Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Keywords
conceptual history of Russia, constitutional history of Russia, federalism,
glasnost, party system, perestroika, politics
1. Introduction
It was typical of the new Soviet leader to distinguish himself from his
predecessors in order to stabilize his power; to achieve that aim, each new
leader would present his political agenda in constitutional terms. That too,
is one of the main reasons behind the large number of constitutions that
were adopted in the USSR. In the post-Soviet context, that dynamic has
been turned on its head, as constitutional concepts tend to be the main,
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010
DOI: 10.1163/157303510X12650378240034
78
if not the exclusive, source of continuity in present-day Russia. The present article will explore the role of constitutional concepts as key tools of
political presentation, as well as their special status and characteristics
in Soviet and post-Soviet political discourse. Its main objective will be
to investigate the transformation of those concepts in relation to plans
of political leaders for continuity and change, and to show how that
conceptual historyin many respectsis more multifaceted, and more
political in nature, than it has usually been deemed to be. It also discusses
the traditional continuities and changes between the constitutions and
party programs adopted in Russia/the Soviet Union. In the final part, it
attempts to connect Vladimir Putins political era with the textual base
and the political backgrounds of the previous constitutions.
From a methodological point of view, Russian constitutional concepts
make a conceptual-history approach very suitable and change the focus on
history. The conceptual-history approach studies history in contemporary
contexts that follow one after the other, and whose texts are the main research object. The picture of history is created through the interpretation
of the original sources of contemporary contexts. The aim of conceptualhistory research is not to form an understanding of the chronological
history of the events, but rather to examine the presented ideas about
history, interpreting the sources in their contemporary contexts.
The conceptual-history approach thus always focuses on both
the dynamic and traditional characteristics of concepts. In this
study, I refer to a certain kind of value and the task of concepts
to justify and define the political and societal unity in every situation by combining the pursued future orientation of political unity
with new acts of preservation of the principles of old tradition.
In addition, the conceptual-history approach shows different time layers;
the past, the present and the future are the key aspects of the political
storytelling in justifying the continuity and redefining the constitutional
unity for the sake of reform.
The present article attempts to deal with the topic of Russian constitutional history from the perspective of conceptual change, paying
particular attention to the political relations among the various actors,
and to the latters political presentations. Specifically, it focuses on those
actors speeches and on their mutual relations and, through them, on the
passage from one contemporary context to another.
I will try to show that Stalins era represented a watershed in Soviet
constitutional and political development, a fact that becomes readily apparent when that periods concepts and vocabularies are examined. Stalins
political scheme undertook to invalidate the ideology of the Revolu
79
tion and to justify the creation of the absolute centralized state, which
represented its realization. Thus, in Stalins plan with regard to the 1936
Constitution, there was no longer a need for fine rhetorical distinctions
between different unions, which had been important elements in the
1918 and 1924 Constitutions, legitimating the single state and the special
duties of the classes. Stalins intention was to create something closer to
a purely administrative model. The concept of the state took over from
all other ideological structures.
As Stalins concept of state concerned the institutionalized rela
tionship between the state and the Soviet people, his successors were
confronted with the challenge of maintaining the maximally expanded,
ideological class-based state and the concept of Soviet citizenship in a
situation where there was no maximal control apparatus. I will argue
that, after the Stalin period, it became difficult to reuse and reconnect
the constitutional concepts that were related to the revolution as new
interpretations. Put another way, the central problem was how to maintain Stalins administrative rhetoric and his connection with the Soviet
people, as well as his class-based justifications in the concepts of the state
and the nation, in a context where Stalins control apparatus had been
considerably weakened. The outcome of this process was the introduction
of concepts that emphasized peoples participation and representation
for example, the concepts of an all-peoples state and all-peoples party.
These were pre-perestroika concepts that radically changed the original
Marxist-Leninist concepts based on the Revolution and the state. I will
attempt to show that the conceptual changesinitiated during the socalled de-Stalinization period (destalinizatsiia)played a crucial role in
the eventual destruction of socialism in the Soviet Union.
80
See D.D. Barry, The Specialist in Soviet Policy-Making: The Adoption of Law, Soviet Studies
(1964) No.3, 152-165, at 158.
See Alexei Yurchaks remarks about the unacknowledged role of the political character of the
concepts in his Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More,
45(3) Comparative Studies in Society and History (2003), 480-510, at 484.
81
Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Columbia University Press,
New York, NY, 2004, translated by Keith Tribe). See, also, Risto Wallin, Movement in the
Key Concepts of International Relations, 32(4) Alternatives (2007), 361-391.
82
during the Soviet period, but it has also been typical of the politics of the
Russian Federation since Putin came to power.
