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111-790: Article 12 of the Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics articulated the functions of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union "with the functions of supreme judicial control" under the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union . Therefore, the question of the need to create a Supreme Court arose after the Soviet Union was established. On November 23, 1923, the Presidium of

222-478: A "free" socialist one with mutual trust, peace and international cooperation and solidarity. The former sought to destroy the latter, but because of the common good that the latter is based on, the former has failed . The declaration goes on and lists three factors as to why this Union is a necessary step. First of all, the aftermath of the Civil War left many of the republics' economies destroyed, and rebuilding in

333-683: A "most valuable and major theorist" of the Communist Party , Bukharin was active in the Soviet leadership from 1917 to his purge in the 1930s. Bukharin joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, and studied economics at Moscow Imperial University . In 1910, he was arrested and internally exiled to Onega , but the following year escaped abroad, where he met Lenin and Leon Trotsky and built his reputation with works such as Imperialism and World Economy (1915). After

444-441: A Scientific Advisory Council, which introduced legal scholars into the process of formulating judicial directives as consultants. Gorbachev 's policies of reform allowed for the press and jurists to expose the abuses in the Soviet administration of justice. This was to also to start a movement for judicial reform. The USSR Supreme Court contributed to the legitimisation of Gorbachev's reforms, not just purely in justice, as it played

555-575: A bear hug and immediately began to tell them about a public library which stayed open late at night and which he proposed to show us at once" dragging the tired Trotskys across town "to admire his great discovery"). At the news of the Russian Revolution of February 1917 , exiled revolutionaries from around the world began to flock back to the homeland. Trotsky left New York on 27 March 1917, sailing for St. Petersburg. Bukharin left New York in early April and returned to Russia by way of Japan (where he

666-818: A conference of delegations from the Russian SFSR , the Transcaucasian SFSR , the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR . The Treaty and the Declaration were confirmed by the First All-Union Congress of Soviets and signed by heads of delegations  – Mikhail Kalinin , Mikhail Tskhakaya , and Grigory Petrovsky , Alexander Chervyakov respectively on December 30, 1922. The treaty provided flexibility to admit new members. Therefore, by 1940

777-464: A decade earlier. Bukharin's support for the continuation of the NEP was not popular with higher Party cadres, and his slogan to peasants, "Enrich yourselves!" and proposal to achieve socialism "at snail's pace" left him vulnerable to attacks first by Zinoviev and later by Stalin. Stalin attacked Bukharin's views, portraying them as capitalist deviations and declaring that the revolution would be at risk without

888-631: A decree where the former Bukharan, Khivan People's Republics as well as the RSFSR's Turkestan were re-organized as the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR , both of whom became full Union Republics on 13 May 1925. The borders of the new republics matched to an extent the ethno-social, linguistic, and tribal groups inhabiting the regions in question, and Uzbekistan initially also contained a newly formed Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , which would be elevated to

999-629: A different agenda . Lenin himself saw the creation of national republics as a permanent feature in line with his korenizatsiya policies. In spring of 1922, Lenin suffered his first stroke, and Stalin, still being a People's Commissar for Nationalities , gained a new official chair as the General Secretary of the Communist Party . Stalin argued that, because the Russian Civil War had now concluded and war communism had been replaced by

1110-543: A double team of interrogators. Bukharin's confession and his motivation became subject of much debate among Western observers, inspiring Koestler's acclaimed novel Darkness at Noon and a philosophical essay by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in Humanism and Terror . His confessions were somewhat different from others in that while he pleaded guilty to the "sum total of crimes", he denied knowledge when it came to specific crimes. Some astute observers noted that he would allow only what

1221-569: A former ally and friend of Bukharin, wrote that in spring 1929, Bukharin told him that he had formed an alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev, and that they were planning to use individual terror (assassination) to get rid of Stalin. Eventually, Bukharin lost his position in the Comintern and the editorship of Pravda in April 1929, and he was expelled from the Politburo on 17 November of that year. Bukharin

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1332-708: A full Union Republic on October 16, 1929, to become the Tajik SSR . Meanwhile, in 1924 the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was carved out of the northeastern part of the former Turkestan, to be upgraded to the level of Autonomous SSR (within the RSFSR) and eventually made a union-level republic in the form of the Kirghiz SSR in 1936, along with the " Kirghiz Autonomous SSR " which became the Kazakh SSR . In January 1924,

1443-514: A future fifth column . At the same time, it created a new centralised federal government in which key functions would clearly be in the hands of Moscow. The original document included a cover sheet, the declaration, the treaty (containing the preface and 26 articles) and the signatures of the delegations that signed it. In the cover sheet, the title Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was typed in Russian , French , English and German , as well as

1554-548: A general change in policy, after mass collectivization was largely completed and the worst was over. Although Bukharin had not challenged Stalin since 1929, his former supporters, including Martemyan Ryutin , drafted and clandestinely circulated an anti-Stalin platform, which called Stalin the "evil genius of the Russian Revolution". However, Sergey Kirov , First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee

