The Soviet Union’s Constitutional Structure
Mikhail Gorbachev’s election to become the Soviet Union’s first President on 14 March 1990 was the ‘critical juncture’ in the path leading to the creation of all subsequent presidential regimes throughout the post-Soviet world.
Before long, new constitutional systems based largely on the model that Gorbachev created would be reproduced at lower levels of the Soviet political hierarchy, so that by the end of 1991, when the union republics gained their independence, almost all of them would possess the same type of constitutional system. These republics’ presidencies were established, in sequencing terms, before each republic gained its formal independence. This meant that when the time came for these republics to write new constitutions as independent states, an additional institutional actor was present who had a stake in the final outcome. As such, a presidential constitutional regime was bound to result. To understand in more depth how this process unfolded, it is first necessary to examine how the Soviet Union’s political institutions functioned before Gorbachev’s presidency was created.A. The Formal Constitutional Structure
The Soviet Constitution of 1977 formally divided political power between two state institutions, the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers.[524] In form though not function, the system resembled a parliamentary republic. The Supreme Soviet was the Soviet Union's parliament. Its duties were outlined in Chapter 15 of the 1977 Constitution, where it was described as being ‘the supreme body of state power' in the USSR.[525] A large body, the Supreme Soviet was split into two chambers which met twice a year. These were called the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities.[526] The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a smaller body that possessed greater formal powers, including the power to issue laws, ratify treaties, and form and abolish ministries, met every two months and fulfilled some of the functions of a working parliament.
The Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet carried out the tasks of signing legislation into law and receiving foreign ambassadors. He was considered by Westerners to be the head of state and was referred to as ‘the Soviet president'.[527] In practice, however, he was not the major figure such a term would imply and his role was rather ceremonial.[528] Indeed, his power derived more from his membership in the Politburo.The duties of the executive branch were outlined in Chapter 16 of the 1977 Constitution, which referred to the Council of Ministers as the ‘highest executive and administrative body' in the USSR.[529] The Council of Ministers had 106 members. Though this proved to be too large to allow it to function as a working cabinet, it too contained a smaller body within it, called the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, which carried out most of its duties. The Presidium of the Council of Ministers was directed by a Chairman, often referred to by Westerners as ‘the Soviet prime minister’.[530] The Council of Ministers could issue decrees within its areas of expertise, but it did not possess the power to adopt statutes, which was reserved for the Supreme Soviet. Formally, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was responsible for appointing and removing members of the Council of Ministers.[531] Just as the legislature has the power to select and remove governments in parliamentary systems, the legislature formally had this power in the Soviet system. When a new Supreme Soviet was elected every five years, the Council of Ministers would be appointed by the Supreme Soviet anew.
Although the Soviet Union's political system may have followed the parliamentary model formally, functionally Soviet governments were made and unmade not by the Supreme Soviet, but by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Article 6 of the 1977 Constitution pronounced the CPSU to be the ‘leading and guiding force of Soviet society, the nucleus of its political system, and of all state and public organizations’[532] Even this description was an understatement regarding the power that the CPSU held.
Most serious analysts of the Soviet political system found that the highest echelons of the Communist Party enjoyed a higher authority and wielded greater power than any state institutions.[533] Writing about the Soviet political system in 1979, Jerry Hough and Merle Fainsod explained how:The Communist Party is clearly the dominant institution in the Soviet Union. The active participants in the political process are... almost all party members, and the ultimate policymaking organs both in the center and in the lower territorial units are the respective collective party bodies. In functional terms the real cabinet of the Soviet political system is the party Politburo, the real parliament is the party Central Committee, and the real prime minister is the party General Secretary.[534]
Still, while the Communist Party was the country's dominant institution, other institutions nonetheless also made policy, including the Council of Ministers and the ministries. Within the Soviet system, the Communist Party was clearly the dominant of the two institutions, but the Council of Ministers nonetheless played an important role in the governance of the country.
B. The Literature on the Soviet Executive
Although the Communist Party was the dominant institution in Soviet politics, it is important to understand the state institutions that co-existed with it. The Council of Ministers, which served as the Soviet Union's ‘government’, was the most significant of these. Moreover, its existence was not unique to the Soviet system. Similar ‘governments' could be found in other communist countries. However, these formal executive institutions were traditionally accorded little attention by Western scholars of communist politics.[535] In their 576-page book How the Soviet Union is Governed, Jerry Hough and Merle Fainsod devoted only five pages to the Soviet Council of Ministers, even then admitting how ‘ [n]othing is known about the work of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, not even the frequency of its meetings.
On the surface there should be great overlap in function between the Presidium and the Central Committee Secretariat, but the division of labor between the two committees is obscure'.[536]Such obscurity existed when it came to understanding the government functions of the Soviet Union's union republics as well, although it was known that these republics traditionally replicated the structure of government at the federal level.
As such, each of the 15 union republics likewise possessed a formal legislature, also called a Supreme Soviet, which contained a smaller Presidium to carry out its business between sessions. Each of the union republics also possessed a formal executive branch, composed of a republican Council of Ministers, which oversaw the work of these republics’ administrative agencies or ministries.[537] Despite the fact that the scholarly literature on the Soviet political system had neglected analysis of the Soviet Union’s executive branch - and had almost nothing to say about the executive branches of the individual republics - its very existence would become important when Gorbachev began dismantling communism and shifting power from the Communist Party to the Soviet state.[538]
III.