$Unique_ID{COW03920} $Pretitle{295} $Title{Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Chapter 11A. Formal Structure of the Union Government} $Subtitle{} $Author{Thomas D. Roberts} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{constitution government union soviet central state republics supreme new executive} $Date{1972} $Log{} Country: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Book: Soviet Union, A Country Study Author: Thomas D. Roberts Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1972 Chapter 11A. Formal Structure of the Union Government The Soviet Constitution of 1936, as amended, defined the country's formal governmental structure in 1969. The constitution provides that the powers of the state be shared by a parliamentary body known as the Supreme Soviet; by its executive committee, known as the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet; and, by a government bureaucracy functioning under a Council of Ministers (see fig. 6). In fact, however, the formal structure of government constitutes an administrative framework within which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), which is not designated by the constitution as a ruling body, exercises complete control. The Communist leadership exercises this rigid control through the party structure itself, through the political police, and through the armed forces (see ch. 21, Political Dynamics). The CPSU maintains a monopoly of power over the political system, and the organization of the government is designed to further that purpose. Although the constitution does refer to various administrative powers that the branches of the government are allowed to exercise, it makes no mention of the measures the Party enacts, either alone or in conjunction with the state organs, to determine the course which the government will follow. The real rulers of the Soviet Union are the members of the Central Committee of the Party, especially its Politburo. The government and the CPSU, in 1969, were interlocked through well-known personalities of the Party who were to be found in all the crucial posts (see ch. 21, Political Dynamics). The Constitution of 1936 describes the Soviet Union as a federal state, but the country has most of the characteristics of a unitary state with a highly centralized government. The governmental structure is based on a pyramid of elected councils, known as soviets, which-since the Bolsheviks came to power-have served as the governing bodies at various levels beginning with the village. Below the national level there were fifteen union republics in 1969 that were further subdivided into autonomous republics and regions; provinces; territories; and national areas on the basis of ethnic, historical or economic considerations. These subdivisions are formally assigned many powers of self-government, but in practice they function mainly to put into effect the decisions of the central government, channeled downward through a structure dominated by a political elite composed of professional government officials and CPSU leaders (see ch. 20, Component Political Subdivisions). At the Twenty-first Party Congress in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev intimated that a revision of the constitution was necessary. At the Twenty-second Party Congress in 1961, he specifically mentioned the need for the drafting of a new document to replace the 1936 constitution under which the country had been operating. It was not until April 1962, however, that the Supreme Soviet unanimously approved a proposal for the formation of a commission to prepare the draft of a new constitution. Headed by Khrushchev, the commission consisted of ninety-six party and government dignitaries. With Khrushchev's removal in October 1964, the chairmanship of the commission was passed to Leonid Brezhnev, the new Party secretary. In 1969 the commission had not reported on its progress or presented a draft constitution. Thus the constitution adopted in 1936 continued to define the country's formal governmental structure. Constitutional Development During the course of its history, the Soviet Union has had three constitutions, those of 1918, 1924, and 1936. However, the concept of constitutionalism-defined as an attempt to confine each branch of government to its prescribed role, to safeguard citizens against abuses of power by the officialdom, and to enforce the continuing responsibility of the governing authorities to the electorate-is alien to Soviet political thought. The constitutional documents have rarely been consulted by administrators as a guide to the organization and functioning of the government. The constitutions of the Soviet Union have never given an adequate picture of the actual political system; they have provided only an outline of the existing structures. More than in most other political systems, the real constitution remains largely unwritten. From the point of view of the Soviet leaders, the constitutional documents of the Soviet Union serve several useful purposes. They make the formal governmental structure explicit, giving legitimacy and stability to the system of control. In addition, the constitutions have played an important role, both at home and abroad, as propaganda measures. Since the emphasis in Soviet constitutions has always been on the mass mobilization of the electorate and on its participation in the proceedings of the government, the regime has attempted to perpetuate an idea of monolithic popular support for itself. Finally, to meet ideological requirements, the Soviet constitutions have been carefully drafted