1665-459: A hair from ruin". After the ratification of the treaty, Bukharin resumed his responsibilities within the party. In March 1919, he became a member of the Comintern's executive committee and a candidate member of the Politburo . During the Civil War period, he published several theoretical economic works, including the popular primer The ABC of Communism (with Yevgeni Preobrazhensky , 1919), and

1776-732: A major Bolshevik theorist. His work Imperialism and World Economy influenced Lenin, who freely borrowed from it in his larger and better-known work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism . He and Lenin also often had hot disputes on theoretical issues, as well as Bukharin's closeness with the European Left and his anti-statist tendencies. Bukharin developed an interest in the works of Austrian Marxists and heterodox Marxist economic theorists, such as Aleksandr Bogdanov , who did not agree with Lenin . Also, while in Vienna in 1913, he helped

1887-796: A member of its Bolshevik faction. With Grigori Sokolnikov , Bukharin convened the 1907 national youth conference in Moscow, which was later considered the founding of Komsomol . By age twenty, he was a member of the Moscow Committee of the party. The committee was widely infiltrated by the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana . As one of its leaders, Bukharin quickly became a person of interest to them. During this time, he became closely associated with Valerian Obolensky and Vladimir Smirnov . He also met his future first wife, Nadezhda Mikhailovna Lukina, his cousin and

1998-576: A minority to undermine the standing army (such as the establishment Tatar and Bashkir autonomies) and, where there was no national minority, a government based on geographical locale – Far Eastern Republic , Turkestan . However, the Red Army 's ultimate failure in the Polish–Soviet War placed the Bolshevik world revolution plans on hold. Simultaneously, the growing figure of Joseph Stalin pursued

2109-653: A new federal government whose key functions were centralised in Moscow . Its legislative branch consisted of the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union and the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union ( TsIK ), while the Council of People's Commissars composed the executive . The Treaty, along with the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR was approved on 30 December 1922 by

2220-404: A program of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization because he believed that the NEP was not working fast enough. Stalin felt that in the new situation the policies of his former foes—Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev—were the right ones. Bukharin was worried by the prospect of Stalin's plan, which he feared would lead to "military-feudal exploitation" of the peasantry. Bukharin did want

2331-681: A result of Soviet annexations of other countries. The first was the Karelo-Finnish SSR , ceded by Finland to the USSR after the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, which on 31 March 1940 was elevated to a union republic from the Karelian ASSR , previously part of the Russian SFSR. After the invasion and annexation of the Baltic states in 1940, Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia were transformed into

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2442-476: A retreat from socialist policies, the NEP reintroduced money and allowed private ownership and capitalistic practices in agriculture, retail trade, and light industry while the state retained control of heavy industry. After Lenin's death in 1924 , Bukharin became a full member of the Politburo. In the subsequent power struggle among Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev and Stalin, Bukharin allied himself with Stalin, who positioned himself as centrist of

2553-523: A role in reintroducing the arts that Stalin once repressed. Additionally, political leaders whom were initially purged or condemned by the Soviet Union, were revived by Supreme Court investigations. Most notably, it found that Bukharin 's ruling was no longer law. From 1985 to 1987, the USSR Supreme Court rehabilitated 240 people from the Stalin Era. It was proposed that the constitutional functions of

2664-512: A single country, even one as underdeveloped as Russia. This new theory stated that socialist gains could be consolidated in a single country, without that country relying on simultaneous successful revolutions across the world. The thesis would become a hallmark of Stalinism . He is an unprincipled intriguer, who subordinates everything to the preservation of his own power. He changes his theory according to whom he needs to get rid of. Bukharin on Stalin's theoretical position, 1928. Trotsky,

2775-459: A single state that would guarantee prosperity, security and development. Finally the declaration then specifies that the resultant Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is one that is created on free will of the peoples, that its purpose follows the ideals of the October Revolution , that each and every socialist republic has the right to join and leave the Union at its own will, and hinting at

2886-599: A strong policy that encouraged rapid industrialization. Having helped Stalin achieve unchecked power against the Left Opposition, Bukharin found himself easily outmaneuvered by Stalin. Yet Bukharin played to Stalin's strength by maintaining the appearance of unity within the Party leadership. Meanwhile, Stalin used his control of the Party machine to replace Bukharin's supporters in the Rightist power base in Moscow, trade unions, and

2997-430: A symbol of the Party" even though he "is not a man, but a devil". In Dan's account, Bukharin's acceptance of the Soviet Union's new direction was thus a result of his utter commitment to Party solidarity. To his boyhood friend, Ilya Ehrenburg , he expressed the suspicion that the whole trip was a trap set up by Stalin. Indeed, his contacts with Mensheviks during this trip were to feature prominently in his trial. Stalin

3108-496: Is extremely important. I don't know what words I should summon up in order to entreat you to grant me this as an act of charity. After all, politically, it won't really matter, and, besides, no one will know a thing about it. But let me spend my last moments as I wish. Have pity on me! In his letter of 10 December 1937, Bukharin suggests becoming Stalin's tool against Trotsky, but there's no evidence Stalin ever seriously considered Bukharin's offer. If, contrary to expectation, my life