In different periods, new dogmas applying to various social situations
and to the CPSU can be observed. Such dogmas were regarded as useful
means to build up the concepts underlying the Soviet state. In spite of the
one-party system, the Soviet Union was not conceived of as a monolithic
political entity. Similarly, Soviet political actors regularly articulated a
need for reforms.
By focusing on constitutional movement, it is possible to examine the
reformative as well as the preservative features of constitutional concepts,
which together transform the basic understanding of the state and of its
unity from one political era to another.
In the following sections, I will briefly present my ideas regarding
constitutional movement in the context of the six constitutions adopted
in Russia/the Soviet Union.
Art.5, Svod Osnovnykh Gosudarstvennykh Zakonov, adopted 23 April 1906, Svod Zakonov
Rossiiskoi Imperii. Tom I. Chast I (Gosudarstvennaia tipografiia, St. Petersburg, 1906) (hereinafter 1906 Constitution).
Geoffrey A. Hosking, The Russian Constitutional Experiment, Government and Duma, 1907-1914
(Cambridge University Press, London, 1973), 9.
83
power in Russia. For the first time in Russian history, a central representative body was established: the State Duma. According to the 1906
Constitution, the tsar exercised his power jointly with the State Council
and the Duma. This concession concerning the redistribution of power
has clearly been deemed to be significant.6
However, while in principle the Duma could restrict the power of the
emperor, in practice it could not resist his will. He had authority over the
legislature and the executive, as well as over foreign policy and the armed
forces (Arts.6-14). The constitution did not make it possible to form a
government that would be representative of the legislative sector. This fact
prompted Max Weber to claim that the 1906 Constitution represented
sham constitutionalism.7
There was a strict guideline for the politics of nationality in the first
article of the Constitution: the Russian state was declared to be one and
indivisible (gosudarstvo edino i nerazdelno). That formulation referred to
the terminology of the French Revolution. According to Article 1 of the
1791 French Constitution: Le Royaume est un et indivisible. That declaration was made in order to resist strong federalism.8
After the 1917 October Revolution, the context of constitutional
rhetoric changed completelyas did the basis for the restricted unity
of the state, which was now being argued by means of Marxian concepts
and by their interpretations.
The first constitutions of the Soviet state were not only organizational
and foundational documents for various state bodies, but also plans for
action. They developed the aims of the central administration and created
a purposeful political agenda. This is our policy, said Lenin in 1921, and
you will find it in our constitution. Stalin, on the other hand, argued: The
party program speaks of that which does not yet exist, of that which has
to yet be achieved and won in the future, a constitution, on the contrary,
must speak of that which already exists, of that which has already been
achieved and won now, at the present time.9
Thus, the Bolsheviks legitimated their power by adopting the first
Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic eight
6
7
8
See, for example, Geoffrey A. Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 (Fontana, London,
1988), 426.
Max Weber, Political Writings (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, London, 1988) (Peter
Lassman, ed. and Ronald Speirs, transl.).
In the nineteenth century, there were national uprisings in the Northern Caucasus and Poland/
Lithuania, for example, against the reign of the tsar. However, such uprisings were usually
brutally crushed by the tsars troops. The liberal ideals of the French Revolution were feared
in Russia.
Quoted in Aryeh Unger, Constitutional Development in the USSR (Methuen, London, 1981), 2.
84
months after the October Revolution, in July 1918.10 The 1918 Constitu
tion insisted on a complete break with the barbaric politics of bourgeois
civilization (Art.5). It reflected the thrust of the Revolution. However, it
was not founded on the notions of individual freedom and equality, as the
French Revolution had been; instead, it openly professed its dictatorial
essence, as well as its class character. The 1918 Constitution was created
for a transitional period, during which the classes would be abolished
and conditions created for the complete disappearance of the state. It
despised what it identified as bourgeois and legal appeasement and openly
advocated the undiluted power of the oppressed. Lenin and the other
Bolshevik leaders who drafted that Constitution often stated that it was
a practical product of the Revolution, not an institutionalized solution
created by lawyers.11
The 1918 Constitution began with the Declaration of the Rights of
the Toiling and Exploited People, which Lenin himself had written in
January 1918. The first article declared: Russia is proclaimed a republic of
soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants deputies. All power at the center
and in the peripheries shall be vested in these soviets. In this context, it
is apposite to remember that Marxism-Leninism rejected the principle of
the separation of powers as developed in the Western political and legal
traditions on the grounds that it would impede the representation of the
people. Marxist-Leninist authors argued that the principle of separation
of powers served only to mask the oppressive rule of the bourgeoisie.
Instead, the soviets represented a revolutionary form of self-government
designed exclusively for the proletariat.
The principle of federalism was declared in the second article of the
1918 Constitution: The Russian Soviet Republic is established on the basis
of a free union of free nations, as a federation of soviet national republics.
