The free medical service
includes
dental care.
Soviet Union - 1952 - Soviet Civilization
handle.
net/2027/mdp.
39015020686591 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
sense of being generally weighted against the urban
population.
In the third place, the 1936 Constitution establishes
secret voting in the election of all the different grades
of Soviet. Previously elections had been conducted by
a show of hands at open meetings, in the fashion of the
old New England town meeting. Again, in the earlier
years of the Soviet Republic there did not exist the cul-
tural prerequisites among the largely illiterate Soviet
people for carrying through efficiently the processes of
the secret ballot. The simple show of hands, however
subject to abuse, was the natural and intelligent pro-
cedure for a considerable period.
In the fourth place, the 1936 Constitution does away
with the old method of indirect voting for. members of
the upper Soviets and replaces it with the method of
direct popular vote. Under the 1924 Constitution the
voters elected directly only the village and city govern-
ments, which sent representatives to the regional and
Union Republic Soviets, which in turn chose the deputies
to the federal All-Union Congress of Soviets. This
hierarchical system was similar to the election of United
States Senators by the State legislatures until 1913. Now
in the Soviet Union the electorate votes separately and
directly for the delegates to each Soviet.
In the fifth place, the direct ballot guaranteed by the
1936 Constitution makes possible the direct recall of
deputies to any Soviet during their term of office, where-
as previously such recall was limited to the lower Soviets.
Article 142 states: "It is the duty of every deputy to
report to his electors on his work and on the work of the
Soviet of Working People's Deputies, and he is liable
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
to be recalled at any time in the manner established by
law upon decision of a majority of the electors. " The
Soviet people hold their deputies up to rigorous stand-
ards of representation, frequently becoming dissatisfied
with them and using the power of recall. This method
of democratic vigilance is highly developed in Soviet
Russia.
Since there is only one legal political party in the
U. S. S. R. , the Communist Party, the regulations for nomi-
nation to the Soviets are of especial importance. Article
141 lays down the rules: "Candidates for election are
nominated according to electoral areas. The right to
nominate candidates is secured to public organizations
and societies of the working people: Communist Party
organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, youth organi-
zations and cultural societies. " The only other mention
of the Communist Party occurs in Article 126 of the Con-
stitution which declares that "the most active and polit-
ically most conscious citizens in the ranks of the working
class and other sections of the working people unite in
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),
which is the vanguard of the working people in their
struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system
and is the leading core of all organizations of the work-
ing people, both public and state. "
The Soviet Constitution has often been denounced
as "a mere fraudulent facade" on the grounds that it
does not adequately describe the pervasive and all-im-
portant role of the Communist Party in Soviet life. How-
ever, since the Constitution explicitly states that the
Communist Party "is the leading core of all organiza-
tions . . . both public and state," I think that it does
indicate the importance of the Communist Party. It is
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? THE SOVIET COHSTiTUTIOH
appropriate to recall that the American Constitution
makes no mention of any political party whatsoever and
does not even hint at a two-party system or at the part
that political parties have played in American democracy.
In fact, the Founding Fathers of the American Republic
did not envisage a two-party or multi-party system and
felt strongly that parties would be a menace to the new
democratic state. Two distinct and separate political
parties did not come into existence for fifteen years after
the Revolution of 1776; and no candidate was nominated
to oppose George Washington in the first two elections
for President.
A one-party system, then, in which the nominations
are the fundamental thing and in which a single slate
is ratified in elections, does not necessarily prevent true
democracy. In the United States today we have many
examples of democratic single-slate voting. Frequently
the Republican and Democratic Parties agree on the
same candidates for judgeships. In Leonia, New Jersey,
a community of 7,000 people, the Leonia Civic Confer-
ence, a non-partisan group, selects the best candidates
for local offices whom it can find, regardless of political
labels, and nominates them. Almost without exception
the single slate it recommends is elected. The Civic Con-
ference is composed of delegates from the local Demo-
cratic and Republican organizations, from the men's and
women's clubs, and from parents' and veterans' groups.
Any organization with fifty members can send a delegate
to the Conference, or any twenty-five citizens who sign
a petition. In America, too, there are a huge number of
non-governmental societies, associations, councils and
committees most of which elect their officers through the
uncontested single-slate method.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
It is the Soviet and Marxist theory that different polit-
ical parties arise from conflicting property interests on
the part of different economic classes such as workers and
capitalists, landowners and farmers (or peasants), small
businessmen and monopolists; and that as long as such
groupings exist political freedom, in whatever degree it
can be attained under such circumstances, does demand
different political parties. The Marxist idea is that when
these classes have been eliminated, as in the Soviet Union,
then the need for a multiplicity of parties also disappears.
Whether or not this theory is sound, we cannot insist or
expect that the evolution of democracy in the U. S. S. R.
follow the institutional pattern of the decidedly imperfect
democracies with which the world is already acquainted.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, number-
ing in 1952 over 6,000,000 out of an adult population
of some 130,000,000, far from trying to keep all govern-
ment posts to itself, makes every effort to draw non-Party
people into elective and other offices. In the highest
legislative body in the land the percentage of non-Party
members has tended to grow larger since the early years
of the Soviet Republic. From 10 percent in 1924 this
ratio rose to 23. 9 percent in the Supreme Soviet elected
in 1937, although it fell to 17 percent in that chosen in
1950. The percentage of non-Party deputies noticeably
increases in the lower Soviets, rising in 1939 to 47. 4
percent in the city Soviets, to 53. 2 in the town Soviets
and to 76. 9 in the village Soviets. In the elections held
in 1947-48 for all Soviets, including regional and pro-
vincial, below the level of the Union Republic Soviets,
the figure for non-Party representatives was 62. 6 per-
cent.