3219-527: Is impossible to liquidate a legal entity by terminating the agreement on its establishment or to liquidate an entire state by simply denouncing the treaty establishing it. At the same time, the treaty was not, in the proper sense, an agreement on the creation of a state, but was only a part of the future Constitution [1924], and, finally, the Treaty on the formation of the USSR in 1922 was originally conceived as part of this constitution being developed, and therefore, it

3330-511: Is some evidence that Bukharin was thinking of evolution toward some kind of two-party or at least two-slate elections. Boris Nikolaevsky reported that Bukharin said: "A second party is necessary. If there is only one electoral list, without opposition, that's equivalent to Nazism." Grigory Tokaev , a Soviet defector and admirer of Bukharin, reported that: "Stalin aimed at one party dictatorship and complete centralisation. Bukharin envisaged several parties and even nationalist parties, and stood for

3441-471: Is taken by Dmitry Lukashevich, candidate of legal sciences, who considers the Union Treaty of 1922 to be a constituent act of domestic legal nature. He makes the following arguments: "The treaty on the formation of the USSR in 1922 was not an international legal, but a constituent act of a domestic nature. The function of this treaty is only to establish the state, and not to legitimize its existence. Just as it

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3552-447: Is the embodiment of chaste but self-absorbed laboratory craftsmanship". His speech was greeted with wild applause, though it greatly offended some of the listeners, such as the communist poet Semyon Kirsanov , who complained: "according to Bukharin, all the poets who have used their verses to participate in political life are out of date, but the others are not out of date, the so-called pure (and not so pure) lyric poets". When Bukharin

3663-669: Is to be spared, I would like to request (though I would first have to discuss it with my wife) the following: While Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov later claimed that Bukharin was never tortured and his letters from prison do not give the suggestion that he was tortured, it is also known that his interrogators were given the order: "beating permitted". Bukharin held out for three months, but threats to his young wife and infant son, combined with "methods of physical influence" wore him down. But when he read his confession amended and corrected personally by Stalin, he withdrew his whole confession. The examination started all over again, with

3774-646: The Comintern 's executive committee. Following Stalin's decision to proceed with agricultural collectivisation in the Great Break , Bukharin was labelled as the leader of the Right Opposition and was removed from Pravda , the Comintern, and the party leadership in 1929. After a period in lower positions, in 1934 Bukharin was reelected to the Central Committee and became editor of the newspaper Izvestia . He

3885-531: The February Revolution of 1917, Bukharin returned to Moscow and became a leading figure in the party, and after the October Revolution became editor of its newspaper, Pravda . He led the Left Communist faction in 1918, and during the civil war wrote The ABC of Communism (1920; with Yevgeni Preobrazhensky ) and Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology (1921), among other works. Bukharin

3996-697: The Georgian Bolshevik Joseph Stalin write an article " Marxism and the National Question " at Lenin's request. In October 1916, while based in New York City, Bukharin edited the newspaper Novy Mir ( New World ) with Leon Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai . When Trotsky arrived in New York in January 1917, Bukharin was the first of the émigrés to greet him. (Trotsky's wife recalled, "with

4107-562: The International Communist Opposition , though it became better known as the Right Opposition , after a term used by the Trotskyist Left Opposition in the Soviet Union to refer to Bukharin and his supporters there. Even after his fall, Bukharin still did some important work for the Party. For example, he helped write the 1936 Soviet constitution , which he believed would guarantee real democratization. There

4218-641: The Lithuanian SSR (July 13), Latvian SSR (July 21) and Estonian SSR (also July 21) and were formally adjoined to the Soviet Union on 3, 5 and 6 August respectively. The final republic was the Moldavian SSR , which merged the large territory of Bessarabia (annexed from Romania) with the Moldavian ASSR , previously part of the Ukrainian SSR. After World War II, no new republics were established. Instead,

4329-498: The New Economic Policy , it was necessary to reorganise the Bolshevik state into a single sovereign entity, so that its legal de jure framework would match its de facto condition. That process would require the liquidation of the many splinter Soviet governments and the restoration of supreme rule to Moscow. In January 1922, Georgy Chicherin , the then People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs , sent an official inquiry to

4440-498: The proletariat through the Communist Party . In order to assure this would be the case, the Communist Party packed the courts with its own members. Complications arose from this as they lacked legal experience, and thus led to a large number of appeals. The USSR Supreme Court played little role in legal affairs as the 1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union meant that appeals from the Soviet Republic courts could not be appealed to

4551-660: The upper house of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (the lower house , the Soviet of the Union , was without a quorum ). The treaty's text was prepared by a commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (at that time the Russian Communist Party, the Bolsheviks). The treaty was a result of many internal political conflicts within the Bolshevik Party and governments inside

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4662-612: The All-Union). Although the republics' parties remained, Russia's party retained its primus inter pares position but also officially took over as a supreme authority in the USSR. One area in which the Soviet division of power was not resolved during the treaty's signing was Soviet Central Asia , which contained several problems. A major battleground during the Russian Civil War , the region would remain unstable after it. Turkestan had come under Russian control fairly recently, between 1867 and 1885. Moreover, unlike other ethnic borders of