The Constitution was not limited to a single state or nation, but applied to
every nation that joined the union. Thus, starting with the first Constitution of Soviet Russia, federalism was accepted as a form of government
alongside the soviet model in order to complement and counterbalance
the power basis of the latter, although the concept of federation was not
the soviet paradigm. There is no mention of federalism in the Manifesto
of the Communist Party written by Marx and Engels. Thus, the Bolsheviks
accepted it as a form of government, a key to the singular union between
10
11
Konstitutsiia (Osnovnoi Zakon) Rossiiskoi Sotsialisticheskoi Federativnoi Sovetskoi Respubliki, adopted 10 July 1918, SU RSFSR (1918) No.51 item 582, available at <http://www.consultant.
ru/online/base/?req=doc;base=ESU;n=2929> (hereinafter 1918 Constitution).
Unger, op.cit. note 9, 11.
85
the soviets and the state. Soviet Russia was the first modern state in which
the nation-state formed the basis of the federal structure.12
Bolsheviks who had objected to the federal model until November
1917 quickly became its supporters. They saw federalism as a means to
combine the areas under Soviet rule, which had been dispersed until the
last few years of Tsarist authority. Nation-states such as Poland and Finland
had already begun to form. Consequently, Lenins government did not
have much choice but to build a new federation on the basis of national
autonomy of the republics.
In 1918, Lenin said:
In rational and economic confines, federation could be useful in certain limits, and
it in no ways contradicts democratic centralism. The example of the Russian Soviet
Republic demonstrates [to] us that federation is the surest step to the union of different nationalities of Russia towards [a] democratic and centralized Soviet State.13
13
See Victor Zaslavsky, Success and Collapse: Traditional Soviet Nationality Policy, in Ian Brem
mer and Ray Taras (eds.), Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1993), 29-42, at 31.
Vladimir I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 1-45 (Foreign Language Press, Moscow, 1960-70), Vol.19,
243.
Josef V. Stalin, Works (Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1954), Vol.4, 75.
14
15
16
86
87
Ibid.
88
Stalin declared that he was carrying on the revolutionary struggle begun by Lenin; however, he had to justify the continuation of that struggle
after the successful establishment of socialism in the Soviet Union. He
overcame that difficulty by devising the theory that, as the final victory of
socialism was drawing nearer, the resistance of its defeated enemies was
increasing. The class struggle becomes sharper as a revolutionary state
moves closer to achieving communism.20 Those words were universally
acknowledged to constitute Stalins personal theory regarding the intensification of the class struggle under socialism. At the same time, Stalin
transformed the radical Marxist state into a more pragmatic institution.
He legitimated the use of terror towards the party itself and made it possible to claim that mistakes were caused by the enemies of the people.21
In relation to this, Stalin declared in 1939 that: We need the stabil
ity of laws more than ever.22 That statement represented an important
departure from the revolutionary interpretation, which argued that the
law was part of class society. In Stalins view, changes in the tools of pro
duction and in the relations of ownership needed to be reflected in the
laws. The demand for laws that reflected the contemporary reality of the
Soviet Unionas opposed to expressing expectations for its future
was one of the main reasons invoked by Stalin to justify the drafting of
a new constitution, instead of merely amending the existing one. The
original Marxist-Leninist idea of the law withering away under socialism
was replaced with Vyshinskys theory, which stated: Capitalism will lead
to degeneration of law and legality; instead history will show us that in
socialism the law is raised above the highest development level.23
In this context, the most important conceptual reform was to base
the constitution directly on the definitive idea of the state. The 1936 Con
stitution began with the words: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
is a socialist state of workers and peasants.24 Because of the changes made
to Marxist theory, there was no preamble to the 1936 Constitution, un
20
21
22
23
24
Neil Robinson, Russia: A State for Uncertainty (Routledge, London, 2002), 41.
Ibid., 41.
Josef Stalin, Report to the XVIII Party Congress, March 10, 1939, in Hugh W. Babb and John
N. Hazard (eds.), Soviet Legal Philosophy. 20th Century Legal Philosophy Series. Vol. V (Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1951), xxix.
Andrei Vyshinsky, The Law of the Soviet State (Macmillan, New York, NY, 1948), 48-50.
89
like those of 1918 and 1924, which had begun with a Declaration of the
Rights of the Toiling and Exploited People. The break with the basic
arrangements of the previous constitutions was made in a simple manner.
The first part of the 1936 Constitution did not play the role of a founding
charter, as the corresponding passages had for its predecessors, although
it was based on existing structures. Article 2 stated: The soviets of toilers deputies, which arose and grew strong as a result of the overthrow
of the landlords and capitalists and the victory of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, shall constitute the political foundation of the USSR.