In any of the Soviets, however, whatever the Com-
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
munist Party supports in the way of legislation practically
always goes through; and whatever it opposes is practic-
ally always lost. The Central Committee of the Party,
with its more than seventy members, meets every four
months. It elects an executive committee called the
Political Bureau (Politburo) ,* composed of ten members
and four alternates. The Politburo, on which Premier
Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party since
1922, and his closest associates sit, is far and away the
most powerful political unit in Soviet Russia at present,
overshadowing the Government itself. The power of the
Communist Party nationally and locally does not imply
that the governmental and administrative machinery out-
lined by the Constitution is a meaningless shell; for what-
ever the power of the Party, it is this constitutional
machinery which it and the people as a whole use to carry
on the political and economic affairs of the country.
And there is wide popular participation in government
through the Soviets, with the population maintaining
close contact with their deputies in the Soviets at all
levels.
Of democratic significance are the relatively large
number of elective positions in the U. S. S. R. "Ten times
as many Soviet citizens hold elective posts as are chosen
by the American people. . . . Moscow has 1,200 members
in its Council, whereas New York has twenty-seven. . . .
Each neighborhood of about a quarter of a million people
has its own governing council, with considerable author-
ity in local school, housing, police, retailing and civil serv-
* In August, 1952, the Central Committee announced that under a new
statute to be voted on at the Nineteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist
Party in October, 1952, a Presidium takes the place of the Politburo and is
"to guide the work of the Central Committee between plenary sessions. " For
the complete text of the statute see The New York Times, August 21, 1952.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
ice affairs. Delegates are elected on the basis of one to
every thousand people, or about 250 families. In terms
of New York that means about one elected representative
for each side of each city block. Certainly, government
could hardly get closer to the people than that. "3
It seems to me that there is in the Soviet Union a
mixed governmental system in which dictatorship is con-
joined with strong and growing elements of democracy.
The function of the Communist Party, exercising what
Sidney and Beatrice Webb called its "vocation of leader-
ship," is to act as guide and educator of the people until
sthey are fully versed in the intricacies of self-government.
To this thought we must add the point that as long
as Soviet Russia feels threatened by "capitalistic encircle-
ment" and foreign aggression, Soviet democratic institu-
tions will be subject to ups and downs and the dictator-
ship will remain.
According to Marxist theory, not only the dictator-
ship but the state itself is destined to "wither away" in
the Communist society that is eventually established. I
believe that in the Soviet Union the dictatorship will
probably give way in due course to a truly democratic
government. But I have never been able to accept the
thesis that the U. S. S. R. or any other country would be
able to dispense entirely with the state as an administra-
tive apparatus and as the final authority in nation-wide
economic planning. The Soviet State, however, as the
guardian of the interests of a special class, will no doubt
disappear in time. And when that happens, there will
no longer be a need for the Communist Party, as Soviet
theoreticians predict.
It is regrettable that during the past few years the
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
Soviet dictatorship has manifestly become tighter instead
of relaxing. But this is not surprising in light of the
menacing international situation that has come into
being since World War II and the widespread discussion
of a Third World War directed against the Soviet Repub-
lic. The Soviet Government has operated on the prin-
ciple that it is better to preserve the new institutions of
socialism, even through the most rigorous and ruthless
measures, in order that those institutions may keep on
developing instead of being destroyed at the outset.
3. The New Rights of Man
The most striking and novel section of the Soviet
Constitution is Chapter X entitled "Fundamental Rights
and Duties of Citizens. " In this Chapter the Constitu-
tion advances far beyond any other such state document
in history and assures to all citizens certain basic eco-
nomic, social and cultural rights that had never before
been considered constitutional prerogatives of citizen-
ship as such. According to eye-witnesses, the Soviet dele-
gates to the constitutional convention cheered each Ar-
ticle of this Chapter, and only of this Chapter, in the
final reading and adoption of the Constitution.
In accordance with the priority of economics in Soviet
theory, Article 118, laying down the fundamental eco-
nomic foundation for the many different aspects of citizen-
ship, comes first in Chapter X. This Article reads:
"Citizens of the U. S. S. R. have the right to work, that is,
are guaranteed the right to employment and payment
for their work in accordance with its quantity and qual-
ity. The right to work is ensured by the socialist organi-
zation of the national economy, the steady growth of the
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of
the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of
unemployment. "
Although we must keep a weather eye on future
developments, it does indeed seem true that Soviet social-
ism, without depending on the stimulus of armaments
or war, has been able to eliminate the general economic
crises and mass unemployment characteristic of the cap-
italist world. This is why the Constitution dares declare,
in effect, that unemployment is unconstitutional.
The next Article also deals with economic affairs:
"The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the establish-
ment of the eight-hour workday for office employees and
by reducing the workday to seven and six hours for a
number of arduous professions and to four hours in
factory shops with particularly arduous working condi-
tions; by establishing annual vacations with full pay for
workers and office employees; by providing a wide net-
work of sanitariums, rest homes and clubs to serve the
working people. "
Vacations with pay in Soviet Russia range from two
weeks to two months. There are of course a multitude
of opportunities for recreation. In every town and city --
and in most villages -- there is at least one public library.
Theatre and opera, concert and motion picture are avail-
able to everyone. The municipalities and the trade
unions provide ample facilities for sports. The "parks
of culture and rest," offering the most varied recreational
programs, are outstanding features in most Soviet cities.
Outdoor life, taking advantage of river, lake, beach,
mountain and forest, is encouraged throughout the
U. S. S. R.
Article 120 is concerned with various forms of social
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? THE SOVIET CONSTITUTION
security: "Citizens of the U. S. S. R. have the right to
maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or
loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the
extensive development of social insurance of workers
and employees at state expense, free medical service for
the working people and the provision of a wide network
of health resorts for the use of the working people. "
It is to be noted that in this Article covering social
security there is no mention of unemployment insurance,
which had been guaranteed by the Soviet Labor Code
up till 1930 and which is of such vital importance in
capitalist countries. To repeat, involuntary unemploy-
ment has disappeared in the U. S. S. R. , and so unemploy-
ment insurance would be superfluous. Old age pensions
begin at the age of fifty-five for women and at sixty for
men.