4773-599: The Bolsheviks were in the majority in Moscow. Furthermore, the Moscow Regional Bureau was formally responsible for the party organizations in each of the thirteen central provinces around Moscow – which accounted for 37% of the whole population of Russia and 20% of the Bolshevik membership. While no one dominated revolutionary politics in Moscow during the October Revolution as Trotsky did in St. Petersburg, Bukharin certainly

4884-640: The Bukharin trial marked their final break with Communism and even turned the first three into passionate anti-Communists eventually. Bukharin wrote letters to Stalin while imprisoned, attempting without success to negotiate his innocence in the case of the alleged crimes, his eventual execution, and his hoped for release. If I'm to receive the death sentence, then I implore you beforehand, I entreat you, by all that you hold dear, not to have me shot. Let me drink poison in my cell instead (let me have morphine so that I can fall asleep and never wake up). For me, this point

4995-470: The Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted the first Regulation on the Supreme Court of the USSR, which determined the status, competence and procedure for the activity of the Supreme Court. The 1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union codified the existence of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union constitutionally. When the Soviet legal system was established, it was intended to serve

5106-532: The Comintern. Bukharin attempted to gain support from earlier foes including Kamenev and Zinoviev who had fallen from power and held mid-level positions within the Communist party. The details of his meeting with Kamenev, to whom he confided that Stalin was " Genghis Khan " and changed policies to get rid of rivals, were leaked by the Trotskyist press and subjected him to accusations of factionalism. Jules Humbert-Droz ,

5217-566: The Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( Russian : Декларация и договор об образовании Союза Советских Социалистических Республик ) officially created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union . It de jure legalised a political union of several Soviet republics that had existed since 1919 and created

5328-517: The Declaration on the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Statement about Principles of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Some experts argue that the original Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, ceased to exist as such, upon the adoption of the 1936 Soviet Constitution on 5 December 1936, which greatly altered the internal arrangement and reorganised

5439-431: The Karello-Finnish SSR was downgraded into an autonomous republic and re-admitted into the Russian SFSR on July 16, 1956. On December 8, 1991, the leaders of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs, and the Russian SFSR met to agree on the annulment of the 1922 treaty . On 26 December, the Soviet of the Republics , the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , ratified a relevant resolution, effectively voting

5550-490: The Moscow City Committee and also became a member of the Moscow Regional Bureau of the party. To complicate matters further, the Bolsheviks themselves were divided into a right wing and a left wing. The right-wing of the Bolsheviks, including Aleksei Rykov and Viktor Nogin , controlled the Moscow Committee, while the younger left-wing Bolsheviks, including Vladimir Smirnov , Valerian Osinsky , Georgii Lomov , Nikolay Yakovlev, Ivan Kizelshtein and Ivan Stukov, were members of

5661-442: The Moscow Regional Bureau. On 10 October 1917, Bukharin was elected to the Central Committee , along with two other Moscow Bolsheviks: Andrei Bubnov and Grigori Sokolnikov . This strong representation on the Central Committee was a direct recognition of the Moscow Bureau's increased importance. Whereas the Bolsheviks had previously been a minority in Moscow behind the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries, by September 1917

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5772-463: The NKVD charged an ever-growing group of former oppositionists with Kirov's murder and other acts of treason, terrorism, sabotage, and espionage. In February 1936, shortly before the purge started in earnest, Bukharin was sent to Paris by Stalin to negotiate the purchase of the Marx and Engels archives, held by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) before its dissolution by Hitler. He was joined by his young wife Anna Larina , which therefore opened

5883-405: The October Revolution), it needed an excuse to cross them. One such method was a creation of an alternative government, a Soviet Republic , which would then take over authority as the Red Army ousted the existing government. That was the case with Ukraine , Georgia , Armenia and Azerbaijan and failed campaigns such as in the Baltic States and Poland . Alternatively, it would use the presence of

5994-429: The Party and supported the NEP against the Left Opposition , which wanted more rapid industrialization, escalation of class struggle against the kulaks (wealthier peasants), and agitation for world revolution. It was Bukharin who formulated the thesis of " Socialism in One Country " put forth by Stalin in 1924, which argued that socialism (in Marxist theory, the period of transition to communism) could be developed in

6105-460: The Second Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union , that was called in accordance to the treaty ratified the first 1924 Soviet Constitution . The constitution's text is essentially the rewritten and expanded treaty. It even contains the same declaration. The treaty had 26 articles, but the constitution had eleven chapters and 72 articles. In Ukraine the treaty was approved by the Seventh All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in December 1922 by adopting

6216-411: The Soviet Union by January 2, 1992. This was part of the policy to abolish the remaining organs of the Soviet Union. The successor institution of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union became the Supreme Court of the RSFSR . Liquidation commissions were established as part of this process to facilitate the Supreme Court's abolition. The final act dismissed employees of the Supreme Court. Treaty on

