Weeks Where Decades Happen: Lessons from a Historical Committee at ASU’s 2023 Model UN Summit (SunMUN 2023)
In my last article, I outline the process I used to select a topic for ASU SunMUN’s Special Historical Committee 2023. The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets is an important but lesser-known event in history, where socialists from across revolutionary Russia met to decide their nation’s future.
However, a good historical simulation is more than an interesting topic. It also takes a meticulous approach to outlining structure and execution. In this article, I’ll walk through my process designing and running this committee.
Designing a Special Committee: Outlining Committee Format
By immersing students in this setting, I hoped to give them a newfound understanding of how uncertain history really is; without the benefit of hindsight, they could experience all of the small decisions and crises that piled up to cause events with world-changing ramifications.
To achieve this, I wanted to tailor the committee’s format to be different from what a typical committee looks like.
This is the usual flow of a conventional Non-Crisis MUN committee:
- Rolling Speakers’ List: Delegates take turns making short speeches before the whole body, presenting their stances and proposing solutions. After each speech, the whole body has the opportunity to pose questions or offer comments.
- Unmoderated Caucuses (Unmods): After enough speeches have passed, the committee will begin convening short unmoderated caucuses. These “unmods” allow delegates to mingle freely, forming blocs and collaborating on drafting resolutions.
- Alternating Period: Once delegates have formed blocs and begun drafting resolutions, committee will typically alternate between speakers and unmods until the resolutions have been fully drafted.
- Voting: After resolutions have been finished, each bloc will present their resolutions to the body for amendment and discussion. The body then moves into voting bloc where delegates vote to adopt the resolutions.
While this conventional format certainly has its merits, I wanted to modify it to better fit the immersive, dynamic vision I had in mind. Specifically, I decided to incorporate some elements of the Crisis committee format.
I was mainly concerned with the use of a traditional speakers’ list. In a conventional committee, the speakers’ list is usually the most important form of whole-body debate. However, speeches tend to lose their relevance as the committee progresses, as after initial introductions, delegates already develop an understanding of each others’ positions.
Inserting “crisis events” into the non-crisis format: Benefits and challenges
To prevent this important element from getting stale, I decided to incorporate an element from Crisis formats called the crisis event. A crisis event is an announcement that updates delegates on the state of a crisis situation unfolding in real time, which the committee must deal with. The delegates can interact with the situation dynamically by passing resolutions as a whole committee. If crisis updates were interspersed into the debate, delegates would always have a new development to discuss and debate via the speakers’ list. The addition of a dynamic real-time situation to manage would also lend the committee the sense of historical immersion I was seeking.
However, the inclusion of real time crisis events necessitated a way for delegates to debate quickly as a whole body in order to coordinate an urgent response. For this purpose, I decided to emphasize a little-used committee procedure called the moderated caucus. In a moderated caucus, the whole body engages in a rapid-fire and inclusive debate as delegates stand to speak for less than 30 seconds each. This would also allow me as the chair to better gauge delegates’ rhetoric than the hands-off unmoderated caucus, or unmod, would.
This “semi-crisis” format, however, would lack the dedicated backroom staff that design crisis events for full Crisis committees. To overcome this, I took on the role of a proactive chair, ready to draft crisis events tailored to delegates’ actions. In my research, I found a wealth of real-world events that coincided with the Congress of Soviets, many of which forced the Congress to react immediately. These events included: riots from anarchist militias in the streets of Petrograd; anti-war demonstrations from Bolshevik sympathizers; dissent among soldiers on the front; politically inflammatory actions from the Provisional Government; and a declaration of autonomy from the Ukrainian socialists (an event with highly relevant implications in our modern day). I prepared outlines for how these might be used in committee, leaving room to retool based on how delegates responded.
Designing a Special Committee: Crafting a Character Roster
The last step in designing my committee was to finalize the characters that delegates would represent. While this may seem straightforward, it is a significant piece of setting up the most ideal committee dynamic. I considered several key factors.
- Voting Balance: It’s essential to avoid the formation of an overly dominant voting bloc. While historicity is important, sometimes minority voices should be elevated in order to create a more compelling debate. In my committee, this meant striking an almost 50/50 mix of radical Bolsheviks and moderate SR/Mensheviks, even though in real life the moderate bloc dwarfed the Bolshevik delegation.
- Character Purpose: Every included figure should have a reason to be there, and a unique perspective. All of the important stakeholder groups during this time period should have a character representing them in the committee. For example, I wanted representatives to embody both the revolutionary rank-and-file soldiers of the military, as well as the reactionary officer corps. To represent the former, I included Bolshevik soldier-chairmen Nikolai Krylenko and Pavel Dybenko; to represent the latter, I included the chauvinist commissar Boris Savinkov.
From the delegate’s perspective, it’s a difficult experience to be tasked with representing a character who has nothing unique to bring to the table. Every historical figure should have a purpose for being included. If the figure seems like a filler or token inclusion to the committee designer, chances are that the delegate will be bored with the selection as well.
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Balancing Major and Minor Historical Figures: Major historical figures who had sweeping impacts on their time can and should be included. However, this comes with a few extra considerations.
