Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  The chancery processed numerous requests, petitions, and reports by dividing them among various “tables.” Members of the consistory’s board were assigned to oversee these tables but, in practice, preparing a case for presentation and resolution depended largely on lay clerks. Once cases were ready for review, members of the board, at least in theory, were supposed to review and decide on them collectively. The secretary oversaw the decision-making process and helped to resolve cases that members could not decide unanimously. The diocesan bishop was to review and ratify all decisions.

  The consistory became a subject of debate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Churchmen often complained that the consistory’s formalism and lack of efficiency caused ill relations between parish clergy and laity on the one hand and the diocesan administration on the other. Churchmen were also concerned about the bureaucratic quality with which serious issues of Christian life were often decided, with seemingly no attention to scripture or canon law. Low pay for consistory employees did not help matters, and complaints of bribes were not uncommon. Evaluations of the consistory were determined in large part by the evaluator’s perspective and understanding of episcopal authority, the relationship between the central, diocesan, and even more regional church administrations, and the involvement of laity in the management of diocesan affairs. Most churchmen maintained that the consistory’s judicial and administrative functions should be separated and independently overseen, as they had been in the civil sphere since 1864. In 1918, the All-Russian Church Council carried out sweeping church administrative reforms, and the consistory ceased to exist. In its place, the Council established a separate local diocesan court, a diocesan council and a diocesan assembly. See also: RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Cunningham, James W. (1981). A Vanquished Hope: The Movement for Church Renewal in Russia, 1905-1906. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Freeze, Gregory L. (1977). The Russian Levites: Parish Clergy in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Freeze, Gregory L. (1983). The Parish Clergy in Nineteenth-Century Russia: Crisis, Reform, Counter-Reform. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Muller, Alexander V., ed. and tr. (1972). The Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

  VERA SHEVZOV

  CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

  The All-Russian Constituent Assembly, which opened and closed on January 5, 1918, was elected to draft a constitution for the new Russian state. Prior to 1917, most oppositionist parties agreed that a democratically elected assembly should determine Russia’s political future. Just after the February Revolution, State Duma and Petrograd Soviet

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  leaders who created the Provisional Government specifically tasked it with prompt elections to the Constituent Assembly. During 1917, virtually all political parties indicated their intention to participate in them and to abide by the results. Still, moderate Provisional Government ministers, fearing the results of democratic elections and preoccupied with the war, postponed the elections, undercutting the government’s legitimacy and precipitating a shift of support to radicals. By the early fall of 1917, Bolshevik, Left Socialist Revolutionary (Left SR), and other supporters of “soviet power” and an “all-socialist government” proclaimed that only the Provisional Government’s overthrow would bring about the Constituent Assembly, still viewed as final arbiter of Russia’s fate.

  The elections, with over 60 percent voter participation, occurred on November 12, 1917, after the overthrow of the Provisional Government, seemingly fulfilling the radicals’ predictions. The elections awarded the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) a huge vote from the empire’s peasants. The Bolsheviks did well among urban laboring populations and soldiers at the fronts, whereas the liberal Constitutional Democrats received support from educated and prosperous middle classes. Far rightist parties did poorly, as did the formerly popular Mensheviks. Overall, the SRs and their Ukrainian, Armenian, and other ethnic allies received more than 50 percent of the votes cast, as opposed to the Bolsheviks’ 25 percent. In response, the Bolsheviks and Left SRs alleged that the SR Central Committee had undercut Left SR representation by placing moderate SRs on party candidate lists.

  The Constituent Assembly, with its effective SR majority, met on January 5 in Petrograd and elected the SR leader Victor Chernov as chair. After lengthy deliberations and the withdrawal of the Bolshevik and Left SR factions, the Leninist government declared the session closed and placed guards around the locked building. Thus inglori-ously ended Russia’s most democratic electoral experiment until the 1990s. Presumably, the assembly would have written a constitution in a socialist and democratic spirit. Although some Petrograd workers demonstrated in support of the Constitutional Assembly (and were dispersed by deadly fire), the nation’s population responded weakly. This passive reaction reflected in part a common misunderstanding of the assembly as a government in competition with the still popular Soviet government. Many SR delegates withdrew to the Volga region, where, by the late summer of 1918, they formed a government in Samara, which they hoped would be based upon a quorum of Constituent Assembly delegates. Like other attempts by moderates during 1918 at state-building, this fledgling government, an alternative to the Communist regime in Moscow, was crushed between the militarily predominant Red and White extremes. Viewed by some as a footnote in the creation of the new socialist state, and by others as the end of democracy for the Russian Revolution, the Constituent Assembly’s demise was a perplexing tragedy. See also: CIVIL WAR OF 1917-1922; FEBRUARY REVOLUTION; OCTOBER REVOLUTION; PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Radkey, Oliver. (1990). Russian Goes to the Polls: The Election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Smirnov, Nikolai. (1997). “The Constituent Assembly.” In Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1917-1921, eds. Edward Acton, Vladimir Iu. Cher-niaev, and William G. Rosenberg. London: Arnold.