6327-406: The Soviet Union from a confederation into a more centralized federal country. Instead of the Congress of Soviets , the new constitution created a permanent parliament, the Supreme Soviet . It also tied together most of the authorities and most significantly affirmed the role of the Communist Party as the "driving force" behind the Soviet Union's working masses. With regard to the original Treaty,

6438-460: The Soviet Union grew from the founding four (or six, depending on whether 1922 or 1940 definitions are applied) republics to 15 republics . On 8 December 1991, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian presidents signed the Belovezha Accords . The agreement declared the dissolution of the USSR by its remaining founder states (denunciation of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR) and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). On 10 December,

6549-411: The Soviet Union out of existence (the lower chamber, the Soviet of the Union , had been unable to work since 12 December, when the recall of the Russian deputies left it without a quorum ). The Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR Ruslan Khasbulatov, who signed the decree on the denunciation of the Union Treaty, subsequently stated that the treaty ceased to exist as a state legal document with

6660-419: The Soviet Union to achieve industrialization but he preferred the more moderate approach of offering the peasants the opportunity to become prosperous, which would lead to greater grain production for sale abroad. Bukharin pressed his views throughout 1928 in meetings of the Politburo and at the Communist Party Congress, insisting that enforced grain requisition would be counterproductive, as War Communism had been

6771-400: The Soviet foreign policy of socialist irredentism (see World revolution ), finishes stating that the treaty ...will serve a decisive step on the path of unification of all workers into a "World Socialist Soviet Republic". Following the declaration, is the treaty itself consisting of a preface and 26 articles. Initially, the treaty did little to alter the major political spectrum. Most of

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6882-496: The Soviet state. Photostatic evidence shows that Stalin's first impulse was to simply exile Bukharin, without sending him to trial. In the end, Bukharin was killed, but according to historian Alec Nove , "the road to his demise was not a straight one". Bukharin was tried in the Trial of the Twenty One on 2–13 March 1938 during the Great Purge , along with ex-premier Alexei Rykov, Christian Rakovsky , Nikolai Krestinsky , Genrikh Yagoda, and 16 other defendants alleged to belong to

6993-486: The USSR Supreme Court was directed towards monitoring lower courts. In 1934, the USSR Supreme Court gained the legal authority to issue instructions, obtain reports, and conduct surveys of lower courts. During Stalin's Purges , charges were brought in various courts, including provincial courts , Republic Courts and the USSR Supreme Court. Eventually, in 1938 almost all members of the USSR Supreme Court were purged; most were sent to labor camps. Stalin installed new judges in

7104-409: The USSR Supreme Court would be returned, chiefly in relation to the instructions and directives of bureaucratic agencies. This was not a new, as it was previously in discussion for the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union . After the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR created a resolution on December 28, 1991, which was to abolish the Supreme Court of

7215-420: The USSR Supreme Court, only the Republic Supreme Courts. The USSR Supreme Court was consequently limited to cases from military tribunals. Republic courts could issue policy directives, whereas the USSR Supreme Court could only do so in relation to Soviet law. The primary role of the USSR Supreme Court was constitutional review. The USSR Supreme Court assessed Republic law to ensure consistency with Soviet law, at

7326-498: The USSR Supreme Court, who were given significantly more power under the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union . The USSR Supreme Court was empowered to examine provincial court cases, thus bypassing Republic Supreme Courts. During De-Stalinization , Soviet criminal law from the Stalin Era was revised, including the elimination of harsh penalties for labor infractions, abortion, and petty theft. In 1957, Khrushchev with an agenda of decentralisation of governmental authority, eliminated

7437-444: The Union. Initially, Vladimir Lenin did not see that Russia's October Revolution would end all foreign borders as such. That view was supported by Leon Trotsky and his followers, who believed that Russia was only a first step in a future world revolution . However, as the Red Army approached the edges of the former Russian Empire and its borders (including the newly created borders of areas that had declared independence after

7548-413: The accord was ratified by the Ukrainian and Belarusian parliaments . On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament , therefore the Russian SFSR renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russia's independence from the USSR. On 26 December 1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Council of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union ,

7659-596: The active intervention of Bukharin. The journey to Armenia , our apartment and ration cards, contracts for future volumes – all this was arranged by Bukharin." Bukharin wrote to Stalin, pleading clemency for Mandelstam, and appealed personally to the head of the NKVD , Genrikh Yagoda . It was Yagoda who told him about Mandelstam's Stalin Epigram , after which he refused to have any further contact with Nadezhda Mandelstam, who had lied to him by denying that her husband had written "anything rash" – but continued to befriend Pasternak. Soon after Mandelstam's arrest, Bukharin

7770-468: The actual words Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics also in those four languages. It contained the original state emblem of the Soviet Union . The declaration was written as a reflection on contemporary international relations and why the treaty was necessary. According to the narrative, there are now two distinct camps, an "exploiting" capitalist with colonialism , chauvinism and social and ethnic inequalities and