A radical change in relations between Soviet nationalities was also
introduced in the 1936 Constitution. Harmony between the classes
meant harmony between the nationalities. Stalin stated: The mutual
distrust of the soviet nationalities has disappeared and been replaced by
the brotherly cooperation of the nationalities in the form of the unified
federal state.25
The regulations concerning the national republics were defined in the
second section of the 1936 Constitution, which was entitled Structure
of the State (gosudartsvennoe ustroistvo). Article 13 of that section stated:
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics shall be a union state, formed on
the basis of the voluntary association of equal soviet socialist republics.
The union republics right to secession from the USSR remained in the
Constitution. A list of the eleven republics that formed the Soviet Union
in 1936 followed. Article 15 declared:
The sovereignty of the union republics shall be restricted only within the limits
specified in Article 14 of the Constitution of the USSR. Outside these limits each
union republic shall exercise state power independently. The USSR shall protect the
sovereign rights of the union republics.
Thus, a specific feature of Soviet federalism was that two kinds of sov
ereignty could coexist: one at the republican and the other at the union
level.
In addition, Stalin promulgated a new declaration of the rights and
freedoms of the Soviet citizen, spanning fifteen separate articles. The
rights of the citizen were based on positive freedoms; the state guaranteed
certain rights to all Soviet citizensfor example, the right to work, the
right to rest and leisure, and the right to education. Furthermore, a citizen
of the USSR had guaranteed freedomsfor example, the freedom of assembly and of the press. According to Stalin, those explained that these
rights and freedoms were owed to the ending of the class struggle, which
resulted in friendship between the classes in the Soviet Union.26 It was in
25
26
90
that context that a universal, egalitarian and direct electoral system was
established, in Chapter 11 of the Constitution.
Stalins Soviet state, thus, represented a remarkable reform, one that
transformed the Soviet Union into both a state and a society. The 1936 Con
stitution did not need to rhetorically emphasize the distinctions between
different unions, as its predecessors had done in order to legitimate the
unified state, because it subordinated all other constitutional concepts,
such as republic, federation or union to the overarching constitutional
concept of state. The state was no longer a tool of class oppression; on the
contrary, it was presented as a requirement for a balanced class society.
Stalins massive control system enabled the existence of both the
Soviet state and of a firm connection between the state and the Soviet
citizen. The Constitution marked a departure from the principle of class
dictatorship towards a wider social base, which was declared to include
all working people, i.e., practically the entire population. However, in
practice, it meant tougher social control on the part of the state, which
proclaimed its inseparable unity with society.27
To conclude, some words should be added regarding the role of the
Communist Party in the context of the 1936 Constitution. As one of the
merits of the new Constitution, Stalin mentioned the fact that it pre
served the regime of the dictatorship of the working class, just as it also
preserved, unaltered, the leading political position of the Communist
Party of the USSR.28
However, the Communist Party was mentioned only once in the
1936 Constitution, in relation to the right to form different kinds of or
ganizations. The relevant passage read: The most active and conscious
citizens from the ranks of the working class and other strata of the toilers shall unite in the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which is
the vanguard of the toilers.29 Thus, Stalin was not interested in either
defining the role of the Communist Party or relating it to constitutional
concepts. In a sense, keeping the Communist Party separate from the
constitutional concepts continued the tradition begun in the first two
Soviet constitutions. On the other hand, the 1936 Constitution can be
said to have started a tradition of its own, one that made the party an
integral part of the state structure.
27
28
29
91
Ronald Hill, Khrushchev and Khrushchevism, in Martin McCauley (ed.), State and Ideology
(Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1987), 46-60, at 48.
92
ers and the people, and which would consequently increase the latters
involvement in the workings of government. Concurrently, both the party
apparatus and the state administration were made more receptive to the
democratic guidance of the CPSU.
Khrushchevs interest in administrative reform was not confined to
the organs of government: the CPSU was also affected. Khrushchev supported a greater turnover of party officials. Posts in the CPSU were made
temporary, and people other than members of the CPSU were allowed to
take part in the Partys work. Those reforms had two objectives: to increase
peoples participation and to control party officials more tightly.31
In 1956, Khrushchev gave his famous secret speech at the twentieth
Party Congress of the CPSU, during which he condemned Stalins cult and
promised to take the country back onto the Leninist path in the name
of socialist legality. Nevertheless, there was no need for constitutional
changes yet. As Unger wrote: It was the observance of existing constitu
tional provisions, rather than the enactment of new ones, that was needed
to ensure the return to Leninist norms in general and socialist legality
in particular.32
Instead of a new Soviet constitution, a new program was adopted by
the CPSU in 1961. Unlike Stalins real socialism, the new program was
based on a utopian and future orientation; it was called the Program of
the Future Communist Society. The program stated that, in contrast to
the previous eraswhich were characterized as periods of gradual change
towards communismSoviet society had now entered the age of the full
realization of communism. In the spirit of the realism of Stalins consti
tutional concepts, it was stated that the dictatorship of the proletariat
had performed its historic task and that the state had now accomplished
the will of the people. Nevertheless, the new party program of the CPSU
distanced itself from Stalins realism by making the following statement
regarding future-oriented tasks: The proletariat will have fulfilled its
task as a leading force of society when communism has been built and
the classes have disappeared.33
The program also included a promise to the Soviet people that the
transition to full communism would be carried through. The Soviet Union
was said to have entered a new and momentous age, as a result of which
the building of a communist society had become an immediate and practical task. The program additionally stated that: The state has become a
state of the entire people, representing the wills and interests of all people
31
32
33
Ibid., 55.