  MICHAEL MELANCON

  CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

  The Constitutional Court was established in July 1991, prior to the breakup of the USSR. The Court was to be made up of fifteen judges, elected by the parliament for a limited life term (until age sixty-five). However, the parliament could agree on only thirteen of the nominees; leaving the other two seats vacant. Modeled on the constitutional courts of Western Europe, especially the German Federal Constitutional Court, it is the only body empowered to review constitutional questions.

  Initially, the Constitutional Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice Valery Zorkin, carefully screened the cases it heard, thus attempting to avoid sharp clashes with either the parliament or the president. However, by 1993, Zorkin and several other justices had aligned themselves with the parliament against President Yeltsin. On October 17, 1993, two weeks after his security forces clashed with rioting protestors at the White House (Russia’s parliament building), President Yeltsin issued a decree suspending the Constitutional Court pending the adoption of a new constitution.

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  The Constitution of 1993 and a new “Law on the Constitutional Court” of July 21, 1994, enlarged the court to nineteen members. Under this new legislation, judges were to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Federation Council. In order to handle the rapidly increasing caseload, the new law permitted the court to consider multiple cases simultaneously. Under the provisions of the new law, judges no longer served for life; rather they have twelve-year terms. Retirement was made mandatory at the age of seventy.

  The Constitutional Court is charged with ruling on the constitutionality of federal laws, presidential enactments, republic constitutions, regional charters, international treaties, and republic, regional and local legislative and executive acts. The court also has the responsibility to resolve juris-dictional disputes between state and legislative bodies at the federal and lower levels
.

  Access to the Court is relatively unrestricted; most cases require no previous hearing. After hearing oral arguments from interested parties, the judges retire to draft opinions (and, more rarely, dissenting options). Rendering a decision is a slow process, often taking two to four weeks. Decisions of the court are final and not subject to appeal. Although the Court agrees to hear only a small portion of all cases filed, it issues many determinations (opredeleniya) that, although falling short of official decisions, attempt to revolve disputes by referring to previously rendered decisions.

  In contrast to the previous court, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation initially focused on cases involving the rights of the individual. In the period from 1995 to 1996, more than 70 percent of the cases considered by the court dealt with individual rights, while only 12 percent dealt with separation of powers and 17.6 percent dealt with questions of federalism. The court appeared to be directing its attention to types of cases that would bolster its legitimacy and solidify its place in the judicial system, while avoiding conflicts with other branches of government and with the powerful regional governors.

  With the election of President Vladimir Putin in early 2000, the Constitutional Court adopted a more assertive role again, especially in cases relating to Russia’s federal relations. The Constitutional Court ruled that the constitutions of several republics violated the Basic Law of the Russian Federation, forcing them to revise their constitutions to bring them into line with the federal constitution. In contrast, the Court has, with a few notable exceptions, prudently avoided clashing with the President. The future legitimacy and credibility of the Court will depend on its adroitness in avoiding damaging confrontations with powerful state officials in which it cannot prevail, while still rendering meaningful decisions that uphold the primacy of constitutional principles. See also: CONSTITUTION OF 1993; REFERENDUM OF DECEMBER 1993

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Sharlet, Robert. (1993). “The Russian Constitutional Court: The First Term.” Post-Soviet Affairs 9:1-39. Smith, Gordon B. (1996). Reforming the Russian Legal System. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Trochev, Alexei. (2002). “Implementing Russian Constitutional Court Decisions.” East European Constitutional Review 11:1-2.

  GORDON B. SMITH

  CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY

  The liberal Constitutional Democratic Party, or Party of People’s Freedom (known as the Cadets, from the initials of its name), was Russia’s largest political party before 1917. Founded in October 1905, the party’s basic goals were embodied in its name: transformation of Russia into a constitutional, rule-of-law state and democratization of the political and social order. Its program called for civil rights for all citizens, including freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and person; full equality of all before the law; a legislative body elected by equal, direct, universal suffrage (female as well as male); separation of church and state; and greater local self-government. The program also contained important social provisions, including labor protections and the right to unionize and strike, mandatory health insurance and state-funded old age pensions, a progressive income tax, and a state land fund to address peasant land hunger.

  At its height, in 1905 and 1906, the Constitutional Democrats had approximately 100,000 members and 346 local party organizations, and was strongest in larger urban areas. Prominent leaders included Peter Struve, Ivan Petrunkevich, Prince Dmitry Shakhovskoy, Vladimir Nabokov, Maxim Vinaver, Andrei Shingarev, and the party head, Paul Miliukov. The composition of the Cadets

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  was diverse, consisting of educated professionals (professors, lawyers, doctors, engineers), low-level white-collar workers and teachers, petty traders, artisans, shop clerks, and some workers and peasants. The party’s commitment to cultural self-determination for minorities was attractive to elements of the empire’s large non-Russian population, particularly Ukrainians, Jews, and Armenians. Thanks to their relative indifference to economic development, the Cadets attracted few of the so-called big bourgeoisie.