7881-401: The adoption of the Constitution re-organised the make-up of the Union moving from seven to eleven SSRs. On December 5, 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR was broken into Armenian , Georgian and Azerbaijani SSRs. The same day, two of RSFSR's autonomies, the Kazak and the Kirghiz ASSRs , were re-organised as full republics. In a prelude to World War II , several new republics were created as

7992-409: The adoption of the first Constitution of the USSR in 1924. There is no consensus among Russian lawyers about the effect of the Union Treaty of 1922 at the time of the Soviet Union's break-up. Doctor of Law Petr Kremnev believes that the treaty had an international legal character and was in effect from the moment of its adoption until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. A diametrically opposite position

8103-448: The age of four, often asked him to recite poetry for family friends. His childhood is vividly recounted in his mostly autobiographic novel How It All Began . Bukharin's political life began at the age of sixteen, with his lifelong friend Ilya Ehrenburg , when they participated in student activities at Moscow University related to the Russian Revolution of 1905 . He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, and became

8214-412: The appellate jurisdiction the USSR Supreme Court had over other courts. Instead of the Supreme Court being allowed review case decisions from any court, it was reduced to its most basic role outlined in the 1936 Constitution, of supervising whether decisions taken by Republic Supreme Courts conflicted with Soviet law. The diminished work of the USSR Supreme Court called for it to be reduced in size. Thus, in

8325-541: The aspirations of large minorities (the named examples of Georgia and Ukraine) and also to allow for potential expansion, as well. Byelorussia was the smallest republic, but its official languages included Polish and Yiddish in addition to Russian and Belarusian to undermine the authority of the neighbouring Second Polish Republic and to use its sizeable Jewish minority, as well as the Belarusians and Ukrainians in Poland as

8436-454: The authorities of the Russian SFSR about the possibility of representing the legal interests of other republics. Stalin took the position that the Russian SFSR should represent the other republics in the field of foreign policy (including at the Genoa conference in 1922), although there was no legal act that would grant it such powers. The first talks between the authorities of individual republics on

8547-407: The campaign. Instead of going mad, they accepted terror as a normal administrative method and regarded obedience to all orders from above as a supreme virtue. ... They are no longer human beings. They have truly become the cogs in a terrible machine." Yet to another Menshevik leader, Fyodor Dan , he confided that Stalin became "the man to whom the Party granted its confidence" and "is a sort of

8658-571: The drafting of the treaty began in August 1922. The line went directly in conflict with both proponents of korenizatsiya and some of the local governments, most notably in Ukraine (where it was opposed by Christian Rakovsky ) and Georgia (where the dispute gave rise to the Georgian Affair ). Thus, the treaty can be viewed as a compromise between the different groups within the Bolshevik camp to satisfy

8769-629: The former Russian Empire , which were delimited during the Tsarist days (for example, Transcaucasia lost its feudal administration by the mid-19th century), the Soviet authorities inherited two provinces that were de jure never part of Russia proper, the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva . During the Russian Civil War, they shared the fate of the other republics, but even there, their special status

8880-524: The governing positions of the RSFSR's supreme organs were automatically transferred to those of the USSR. For example, Lenin's position as chairman of RSFSR's Council of People's Commissars (SNK), which he held since the Revolution, would now to be transformed as the Chairman of the Union's SNK. However, as Lenin remained ill from the stroke, both of his chairs would be occupied by Alexei Rykov as acting head of

8991-651: The government. Joseph Stalin 's position as General Secretary of the Communist Party was also unchanged. However, the party's position was. Prior to the treaty, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RKP(b)) had its own bureaus to oversee activities in distant regions such as the Turkestani Bureau, the Transcaucasian Bureau etc. After the Treaty, the party was reorganised as the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) (VKP(b) – V for Vsesoyuznaya,

9102-454: The highest degree of power during the 1926–1928 period. He emerged as the leader of the Party's right wing , which included two other Politburo members ( Alexei Rykov , Lenin's successor as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and Mikhail Tomsky , head of trade unions) and he became General Secretary of the Comintern 's executive committee in 1926. However, prompted by a grain shortage in 1928, Stalin reversed himself and proposed

9213-456: The leader of the Left Communists in bitter opposition to Lenin's decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . In this wartime power struggle, Lenin's arrest had been seriously discussed by them and Left Socialist Revolutionaries in 1918. Bukharin revealed this in a Pravda article in 1924 and stated that it had been "a period when the party stood a hair from a split, and the whole country

9324-507: The lying-in-state of the Soviet police chief, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky in May 1934, when Pasternak was seeking help for his fellow poet, Osip Mandelstam , who had been arrested – though at that time neither Pasternak nor Bukharin knew why. Bukharin had acted as Mandelstam's political protector since 1922. According to Mandelstam's wife, Nadezhda, "M. owed him all the pleasant things in his life. His 1928 volume of poetry would never have come out without

