Abstract
Constitutions and constitution-making in communist systems are different from constitutions and constitution-making in Western democracies, because of different perceptions of what a constitution is and what functions it should perform. Western constitutionalism has been preoccupied with the issue of limiting political power; the constitutions of western nations have provided a framework within which political power is allocated and exercised, binding the governors and the governed under the law.1 Communist perceptions, on the other hand, are derived from Marxist-Leninist class analysis. Law and constitutions are a part of the superstructure and a tool of the ruling class. In capitalist societies this is seen as the bourgeoisie; in ‘socialist’ societies, it is the working class, led by its ‘vanguard’ the Communist Party. ‘The constitution is a class category and it expresses the interests of the ruling class,’ states a Soviet textbook, and the key to all Soviet and socialist constitutions is their ‘socialist essence’.2
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Notes
L. Grigoryan and V. Dolgopolov, Fundamentals of Soviet State Law (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971) pp. 23–4.
Merle Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1953) p. 291. Italics in the original.
George Brunner, ‘The Functions of Communist Constitutions’, Review of Socialist Law, no. 2, 1977.
Milovan Djilas, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System (New York: Praeger, 1957).
For this author’s view of the type and direction of political change in communist systems, see ‘Aspects of Change’, in T. Rakowska-Harmstone (ed.) Perspectives for Change in Communist Societies (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979) pp. 1–27.
For a review of changes in the 1977 USSR Constitution, see Robert Sharlet, ‘The New Soviet Constitution’, Problems of Communism (Sept–Oct 1977) no. 5 XXVI, pp. 1–24.
See Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc, revised and enlarged edition, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967).
On this duality, see Robert Sharlet, ‘Stalinism and Soviet Legal Culture’ in Robert C. Tucker (ed.) Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York: Norton, 1977).
For a detailed analysis of the participation system, see Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). While article numbers in this and the following paragraph refer to the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the mechanisms described are present in other bloc constitutions for which the Soviet Constitution has been the model.
Substituting, in the words of Chalmers Johnson, The ‘goal transfer culture’ for the original ‘goal culture’. See ‘Comparing Communist Nations’ in Chalmers Johnson (ed.) Change in Communist Systems (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970) ch. 1.
The classic study on the subject is H. G. Skilling and F. Griffiths, (eds.) Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).
Bulgaria, article 1(1) 1971; Hungary, article 2(1) 1972; Romania, article 1, 1972; German Democratic Republic, article 1, 1974; Poland, article 1, 1976; and Czechoslovakia, article 1(1) 1960. William Simons (ed.) Constitutions of Communist World (Alphen van den Rign: Sijthoff & Nordhoff, 1980).
See Radoslav Selucky, Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe; Political Background and Economic Significance (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972). The scope of this paper does not allow for any but the most superficial discussion of the problems here. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary each merit separate treatment. Because it has been free of Soviet interference, Yugoslavia’s constitution-making in particular has been almost continuous, complex and innovative, yet in a final analysis still unable to escape from the systemic straitjacket.
See Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975) pp. 7–10.
See my ‘The Nationalities Question’, in Robert Weston (ed.) The Soviet Union; Looking to the 1980s (Stanford, California and Milwood, New York: Hoover Institution Press and Kraus International Publications, 1980) pp. 129–55. For an excellent analysis of the national problem in the Soviet Union, see Hélène Carrère-d’Encausse, L’Empire éclaté (Paris: Flammarion & Cie, 1978).
See V. Kusin, From Dubcek to Charter 77: A Study of Normalization in Czechoslovakia (1968–1978) (Edinburgh: Q Press Ltd, 1978).
The Central Committee is composed of twenty representatives from each republic, fifteen from each autonomous province, and fifteen from the armed forces. For an overview, see Robin Alison Remington, ‘Yugoslavia’, in T. Rakowska-Harmstone and A. Gyorgy (eds.) Communism in Eastern Europe (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1979) pp. 213–48; and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, ‘Yugoslavia: The Dangers of Political Longevity’, in M. M. Drachkovitch (ed.) East Central Europe: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1982) pp. 349–98.
Unfortunately the scope of this paper precludes further discussion of the Hungarian and Czechoslovak cases. Interested readers are referred to Bennett Kovrig, Communism in Hungary from Kun to Kadar (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1979) and H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).
See Stefan Nowak, ‘Values and Attitudes of the Polish People’, Scientific American vol. 245, no. 1, (July, 1981), pp. 45–53.
Stanislaw Gebethner, ‘Konstytucja i Praworzadnosc’ (Constitution and the Rule of Law) Polityka, no. 11 (1254) 14 March 1981, p. 14.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Stanislaw Podemski, ‘Oblicze Konstytucji’ (The Face of the Constitution) Polityka, no. 8 (1251) 21 February 1981, p. 6.
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© 1985 Keith G. Banting and Richard Simeon
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Rakowska-Harmstone, T. (1985). Communist Constitutions and Constitutional Change. In: Banting, K.G., Simeon, R. (eds) The Politics of Constitutional Change in Industrial Nations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06991-0_8
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