5 Dec 1936
The Congress of Soviets adopted the new Constitution of the USSR, which went down in history as "Stalinist". According to the text, it was one of the most democratic in the world. In fact, it was adopted on the very eve of Great Terror.
The official reason for the adoption of the new Constitution was the victory of socialism, which was declared back in 1934 and which needed to be enshrined in the basic law of the USSR.
The unofficial reason was that the Council of People's Commissars simply couldn't keep up with the country's governance, spending too much time on legislation. Therefore, Stalin proposed dividing Soviet power into two independent branches—legislative and executive (as in classical democracies).
With the help of such an “advanced” Constitution, the Union tried to attract the sympathy of the international community for a joint confrontation with the growing strength of fascism.
In my opinion, the constitutional issue is far more complex than it might seem at first glance. The USSR Constitution, drafted largely in 1918, cannot meet the current situation and current needs. (from Stalin's letter to members of the Politburo)
The Constitutional Commission, consisting of 31 people, headed by Stalin, began its work in the fall of 1935. There were no lawyers on its staff, allegedly because they had not yet freed themselves from revolutionary dogmas and were lagging behind the demands of the times.
The draft document was published on June 12, 1936. For six months, it was discussed at party meetings, in work collectives, and at republican congresses of Soviets. Participants in the discussions included 55% of the adult population country.
The commission received one and a half million amendments, but accepted them Only 47 Of these, proposals that contradicted the "party line" (for example, the liquidation of collective farms and the return of private property) were not published in the media—they were preserved in the archives under the label "hostile responses."
As noted in special reports from the NKVD, in one of the villages Tambov region residents demanded that a clause be added to the Constitution to abolish mandatory deliveries of meat and milk from private farms to the state, and in Voronezh region A collective farmer stated that it was necessary to replace the phrase "he who does not work, shall not eat" with the words "he who works, shall eat."
Stalin himself wrote some articles of the Constitution: for example, the one that allowed small individual farms and "artisans", but without exploiting the labor of others.
The final version of the Constitution included 13 chapters и 146 articles. It declared that all power in the country belonged to the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. The highest authority—the Supreme Soviet—was elected for a four-year term. The Council of People's Commissars (the government) was subordinate to it.
Electoral rights were consolidated (open voting became secret), the rights of workers to free education, recreation and social security were proclaimed (the author of this section was shot soon after) Bukharin). Freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly and rallies were guaranteed.
Stalin's Constitution, which proclaimed democratic freedoms, went down in history as a glaring example of a legal document's blatant contradiction with reality. It contradicted other laws of the country and did nothing to hinder mass repressions (NKVD investigators laughed in the faces of those who cited the Constitution during interrogations).
The Basic Law continued to be a decoration even after Stalin's death: some of the most outrageous violations of guaranteed rights were the executions of disgruntled workers in Temirtau in 1959 and in Novocherkassk in 1962.
The Constitution was in force for more than 40 years - to 1977 — until they adopted the “Brezhnev” one instead (which, in fact, was also not observed).