Five Generations of Russian Constitutions: Russia as Part of the Western Legal Heritage

• Author: W. Butler
• Position: Dickinson Law, Pennsylvania State University (Newville, USA)
• Pages: 13-21

BRICS LAW JOURNAL Volume VI (2019) Issue 3

ARTICLES

FIVE GEnERaTIonS oF RuSSIan ConSTITuTIonS:

RuSSIa aS PaRT oF THE wESTERn LEGaL HERITaGE

WILLIAM BUTLER,

Dickinson Law, Pennsylvania State University (Newville, USA)

https://doi.org/10.21684/2412-2343-2019-6-3-13-21

The paper is devoted to the study of the relationship between the Russian constitutional

history and Western legal traditions. The author argues the position according to which

the constitutionalism has been a part of Russian legal history for centuries. On one view of

Russian legal history, a written constitution remained an aspiration of the Russian people

that was only partly realized in 1906. Marxist legal thought contemplated, or predicted, the

“withering away of law” after a proletarian Revolution; adopting a constitution seemed

counter-intuitive to this projected vector of history. This paper explores in general outline

the ve generations of the constitutions of Russia (1918, 1925, 1937, 1978, and 1993)

and the maturing of a constitutional tradition in Russia which has led from a blueprint

for communism to fully-edged constitutional rule- of-law social State in which the

constitution acts as a restraint upon the exercise of State power and performs the role

that a constitution routinely performs as part of the western legal heritage. The author

concludes the 1993 Russian Constitution is, for the rst time, a living document that

could be considered as a reaction against the Russian past, the embodiment of Russian

experience, and the repository of Russian values and desires for its future.

Keywords: constitutional law; constitutionalism; Russian Constitution; legal history ;

western legal tradition.

Recommended citation: William Butler, Five Generations of Russian Constitutions:

Russia as Part of the Western Legal Heritage, 6(3) BRICS Law Journal 13–21 (2019).