Soviet Federalism in Flux
Schwarz, Solomon M.
Soviet Federalism in Flux By Solomon M. Schwarz WHKN tne supreme soviet 01 the USSR was convoked et the end of January, this unexpected event aroused much speculation. The Isyrenie Soviet was...
...One was Carmine Gslente, ex-convict, seen getting ' into the car supposed to have been used by-the assassins...
...It is through these Republican Commissariats, and mainly in their domain, that the single Union Republics conduct their own activity...
...Furthermore, since the number of All-Union Commissariats hss greatly increased since 1923 (there were five in 1923, and there are 27 now), a situation may arise when the Union representatives, not elected by the organs of the Union Republic, will constitute the majority in the government of a particular Republic...
...It is difficult to ascertain whether this has ever hap» pened...
...At present this control is semi-established by the constitution, though in a bashful way, and by a subordinate clause: Article 126 speaks of the party as "the leader and core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state...
...During Czariat tisses, he was a leading member of the Russian Socia Democratic Party...
...After the suppression of democracy by the Bolsheviks he went abroad, in 1923, and'continued bis writings...
...It is well known tost prior to the October Revolution the Bolshevik Party's program did not advocate the federative form af state The opposite is true...
...SoVIET FEDERALISM is a very complicated and esatradietory social phenomena...
...Last week Oxford University Press published his book, co-authored with Gregory Bienatoek snd A. Tugow on Management in the Soviet Union...
...The first constitution of the Soviet*Union, that of JMy 8, 1*28, formally set forth the principle of federalism...
...Two persons were held by the police as "material witnesses...
...The process of centralization was even more clearly revealed in the structure of the People's Commissariats...
...The Treses Cose...
...Even the constitution of 1923 provided for the participation in the People's Commissariats of the Union Republics of representatives of the All Union Commisariata as having no corresponding orgsns in the Union Republics...
...In addition, the single Union Republics possess their own People's Commissariats entrusted with complete control over certain domains of state administration, since there are no corresponding organs in the system of Union Commissariats...
...Boloman Schwars la one af the foramoat scholars est the economic snd political developments within Soviet Russia...
...According to the constitution of 1923, these branches were: agriculture, justice, public health, education, and even "interior affairs," that is to say police, naturally with the exception of the political police (Cbeka, later GPU), which has the benefit of an "extra-constitutional" position...
...As the reorganization of the Foreign and Defense Commissariats is the subject of the recent constitutional reform, this matter deserves special attention...
...Yet prior to the constitution of 1936, this party control over state organs was, so to speak, of an extra-constitutional nature...
...He was freed in November on 95,000 bond...
...From the outset, formal federalism in the state organization waa neutralized by the control which the Strictly centraliaed Communist Party exercised over all the organs of administration...
...As already stated, Soviet federalism, from its very beginning, was "corrected" by all-out control on the part of the strictly centralized Communist Party...
...Industry, according to the eenstitution of 1923, was put under the control of the Dmon Republics with only "enterprises of Union impedance" left within the province of the Union...
...Internal state security, that is to say the organization of the police in the wide sense of the word, was referred by the constitution of 1923 to the independent ••nisin of the Union Republics...
...The Hungarian Social Democrats held meetings as late as February 13, condemned dictatorship, both fascist and communist, and expressed hope for pesce, despite the Horthy dictatorship...
...At the conferences of the Republicsn governments, these functionaries possessed the right of deliberative vote only, except in cases when the Centrsl Executive Committee of the particular Republic by a special decision granted them the right of voting...
...The centralistic tendency appears still more clearly in the role assigned the federal representatives to the governments of the Union Republics...
...The term organizations covers here both organizations and organs...
...But ths comparison of corresponding paragraphs in the t*s constitutions revesls striking modifications, all bading to enlarge the Union's competence at the expeese of that of the Union Republics...
...Bath constitutions allow a wide range of competence »» the Union and restrict the activity of the single Union Republics to a comparatively narrow field...
...At the Eighth Party Congress, replying to Piatakov, Vhtt was their mouthpiece, Lenin—ironically—formulated Piatakov's viewpoint in the following words: "What is the use of all these self-determinations when them is an excellent Central Committee of the party in Moscow...
...defense...
...During the period when the groundwork far the Soviet state was being laid, federalism was eeasidered by the party merely "as a form of transits*" to complete and unbounded centralism...
...Walter Wlnchell wrote on March 20 in the Daily Mirror: "The murderer of Treses is known, but the crime cannot be proved, they sey, because of police fumbling...
...The Centrsl Committee's authority was si course beyond doubt, he added, but a great deal of flexibility was needed for building up a state organism...
...The establishment of Soviet federstion by no means implied any adherence to the principle of decentralized administration, any repudiation of the idea of building M) a "centralised proletarian state," to quote a recent study of the rise of the Soviet Union...
...According to the constitution of 1923, the only AllUnion Commissariats were the Commissariats of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Foreign Trade, Transport and Communications...
...In the light of this tendency, the reform of February 1 appears as a still more unexpected move...