Programma KPSS 1961, in Programmy i Ustavy KPSS, op.cit. note 15, 23.
93
Ibid.
Ibid.
94
Mark Sandle, A Short History of Soviet Socialism (UCL Press, London, 1999), 338.
Leonid Brezhnev, On the Draft Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Report at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 24 May 1977, in Feldbrugge,
op.cit. note 24, 201-214.
95
41
Fjodor Burlatsky, Nykyajan valtio ja politiikka (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978), 56 (Contemporary State and Politics).
42
Jerry Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed (Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1979), 255-256.
43
96
Brezhnev era were explicit in their predictions that the role of the party
would increase markedly during the period of developed socialism.44 The
party embodied the interests of all segments of the community; it was an
all-peoples party. At the same time, it would retain its class essence as
a party of the working class throughout the developed socialist stage.
In spite of his innovations, Brezhnev preserved the transitional
features of Khrushchevs rhetoric. As a concession to Soviet tradition,
development was stable and respected Marxist political values. It was
stated that mature socialist society had come into being as a result of the
transformation of the state from the dictatorship of the proletariat into
a state of the entire people. This form of state was said to be founded on
universal socialist democracy and the strengthening of social homogeneity
resulting from the convergence (sblizhenie) of all classes, social groups and
nations, as well as on the strengthening of the leading role of the CPSU
in society and the state.45
The concept of developed socialism referred to an evolutionary
stage marked most significantly by its own inherent stability and by the
slow-paced and non-traumatic nature of its evolution towards even higher
socio-economic forms. Thus, the pace of change characteristic of the
Khrushchev era was a thing of the past and, accordingly, party cadres did
not have to be frightened of losing their places.46
It can be concluded that, during the Brezhnev era, the concepts of
socialism, transition, evolution and communism were all used to refer to
centralized politics and as values shared by everyone. Society (obshchestvo)
began to be seen as a systematic unity that it was possible to guide. It was
natural for the constitution to be changed so that it reflected the new,
scientific-technical political system, the central idea of which was to transform utopian principles into objective legal actions. The persistence of
strong central authority, in the shape of the party and the state, emphasized
the hegemony of statism and centralism in Brezhnevian discourse.
45
According to Burlatsky, the tasks of the party were the following: (1) scientifically informed
policy development; (2) fostering cadres; (3) defining the scientific management principles and
methods of analysis; (4) general supervision. See Burlatsky, op.cit. note 40, 116.
See Donald R. Kelley, Developments in Ideology. Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Period (Praeger
Publishers, New York, NY, 1980), 184.
46
97
glasnost(openness), pravovoe gosudarstvo (law-based state) and gumanitarnyi sotsializm (human socialism) brought new meanings to the unity of
constitutional concepts.
Gorbachev officially introduced the term glasnost in 1986, at the
twenty-seventh Party Congress. During his speech on that occasion, he
declared that the better the people were informed, the more reasonably
they would act and support the party and its plans and objectives. He also
stated: We have to deepen glasnost in the work of the party, soviet, state
and social organizations. Lenin said that the state is rich when its people
are responsible. Our experience has strengthened this conclusion.47 This
constituted the political logic of glasnost, which, of course, was considered
very radical in the aftermath of Leonid Brezhnevs regime.
Beginning in 1987, Gorbachev started to sound a note of caution:
saying that perestroika was a social movement and that the CPSU was in
danger of failing to adapt to the development of society. This was seen
as a clear divergence from Lenins thesis, which stated that there was
danger in social spontaneity and that the working class needed to be led
away from it. Gorbachev, however, ignored the conflict between his own
ideas and those of Lenin and the Revolution. In his diaries, published in
1987, he focused on his antagonism towards the Brezhnev era. According
to him, the Soviet Union was at a turning point (perelom) in its development and it was time to guide the country into a new era, away from the
stagnation of Brezhnevs period in power.
