Soviet Union, the first Soviet (in this sense) was organized during the 1905 Russian Revolution in Ivanovo (Ivanovo region) in May 1905. However in his memoirs Volin claims that he has witnessed the creation of the St Petersburg Soviet in Saint Petersburg in January 1905.