to emphasize the economic security that the communist system claims to provide. The constitutions were designed to give the impression that ultimate power in the country resides in the hands of the workers. The Constitution of 1918 On July 10, 1918 the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets ratified the constitution which established the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). The structure of the state system as outlined in the constitution represented a formal codification of institutions that already existed and the first attempt of the new state to legitimize itself according to accepted Western standards. The Constitution of 1918 established formally many of the principles of political organization and control that have come to characterize the modern Soviet state. In the debate preceding the drafting of the document, basic conflicts emerged between those revolutionaries who favored a strengthening of the central power of the new government and those who wished to safeguard the autonomy of the local soviets; between those who favored a concentration of legislative and executive powers in the supreme organs of the government and those who sought their separation and delimitation. Under the guidance of Yakov Sverdlov and Joseph Stalin, the basic lines of policy that were drafted subordinated the local soviets to centralized authority, ensuring the concentration of legislative and executive power in the supreme governmental organs (which in turn were to be controlled by the Communist Party) and organizing the component subdivisions along nationality-territorial lines. The industrial working class was designated as the principal supporting pillar of the government. No specific mention of the Communist Party was made in the constitution. In its final form the document consisted of two parts. The first part, the Declaration of the Rights of Toiling and Exploited Peoples, stated the policies and aims of the new regime and confirmed specific actions, which the government had taken prior to the ratification of the constitution. The Bill of Rights was cast in class terms in that the constitution provided for what it described as "real freedoms" of press, assembly, and association for the workers and peasants. Freedom of religious and antireligious propaganda was to be assured every citizen. The constitution further spelled out the duties as well as the rights of its citizens proclaiming that "he who does not work shall not eat." The constitution established the principle that voting was to be indirect and based on unequal suffrage. Thus, the regime was able to deny the franchise to certain categories of persons that it considered hostile to the new order, such as priests and wealthy peasants. Urban voting strength was increased to five times that of rural voting power-one representative per 25,000 urban workers as opposed to one per 125,000 peasants. This indicated the general distrust of the rural voters held by the framers of the new constitution. The second part of the constitution elaborated the general principles of the new governmental structure and spelled out the form it would assume. The constitution established the unicameral All-Russian Congress of Soviets as the supreme legislative body, and its executive arm was entrusted with discretionary powers between sessions of the congress. The executive committee or the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the soviets consisted of approximately two hundred members elected by the congress. This committee in turn elected a Council of People's Commissars that was entrusted with the "general direction" of public and government affairs. The provisions of the constitution were in accordance with Marxist theory in that they rejected the doctrine of the separation of powers as a subterfuge created by the capitalists. Legislative powers in the new state were not confined to the representative body, the congress of soviets, but were shared by the executive committee and the Council of People's Commissars. This reflected the view that the rapid rate of economic development necessary for the new state to survive, and the chaotic conditions of civil war in the country made it imperative that the council be able to issue rapid and urgent decrees without having to wait for parliamentary approval. Below the level of the all-Russian central institutions the constitution provided for a hierarchical arrangement of local soviets that extended downward from the regional to the provincial, county, and village levels. Government under the constitution lacked stability both because of structural defects in the system and because of the disturbed conditions prevailing during the period of civil war. The pyramid of soviets resulted in a clash between centripetal and centrifugal tendencies. The basic principles of government organization outlined in the document, however, with few modifications, were carried over to form the basis for the subsequent constitutions of 1924 and 1936. The Constitution of 1924 With the decision to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics made at the end of 1922, the government provided for the drafting of a new constitution. A commission was established for this purpose by the central executive committee and the document that this commission drafted became largely an embodiment of the views of Stalin and a few of his closest associates. This constitution like its predecessor in 1918 outlined the formal governmental structure of the new union, but concealed the dominating role of the CPSU behind an array of pseudo-representative