The free medical service includes dental care.
In the United States we are accustomed to hear viru-
lent criticism of socialized medicine, but this new system
of health instituted in the U. S. S. R. is, in my judgment,
one of the greatest of Soviet achievements. England
under the Labor Government successfully established a
similar system. I do not claim that every Soviet citizen
is obtaining the best medical care; for Soviet medicine
still lacks adequate supplies and a sufficient number of
well-trained physicians. I do claim, however, that no one
in Soviet Russia lacks proper medical service because he
cannot afford it.
The fact is that the health of the Soviet people has
made tremendous progress since 1917. The chief en-
demic diseases of Tsarist times, such as bubonic plague,
cholera, smallpox, typhus and venereal disease, are vir-
tually non-existent today. The number of typhoid cases
are more than 80 percent below the 1913 level and the
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
incidence of tuberculosis more than 40 percent below it.
The death rate among adults has fallen over 65 percent
since 1913 and that of children by even more. The Soviet
public health system emphasizes preventive medicine.
Dr. Henry Sigerist, formerly of Johns Hopkins Univers-
ity and an expert on Soviet medicine, has estimated that
in the U. S. S. R. the equivalent of $27 out of $30 of med-
ical expenditures goes to prevention as compared with
only $1 out of $30 in America.
The next Article in the Soviet Constitution on the
new rights of man brings us into the field of culture:
"Citizens of the U. S. S. R. have the right to education.
This right is ensured by universal, compulsory, elemen-
tary education; by free seven-year education; by a system
of state stipends to the outstanding students in higher
schools; by instruction in schools being conducted in the
native language, and by the organization in the factories,
state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective
farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic train-
ing for the working people. "
Day nurseries under the Ministry of Public Health
care for infants from thirty-six days old through the age
of three. Kindergartens take children from three to seven.
Neither kindergartens nor nurseries are compulsory.
Both charge working mothers a nominal fee amounting
to one day's pay a month. Only a small proportion of
Soviet mothers take advantage of the creche and kinder-
garten system. Free, universal, compulsory education
extends from the age of seven through thirteen; and the
eventual aim is to make it so for everyone up to eighteen.
Although a capitalist democracy like the United
States does not make any guarantee about education in
its Constitution, it does by law have free, compulsory
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
elementary education and a free liberal arts education
or vocational training at the high school and college
levels for those who wish it and can afford to remain
without a paying job. Hence the provisions in the Soviet
Constitution concerning education, while they mark a
signal improvement over Tsarist days, are not excep-
tional. The educational upsurge that has taken place
in the U. S. S. R. since 1917 has not been confined to youth
or based merely on state-run institutions. Serious adult
education has been a pervasive phenomenon and special
educational enterprises have been a regular part of the
activities of labor unions, the Communist Party and the
Soviet army.
In article 122 we come again to a unique constitu-
tional provision: "Women in the U. S. S. R. are accorded
equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state,
cultural, social and political life. The possibility of
exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting
them an equal right with men to work, payment for work,
rest and leisure, social insurance and education, by state
protection of the interests of mother and child, by state
aid to mothers of large families and unmarried mothers,
prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the
provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nur-
series and kindergartens. "
Lenin once said that no nation can be free when half
its population, the women, are household slaves and
doomed to "daily sacrifice to a thousand unimportant
trivialities. "4 This statement applies to all countries, but
it had special relevance for Tsarist Russia in which
women were almost universally treated as basically in-
ferior to men. An old Russian proverb stressed the in-
herent inferiority of the female sex: "A hen is no bird,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
and a woman is no human being. " Other Russian say-
ings indicate the harsh treatment that women in Tsarist
days were likely to receive: "Love your wife like your
soul, but thrash her like a pear tree"; "Beat your wife,
the food will be tastier. "
The Soviet Government not only reversed the former
Russian attitude toward women, but went ahead of any
other country in eradicating exploitation of woman by
man and establishing full sex equality in all relevant
ways. This means much more than giving women the
suffrage, a right granted even in the United States and
Great Britain only during the past few decades. Soviet
theory and practice extend equality between the sexes
to the relationship between husband and wife, to eco-
nomic and professional activity, to educational and cul-
tural opportunity, and to participation in every form of
political life.
In the 1937 elections 16. 5 percent of the deputies
chosen for the Supreme Soviet of the U. S. S. R. were
women; in both the 1946 and 1950 elections the per-
centage increased to about 21 as compared with less than
2 percent in the United States Congress for the same years.
Hundreds of women are members of the Supreme Soviets
of the Union and Autonomous Republics. All Soviet
judges and jurors are elected; and in 1949 over 39 percent
of them were women. In 1951 approximately 413,000
women were students in higher educational institutions
and comprised more than 30 percent of the student body.
In the same year more than 40 percent of all persons
employed in the national economy were women. Over
383,000 women were working as engineers and tech-
nicians and over 1,000,000 in the public health system,
including 191,000 qualified physicians and surgeons.
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
The Soviet policy does not neglect the biological
function of women as mothers, and indeed extends to
mother and child every possible protection. Sex equality
in Soviet Russia has certainly not led to the break-up of
home life; and there is much evidence that it has brought
increasing stability to the family as an institution. The
system of easy divorces characteristic of the early post-
revolutionary years has given way to a tightening of the
marital bond through making divorces more difficult and
expensive; and to an emphasis on building up a psycho-
logically adjusted and permanent family unit. Grounds
for divorce are desertion, mental disease, the sentencing
of one spouse to three or more years in jail and other
weighty reasons satisfying to the People's Courts. Birth
control techniques are legal, but not encouraged.
In any case we must guard against the fallacy of think-
ing that Soviet sex equality, or any other social-economic
reforms in the U. S. S. R. , can automatically solve the com-
plex problems of sex relations and of women's role in
home management. At the same time we are warranted
in doubting whether the exigencies of the cold war justify
the Soviet Government's policy of refusing to allow Soviet
women married to foreigners to join their husbands
abroad.
