DOI: 10.25136/2409-868X.2021.12.37208

Abstract: This article demonstrates that socialism was the key political concept for the nascent Soviet constitutionalism. The matter is that the political-legal ideas of V. I. Lenin underlied the ideology of Bolshevism, which became the basis of the entire legal system of the Soviet state. The author traces the evolution of socialist ideas and their reception by the Russian social democracy. In the Bolshevik party, the idea of a socialist society has acquired rather utopian and radical forms than the initial European model. This was associated with the fact that socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions dictated certain framework for the implementation of socialism. The Communist Party had to establish the socialist principles and fundamentals of the Soviet society on the constitutional level. This led to robust debates on the issue in the constitutional commission. The discourse that emerged due to the adoption of the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 is poorly reflected in the scientific publications; therefore, the author provides brief biographical data of the key members of the constitutional commission. This allows correlating the political-legal ideas with the historical and personal contexts. It is worth noting that such concepts as “socialist society”, “association” and “union” underlie the comprehension of the essence of state and law. This served as the basis for further discussion of the goals and objectives of the councils, first steps, as well as rights and responsibilities of citizens.

DOI: 10.25136/2409-7136.2021.12.37222

Abstract: The Bolsheviks, alongside their mentors K. Marx and F. Engels, were staunch opponents of the federal structure. However, the political goals of the revolutionary party were put at the forefront; thus, V. I. Lenin viewed federation as the method for uniting the proletariat into a single union. The leader of the revolution developed the forms of structurization of this union on multinational basis throughout his entire creative life. The article traces the evolution of V. I. Lenin's representations of the state structure of Soviet Russia – from the unitary centralized state to the federation of free nations. Such political and legal views on the Soviet federation underlines the development of the constitutional doctrine of the Soviet State. However, the constitutional commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee did not reach a common ground on which type of federation should be built on the territory of the former Russian Empire, thereby offering different projects of federal structure. The author describes the reflection of Lenin’s ideas on the Soviet federation in perception of majority of the members of the constitutional commission, as well as the corresponding political projects.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0706.2021.12.37223

Abstract: Based on the vast array of archival materials, the article reconstructs the discussions that took place in the process of adoption of the 1918 Constitution of the RSFSR. It is worth noting that the issues that are somehow related to the model of the Soviet federation were the most discussed. Such situation existed due to the fact that the Marxism-Leninism ideology was initially internationalistic, and the Bolsheviks were enormously interested in expanding their influence. The federation was also a fully legal instrument for uniting the communist parties of various countries into economic, military and political alliance. Although V. I. Lenin had a dialectical perception of federation and the state, this did not diminish the interest of the members of the commission to this problematic. The question of federalism was strictly practical and tactical, since the fate of the world socialist revolution depended on the extent to which the federation would be proletarian and unique. Therefore, the members of the commission had to solve the issues associated with the type of federation, ethnic question, the administrative-territorial division of the state, and representation in the councils. The latter was of crucial importance, since both the social base of the political regime and the governability of the entire Soviet state depended on the content of the Soviet institutions. Therefore, the Bolsheviks placed emphasis namely on the representation of workers, rather than peasants. The conclusion is made that the legal issues of the structure of the Soviet federation were equally as important as the ideological arrangement of the Soviet state.

DOI: 10.25136/2409-868X.2020.12.34719

Abstract: The subject of this research is the political legal doctrine of Soviet constitutionalism during the period of establishment of the Soviet State. The author presents his interpretation of the political legal doctrine as a specific form of material incarnation of the idea of the state. Its Soviet version had certain historical and conceptual peculiarities. First and foremost, it implied the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which fully determined the content of the fundamental notions and concepts of the political legal doctrine, developed in the constitutional commission of 1918. The framework of the Soviet constitutional system were reflected therein, as well as in the text of the Constitution of the RSFSR. It appears that ideocracy became the key vector of self-identification of the Soviet Russia. The analysis of the main ideological postulates of the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 allowed concluding that the Soviet State is a typical example of the ideocratic state, which should be interpreted as a social system founded on the dominant ideology. Its basis was the Soviet constitutional identity that predetermined the level of perception and approval of the government actions by the population. Methodological specificities of the analysis of the Soviet political legal doctrine reflected in its logical-theoretical framework and provisions. The logical-theoretical framework was analyzed via morphological (structural) approach that focuses on studying the structure of ideologies on the micro-level. The provisions of the political legal doctrine were reflected in the discussions and discursive practices in terms of the constitutional commission, which were examines in the course of this research via studying speech acts and political language.

DOI: 10.25136/2409-868X.2019.12.31829

Abstract: The internationalist socialist ideas, originated in Europe and reflected in the ideas of Bolsheviks, manifested in the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination. The genesis of such principle using methodology of the history of notions allowed determining the conceptual grounds of the Soviet constitutional project. Prior to the Revolution of 1905, V. I. Lenin started to write on the national self-determination, in which he initially saw the bourgeois and counterrevolutionary content. However, by 1913 Lenin attached the class and proletarian meaning to it, since it became evident to Bolsheviks that tactically the use of bourgeois nationalism may be profitable for integrating the socialist republics into a single union. The period from 1917 to 1921 the principle of sovereign equality of states was recognizes at the party congresses and conferences; in essence, the right to secession for the constituent republics of USSR was formulated. It is worth noting that the aforementioned ideas reflected in the Treaty and Declaration on the Creation of the USSR, and later in the Soviet Constitution, which concept was elaborated in 1922-1923. Namely the question on the form and content of the constitution founding document of the future union became the matter of disputes, as the right of nations to self-determination dictated particular framework for sovereignty of the republics. The article provides a detailed analysis of genesis of the idea of self-determination of the nations in V. I. Lenin’s political doctrine, as well as its implementation in the constitutional doctrine of the future Union State.