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7. The Government of Soviet Russia
A Political and Economic Control i The major problem facing the Communist leaders was how to control and administer a vast country of the size of Russia, which was a mixture of many races, religions and languages. The Constitution of 1924, which was mainly the work of Stalin, was the first real attempt to deal with the problem and it gave to Russia the name by which we know it today, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The union consisted of four republics: Russia, Transcaucasia, the Ukraine, and Byelorussia. ii The central government in Moscow controlled the military affairs, the foreign policy, foreign trade, communications and the political police in all the republics. This was done through a Commissar or Minister for each department and through a Council of Commissars similar to the British Cabinet. The local affairs of each republic such as education, justice, agriculture, local finance and labour were run locally though action had to be co-ordinated with the overall plan or policy laid down in Moscow. iii The Republics carried the title of Soviet because the whole Communist movement was based on the Workers' or Peasants' Councils or Soviets which were organized on a local basis, a provincial level and a national stage in the all-Russia Congress of Soviets. iv The name Socialist given to the republics indicated a national economy completely controlled from the centre and planned by the central government in Moscow. As a peacetime feature this was, in fact, a unique characteristic of the new Communist state. Finance, foreign trade, heavy industry, transport, mines and agriculture were all owned and eventually run by the state through the central government and the Communist party. v The turbulent history of Soviet Russia, a revolution, civil war, drastic social and economic change, and a Second World War, all packed into twenty-five years, has tended to put the real political power more and more into the hands of one political party, the Communist party, and into the hands of one political leader. Lenin was the accepted leader from 1917 to 1924, and Stalin established his personal ascendancy over all his rivals by 1929. As General Secretary of the Communist party he dominated the Central Committee of the party, and more important still was master of the Politbureau, a small group of party leaders who continued under Stalin's control to guide the basic policy of Russia. Between 1936 and 1938 he confirmed his personal supremacy by a series of purges and public trials. Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin, the last of the 'Old Bolsheviks', were put to death, together with seven leading generals. vi These facts must be remembered when one examines the Soviet Constitution of 1936. Law-making was put into the hands of a Supreme Soviet which had two parts, a popularly elected Soviet of the Union, and a Council of Nationalities representing the various republics on a state basis. The Supreme Soviet chose the Council of Commissars of which Stalin was the chairman. Voting for members of the Soviet of the Union was by secret ballot and each citizen, worker or peasant, had equal rights. There was, however, no opposition party. In Stalin's own words, 'In the U.S.S.R. there is ground for only one party.' The only point of an election was to choose one of a number of Communist party members put forward. Real power still lay in the Party, through its Central Committee, through the Politbureau and above all, in the hands of the General Secretary of the Party, Joseph Stalin, who stood supreme at the top of the pyramid of power.
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