At the Seventh (Special) Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Ninth Convocation on October 7, 1977, the third and last Soviet Constitution The Soviet Union was governed by three versions of its Constitution, modelled after the 1918 Constitution established by the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , the immediate predecessor of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the "Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев , December 19, 1906 – November 10, 1982) led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as the fourth First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Constitution", was unanimously adopted. The official name of the Constitution was "Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (Russian Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th: Конститу́ция (Основно́й Зако́н) Сою́за Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик). It was the first constitution which explicitly stated the supremacy of the Communist Party.
The preamble stated that "the aims of the dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxism, the dictatorship of the proletariat denotes the transitional socialist State between the capitalist class society and the classless communist society. During the transition, the State can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, thus the term refers to the Classical Roman dictatura concept — republican and having been fulfilled, the Soviet state The political system of the Soviet Union was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , the only party permitted by Constitution. As authorized by Constitution, the Soviet government, called the Council of People's Commissars until 1946 and the Council of Ministers of the USSR afterwards, executed decisions of has become the state of the whole people." Compared with previous constitutions, the Brezhnev Constitution extended the bounds of constitutional regulation of society. The first chapter defined the leading role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world. It lost its dominance in the wake of the failed August 1991 coup d'état attempt led by communist hardliners (CPSU) and established principles for the management of the state and the government. Article 1 defined the USSR as a socialist state, as did all previous constitutions:
- "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of the whole people, expressing the will and interests of the workers, peasants, and intelligentsia, the working people of all the nations and nationalities of the country".
The difference is that, according to the new Constitution, the government no longer represented the workers A laborer is one of the construction trades, traditionally considered unskilled manual labor, as opposed to skilled labor.[clarification needed] In the division of labor, laborers have all blasting, hand tools, power tools, air tools, and small heavy equipment, and act as assistants to other trades, e.g., operators or cement masons. The first and peasants A peasant is an agricultural worker who subsists by working a small plot of ground. The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district . The term peasant today is sometimes used in a pejorative sense for impoverished farmers alone. Later chapters established principles for economic management and cultural relations.
The 1977 Constitution was long and detailed. It included twenty-eight more articles than the 1936 Soviet Constitution The 1936 Soviet constitution, adopted on December 5, 1936, and also known as the "Stalin" constitution, redesigned the government of the Soviet Union. The constitution repealed restrictions on voting and added universal direct suffrage and the right to work to rights guaranteed by the previous constitution. In addition, the Constitution. The Constitution explicitly defined the division of responsibilities between the central and republic governments. For example, the Constitution placed the regulation of boundaries and administrative divisions within the jurisdiction of the republics. However, provisions established the rules under which the republics could make such changes. Thus, the Constitution concentrated on the operation of the government system as a whole.
Just like all preceding versions of the Soviet Constitution The Soviet Union was governed by three versions of its Constitution, modelled after the 1918 Constitution established by the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , the immediate predecessor of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the 1977 Constitution preserved the right of constituent Soviet republics to secede from the Union; this provision would later play an important role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985. After years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth was at a standstill. Failed attempts at reform, a stagnant economy, and war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially[citation needed] in the Baltic.
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Amendment process
Adoption of the Constitution was a legislative act of the Supreme Soviet. Amendments to the Constitution were likewise adopted by legislative act of that body. Amendments required the approval of a two-thirds majority of the deputies of the Congress of People's Deputies and could be initiated by the congress itself; the Supreme Soviet, acting through its commissions and committees; the Presidium or chairman of the Supreme Soviet; the Constitutional Oversight Committee; the Council of Ministers; republic soviets; the Committee of People's Control; the Supreme Court; the Procuracy; and the chief state arbiter. In addition, the leading boards of official organizations and even the Academy of Sciences could initiate amendments and other legislation.
Soviet constitutions were frequently amended and had been changed more often than the constitutions of most Western countries. Nevertheless, the 1977 Constitution attempted to avoid frequent amendment by establishing regulations for government bodies (especially the lists of ministries, state commissions, and other bodies in the 1936 constitution) in separate, but equally authoritative, enabling legislation, such as the Law on the Council of Ministers of July 5, 1978. Other enabling legislation has included a law on citizenship, a law on elections to the Supreme Soviet, a law on the status of Supreme Soviet deputies, regulations for the Supreme Soviet, a resolution on commissions, regulations on local government, and laws on the Supreme Court and the Procuracy. The enabling legislation provided the specific and changing operating rules for these government bodies.
Constitutional rights
An ostensibly democratic constitution, the Soviet Constitution included a series of civic and political rights. Among these were the rights to freedom of speech Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak without censorship and/or limitation. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes used to indicate not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in, freedom of press, and freedom of assembly Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests. The right to freedom of association is recognized as a human right, a political freedom and a civil liberty and the right to religious belief and worship Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any religion. Freedom of religion is considered by many. In addition, the Constitution provided for freedom of artistic work, protection of the family, inviolability of the person and home, and the right to privacy. In line with the Marxist-Leninist Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideological stream that emerged as the mainstream tendency among the Communist parties in the 1920s as it was adopted as the ideological foundation of the Communist International during Stalin's era ideology of the government, the Constitution also granted social and economic rights not provided by constitutions in capitalist democracies. Among these were the rights to work, rest and leisure, health protection, care in old age and sickness, housing, education, and cultural benefits.