The Soviet Constitution takes another epoch-making
step forward in the next Article (123), which ensures
ethnic democracy: "Equality of rights of citizens of the
U. S. S. R. , irrespective of their nationality or race, in all
spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political
life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restric-
tion of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of
direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of
their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial
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? SOVIE7 CIVILIZATION
or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is
punishable by law. " The Soviet attitude toward racial
and national minorities within the U. S. S. R. is fraught
with world-wide significance, particularly in view of the
fascist attempt in World War II to foist permanently on
mankind a program of racial prejudice and oppression
and in view of the present distressing minorities situa-
tions in such nations as the United States and South
Africa.
Article 124 concerns the much misunderstood Soviet
attitude toward religion: "In order to ensure to citizens
freedom of conscience, the Church in the U. S. S. R. is
separated from the State, and the school from the Church.
Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-relig-
ious propaganda is recognized for all citizens. " In the
old Russia the Orthodox Eastern Church was the official
state church and had a controlling voice in the educa-
tional system. A large part of the outcry against the Soviet
Government's treatment of religion has been due precise-
ly to its taking over a principle long established in the
United States, namely, the separation of state and reli-
gion and of school and religion.
A more friendly feeling between government and
church has recently developed in the Soviet Union for
the reason that the Orthodox Church gave such loyal
support in resisting the Nazi invasion. However, it is my
belief that on the whole there has been true freedom
of worship, despite some local excesses against the Church
authorities in the early years, since the Revolution of
1917. There has actually been more religious freedom
than under the Tsars in the sense that the disestablished
Orthodox Church has no longer been able to persecute
minority Protestant, Hebrew and Mohammedan sects;
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
and so all religions under the Soviets have legally stood
on a plane of equality. In a later chapter I shall go into
the details of the status of religion in Soviet Russia. *
The next few Articles cover the controversial topic of
civil liberties in the Soviet Union. Article 125 states:
"In conformity with the interests of the working people,
and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens
of the U. S. S. R. are guaranteed by law: freedom of speech;
freedom of the press; freedom of assembly, including the
holding of mass meetings; freedom of street processions
and demonstrations. These civil rights are ensured by
placing at the disposal of the working people and their
organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public
buildings, the streets, communications facilities and
other material prerequisites for the exercise of these
rights. " Article 127 guarantees the "inviolability of the
person. No person may be placed under arrest except by
decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator. "
Article 128 reads: "The inviolability of the homes of
citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by
law. "
The opening statement on civil liberties obviously
qualifies freedom of opinion by the clause "in order to
strengthen the socialist system. " This definitely implies
that those who are opposed to socialism in Soviet Russia
are not granted the right to express their opposition. In-
dividuals in favor of the restoration of Tsarism or the
capitalist system would quickly get into hot water if they
attempted to express their views. Soviet practice up to
date has gone further and has denied freedom of opinion
to citizens who, even while agreeing that socialism is the
goal, continue to take issue, after a policy decision has
? See p. 121.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
been made, with basic Communist Party or government
directives.
In his book, The Law of the Soviet State, Andrei Y.
Vishinsky, former Procurator-General (Attorney Gen-
eral) of the U. S. S. R. and since 1949 Minister of Foreign
Affairs, asserted: "In our state, naturally there is and can
be no place for freedom of speech, press and so on for the
foes of socialism. "5 How flagrant a violation of civil
liberties this amounts to becomes clear if we apply the
converse of the principle expressed to the capitalist
United States. Then we would have: "Under the Bill
of Rights, naturally there can be no place for freedom
of speech, press, assembly and political organization for
the enemies of capitalism. "
Nevertheless, Soviet citizens retain a wide area for
the operation of free speech in the determination of
policy, up to the point when a final decision is taken, and
in criticism of the way in which policy is carried out.
Soviet workers have been outspoken in their slashing
criticism of economic affairs, factory officials and govern-
ment bureaucrats. This constant self-criticism in the
Soviet Union has become a well-established institution
and provides hostile foreign writers with a great deal of
ammunition for exposing bureaucracy, inefficiencies and
other defects in the Soviet system. We can express the
situation in this manner: Within a limited yet fairly broad
circle of controversial subjects Soviet citizens have full
latitude of speech, but when they go outside that circle
to question settled government policies or fundamental
Marxist principles, their freedom of speech is drastically
curtailed.
The second part of Article 125 underlines once more
the stress that the Soviets put on the economic implemen-
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
tation of civil liberties. What use is freedom of the press
unless printing presses and stocks of paper are available?
What good are constitutional guarantees for freedom of
opinion unless the people have "the material requisites
for the exercise of these rights"? Soviet political scientists
make the claim that in the capitalist countries the work-
ers, especially, do not possess these material requisites
because they lack in general the financial means to hire
printing presses, print newspapers and magazines, rent
meeting halls and buy radio time. Capitalist democracies,
Soviet critics go on to say, talk a lot about the abstract
forms of civil liberty, but do not give those forms sub-
stance in economic realities.
The Communists also argue that in capitalist coun-
tries, although governmental authorities crack down only
too often on freedom of speech, the main incidence of
censorship comes from pressures by private businessmen
and corporations that own and operate at least 95 percent
of the press, the radio, the movies and book publishing.
These prime mediums of communication are slanted
overwhelmingly on the capitalist side of every fundamen-
tal issue and need no government prompting to carry on
a constant campaign against socialist and Communist
doctrines. What this amounts to, the argument concludes,
is that under capitalism there is a pervasive private and
voluntary censorship of ideas which is less honest yet just
as effective as the open government censorship in the
Soviet Union.
The remaining articles in Chapter X are primarily
concerned with the duties of Soviet citizens, such as ob-
servance of the laws, maintaining labor discipline and
taking part in universal military service. Article 131 is
particularly worth quoting: "It is the duty of every
83
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
sense of being generally weighted against the urban
population.
