Literally ‘council’, a body made up of elected representatives. During the early twentieth century ‘soviet’ became synonymous with the socialist leaning councils of workers, peasants and soldiers which first developed in Russia during the 1905 ‘revolution’. The Petrograd Soviet played a key role in the dual power government in mid 1917, and when the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917.
they did so in the name of the soviets. Socialists have formed soviets outside Russia.
More on the Russian Revolution of 1917.