Unlike bourgeois In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late eighteenth century to now, the bourgeoisie is a social class characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture. A member of the bourgeoisie is a bourgeois or capitalist (plural: bourgeois; democratic constitutions, the Soviet Constitution placed limitations on political rights, whereas in bourgeois democratic countries these limitations are usually left up to the federal legislative or judicial systems, or state constitutions and their corresponding executive, legislative and judicial systems. Article 6 effectively eliminated organized opposition to the government by granting to the CPSU The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world. It lost its dominance in the wake of the failed August 1991 coup d'état attempt led by communist hardliners the power to lead and guide society. Article 39 enabled the government to prohibit any activities it considered detrimental by stating that "Enjoyment of the rights and freedoms of citizens must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state." Article 59 obliged citizens to obey the laws and comply with the standards of socialist society as determined by the party. The government did not treat as inalienable those political and socioeconomic rights the Constitution granted to the people. Citizens enjoyed rights only when the exercise of those rights did not interfere with the interests of the ruling elite, and the CPSU alone had the power and authority to determine policies for the government and society. For example, the right to freedom of expression contained in Article 52 could be suspended if the exercise of that freedom failed to be in accord with party policies. Until the era of glasnost Glasnost (Russian: Гла́сность, IPA: [ˈɡlasnəsʲtʲ] , Openness) was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s, freedom of expression did not entail the right to criticize the government. The government had the power to ban meetings by unsanctioned religious groups, and violations of the laws limiting the right to freedom of religious expression were severely punished under the republics' criminal codes.
The Constitution also failed to provide political and judicial mechanisms for the protection of rights. Thus, the Constitution lacked explicit guarantees protecting the rights of the people. In fact, the Supreme Soviet has never introduced amendments specifically designed to protect individual rights. Neither did the people have a higher authority within the government to which to appeal when they believed their rights had been violated. The Supreme Court had no power to ensure that constitutional rights were observed by legislation or were respected by the rest of the government. The Soviet Union also signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Accords The Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Final Act, Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was the final act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki, Finland during July and August of 1975. Thirty-five states, including the USA, Canada, and all European states), which mandated that internationally recognized human rights Human rights are "rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Proponents of the concept usually assert that everyone is endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason of being human be respected in the signatory countries. In the late 1980s, however, realigning constitutional and domestic law with international commitments on human rights was publicly debated.
Role of the citizen
Article 59 of the Constitution stated that citizens' exercise of their rights was inseparable from performance of their duties. Articles 60 through 69 defined these duties. Citizens were required to work and to observe labor discipline. The legal code labeled evasion of work as "parasitism" and provided punishment for this crime. The Constitution also obliged citizens to protect socialist property and oppose corruption. All citizens performed military service as a duty to safeguard and "enhance the power and prestige of the Soviet state." Violation of this duty was a betrayal of the motherland and the gravest of crimes. Finally, the Constitution required parents to train their children for socially useful work and to raise them as worthy members of socialist society.
The Constitution and other legislation protected and enforced Soviet citizenship Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities. "Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public , volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens. In this vein,. Legislation on citizenship granted equal rights of citizenship to naturalized citizens as well as to the native born. Laws also specified that citizens could not freely renounce their citizenship. Citizens were required to apply for permission to do so from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was a Soviet governmental institution – a permanent body of the Supreme Soviets (parliaments). This body was of the all-Union level (Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union), as well as in all Soviet republics (e.g., Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR) and autonomous republics, which could reject the application if the applicant had not completed military service, had judicial duties, or was responsible for family dependants. In addition, the Presidium could refuse the application to protect national security. However, the Presidium could revoke citizenship for defamation of the Soviet Union or for acts damaging to national prestige or security.
Critics of Soviet Constitution
Several professionals criticized the project of the Constitution of 1977[1], but such critiques were not taken into account and were not published in time; during the Brezhnev stagnation Period of stagnation, also known as Brezhnevian Stagnation , the Stagnation Period, or the Era of Stagnation, refers to a period of economic stagnation under Leonid Brezhnev in the history of the Soviet Union that started in the mid-1970s, only publications in favor were allowed.
See also
References
- This article incorporates public domain material A work of the United States government, as defined by United States copyright law, is "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties." The term only applies to the work of the federal government, including the governments of "non-organized territorial areas" under the from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies The Country Studies are works published by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress , freely available for use by researchers. No copyright is claimed on them; therefore, they have been dedicated to the public domain and can be copied freely. Note that not all the pictures used therein are in the public domain. The Country Studies. - Soviet Union
- ^ S.V.Kallistratova. Comments about Project of Constitution of 1977. (in Russian, Некоторые замечания по поводу «Проекта Конституции СССР» 1977 г.), in the book "Заступница", editor:Е.Э.Печуро; publisher: "Звения", Moscow, 2003. http://www.memo.ru/library/books/sw/chapt43.htm
External links
- Full Text and All Subsequent Laws Amending the 1977 Constitution of the USSR
- English text of the 1977 Constitution of the USSR
Categories: Constitutions of the Soviet Union Categories: Constitutions of former countries | Official documents of the Soviet Union | Soviet law | 1977 in the Soviet Union | 1977 in law
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