In Gorbachevs view, the core of perestroika was that it united socialism
with democracy and revived the Leninist concept of socialist construction
both in theory and in practice. Perestroika meant the combination of the
achievements of the scientific and technical revolution with a planned
economy. It represented an addition to socialism, in the shape of the most
modern social developments.48
Thus, Gorbachev did not define perestroika as a transition, because
he did not envision a shift from one system to another. On the contrary,
he believed that the same type of socialism as that introduced by the
October Revolution, and founded on it, was still developing; perestroika
would merely assist in the further development of socialisms potential
and in its implementation. This process would not usher in a new politi
cal system or a new era, but a more progressive, moral and liberal form
of socialism.49
47
48
49
Mikhail Gorbachev, Izbrannye Rechi i Stati. Tom 1-5 (Izdateltsvo politicheskoi literatury, Moscow,
1989), Tom 2, 130-131.
Ibid., 35.
George Breslauer, Gorbachev and Eltsin as Leaders (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
2002), 66.
98
Thomas F. Remington, Russian Parliament. Institutional Evolution in a Transitional Regime, 19891999 (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2001), 24.
Robert Sharlet, Soviet Constitutional Crisis from De-stalinization to Disintegration (M.E. Sharpe,
New York, NY, 1992), 92.
51
52
99
the reform of the Supreme Soviet was intended to provide greater legitimacy to the whole constitutional restructuring.
Besides making radical changes to the basic components of the Soviet
administrative system, Gorbachev and his allies introduced new concepts
of freedom and human socialism. These concepts transformed the core of
the class-based system by putting forward the principle that the individual
human being would be raised above the class from then on.
The program called gumannyi demokraticheskii sotsializm (human
democratic socialism), which opposed the class-based hatred approach,
was launched in 1989. Gorbachevs idea was that common human values
took precedence over class values. He explained:
in the name of wrongly understood collectivism, human individuality was ignored,
the development of the personality was hampered, and the reasonable confines of
freedom were drastically narrowed under the pretext of the priority of the collective
over the individual.53
55
56
Theodore H. Friedgut, Introduction, Local Government under the Old Regime, in Theodore
H. Friedgut and Jeffrey W. Hahn (eds.), Power and Post-Soviet Politics (M.E. Sharpe, New York,
NY, 1994), 3-12, at 6.
100
The CPSU is ready to work and have a dialogue with all the new organi
zations which work according to the basis of the Soviet constitution.57
In Gorbachevs view, however, maintaining the leading role of the
CPSU in the new multiparty system constituted a primary objective.
Thus, the new situation represented a sort of test for the CPSU, a chal
lenge to win the battle for peoples votes. It was in this context that the
party put forward its main electoral arguments, which emphasized the
preservation of the uniformity of the political system, the protection of
its social ideals and its successful reform. These concepts, it was hoped,
would help legitimize the leading role of the CPSU. As can be seen, politi
cal arguments could no longer be founded on traditional Soviet tenets,
such as the ideological justice represented by the class state.
Typically, the new concept of democratic human socialism had been
introduced into Soviet political discourse in the aftermath of a change of
leadership; this matched the traditional, ritualized Soviet pattern whereby
new concepts were required, and were developed, in the wake of each
leadership change. Gorbachev stated that democratic human socialism
would lend legitimacy, direction and content to perestroika as a whole. Following the historical pattern set by previous reform strategies, the new
program of perestroika contained elements of the political system that it
was meant to supersede. Hence, the purpose of perestroika was to con
nect socialism and the new reforms. Gorbachevs program, therefore, can
be interpreted as a traditional Soviet reform project, the central idea of
which was to promote the transformation of the system while defending
the old principles and values of Soviet socialism.
Although Gorbachev radically transformed the system of one-party
rule, his opinions about the role and structure of the Soviet Union remained
traditionalistic. In 1989, he stated that the Soviet people had become
united in a common interest and had committed themselves to the 1917
Revolution. He wanted this union to develop and, to this end, the CPSU
needed to demonstrate its commitment to socialism by showing that its
politics reflected the peoples will. This would legitimate the party and
the new Soviet system.58
It can be concluded that Gorbachevs program was paradoxical be
cause its aim was to preserve the Soviet Unions integrity andat the
same timeto radically reform socialism. In other words, the problem
facing Gorbachev lay in the intractable difficulty of maintaining the role
of the party as the conceptual base of the system while reforming it in
the name of perestroika. By endowing parliament with a measure of real
57
58
Mikhail Gorbachev, O proekte platformy TsK KPSS k XXVIII sezdu partii, doklad M.S.
Gorbacheva, Pravda, 6 February 1990, 1-2.
Karen Henderson and Neil Robinson, Post-Communist Politics. An Introduction (Prentice Hall,
London, 1997), 44.
101
Mikhail Gorbachev, Sezd narodnykh deputatov SSSR, Izvestiia, 25 May 1990, 1. See, also, M.K.