  The Constitutional Democrats enjoyed their greatest success in March 1906 in Russia’s first-ever national elections, from which they emerged as the largest party in the First Duma with 179 seats. Mutual lack of trust and cooperation between government and Duma resulted in a speedy dissolution, in July 1906. The Cadets again won the largest number of deputies in the elections to the Second Duma, although fiercer competition from socialists reduced their seats to one hundred. Despite liberal efforts to make the Second Duma productive and less provocative, the lower house was dissolved on June 3, 1907. The government simultaneously issued a restrictive new electoral law that disenfranchised many liberal voters, reducing the Cadets in the Third and Fourth Dumas to around fifty-five deputies.

  Over the next seven years the party endured government harassment, shrinking membership, and the defeat of most of its reform bills. World War I helped restore the party’s fortunes, as the Cadets wholeheartedly supported the war effort and played a leading role in the Union of Cities and other relief organizations. In the summer of 1915, the Cadets helped orchestrate the Progressive Bloc, a broad, reformist coalition in the Duma that sought to restore public confidence in the war effort.

  The Constitutional Democrats enthusiastically welcomed the February 1917 revolution and helped establish the first Provisional Government, in which they held five portfolios; party membership burgeoned. Their newfound popularity quickly waned, however, due to their continued support for the unpopular war and related insistence on postponing social reforms. Determined opponents of the Bolsheviks, the liberal Cadets were the first party outlawed by the new Soviet government, in December 1917, despite their having won only 2 million of the 41.6 million votes cast in the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Much of the party leadership joined the anti-Bolshevik movement; after the Red victory in the Civil War, many Cadets emigrated to Europe, where they reconstituted the party organizations and debated how to end Bolshevik rule in Russia. The Constitutional Democratic Party split into two separate organizations over this issue in Paris in July 1921; it formally ceased to exist in 1924. See also: CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY; DUMA; MILYUKOV, PAVEL NIKOLAYEVICH; PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

  MELISSA K. STOCKDALE

  CONSTITUTION OF 1918

  Adopted on July 10, 1918, amid violent civil war, the Soviet Constitution of 1918, the first charter of the new Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (RSFSR), was described by Vladimir Lenin as a “revolutionary” document. It was, he said, unlike any constitution drafted by a nation-state. Nor was it derived, he noted, from any traditional Russian or Western juristic principles.

  Unlike the three Soviet constitutions to follow (in 1924, 1936, and 1977), the 1918 constitution included the candid statement that absolute power resides in the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” as embodied in the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and as specifically derived from the concept of socialist dictatorship developed in Karl Marx’s major work, The Critique of the Gotha Program. The proletarian dictatorship is described in Soviet ideology as “power not limited by any laws.” Although the constitution was proclaimed the “fundamental law of the Soviet State,” the constitution was by no means seen as the only source of legal norms. The CPSU(b) Program and the decrees and orders of the Party Central Committee likewise were fully normative. So were decrees issued by the Council of People’s Commissars.

  Soviet constitutions thus reflected the fact that the Soviet state, the “superstructure” erected upon the economic “base,” was the political expression of exclusive, one-party rule by the CPSU(b). Subsequent constitutions omitted specific reference to this dictatorship. Instead, they acknowledged, as did explicitly the last constitution of 1977, that the Communist Party was the “leading core” of all political and social organizations.

  CONSTITUTION OF 1936

  Other parts of the 1918 charter differed radically from previous or later constitutions of other states throug
hout the world. For instance, the 1918 constitution laid out the fundamental ideological goals of the Communist Party. One such goal was the building of a socialist society. Another was the promotion of world revolution. This wording was imitated in the charters of Soviet republics annexed into the union, which was officially proclaimed as the USSR in 1924.

  The national legislative body established under the constitution was known as the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, described as the “supreme organ of power,” despite the fact that most key legislation originated in the CPSU(b) bills presented to the congress were almost always passed and enacted unanimously. Moreover, the constitutionally empowered Central Executive Committee, that is, the perpetually meeting executive organ of the congress, was empowered, through its Presidium, to issue major decrees during the long interims between annual (later, less frequent) sessions of the more than two thousand-member plenary congress. Another governing body, the Council of People’s Commissars, whose chairman was head of the government, or premier, likewise had the constitutional power to issue decrees.

  In the congress served deputies of workers, peasants, and soldiers chosen and elected on single-list, nonsecret ballots from the provinces and other, smaller political-administrative areas of the RSFSR. In practice, the Congress of Soviets, like the USSR Supreme Soviet to follow as established in subsequent constitutions, became a “rubber-stamp,” or pseudo-parliament whose powers were purely formal.