institutions. Through the assumption of a constitutional disguise the Party was able to continue to conceal the reality of arbitrary power under a cloak of legitimacy. The opening section of the constitution was an ideological manifesto that described the worlds as divided into rival camps of socialism and capitalism. The second section contained the treaty by which the partners to the union: the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Transcaucasian republics declared their intention to unite in "one union state." The jurisdiction of the union republics was stated in residual form. The republics were authorized to exercise those powers that were not vested in the government of the Soviet Union. The state authority of the central government was so broad, however, that the union republics had little in the way of initiative. The constitution continued the formal role of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets as the supreme organ of authority in the country. The congress with over two thousand members was to meet once each year-after 1927, meetings became biennial. The unwieldly congress elected an executive committee that was supposed to act as a legislature between sessions of the complete body. This committee was made bicameral to give recognition to the varied ethnic groups, but, with 750 members, the executive committee was also unwieldly, and actual legislative responsibilities rested in a 27-member presidium. Executive power was vested in a Council of People's Commissars appointed by the central executive committee. Commissars appointed by the central executive committee were in every case the top leaders of the Communist Party, however, the Party was not mentioned in the constitution. Subsequently, the Council of People's Commissars arrogated to itself the power to annul decrees of the congress, the executive committee, the presidium, and all other state organs. The constitution provided for a Supreme Court and a procurator, subordinated to the central executive committee. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court included rendering opinions on questions of union legislation, examining decisions of the lower courts to discover infractions of union law, rendering decisions on the constitutionality of laws passed by the union republics, and settling disputes between them. The court had no power to pass on the constitutionality of union legislation nor could it declare any act of central government agencies to be in excess of legal authority. In the event the procurator disagreed with a decision of the Supreme Court, he had the right to protest before the Council of People's Commissars. The court was thus subordinated to the council, which retained supreme judicial as well as legislative and executive power (see ch. 22, The Legal System). The Constitution of 1936 Although a new constitution had been discussed since June 1963, the constitution adopted by the congress of soviets in 1936 continued in 1969 to define the governmental structure of the country. This constitution has been amended a number of times during the course of its history, but the amendments have not significantly changed the document's character or the basic style of government. Most of the changes have been minor, such as registering the admission of new union republics, making shifts in political subdivisions, and rearranging the administrative structure. The constitution, like its predecessors, does not fully describe the actual political system but only outlines the existing governmental structures. On February 1, 1935, a plenum of the central committee of the CPSU proposed the drafting of a new constitution that would contain measures aimed at "further democratization of the electoral system" and would "make more precise" the social-economic bases of the constitution by bringing the document into conformity with the "present correlation of class forces in the Soviet Union." The congress of soviets unanimously approved the proposal, and its central executive committee designated a constitutional commission headed by Joseph Stalin, Nikolay Bukharin, and Karl Radek to draft the text of the new constitution. On June 12, 1936, the draft was published, and the people of the country were invited to engage in a nationwide discussion of its contents. Proposals for amendment were invited by the commission, but no changes of any consequence were made in the original draft. The Constitution of 1936 was adopted during the period of Stalin's purges, which was a time of domestic uncertainty and potential weakness. Its adoption was politically important in that this act helped to establish a sense, or at least an impression, of unity under Stalin's leadership. Furthermore, the publication and adoption of the constitution was coordinated with the efforts of Soviet foreign ministry to enlist the sympathy of the Western governments to inaugurate collective security against Nazi Germany. Ironically, both Bukharin and Radek, framers of the new constitution, became victims of the Great Purge within two years. The 1936 constitution consists of thirteen chapters that not only establish the basic elements of the governmental structure but lay down the fundamental principles governing the country's social and economic structure. Chapter I states that the Soviet Union is a socialist state in which all power is vested in the workers and peasants. The economic base of the state is specified to be socialist ownership of the means of production, and the land, industries, means of transport, municipal enterprises, and city dwellings are