The form of government in the USSR: description of the state structure, political regime and symbolism

One of the most debated issues in modern historiography of the Soviet period of Russian history is the problem of determining the form of government in the USSR. The difficulty lies in the fact that the Soviet political elite created a system of governance of the union state that has no analogues in the world. The political terminology of this period is ambiguous: the position of the Secretary General for the internal content of the term clearly does not meet its meaning in the ratio of power structures and officials of the Soviet Union.

The main types of government

Before figuring out what form of government was in the USSR, it is necessary to determine the immediate content of this term. The form of government refers to the organization of state power, the system of higher state bodies, the procedure for their formation, as well as the relationship both within them and with the population of the state.

Two main forms of government are distinguished : the monarchy and the republic. Each of them is divided into subtypes. Monarchy is understood as personal autocracy. If it is not limited by anything, the monarchy is considered absolute, if there is a parliament that does not have a significant impact on the political life of the country - dualistic. If the authority of the monarch is limited by parliament and the government responsible to him, the monarchy is called constitutional.

Under the republican form of government, by the will of the people, expressed through elections, collective power structures are vested with power: parliament, government. Most often, the republic is headed by the president. Its subtypes are determined by the existing system of interaction between the president and parliament. If the latter has broad powers, forms a government and plays a leading role in the political life of the country, then the republic is considered parliamentary. In the opposite case - the presidential. In some cases, researchers insist on the allocation of super-presidential and mixed forms of government.

Political regime

The study of the current political system in the selected country from the point of view of only the established form of government will be incomplete. For a full description of what form of government was in the USSR, it is necessary to consider the main types of political regimes.

There are three main classifications:

1. By affiliation of state power - ochlocracy, oligarchy, tyranny;
2. According to the applied methods of exercising power, liberal, moderate and repressive political regimes are distinguished;
3. By the mechanism of the exercise of power: democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

In the history of the Soviet Union , three milestones of its development can be outlined related to the personality of the highest official in the state: the final coming of I.V. Stalin to power (1928-1929), his death (1953), the coming to power of M.S. Gorbachev and the start of the modernization process, commonly used in the sciences known as "perestroika" (1985). These milestones allow us to outline the changes in the political regime in three ways:

At the moment, the winding up of democratic initiatives and processes, the transition to more stringent forms of government in the USSR, the states of Western Europe and Latin America are recognized as inevitable. The thirties of the last century became the era of the formation of totalitarian dictatorships in the most diverse countries in terms of development and political culture: Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and in the states of Latin America. The inhabitants of even such countries as France and Great Britain were seriously afraid of the totalitarian threat. The devastating World War I continued with a difficult recovery period, interrupted by the global economic crisis that erupted in 1929. The loss of previous values ​​and benchmarks contributed to the spread of radical ideas.

The 1917 revolution in Russia

Soviet historiography insisted on highlighting the February Revolution as bourgeois-democratic and the October Revolution as socialist. Currently, this separation is recognized as artificial and unproductive, and the events of October 25 (November 7 in a new style) are a logical consequence of the inability of the Provisional Government to resolve the most pressing issues: peace with the powers of the Fourth Union (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria) , on the redistribution of land and on urgent measures to correct the dire economic situation in the country.

In any case, the assault on the Winter Palace - the seat of the Provisional Government - marked the collapse of the liberal strata of society for a democratic settlement. The Bolsheviks came to power, the most radical of the then existing political forces, headed by V. I. Lenin, L. D. Trotsky, G. E. Zinoviev and others. The revolution in Petrograd and Moscow did not mean the immediate transition of the whole country to the rule of the Bolsheviks. They managed to defend their right to exercise power only in the long and bloody Civil War (1917 - 1922).

USSR formation

By 1922, the resistance of the whites (including both staunch monarchists and supporters of democratic transformations) was mostly broken. The political map of the territory of the former Russian Empire was a conglomerate of spontaneously arising state associations. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic consisted of numerous autonomous entities affiliated during the Civil War. A similar situation was observed in the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, formed by Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Another two powerful centers were Ukraine and Belarus.

The historical tradition and pressing necessities required the organization of cooperation between the four republics. Even during the Civil War, their leaders were looking for possible ways of agreement and unification of states. There was no consensus on the methods of unification: one side proposed a unitary republic (Stalin was its ardent supporter), the other insisted on a federation. After much debate and a fierce struggle, during which many leaders of the republics were ousted, an allied treaty was signed on December 30, 1922 at the Bolshoi Theater. The normative definition of the essence of the new state lasted another year. The final date for the appearance of the USSR can be considered January 31, 1924, when the Constitution was approved and adopted at the II Congress of Soviets.

The form of government in the USSR under the Constitution of 1924

After the adoption of the Union Constitution and bringing the basic laws of the republics in line with it, a unified system of governing bodies was established. The supreme legislative body was the All-Union Congress of Councils, which was scheduled to meet once a year. Between the congresses, the current legislative power was exercised by the Central Executive Committee, which on the principle of equality included the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities. Inside the Central Executive Committee of the USSR there was a Presidium that formed the government - the Council of People's Commissars, the first head of which - although formal due to serious health problems - was V.I. Lenin.