9435-599: The maximum of decentralisation." In the brief period of thaw in 1934–1936, Bukharin was politically rehabilitated and was made editor of Izvestia in 1934. There, he consistently highlighted the dangers of fascist regimes in Europe and the need for "proletarian humanism". One of his first decisions as editor was to invite Boris Pasternak to contribute to the newspaper and sit in on editorial meetings. Pasternak described Bukharin as "a wonderful, historically extraordinary man, but fate has not been kind to him". They first met during

9546-539: The more academic Economics of the Transitional Period (1920) and Historical Materialism (1921). By 1921, he changed his position and accepted Lenin's emphasis on the survival and strengthening of the Soviet state as the bastion of the future world revolution. He became the foremost supporter of the New Economic Policy (NEP), to which he was to tie his political fortunes. Considered by the Left Communists as

9657-404: The new socialist fashion is proving difficult without closer economic cooperation. Secondly, foreign threats continue to loom over the socialist camp, and its sovereignty requires an alliance for defence. Finally, the ideological factor, that the Soviet rule is internationalist in nature and pushes the working masses to unite in a single socialist family. These three factors justify in uniting in

9768-484: The norms of international law and then in force legislation. Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (Russian: Николай Иванович Бухарин , IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ bʊˈxarʲɪn] ; 9 October [ O.S. 27 September] 1888 – 15 March 1938) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and Marxist theorist . A prominent Bolshevik described by Vladimir Lenin as

9879-478: The possibility of exile, but he decided against it, saying that he could not live outside the Soviet Union. Bukharin, who had been forced to follow the Party line since 1929, confided to his old friends and former opponents his real view of Stalin and his policy. His conversations with Boris Nicolaevsky , a Menshevik leader who held the manuscripts on behalf of the SPD, formed the basis of "Letter of an Old Bolshevik", which

9990-612: The prime force behind the Left Opposition, was defeated by a triumvirate formed by Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, with the support of Bukharin. At the Fourteenth Party Congress in December 1925, Stalin openly attacked Kamenev and Zinoviev, revealing that they had asked for his aid in expelling Trotsky from the Party. By 1926, the Stalin-Bukharin alliance ousted Zinoviev and Kamenev from the Party leadership, and Bukharin enjoyed

10101-604: The promise of world revolution . In the Russian turmoil near the end of World War I , when a negotiated peace with the Central Powers was looming, he demanded a continuance of the war, fully expecting to incite all the foreign proletarian classes to arms. Even as he was uncompromising toward Russia's battlefield enemies, he also rejected any fraternization with the capitalist Allied powers : he reportedly wept when he learned of official negotiations for assistance. Bukharin emerged as

10212-417: The request of Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union. It was mostly advisory as it was the function of the Central Executive Committee to act upon the court's interpretation. In 1929, the constitutional activity of the Supreme Court ended. Stalin 's Collectivisation programs led to the simplification of the legal system and legal norms; courts were expected to serve political goals. The attention of

10323-499: The same year of 1957, the Supreme Court was reconstituted with 12 judges, which included the chief justice and his two deputies; the Supreme Court could be expanded, reconstituted, and reduced in size by vote of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union . Potential nominees had to pass the scrutiny of the Chairman of the Supreme Court and the Minister of Justice. Later in 1962, the Court instituted

10434-580: The sister of Nikolai Lukin , who was also a member of the party. They married in 1911, soon after returning from internal exile. In 1911, after a brief imprisonment, Bukharin was exiled to Onega in Arkhangelsk , but he soon escaped to Hanover . He stayed in Germany for a year before visiting Kraków ( Poland ) in 1912 to meet Vladimir Lenin for the first time. During the exile, he continued his education and wrote several books that established him in his 20s as

10545-654: The so-called "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites". In a trial meant to be the culmination of previous show trials , it was alleged that Bukharin and others sought to assassinate Lenin and Stalin from 1918, murder Maxim Gorky by poison, partition the Soviet Union and hand out her territories to Germany, Japan, and Great Britain. Even more than earlier Moscow show trials, Bukharin's trial horrified many previously sympathetic observers as they watched allegations levelled against someone who had been so close to Stalin and Lenin. For some prominent Communists such as Bertram Wolfe , Jay Lovestone , Arthur Koestler , and Heinrich Brandler ,

10656-477: The tables into an anti-trial of Stalinism (while keeping his part of the bargain to save his family). While his letters to Stalin – he wrote 34 very emotional and desperate letters tearfully protesting his innocence and professing his loyalty – suggest a complete capitulation and acceptance of his role in the trial, it contrasts with his actual conduct in the trial. Bukharin himself speaks of his "peculiar duality of mind" in his last plea, which led to "semi-paralysis of

10767-408: The whole case" ) and saying that "the confession of the accused is not essential. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence" in a trial that was solely based on confessions, he finished his last plea with the words: ... the monstrousness of my crime is immeasurable especially in the new stage of struggle of the U.S.S.R. May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may

10878-547: The will" and Hegelian " unhappy consciousness ", which likely stemmed not only from his knowledge of the ruinous reality of Stalinism (although of course he could not say so in the trial) but also of the impending threat of fascism. The result was a curious mix of fulsome confessions (of being a "degenerate fascist" working for the "restoration of capitalism") and subtle criticisms of the trial. After disproving several charges against him (one observer noted that he "proceeded to demolish, or rather showed he could very easily demolish,