In the third place, the 1936 Constitution establishes
secret voting in the election of all the different grades
of Soviet. Previously elections had been conducted by
a show of hands at open meetings, in the fashion of the
old New England town meeting. Again, in the earlier
years of the Soviet Republic there did not exist the cul-
tural prerequisites among the largely illiterate Soviet
people for carrying through efficiently the processes of
the secret ballot. The simple show of hands, however
subject to abuse, was the natural and intelligent pro-
cedure for a considerable period.
In the fourth place, the 1936 Constitution does away
with the old method of indirect voting for. members of
the upper Soviets and replaces it with the method of
direct popular vote. Under the 1924 Constitution the
voters elected directly only the village and city govern-
ments, which sent representatives to the regional and
Union Republic Soviets, which in turn chose the deputies
to the federal All-Union Congress of Soviets. This
hierarchical system was similar to the election of United
States Senators by the State legislatures until 1913. Now
in the Soviet Union the electorate votes separately and
directly for the delegates to each Soviet.
In the fifth place, the direct ballot guaranteed by the
1936 Constitution makes possible the direct recall of
deputies to any Soviet during their term of office, where-
as previously such recall was limited to the lower Soviets.
Article 142 states: "It is the duty of every deputy to
report to his electors on his work and on the work of the
Soviet of Working People's Deputies, and he is liable
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
to be recalled at any time in the manner established by
law upon decision of a majority of the electors. " The
Soviet people hold their deputies up to rigorous stand-
ards of representation, frequently becoming dissatisfied
with them and using the power of recall. This method
of democratic vigilance is highly developed in Soviet
Russia.
Since there is only one legal political party in the
U. S. S. R. , the Communist Party, the regulations for nomi-
nation to the Soviets are of especial importance. Article
141 lays down the rules: "Candidates for election are
nominated according to electoral areas. The right to
nominate candidates is secured to public organizations
and societies of the working people: Communist Party
organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, youth organi-
zations and cultural societies. " The only other mention
of the Communist Party occurs in Article 126 of the Con-
stitution which declares that "the most active and polit-
ically most conscious citizens in the ranks of the working
class and other sections of the working people unite in
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),
which is the vanguard of the working people in their
struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system
and is the leading core of all organizations of the work-
ing people, both public and state. "
The Soviet Constitution has often been denounced
as "a mere fraudulent facade" on the grounds that it
does not adequately describe the pervasive and all-im-
portant role of the Communist Party in Soviet life. How-
ever, since the Constitution explicitly states that the
Communist Party "is the leading core of all organiza-
tions . . . both public and state," I think that it does
indicate the importance of the Communist Party. It is
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? THE SOVIET COHSTiTUTIOH
appropriate to recall that the American Constitution
makes no mention of any political party whatsoever and
does not even hint at a two-party system or at the part
that political parties have played in American democracy.
In fact, the Founding Fathers of the American Republic
did not envisage a two-party or multi-party system and
felt strongly that parties would be a menace to the new
democratic state. Two distinct and separate political
parties did not come into existence for fifteen years after
the Revolution of 1776; and no candidate was nominated
to oppose George Washington in the first two elections
for President.
A one-party system, then, in which the nominations
are the fundamental thing and in which a single slate
is ratified in elections, does not necessarily prevent true
democracy. In the United States today we have many
examples of democratic single-slate voting. Frequently
the Republican and Democratic Parties agree on the
same candidates for judgeships. In Leonia, New Jersey,
a community of 7,000 people, the Leonia Civic Confer-
ence, a non-partisan group, selects the best candidates
for local offices whom it can find, regardless of political
labels, and nominates them. Almost without exception
the single slate it recommends is elected. The Civic Con-
ference is composed of delegates from the local Demo-
cratic and Republican organizations, from the men's and
women's clubs, and from parents' and veterans' groups.
Any organization with fifty members can send a delegate
to the Conference, or any twenty-five citizens who sign
a petition. In America, too, there are a huge number of
non-governmental societies, associations, councils and
committees most of which elect their officers through the
uncontested single-slate method.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
It is the Soviet and Marxist theory that different polit-
ical parties arise from conflicting property interests on
the part of different economic classes such as workers and
capitalists, landowners and farmers (or peasants), small
businessmen and monopolists; and that as long as such
groupings exist political freedom, in whatever degree it
can be attained under such circumstances, does demand
different political parties. The Marxist idea is that when
these classes have been eliminated, as in the Soviet Union,
then the need for a multiplicity of parties also disappears.
Whether or not this theory is sound, we cannot insist or
expect that the evolution of democracy in the U. S. S. R.
follow the institutional pattern of the decidedly imperfect
democracies with which the world is already acquainted.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, number-
ing in 1952 over 6,000,000 out of an adult population
of some 130,000,000, far from trying to keep all govern-
ment posts to itself, makes every effort to draw non-Party
people into elective and other offices. In the highest
legislative body in the land the percentage of non-Party
members has tended to grow larger since the early years
of the Soviet Republic. From 10 percent in 1924 this
ratio rose to 23. 9 percent in the Supreme Soviet elected
in 1937, although it fell to 17 percent in that chosen in
1950. The percentage of non-Party deputies noticeably
increases in the lower Soviets, rising in 1939 to 47. 4
percent in the city Soviets, to 53. 2 in the town Soviets
and to 76. 9 in the village Soviets. In the elections held
in 1947-48 for all Soviets, including regional and pro-
vincial, below the level of the Union Republic Soviets,
the figure for non-Party representatives was 62. 6 per-
cent.