SNK consisted of industry people's commissariats, which were divided into three types:

• All-Union (foreign affairs, foreign trade, military and naval affairs, means of communication, mail and telegraph);
• combined (duplicated in each republic);
• republican (existed only in a particular subject; their presence was determined by the specific features of the republic).

Although open hostilities ceased completely by 1924, there were certain sections of society who did not want to put up with the victory of Bolshevism and the Soviet regime. In addition, fractions and movements began to appear inside the ruling party, ready for a power struggle after the death of Lenin. In order to counteract these forces under the Council of People's Commissars, the United State Political Office, which has broad powers, was created, controlled only by the prosecutor of the Supreme Court.

Symbols of the USSR

The constitution finally consolidated the position of Moscow as the capital of the USSR, and also introduced new state symbols. The emblem was the image of a sickle and a hammer against the background of the globe and an inscription in the state languages ​​of the USSR (Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Georgian, Armenian and Turkic-Tatar) "Workers of all countries, unite!"

The state flag was a red cloth with a ratio of width to length as 1: 2. In the upper corner, next to the pole, were a golden sickle and a hammer with a five-pointed star above them.

The political struggle after the death of Lenin and the transformation of the political regime

In the USSR, the form of government and government was determined by the needs of pacification and restoration of the national economy. To this end, Lenin initiated a new economic policy (NEP), allowing private cooperation and a multi-layered economy. However, the progressive disease did not allow him to finish the job. The paralyzed leader in the last years of his life was in actual isolation at his dacha in Gorki, Moscow Region.

Already at the very early stage of the existence of the USSR, one of the main tools for controlling political life in the country was personnel reshuffle. The increasing bureaucratization of the highest organs of government contributed to the erosion of their power. Under these conditions, the post of Secretary General of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks is becoming increasingly important (hereinafter the name of this post was changed in accordance with the name of the party). Initially, the functions of the secretary general included only leadership of the party apparatus, but Ivan V. Stalin, who was in this position, was able to concentrate considerable power in his hands, which aroused concern both of the decrepit Lenin and his possible successors - Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev.

Immediately after the death of Lenin, a political struggle broke out in the party for leadership. Trotsky was the main candidate for the leadership role, but the coalitions of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin managed to push him into the background. Following this, there was a conflict already in the camp of the winners, from which Stalin emerged victorious.

The logic of the political struggle forced Stalin to take the path of tightening authoritarian tendencies already formed during the Civil War and the system of military communism. By 1924, the main political rivals of the Bolsheviks were destroyed, as were their allies - the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Dissent in the party was not approved: the struggle against Trotsky, and then against Zinoviev and Kamenev was positioned as a struggle against opportunism and the right (or left) deviation. Thus, the legal existence of the opposition was destroyed.

The dictatorship of the proletariat, proclaimed after the revolution, was not carried out by the workers themselves, much less by the peasants — this was the prerogative of the party. This slogan also became a convenient screen for covering centralization and tightening the management system. The NEP, which existed for a short time, could not fundamentally change the state of affairs in the economy, and the possibility of multistructure inherent in it could not exist and be realized when a dictatorship was established in the political sphere.

Already in the 1920s, the process of merging the party and the state began: any position, even an insignificant one, could be occupied only by the Bolshevik. In the end, a ramified and clumsy class of party nomenclature arose, whose existence was not provided for by the Constitution. After the large-scale nationalization of the means of production, it was in the hands of the nomenclature that the largest factories and plants appeared.

The situation in which the constitutional governing bodies actually had no real power, and the nomenclature took all hands, was in the hands of Stalin as the main person responsible for the personnel changes. This power allowed him to triumph over N. I. Bukharin. A clash between these two candidates for power was inevitable: after the death of Lenin, Bukharin became the party’s main ideologist, had the opportunity to express his ideas through Pravda, the country's main newspaper, and his proteges held top leadership positions. In addition, Bukharin did not shy away from intrigue and played a prominent role in the beginning repressions. The victory of Stalin was possible only because of the association of Bukharin with the collapsing NEP, as well as incessant intrigues.

Establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship

Having dealt with the rivals, Stalin got the opportunity to bring the whole country to uniformity. Private cooperation was destroyed during the processes of industrialization and collectivization, and the Secretary General dealt with the remaining rivals using repressive methods. At the Seventh Congress of the CPSU (B.) In 1934, the old Bolsheviks made their last attempt to remove Stalin from power. He was criticized for the mistakes made during collectivization, and most of the party members voted against his re-election. However, S. M. Kirov, the main candidate for the post of Secretary General, resigned, and the election results were rigged, which was one of the steps to establish a totalitarian form of government in the USSR under Stalin.

