On the Way Between Utopia and Totalitarianism. The Bolshevik Constitution of 1918 as a Model of Socialist Constitutionalism

• Author: A. Bosiacki
• Position: University of Warsaw (Warsaw, Poland)
• Pages: 49-77

BRICS LAW JOURNAL Volume VI (2019) Issue 3

on THE waY BETwEEn uToPIa anD ToTaLITaRIanISM.

THE BoLSHEVIk ConSTITuTIon oF 1918 aS a MoDEL

oF SoCIaLIST ConSTITuTIonaLISM

ADAM BOSIACKI,

University of Warsaw (Warsaw, Poland)

https://doi.org/10.21684/2412-2343-2019-6-3-49-77

Although Russian constitutionalism has a rich past and present, its place on the global map

of the history of constitutional thought is not clearly dened yet. This paper contributes

to the analysis of the early stages of development of Russian constitutionalism. The rst

Russian act resembling a “true” Constitution was the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918.

It was aimed not at the realization of the ideas of constitutionalism, but at the formation

of a model of a totalitarian state. I t sanctioned radical social changes and led to the

liquidation of the concept of the division of power and the omnipotence of the non-

constitutional organs (like VChK, various “tribunals”). However, this act and its ideological

sources deserve a more in-depth analysis. First of all, its utopian ideas about the new social

system have to be identied and examined. The analysis shows that the 1918 Constitution

reects Lenin’s fascination with the ideas of direct democracy drawn from the experience

of the Paris Commune and the French Revolution af ter 1789. In particular, it is about

the perception of the idea of unlimited supreme power, undivided and combined, and

at the same time federated in the form of loose communes. If we consider the range of

constitutional ideas, the Bolsheviks adopted nothing more original that the concept of

Rousseau’s national sovereignty. However, the implementation of utopian ideas ended

with the creation of a totalitarian system, which contemporaries called “state despotism,”

more powerful than the despotism of the Russian Empire.

Keywords: legal history; Bolshevism; Soviet Russia 1918–1921; 1918 Constitution of the

RSFSR; totalitarianism; war communism; direct democracy; radical democracy; Lenin.

Recommended citation: Adam Bosiacki, On the Way Between Utopia and Totalitarianism.

The Bolshevik Constitution of 1918 as a Model of Socialist Constitutionalism, 6(3) BRICS

Law Journal 49–77 (2019).

BRICS LAW JOURNAL Volume VI (2019) Issue 3 50

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. On the Way to the 1918 Bolshevik Constitution

2. Work on the Creation of the Bolshevik Constitution

3. Important Principles and Provisions of the RSFSR Constitution of 1918

Conclusion

Introduction

Russian constitutionalism, or its establishment, is still a little-researched public

law card. In spite of the short attempts to make such a statement, the constitutional

institutions discussed in this country are quite rich, despite the obvious defeats of

building constitutionalism, dened as a sham constitutionalism.

In the Soviet and later Russian historiography, the view prevails that the basic laws

of October 1905 and April 1906 were not a constitution. The self-governing power

of the Russian emperor was preserved, and his inuence on lawmaking, including

the veto potentially solving any legislative initiative, was legally signicant.

Disagreeing with this thesis, it is worth noting that the essentially indicated consti-

tutional laws of 1905–1906 did not constitute a constitutional monarchy, although

the question is obviously whether Russia could become such a monarchy as a result

of it and against the will of the emperor. Against this background, the rst Soviet or

Bolshevik Constitution was more like a legal act of this type, assuming, of course, that

it shaped the model of a totalitarian state from which Lenin as a leader of such a state

and as a lawyer obviously had to be aware. This Constitution, in particular, sanctioned

very radical social changes after the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917: attempts

to abolish the property right, in the form of the so-called socialization of land and the

abolition of real estate in cities, so-called the nationalization of industry and banks, state

terror without legal grounds, or even the abolition of institutions of inheritance.

However, later in the historiography of the Stalinist era, the rst Soviet Constitution

of the USSR in 1924 was treated as the rst Soviet one, where the issue of the state

came to the fore. For this reason, the rst Constitution of the new state (the Russian

Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) is also worth a deeper analysis from the point of

view of utopian visions of the social system. However, assuming – as it was stated –

it sanctioned and enabled the construction of a totalitarian system, taken from the

beginning of the Bolshevik state.

1. On the Way to the 1918 Bolshevik Constitution

After the overthrow of the monarchy, the postulate of choosing the Constituent

Assembly (Uchreditel’noe sobranie), capable of enacting the constitution, contained