In any of the Soviets, however, whatever the Com-
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
munist Party supports in the way of legislation practically
always goes through; and whatever it opposes is practic-
ally always lost. The Central Committee of the Party,
with its more than seventy members, meets every four
months. It elects an executive committee called the
Political Bureau (Politburo) ,* composed of ten members
and four alternates. The Politburo, on which Premier
Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party since
1922, and his closest associates sit, is far and away the
most powerful political unit in Soviet Russia at present,
overshadowing the Government itself. The power of the
Communist Party nationally and locally does not imply
that the governmental and administrative machinery out-
lined by the Constitution is a meaningless shell; for what-
ever the power of the Party, it is this constitutional
machinery which it and the people as a whole use to carry
on the political and economic affairs of the country.
And there is wide popular participation in government
through the Soviets, with the population maintaining
close contact with their deputies in the Soviets at all
levels.
Of democratic significance are the relatively large
number of elective positions in the U. S. S. R. "Ten times
as many Soviet citizens hold elective posts as are chosen
by the American people. . . . Moscow has 1,200 members
in its Council, whereas New York has twenty-seven. . . .
Each neighborhood of about a quarter of a million people
has its own governing council, with considerable author-
ity in local school, housing, police, retailing and civil serv-
* In August, 1952, the Central Committee announced that under a new
statute to be voted on at the Nineteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist
Party in October, 1952, a Presidium takes the place of the Politburo and is
"to guide the work of the Central Committee between plenary sessions. " For
the complete text of the statute see The New York Times, August 21, 1952.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
ice affairs. Delegates are elected on the basis of one to
every thousand people, or about 250 families. In terms
of New York that means about one elected representative
for each side of each city block. Certainly, government
could hardly get closer to the people than that. "3
It seems to me that there is in the Soviet Union a
mixed governmental system in which dictatorship is con-
joined with strong and growing elements of democracy.
The function of the Communist Party, exercising what
Sidney and Beatrice Webb called its "vocation of leader-
ship," is to act as guide and educator of the people until
sthey are fully versed in the intricacies of self-government.
To this thought we must add the point that as long
as Soviet Russia feels threatened by "capitalistic encircle-
ment" and foreign aggression, Soviet democratic institu-
tions will be subject to ups and downs and the dictator-
ship will remain.
According to Marxist theory, not only the dictator-
ship but the state itself is destined to "wither away" in
the Communist society that is eventually established. I
believe that in the Soviet Union the dictatorship will
probably give way in due course to a truly democratic
government. But I have never been able to accept the
thesis that the U. S. S. R. or any other country would be
able to dispense entirely with the state as an administra-
tive apparatus and as the final authority in nation-wide
economic planning. The Soviet State, however, as the
guardian of the interests of a special class, will no doubt
disappear in time. And when that happens, there will
no longer be a need for the Communist Party, as Soviet
theoreticians predict.
It is regrettable that during the past few years the
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
Soviet dictatorship has manifestly become tighter instead
of relaxing. But this is not surprising in light of the
menacing international situation that has come into
being since World War II and the widespread discussion
of a Third World War directed against the Soviet Repub-
lic. The Soviet Government has operated on the prin-
ciple that it is better to preserve the new institutions of
socialism, even through the most rigorous and ruthless
measures, in order that those institutions may keep on
developing instead of being destroyed at the outset.
3. The New Rights of Man
The most striking and novel section of the Soviet
Constitution is Chapter X entitled "Fundamental Rights
and Duties of Citizens. " In this Chapter the Constitu-
tion advances far beyond any other such state document
in history and assures to all citizens certain basic eco-
nomic, social and cultural rights that had never before
been considered constitutional prerogatives of citizen-
ship as such. According to eye-witnesses, the Soviet dele-
gates to the constitutional convention cheered each Ar-
ticle of this Chapter, and only of this Chapter, in the
final reading and adoption of the Constitution.
In accordance with the priority of economics in Soviet
theory, Article 118, laying down the fundamental eco-
nomic foundation for the many different aspects of citizen-
ship, comes first in Chapter X. This Article reads:
"Citizens of the U. S. S. R. have the right to work, that is,
are guaranteed the right to employment and payment
for their work in accordance with its quantity and qual-
ity. The right to work is ensured by the socialist organi-
zation of the national economy, the steady growth of the
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of
the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of
unemployment. "
Although we must keep a weather eye on future
developments, it does indeed seem true that Soviet social-
ism, without depending on the stimulus of armaments
or war, has been able to eliminate the general economic
crises and mass unemployment characteristic of the cap-
italist world. This is why the Constitution dares declare,
in effect, that unemployment is unconstitutional.
The next Article also deals with economic affairs:
"The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the establish-
ment of the eight-hour workday for office employees and
by reducing the workday to seven and six hours for a
number of arduous professions and to four hours in
factory shops with particularly arduous working condi-
tions; by establishing annual vacations with full pay for
workers and office employees; by providing a wide net-
work of sanitariums, rest homes and clubs to serve the
working people. "
Vacations with pay in Soviet Russia range from two
weeks to two months. There are of course a multitude
of opportunities for recreation. In every town and city --
and in most villages -- there is at least one public library.
Theatre and opera, concert and motion picture are avail-
able to everyone. The municipalities and the trade
unions provide ample facilities for sports. The "parks
of culture and rest," offering the most varied recreational
programs, are outstanding features in most Soviet cities.
Outdoor life, taking advantage of river, lake, beach,
mountain and forest, is encouraged throughout the
U. S. S. R.
Article 120 is concerned with various forms of social
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? THE SOVIET CONSTITUTION
security: "Citizens of the U. S. S. R. have the right to
maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or
loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the
extensive development of social insurance of workers
and employees at state expense, free medical service for
the working people and the provision of a wide network
of health resorts for the use of the working people. "
It is to be noted that in this Article covering social
security there is no mention of unemployment insurance,
which had been guaranteed by the Soviet Labor Code
up till 1930 and which is of such vital importance in
capitalist countries. To repeat, involuntary unemploy-
ment has disappeared in the U. S. S. R. , and so unemploy-
ment insurance would be superfluous. Old age pensions
begin at the age of fifty-five for women and at sixty for
men.
