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The notion of electoral authoritarianism emerged in the post-cold war world to refer to authoritarian systems that used seemingly democratic electoral means to stabilize non-democratic systems. This was achieved through the production of massive electoral majorities for the ruling party. However an element of uncertainty remains with such elections in that the ruling party may be either defeated or suffer a significant electoral rebuff. Such events are usually seen in terms of the loss of voter support for the party, but as the Russian case shows, this may be better seen as evidence of a basic malfunction of the electoral authoritarian mechanism itself.

On October 25-26, 1917 (O.S.), the nominal government of Russia, the third coalition of the Provisional Government headed by Alexander Kerensky, was pushed from power with ridiculous ease by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks' plans were no secret; it had been common knowledge for some weeks that they were planning a move against the government. The Provisional Government, however, was incapable of taking any effective action. By October the government's power had drained away, leaving little more than an empty shell which could be pushed into the dust bin of history with a minimum of difficulty.