proclaimed state property belonging to the whole people. A right to own personal property, including a dwelling, however, as well as the right of inheritance is stated. The principle that the country's economy will be guided and determined in accordance with a state economic plan is enunciated, and the chapter concludes with a statement establishing the duty of each citizen to work for the common benefit. Chapter II establishes the overall structure of the state, but reference to the union as "federal" is not descriptive since all of the important operative statements and provisions fit the pattern of a centralized unitary state. Under Article 13, the Soviet Union is described as a state founded on the voluntary union of fifteen equal Soviet socialist republics (union republics). In theory no territory can acquire the status of a union republic unless it borders a foreign country because of the right to secession guaranteed each union republic by Article 17. Political theorists in the country consider this right to be very important, but there is a question whether the right could ever be freely exercised, and Stalin has been quoted as stating that secession would be a counter-revolutionary act. Article 14 of the constitution lists twenty-four spheres in which the central government enjoys exclusive authority. Article 15 states that all other powers are to be exercised independently by the component union republics. The powers reserved to the central government are so broad and have been construed so liberally that little actually remains under independent authority of the lower political subdivisions (see ch. 20, Component Political Subdivisions). Powers relating to foreign affairs reserved exclusively for the central government by Article 14 include: overall representation of the Soviet Union in international relations; the power to make or denounce treaties; and the establishment of procedures governing relations of the component union republics with foreign states. Questions of war and peace are under exclusive jurisdiction of the central government, together with matters concerning admission of new republics into the Soviet Union and the organization and direction of national defense. Jurisdiction over foreign trade is reserved to the central government, specifically on the basis of a state monopoly. In domestic affairs, the central government has, under Article 14, a very broad range of exclusive powers over political and social affairs. These include control over observance of the constitution of the Soviet Union and ensuring conformity with it according to the constitutions of the component union republics, together with matters involving state security and fundamental aspects of the legal system. Under Article 14 the central government determines changes in the composition and boundaries of union republics, autonomous republics and regions; it also legislates on citizenship and the rights of foreigners in the country and on acts of amnesty. Exclusive competence in social affairs includes labor legislation, definition of basic principles in public health and education, and legislation on marriage and the family. In domestic economic matters, Article 14 gives the central government exclusive jurisdiction over economic planning for the country as a whole, together with budget control, which includes fixing taxes and allocating revenues to central government agencies and to component union republics and other local governments. Article 14 empowers the central government to administer the country's banking, industrial, agricultural, trading, construction, transportation and communications systems; the article also confers sole jurisdiction over money, credit and the state insurance organization. Powers to define the basic principles of land tenure and exploitation of natural resources are reserved to the central government, which is also given exclusive jurisdiction over organizing a uniform system of economic statistics. Chapter III of the constitution outlines the organization of the government, providing for a bicameral legislature and an executive office. Chapter IV delineates a similar governmental structure for the union republics. Chapters V and VI set forth organizational structure for lower levels of government (see ch. 20, Component Political Subdivisions). Chapters VII and VIII provide for similar structures of government for the autonomous republics and the regions and territories of the country. Chapter IX deals with the court system and the procurator's office. The constitution states that justice is administered by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union and the Supreme Courts of the union republics as well as territorial, regional, and are courts created by the Supreme Soviet. All cases are to be tried with the participation of a people's assessor except in cases specially exempted by law. Supreme court justices are elected for a period of five years by the Supreme Soviet. People's assessors are elected by the Supreme Soviet for periods of two years. A Procurator-General is provided for by Articles 113-117 of Chapter IX. He is appointed by the Supreme Soviet for a period of seven years and is given supreme supervisory power to ensure observance of the law both by governmental officials and the general public (see ch. 22, The Legal System). Amendment Process Amendments to the constitution have been frequent during its history, and the procedure is not complicated. Amendments are adopted by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the delegates voting in each chamber of the Supreme Soviet.