The free medical service includes dental care.
In the United States we are accustomed to hear viru-
lent criticism of socialized medicine, but this new system
of health instituted in the U. S. S. R. is, in my judgment,
one of the greatest of Soviet achievements. England
under the Labor Government successfully established a
similar system. I do not claim that every Soviet citizen
is obtaining the best medical care; for Soviet medicine
still lacks adequate supplies and a sufficient number of
well-trained physicians. I do claim, however, that no one
in Soviet Russia lacks proper medical service because he
cannot afford it.
The fact is that the health of the Soviet people has
made tremendous progress since 1917. The chief en-
demic diseases of Tsarist times, such as bubonic plague,
cholera, smallpox, typhus and venereal disease, are vir-
tually non-existent today. The number of typhoid cases
are more than 80 percent below the 1913 level and the
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
incidence of tuberculosis more than 40 percent below it.
The death rate among adults has fallen over 65 percent
since 1913 and that of children by even more. The Soviet
public health system emphasizes preventive medicine.
Dr. Henry Sigerist, formerly of Johns Hopkins Univers-
ity and an expert on Soviet medicine, has estimated that
in the U. S. S. R. the equivalent of $27 out of $30 of med-
ical expenditures goes to prevention as compared with
only $1 out of $30 in America.
The next Article in the Soviet Constitution on the
new rights of man brings us into the field of culture:
"Citizens of the U. S. S. R. have the right to education.
This right is ensured by universal, compulsory, elemen-
tary education; by free seven-year education; by a system
of state stipends to the outstanding students in higher
schools; by instruction in schools being conducted in the
native language, and by the organization in the factories,
state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective
farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic train-
ing for the working people. "
Day nurseries under the Ministry of Public Health
care for infants from thirty-six days old through the age
of three. Kindergartens take children from three to seven.
Neither kindergartens nor nurseries are compulsory.
Both charge working mothers a nominal fee amounting
to one day's pay a month. Only a small proportion of
Soviet mothers take advantage of the creche and kinder-
garten system. Free, universal, compulsory education
extends from the age of seven through thirteen; and the
eventual aim is to make it so for everyone up to eighteen.
Although a capitalist democracy like the United
States does not make any guarantee about education in
its Constitution, it does by law have free, compulsory
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
elementary education and a free liberal arts education
or vocational training at the high school and college
levels for those who wish it and can afford to remain
without a paying job. Hence the provisions in the Soviet
Constitution concerning education, while they mark a
signal improvement over Tsarist days, are not excep-
tional. The educational upsurge that has taken place
in the U. S. S. R. since 1917 has not been confined to youth
or based merely on state-run institutions. Serious adult
education has been a pervasive phenomenon and special
educational enterprises have been a regular part of the
activities of labor unions, the Communist Party and the
Soviet army.
In article 122 we come again to a unique constitu-
tional provision: "Women in the U. S. S. R. are accorded
equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state,
cultural, social and political life. The possibility of
exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting
them an equal right with men to work, payment for work,
rest and leisure, social insurance and education, by state
protection of the interests of mother and child, by state
aid to mothers of large families and unmarried mothers,
prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the
provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nur-
series and kindergartens. "
Lenin once said that no nation can be free when half
its population, the women, are household slaves and
doomed to "daily sacrifice to a thousand unimportant
trivialities. "4 This statement applies to all countries, but
it had special relevance for Tsarist Russia in which
women were almost universally treated as basically in-
ferior to men. An old Russian proverb stressed the in-
herent inferiority of the female sex: "A hen is no bird,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
and a woman is no human being. " Other Russian say-
ings indicate the harsh treatment that women in Tsarist
days were likely to receive: "Love your wife like your
soul, but thrash her like a pear tree"; "Beat your wife,
the food will be tastier. "
The Soviet Government not only reversed the former
Russian attitude toward women, but went ahead of any
other country in eradicating exploitation of woman by
man and establishing full sex equality in all relevant
ways. This means much more than giving women the
suffrage, a right granted even in the United States and
Great Britain only during the past few decades. Soviet
theory and practice extend equality between the sexes
to the relationship between husband and wife, to eco-
nomic and professional activity, to educational and cul-
tural opportunity, and to participation in every form of
political life.
In the 1937 elections 16. 5 percent of the deputies
chosen for the Supreme Soviet of the U. S. S. R. were
women; in both the 1946 and 1950 elections the per-
centage increased to about 21 as compared with less than
2 percent in the United States Congress for the same years.
Hundreds of women are members of the Supreme Soviets
of the Union and Autonomous Republics. All Soviet
judges and jurors are elected; and in 1949 over 39 percent
of them were women. In 1951 approximately 413,000
women were students in higher educational institutions
and comprised more than 30 percent of the student body.
In the same year more than 40 percent of all persons
employed in the national economy were women. Over
383,000 women were working as engineers and tech-
nicians and over 1,000,000 in the public health system,
including 191,000 qualified physicians and surgeons.
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
The Soviet policy does not neglect the biological
function of women as mothers, and indeed extends to
mother and child every possible protection. Sex equality
in Soviet Russia has certainly not led to the break-up of
home life; and there is much evidence that it has brought
increasing stability to the family as an institution. The
system of easy divorces characteristic of the early post-
revolutionary years has given way to a tightening of the
marital bond through making divorces more difficult and
expensive; and to an emphasis on building up a psycho-
logically adjusted and permanent family unit. Grounds
for divorce are desertion, mental disease, the sentencing
of one spouse to three or more years in jail and other
weighty reasons satisfying to the People's Courts. Birth
control techniques are legal, but not encouraged.
In any case we must guard against the fallacy of think-
ing that Soviet sex equality, or any other social-economic
reforms in the U. S. S. R. , can automatically solve the com-
plex problems of sex relations and of women's role in
home management. At the same time we are warranted
in doubting whether the exigencies of the cold war justify
the Soviet Government's policy of refusing to allow Soviet
women married to foreigners to join their husbands
abroad.