Gorshkov, V.V. Zhuravlev and L.N. Dobrohotov (eds.), Eltsin-Khasbulatov. Edinstvo, Kompromis,
Borba (Terra, Moscow, 1994), 24.
102
this model, the regions were fastened to the hierarchically organized net
work of the soviets. In his effort to alter the old system, Eltsin achieved
remarkable success. And once the Soviet Union had collapsed, the central
question became: how to build up the New Russia. The Russian Federation
wasfollowing the pattern of the Soviet Uniona federal state, whose
regions were supposed to be integrated with the center.
The most integral institution of Eltsins reforms was the post of
governor, which was established after the August Putsch of 1991. After
Gorbachev had tried to democratize the soviets by making the executive
branch accountable to the legislative branch, Eltsin used the regions as
legitimate sources of central power. After the August Putsch, Eltsin and
his group saw the soviets as opponents of their policy andwith the help
of the governorswanted to get rid of them. The idea was to strengthen
executive power in relation to the democratic bodies and fill the crucial
executive posts with local officials who supported the president.60
After the debate over the Baltic states, it was no longer possible to
use the Party card to refer to the unity of the Soviet Union. Khasbulatov
rejected the possibility that Russia might become the Soviet Union again.
Instead, he defended the idea that Russia would become a union of sovi
ets. Eltsin, on the other hand, wanted the more politically independent
regions to replace the federal unity. Eltsin based the rebirth of the Russian
constitutional order on the pre-Soviet era and saw the Soviet period as
illegitimate, an interregnum in Russias search for democracy.61
Eltsins revolutionary federalism emphasized the role of the regions
but not the Soviet identity of the citizens. His program focused on the
dissolution of the Soviet system, and his major criticism was aimed at the
concept of the soviets themselves, whichin the Soviet modelhad played
a central role in both the key concept of democracy from below and that
of the federal union of soviet states. The purpose of Eltsins politics was
to develop a federal model in which the soviets played no role at all.
When studying the process that led to the coup and eventually to
the new 1993 Constitution, it can be noticed that Eltsins argumentation
radicalized after the first coup in August 1991. Eltsin was suspicious of the
leaders of the republics because during the blockade of the White House,
the regional leaderships general tendency was to use the crisis to advance
their own interests. After signing the federal treaty in 1992, the role of
the regions culminated in the debate over Russias new constitution.62
60
61
Jeffrey W. Hahn, Reforming Post-Soviet Russia: The Attitudes of Local Politicians, in Friedgut
and Hahn, op.cit. note 56, 208- 238, at 211.
See Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society (Routledge, London, 1996), 125.
62
103
In order to have the regions on his side against the policies of President
Eltsin in the constitutional debate, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet,
Ruslan Khasbulatov, started to make trips to the regions. He announced
in April 1993 that he had returned the power of the soviets to the regions,
which would soon return the power to the central level. Khasbulatov
proposed the establishment of a central parliamentary republic and the
restoration of the power of the soviets in the regions and localities. He
favored the restoration of the power of the soviets in which local executive
authorities would be subordinated to local soviets, which in turn would
be subordinated to the presidium of the Supreme Soviet.63
Eltsin also tried to get the regions on his side in the constitutional
debate, offering a federal model in contrast to Khasbulatov, who had offered the regions the original Soviet model.64
In May 1993, Eltsin decreed that a constitutional convention was to
convene to refine and adopt a new constitution in final form. In his opening
speech to the Constitutional Assembly in June 1993, Eltsin compared that
time with 1917 in that the new Constitutional Assembly was continuing
the work of the Provisional Government, which was brought to an end
by the Bolshevik seizure of power and the dispersal of the Constituent
Assembly in January 1918.65 Eltsin thus based the rebirth of the Russian
constitutional order on the pre-Soviet era. The Soviet period was portrayed as illegitimate, an interregnum in Russias search for democracy.
According to Eltsin, the soviets and democracy were fundamentally
incompatible.66
The Constitutional Assembly approved by a large majority a new
constitutional draft in July 1993 that differed from the presidents draft.
The Assemblys draft envisioned a rather weak president, who was dependent on the parliament. As a response, Eltsin issued an edict (ukaz)
in September 1993 on gradual constitutional reform in the RF.67 This dissolved the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of Peoples deputies, whose
powers were to be transferred to a new Federal Assembly (Federalnoe
sobranie). This institution, in turn, would be made up of the State Duma
and the Federation Council (Sovet Federatsii). Deputies would be elected to
the Duma for a term of four years while the Federation Council would be
63
64
65
66
67
Ibid., 125.
Ukaz Prezidenta RF, 21 September 1993, Sobranie Aktov Prezidenta i Pravitelstva RF (1993) No.39
item 3597, No.1400 (as amended), available at <http://www.consultant.ru/online/base/?req=doc;
base=LAW;n=40589>.