...and the Supreme Council of National Economy has been split into a number of industrial Commissariats, the more important of them having been constituted as All-Union Commissariats, while in the remaining sector also all the so-called enterprises of union importance have been put under direct federal control...
...It will be analyzed in the next article...
...Gesfapo Clamps Down on Hungarian 4nti Nazi* . . . One of the results of the Nazi conquest of their satellite, Hungary, besides the closing of an avenue of escape for refugees, is the closing of a number of newspapers which printed news from the United Nstions, and which the Gestspo has termed "friendly to the News...
...I have not seen s single report of such a decision...
...Both the constitutions of 1923 and 1936 make a distinction between Ail-Union Commissariats in charge of a certain administrative function throughout the Union, and Union-Republican Commissariats which have to carry on their activity "through the medium of corresponding Commissariats of the Union Republics...
...Industry was under the control of Union-Republican organs (Supreme Councils of National Economy), and some of the most important branches of administration were entrusted completely to Republican bodies, the Union possessing no corresponding organs for these branches...
...Within its own organization, the party has always categorically repudiated aH elements of federalism and autonomy, regarding them as "opportunistic...
...Danton Walker in the New York Daily Newt of March T4 said, "The longexpected break on the Treses murder case is just sround the corner...
...The alleged guilty manvwas nabbed too soon snd he won't blab...
...In reality, this paragraph has from the outset acquired great importance, and has contributed much to the actual growth of centralization in the Soviet system of government...
...What is the true uture of the Soviet constitutional reform of Febmary 1, 1»44...
...Is this opinion correct...
...Only one thing becomes clesrer about the Tresca case—the political benefits derived by one totalitarian group from his removal...
...The other was Frank Nuccio, lessee or owner- of the garage in which the "murder car" was kept up to the night Tresca was shot...
...This deliberate, strictly centralised Communist Party exercised over the initial period—aroused opposition to federalists, maneuvers on the part of over-ardent party members...
...To complete this picture of the Soviet constitution's steadily increasing trend toward centralization, the relationship between the state organs and the Communist Party must he taken into account...
...He is now in Sing Sing as a psrole violator...
...By the provisions Of the constitution of 198*, the People's Commissariats of the Interior, Agriculture, Justice, and Public Health are now Union Republican Commissariats...
...A federation of realties which, according to the letter of the constitution, possess an unlimited "right freely to secede fmsj the USSR" was crested, and has been governed by a party whose organisation and ideology are imbued with the spirit of extreme centralism, and which, as a matter of principle, is hostile to the very idea of aatsoomy...
...Among them is the Social Democratic Nepuava of Budapest...
...The Isyrenie Soviet was assembled to pass a law increasing g| autonomous rights of the constituent Soviet rePublics by extending their competence to foreign affairs ,nd nations...
...this **S competely changed by the constitution of 1936...
...The following **e the politically most important ones...
...The Communist Party's acknowledgment of the principle of federation was prompted by considerations af sheer expediency...
...yet the police being ¦ powerful political instrument under the Soviet conditions, the constitution of 1936 transferred it to the •wapetenee of the Union...
...As regards legislation on the judicial system, legal procedure, criminal and civil law, the constitution of 1923 granted to the Union the right to determine "the basic principles" of this legislation, while the new constitution transferred this legislation entirely to the Union...
...While taxation was only partly centralized In the first Wftatitution, the constitution of 1936 transferred to *• Union the right "to levy taxes and derive revenues I •» funds for Union, Republican and local budgets...
...However odd this may seem, even "the creation of new provinces and regions" within the limits of the Union Republics, according to the constitution of 1936, became a privilege of the Union, and the division of the country into provinces and regions was fixed in the constitution, so that the formation of s new province—which in the course of recent years happened time and again—has to be followed by an amendment of the constitution of the USSR...
...But the Soviet development since that thus until the constitution of December 5, 1936, is tharaeterixed by a steady increase of centralists elements to the detriment of the elements of federalism...
...Genkina, The Formatame/ the USSR, Moscow, 1943, pp...
...In the party opinion, the great centralized state represents an historically Important stride forward...
...There was quick unanimous getien: on February 1 the reform became law...
...The party program adopted at the Eighth Party Congress of March, 1919, explicitly stated that "the federation of states is advocated" merely "as one of the transitional forms on the road tea complete unity," and that this "transitional form" k accepted only to overcome the distrust on the part •f the toiling masses of the oppressed nationalities.'' Lenin waa still more explicit in formulating this idea: 'The federation which we are building, and will continue to build, will serve as the most appropriate means for a solid and lasting unification of the various Soviet nationalities within the framework of a single, democratic, centralized Soviet state...
...friendly" commentators tried to represent this (jjciiKiu of the Supreme Soviet as a far-reaching demo—tie reform paving the way for a development of tfc# Soviet Union along the lines of true democratic federalism...
...The new constitution provides that federal representatives are members of the Republican governments, equal to the People's Commissars of the Republics...
...18-19...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 21