10989-584: Was a principal architect of the 1936 Soviet Constitution . During the Great Purge , Bukharin was accused of treason in February 1937 and executed after a show trial in 1938. Nikolai Bukharin was born on 27 September (9 October, new style), 1888, in Moscow . He was the second son of two schoolteachers, Ivan Gavrilovich Bukharin and Liubov Ivanovna Bukharina. According to Nikolai his father did not believe in God and, from

11100-445: Was arrested two years later, Boris Pasternak displayed extraordinary courage by having a letter delivered to Bukharin's wife saying that he was convinced of his innocence. Stalin's collectivization policy proved to be as disastrous as Bukharin predicted, but Stalin had by then achieved unchallenged authority in the party leadership. However, there were signs that moderates among Stalin's supporters sought to end official terror and bring

11211-481: Was assassinated in Leningrad in December 1934, and his death was used by Stalin as a pretext to launch the Great Purge , in which about 700,000 people were to perish as Stalin eliminated all past and potential opposition to his authority. Some historians believe that Kirov's assassination in 1934 was arranged by Stalin himself, despite the lack of evidence to plausibly posit such a conclusion. After Kirov's assassination,

11322-486: Was delegated to prepare the official report on poetry for the First Soviet Writers' Congress, in August 1934. He could not any longer risk mentioning Mandelstam in his speech to the congress, but did devote a large section of his speech to Pasternak, whom he described as "remote from current affairs ... a singer of the old intelligensia ... delicate and subtle ... a wounded and easily vulnerable soul. He

11433-478: Was for a long time undecided on Bukharin and Georgy Pyatakov . After receiving Nikolay Yezhov 's written evidence denouncing Bukharin, Stalin declined to sanction his arrest. After the trial and execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other leftist Old Bolsheviks in 1936, Bukharin and Rykov were arrested on 27 February 1937 following a plenum of the Central Committee, and were charged with conspiring to overthrow

11544-520: Was forced to renounce his views under pressure. He wrote letters to Stalin pleading for forgiveness and rehabilitation, but through wiretaps of Bukharin's private conversations with Stalin's enemies, Stalin knew Bukharin's repentance was insincere. International supporters of Bukharin, Jay Lovestone of the Communist Party USA among them, were also expelled from the Comintern. They formed an international alliance to promote their views, calling it

11655-426: Was in the written confession and refuse to go any further. There are several interpretations of Bukharin's motivations (besides being coerced) in the trial. Koestler and others viewed it as a true believer's last service to the Party (while preserving the little amount of personal honor left) whereas Bukharin biographer Stephen Cohen and Robert Tucker saw traces of Aesopian language , with which Bukharin sought to turn

11766-528: Was initially a proponent of war communism , but in 1921 supported the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and became its chief theorist and advocate, supporting the party leadership against Trotsky and the Left Opposition . By late 1924, this stance had positioned Bukharin favourably as Joseph Stalin 's chief ally, with Bukharin soon elaborating Stalin's theory of " socialism in one country ". From 1926 to 1929, Bukharin served as General Secretary of

11877-570: Was preserved, and they were established as the Bukharan and Khorezm People's Soviet Republics . Despite Mikhail Frunze 's victories, the conflict was ongoing, and whole provinces were under control of the Basmachi movement in 1922. To settle the issue, in line with the korenizatsiya policy a massive programme of national delimitation in Central Asia was undertaken. On October 27, 1924, TsIK issued

11988-517: Was simply impossible to denounce "or otherwise terminate it in December 1991." On March 15, 1996, the State Duma of the Russian Federation expressed its legal position in relation to the decision of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in "The denunciation of the Treaty establishing the Soviet Union" as the wrongful, unconstitutional act passed by a grave violation of the Constitution of the RSFSR,

12099-650: Was temporarily detained by local police), arriving in Moscow in early May 1917. Politically, the Bolsheviks in Moscow were a minority in relation to the Mensheviks and Social Democrats. As more people began to be attracted to Lenin's promise to bring peace by withdrawing from the Great War, membership in the Bolshevik faction began to increase dramatically – from 24,000 members in February 1917 to 200,000 members in October 1917. Upon his return to Moscow, Bukharin resumed his seat on

12210-575: Was the most prominent leader in Moscow. During the October Revolution, Bukharin drafted, introduced, and defended the revolutionary decrees of the Moscow Soviet. Bukharin then represented the Moscow Soviet in their report to the revolutionary government in Petrograd. Following the October Revolution, Bukharin became the editor of the party's newspaper, Pravda . Bukharin believed passionately in

12321-576: Was very influential in contemporary understanding of the period (especially the Ryutin Affair and the Kirov murder), although there are doubts about its authenticity. According to Nicolaevsky, Bukharin spoke of "the mass annihilation of completely defenseless men, with women and children" under forced collectivization and liquidation of kulaks as a class that dehumanized the Party members with "the profound psychological change in those communists who took part in

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