As a result, the party congress ceased to be held at all (under Stalin, it happened only twice: in 1939 and 1952) Kirov's unsolved murder gave rise to mass repressions, during which all those who disagree with the party’s general line were physically destroyed. In parallel, the growth of the personality cult of Stalin: his opinion became an unquestioned authority in all scientific studies, poems were composed in his honor. Thus, the form of government in the USSR in the 30s acquired all the characteristics of a totalitarian dictatorship.

1936 Constitution

The changes that took place during the struggle for power and the establishment of totalitarianism were reflected in the text of the new Union Constitution. She officially secured the leading role of the Communist Party, but at the same time delimited the executive and legislative branches. So, the latter belonged exclusively to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, elected for 4 years. Inside it, the former chambers remained - the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities - with the same right of legislative initiative. The law was approved if both houses passed it by a majority vote.

The Supreme Council worked on a sessional basis. In the intervals between sessions, the Presidium of the Supreme Council had supreme power. Executive power belonged to the SNK, which includes 8 all-Union people's commissariats and 10 union-republican ones. In the interests of uniformity, purely republican drug commissariats were abolished.

Further changes in the management system

The form of government in the USSR in 1945-1953 characterized by the ever increasing growth of totalitarian tendencies and the cult of personality of Stalin. The Second World War gave way to the Cold War, which provoked new repressions aimed at combating cosmopolitanism. However, even those in the circle of Stalin’s closest associates were increasingly doubting the appropriateness of such a course.

With the death of Stalin, a struggle for power again flared up, the winner of which was N. S. Khrushchev. On his initiative, the XX Party Congress was held in 1956 , where a secret report was read condemning the personality cult and revealing the truth about large-scale repressions that became an integral part of the form of government in the USSR under Stalin. This event was the first on the way to the gradual democratization of the regime.

So the activity of punitive bodies was limited, and they themselves began to bear responsibility to the party. Even under Stalin, the people's commissariats were replaced by line ministries, which was to become part of the reform of governing bodies. This continued Khrushchev, who believed that excessive centralization of power leads to a decrease in the effectiveness of the exercise of power. However, the result was a sharp increase in bureaucracy. The efficiency that Khrushchev dreamed about was not the best.

Khrushchev's reformist aspirations aroused concern among the party nomenclature.

The possibility of losing numerous privileges and control of the most profitable industries provoked a conspiracy, as a result of which Khrushchev was removed from power, and L. Brezhnev became the new leader of the country.

The form of government in the USSR under the 1977 Constitution

The reign of Brezhnev is not accidentally called stagnation: stagnation was observed not only in the economic sphere, but also in the political sphere. The fullness of power was in the hands of the nomenclature and the bureaucracy, the management system was almost paralyzed by red tape and rampant bribery.

All this was reflected in the text of the new Constitution, which introduced an unprecedented definition of the Soviet people and the state of developed socialism. The democratic principles of governance, the rights and freedoms of citizens were formally declared, but in reality the system of power structures remained authoritarian, and the oligarchy had real power in the country. The merging of the party and the state was established by the provision on the leading role of the CPSU, on its central position in the system of power.

In the final part of the Constitution, the capital status of Moscow was confirmed, and state symbols were also fixed. It was still a sickle and a hammer against the background of the globe as a coat of arms and a red cloth with a sickle and a hammer as a flag. The difference from 1924 was that the inscription "Workers of all countries, unite!" now duplicated in all languages ​​of the Union republics.

Era of adjustment

The need to change the form of government of the USSR under Gorbachev was obvious to everyone. Senior positions were held by elderly people who were unable to adequately solve the problems of reforming the internal structure and economy of the country. This was especially pronounced during the years of rule in the USSR of the leaders who replaced Brezhnev (Yu. A. Andropov, K. U. Chernenko).

The reform of the political system began under the slogan of updating personnel: in the first two years of perestroika, about 80% of the leaders were dismissed. Following this, Gorbachev resolutely began to introduce democratic methods: several candidates were allowed to participate in the local government elections in 1987. Then the creation of new political parties, associations and movements is allowed. This caused such a significant blow to the nomenclature that in 1989 it was possible to relatively peacefully abolish the article of the Constitution, securing the leading and guiding role of the CPSU, and the next year the post of general secretary was abolished, instead of which the institution of the presidency was introduced.

In the wake of publicity and the democratization of public life, the question of revising the 1922 union treaty has increasingly been raised. Many republics recalled the existence of an article allowing them to secede from the USSR — before it was just a formality. A change in the form of government in the USSR under Gorbachev launched the process of decentralization of the state. The introduction of the institution of presidency in the Union republics, the creation of a system of democratic equal elections made it possible to demand new concessions from the authorities. The result of this, as you know, was the collapse of the USSR.

Thus, the form of government in the USSR from 1922 to 1991. somehow changed. From attempts to democratic reconstruction of the country in the inter-revolutionary period through the difficult stage of the first military communism, and then the totalitarian dictatorship, society came to Brezhnev's stagnation and authoritarian management methods. Gorbachev's perestroika managed to revive democratic traditions, but the collapse of the state became a payment for it.