Firstly, all delegates in the committee should nominally have the same “power.” Adding a president into the same committee as the rest of their cabinet, for instance, creates a power imbalance and isn’t fair to delegates who represent lesser-known or less powerful figures. I included many socialist politicians who were serving as ministers in the government at the time; but since this was a Soviet meeting, no one had access to governmental authority. This leveled the playing field as everyone could only act as a delegate with equal footing.
Secondly, committees shouldn’t be designed around any particular characters. Delegates often drop out before the committee starts, or can end up being soft-spoken or incompetent. The committee should be designed so that it can be a rewarding experience regardless of the absence of any historical figure. Though I included major figures such as Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Kerensky, I was careful not to make crisis events hinge on their delegates behaving in a particular way.
As many of the historical figures who participated in the First Congress of Soviets were relatively obscure, I made a final choice to assign double-delegates—meaning that each character would be represented by a pair of delegates. This ensured collaboration and thorough preparation.
With that, the committee designing process was complete. The only thing left was to experience how these design choices played out in the heat of committee debates.
Running the Committee
As day 1 of the committee opened on Topic 1, “Revolutionary Democracy and Government Power,” I was pleasantly surprised at how prepared our high school delegates were with such an unfamiliar topic. Many delegates later shared that the unfamiliar topic choice motivated them to do more research in order to prepare. This was evident in their speeches, which were insightful and reflected a good understanding of the historical context.
To maintain momentum and inject a dynamic element into the proceedings, I introduced the first crisis event—a declaration of autonomy by the Ukrainian Rada. This unexpected update saw an immediate uptick of energy, as the tangentially-related topic challenged delegates to formulate a political response on the fly. Delegates moved into a moderated caucus for a fast-paced debate before drafting a concise resolution to address the issue. After they passed their resolution, the follow-up crisis update gave them a sense of accomplishment as they saw the effects of their work in action.
However, as with any historical simulation, the committee faced the challenge of ensuring delegates acted in a historical manner, rather than being guided by hindsight.
When it came to Topic 1, “Revolutionary Democracy and Government Power,” delegates were initially very policy-accurate. The moderate delegates who made up the majority took pro-government, pro-order stances. To my surprise however, when these delegates were faced with crisis updates about public unrest, they overcorrected. An update about an armed mob of anarchists in the streets of Petrograd shocked otherwise moderate delegates to bow to the whims of the radical bloc and sympathize with the rioters. In reality of course, the moderate socialists at the Congress of Soviets supported a crackdown and ordered the mob to stand down.
In retrospect, I recognize the importance of introducing tangible counterbalancing threats to guide delegates toward more nuanced decision-making. The delegates were tasked with balancing the needs of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but the tangible threat of a rebellious working class scared them into taking the path of least resistance to make the issue disappear. By contrast, the counterbalance threat from the bourgeoisie side—that of the liberals severing political ties with the socialists—was nebulous and lacked urgency. I think this problem could have been solved with the inclusion of a more tangible counterbalance threat from the bourgeoisie side, such as a military coup or economic disaster.
The second day of the committee opened on Topic 2, “The Attitude Toward the Great War.” Once again, delegates representing moderate or conservative characters initially took a strong pro-war stance, successfully passing a resolution to end soldier democracy in the army. However, once again, they were convinced to back down and switch to a pro-peace policy when they saw a crisis update about the negative response their policy had among soldiers.
I applied the lesson from the previous day and worked to create crisis events with stronger counterbalancing consequences. When the delegates made anti-war statements, I had the liberal politicians resign from the government en masse, and informed them that discipline in the army had completely collapsed. I also let them know the Central Powers’ peace demands, pulled straight from the historical treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Germany demanded all of Russia’s territory in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as most of Belarus and Ukraine. I put the demands in stark perspective for them, revealing that the peace would cost 34% of their population, 54% of their industrial land, 89% of their coalfields, and 26% of their railways.
Faced with these consequences, moderate and conservative delegates were encouraged to take more balanced decisions as the political need for a military offensive became more tangible. They resumed their historical stance and the debate regained its nuance.
Throughout the committee sessions, I strived to maintain a balance between allowing delegates the freedom to shape the debate organically, and gently guiding them back on course when necessary. While chairs should allow their committees to surprise them, it’s also a chair’s responsibility to tell when the committee is veering too far off course. By being conscious of this, chairs can ensure the debate remains fulfilling and academically valuable for everyone involved.
I presented the committee’s Crisis Updates via a slideshow presentation, accessible here:
Crisis Updates - Historical Committee
Conclusion
In reflection, the feedback from delegates was overwhelmingly positive, with many sharing that this had been one of the most engaging and unique committees they had participated in. They attributed this largely to the unfamiliar historical setting and the unique committee format, marked by dynamic crisis events which responded to their resolutions and gave their actions weight. For my part, I was able to apply many of the lessons from my MUN experience to an experimental committee format and come away with even more strategies for designing and running successful committees.
Historical simulations like SunMUN’s Special Historical Committee are excellent ways to immerse students in history and give them a newfound perspective on the events that shaped our present world. I hope some of the lessons I learned from this journey can be of help to your approach toward engaging with students or peers on learning history.
Written by: Prad Velagapudi