The Soviet Constitution takes another epoch-making
step forward in the next Article (123), which ensures
ethnic democracy: "Equality of rights of citizens of the
U. S. S. R. , irrespective of their nationality or race, in all
spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political
life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restric-
tion of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of
direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of
their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial
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? SOVIE7 CIVILIZATION
or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is
punishable by law. " The Soviet attitude toward racial
and national minorities within the U. S. S. R. is fraught
with world-wide significance, particularly in view of the
fascist attempt in World War II to foist permanently on
mankind a program of racial prejudice and oppression
and in view of the present distressing minorities situa-
tions in such nations as the United States and South
Africa.
Article 124 concerns the much misunderstood Soviet
attitude toward religion: "In order to ensure to citizens
freedom of conscience, the Church in the U. S. S. R. is
separated from the State, and the school from the Church.
Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-relig-
ious propaganda is recognized for all citizens. " In the
old Russia the Orthodox Eastern Church was the official
state church and had a controlling voice in the educa-
tional system. A large part of the outcry against the Soviet
Government's treatment of religion has been due precise-
ly to its taking over a principle long established in the
United States, namely, the separation of state and reli-
gion and of school and religion.
A more friendly feeling between government and
church has recently developed in the Soviet Union for
the reason that the Orthodox Church gave such loyal
support in resisting the Nazi invasion. However, it is my
belief that on the whole there has been true freedom
of worship, despite some local excesses against the Church
authorities in the early years, since the Revolution of
1917. There has actually been more religious freedom
than under the Tsars in the sense that the disestablished
Orthodox Church has no longer been able to persecute
minority Protestant, Hebrew and Mohammedan sects;
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
and so all religions under the Soviets have legally stood
on a plane of equality. In a later chapter I shall go into
the details of the status of religion in Soviet Russia. *
The next few Articles cover the controversial topic of
civil liberties in the Soviet Union. Article 125 states:
"In conformity with the interests of the working people,
and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens
of the U. S. S. R. are guaranteed by law: freedom of speech;
freedom of the press; freedom of assembly, including the
holding of mass meetings; freedom of street processions
and demonstrations. These civil rights are ensured by
placing at the disposal of the working people and their
organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public
buildings, the streets, communications facilities and
other material prerequisites for the exercise of these
rights. " Article 127 guarantees the "inviolability of the
person. No person may be placed under arrest except by
decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator. "
Article 128 reads: "The inviolability of the homes of
citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by
law. "
The opening statement on civil liberties obviously
qualifies freedom of opinion by the clause "in order to
strengthen the socialist system. " This definitely implies
that those who are opposed to socialism in Soviet Russia
are not granted the right to express their opposition. In-
dividuals in favor of the restoration of Tsarism or the
capitalist system would quickly get into hot water if they
attempted to express their views. Soviet practice up to
date has gone further and has denied freedom of opinion
to citizens who, even while agreeing that socialism is the
goal, continue to take issue, after a policy decision has
? See p. 121.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
been made, with basic Communist Party or government
directives.
In his book, The Law of the Soviet State, Andrei Y.
Vishinsky, former Procurator-General (Attorney Gen-
eral) of the U. S. S. R. and since 1949 Minister of Foreign
Affairs, asserted: "In our state, naturally there is and can
be no place for freedom of speech, press and so on for the
foes of socialism. "5 How flagrant a violation of civil
liberties this amounts to becomes clear if we apply the
converse of the principle expressed to the capitalist
United States. Then we would have: "Under the Bill
of Rights, naturally there can be no place for freedom
of speech, press, assembly and political organization for
the enemies of capitalism. "
Nevertheless, Soviet citizens retain a wide area for
the operation of free speech in the determination of
policy, up to the point when a final decision is taken, and
in criticism of the way in which policy is carried out.
Soviet workers have been outspoken in their slashing
criticism of economic affairs, factory officials and govern-
ment bureaucrats. This constant self-criticism in the
Soviet Union has become a well-established institution
and provides hostile foreign writers with a great deal of
ammunition for exposing bureaucracy, inefficiencies and
other defects in the Soviet system. We can express the
situation in this manner: Within a limited yet fairly broad
circle of controversial subjects Soviet citizens have full
latitude of speech, but when they go outside that circle
to question settled government policies or fundamental
Marxist principles, their freedom of speech is drastically
curtailed.
The second part of Article 125 underlines once more
the stress that the Soviets put on the economic implemen-
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? THE SOVIET COHSTITUTIOH
tation of civil liberties. What use is freedom of the press
unless printing presses and stocks of paper are available?
What good are constitutional guarantees for freedom of
opinion unless the people have "the material requisites
for the exercise of these rights"? Soviet political scientists
make the claim that in the capitalist countries the work-
ers, especially, do not possess these material requisites
because they lack in general the financial means to hire
printing presses, print newspapers and magazines, rent
meeting halls and buy radio time. Capitalist democracies,
Soviet critics go on to say, talk a lot about the abstract
forms of civil liberty, but do not give those forms sub-
stance in economic realities.
The Communists also argue that in capitalist coun-
tries, although governmental authorities crack down only
too often on freedom of speech, the main incidence of
censorship comes from pressures by private businessmen
and corporations that own and operate at least 95 percent
of the press, the radio, the movies and book publishing.
These prime mediums of communication are slanted
overwhelmingly on the capitalist side of every fundamen-
tal issue and need no government prompting to carry on
a constant campaign against socialist and Communist
doctrines. What this amounts to, the argument concludes,
is that under capitalism there is a pervasive private and
voluntary censorship of ideas which is less honest yet just
as effective as the open government censorship in the
Soviet Union.
The remaining articles in Chapter X are primarily
concerned with the duties of Soviet citizens, such as ob-
servance of the laws, maintaining labor discipline and
taking part in universal military service. Article 131 is
particularly worth quoting: "It is the duty of every
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