The Soviet Constitution: myth and reality - Richard Schifter's address before the American Bar Association in San Francisco, August 10, 1987 - transcript

US Department of State Bulletin, Oct, 1987

[W]e constitute the single legal party in Russia; . . . we maintain a so-called monopoly on legality. We have taken away political freedom from our opponents; we do not permit the legal existence of those who strive to compete with us. We have clamped a lock on the lips of the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries. We could not have acted otherwise, I think. The dictatorship of the proletariat, Comrade Lenin says, is a very terrible undertaking. It is not possible to insure the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat without breaking the backbone of all opponents of the dictatorship. No one can appoint the time when we shall be able to revise our attitude on this question.

Within the party, decisionmaking, according to Lenin, was to be concentrated at the very top. As semantic games are often played by the Soviets and as the term "democracy" is assigned an important role in that context, let me share with you the following quotation from Lenin:

Soviet socialist democracy is not in the least incompatible with individual rule and dictatorship. . . . What is necessary is individual rule, the recognition of the dictatorial powers of one man. . . . All phrases about equal rights are nonsense.

It is against this background that we must read the term "democratic centralism," as it appears in Article 3 of the Soviet Constitution. It means that the people in the central position call the shots. Lenin made no bones about his intention to establish a dictatorship.

The Soviet Constitution as an Educational and Propaganda Instrument

We must understand, therefore, that the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. is not, like our Constitution, a document that spells out the powers and form of government as well as its limits and the inalienable rights of the individual. In a Leninist state there are, by definition, no limits to the power of government. There are no inalienable rights of the individual. Law is made and altered at will by the leadership. The powers of the leadership cannot be limited by an overarching document that would deprive a leadership group of its freedom to act as it sees fit. Nor can the assertion of the right of an individual stand in the way of the leadership's determination of what is good for society.

The Constitution of the U.S.S.R. is, therefore, an educational and propaganda instrument. Any provisions contained in the Constitution which might facially suggest that freedom of the kind that we know exists are effectively modified by the key phrases in Articles 3, 6, 39, and 59 to which I referred earlier.

Let me offer an illustration of what I mean. The equivalent of our First Amendment is contained in Article 50 of the Soviet Constitution, which reads as follows:

In accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system, citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and of demonstration.

Starting from our notions of civil liberties, we might read this article to mean that citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed freedom of expression and that that grant of freedom accords with the interest of the people and strengthens the Soviet Union's system of government. But that is not the way Article 50 is understood in the Soviet Union. The way Article 50 is applied, freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly is granted only if it accords with the interest of the people and if it strengthens and develops the socialist system. And who is to decide what is in the interest of the people and what strengthens and develops the socialist system? The answer is, of course, found in Articles 3 and 6 of the Constitution. What is in the interest of the people is decided by the Communist Party and ultimately by the central leadership, the Politburo. That is why a law that makes defamation of the socialist system a crime is constitutional. Defamation, which in Soviet practice means speaking unpleasant truths, is presumed not to strengthen the socialist system.