104
69
105
71
Cameron Ross, Putins Federal Reforms and the Consolidation of Federalism in Russia: One
Step Forward, Two Steps Back, 36(1) Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2003), 29-47.
Jeffrey Kahn, Federalism, Democratization and the Rule of Law in Russia (Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2002), 137.
106
73
RF Constiutional Court, Ruling (postanovlenie), 7 June 2000, No.10-P, In the Matter of Examining the Constitutionality of Several Provisions of the Constitution of the Altai Republic
[...], Vestnik Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF (2000) No.5, available at <http://www.rg.ru/oficial/doc/
min_and_vedom/ks/10_p.shtm>, and RF Constitutional Court, Decision (opredelenie), 27 June
2000, No.92-O, Regarding the Inquiry of a Group of Deputies of the State Duma in the Matter
of Examining the Conformity of Constitutionality of Several Provisions of the Constitution
of the Adygei Republic [...], Vestnik Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF (2000) No.5, dissenting opinion
(of Justice Luchin) at Vestnik Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF (2000) No.6, both available at <http://
www.constitution.garant.ru/DOC_82298.htm>. See, further, Ross, op.cit. note 70, 42.
74
Vladimir Putin, Speech delivered at the Enlarged Government Meeting with the Government
and Heads of the Regions, 13 September 2004, available at <http://www.kremlin.ru>.
Thomas F. Remington, Majorities without Mandates: The Russian Federation Council since
2000, 55(5) Europa-Asia Studies (2003), 667-691, at 671.
107
76
77
See Vladimir Gelmans remarks about the role of the United Russia at From the Frying Pan
into the Fire? The Dynamics of Post-Soviet Regimes in Comparative Perspective, 50(1) Russian Social Science Review (2009), 4-39, at 30, and his United Russia: Ruling Party or Emperors
New Clothes, Center for Strategic & International studies (CSIS), Ponars Policy Memo No.255,
available at <http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/pm_0255.pdf>.
108
how the respective roles of party, state and citizens will evolve in the long
run. So far, there has been no question of returning to a one-party system,
because United Russia has not adopted an active ideological role; rather,
it has been acting as a political organization that guarantees the popularity of the president and, lately, of the prime minister. Nevertheless, there
are fears in some circles that United Russia will be used to strengthen the
power of the central government by bringing its own networks closer to
those of the state.78 So far, the role of United Russia is not so powerful that
it can be compared to that of the CPSU in the late 1980s. Additionally,
the theory of a multiparty system and free elections confer at least the
appearance of representative democracy on Russian politics, an advantage
that the ruling elite does not appear ready to forfeit. All that being said,
the position of the other parties is precarious, and Russia cannot be said
to have a truly functional multiparty system at present.
Concerning the search for an official ideology for the Russian state,
Vladislav Surkov, the Deputy Head of the Presidents Chancellery, intro
duced the term sovereign democracy in February 2006:
In order for Russia to be fully competitive in a globalized world, [it] must have
full state sovereignty, that is full control by the Russian state over [its] borders and
territory as well as over the price of oil and the use of natural resources [] Thus,
sovereignty is the political synonym of competitiveness.79
79
See Nicklaus Laverty, Limited Choices, Russian Opposition Parties and the 2007 Duma
Elections, 16(4) Demokratizatsiia (2008), 364-381, at 365. See, also, Hans Oversloot and Ruben
Verheul Managing Democracy: Political Parties and the State in Russia, 22(3) Journal of Communist Studies & Transition Politics (2006), 383-405, at 394.
Cited in Mark A. Smith, Sovereign Democracy: The Ideology of Edinaia Rossiia, Conflict
Studies Research Centre, UK Defence Academy, Russian Series (August 2006) No.6/37, available
at <http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/csrc/document-listings/russian>.
109
110
inherent in analyses that neglect the concepts and vocabulary that are
created and given context by contemporary political actors.
The shift from Soviet-era to post-Soviet constitutional concepts represents a significant turning point in Russian history. The de-Stalinization
period laid the ground for this process. The development of concepts
that emphasized peoples participation and wider democracy started to
occur in the texts after Stalins era. The period of perestroika was obviously
crucial for the development of the new concepts. Gorbachev and his allies
radically transformed the Soviet vocabulary. Terms such as perestroika,
glasnost and gumanitarnyi sotsializm reformed the Soviet constitutional
concepts in a revolutionary manner, and the outcome of this process was
the 1993 Constitution; it represented the first time in Russian history that
a constitution was based on the ideas of western liberal democracy. Putins
administration returned to the concepts of restricted unity after the short
freedom interlude of the 1990s, introducing concepts such as sovereign
democracy and managed democracy, which, however, have lately started
to be supplanted by the rhetoric of welfare and civil society.
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