Question for ML's: Wasn't the Stalin Constitution 'Revisionist'

[Proletarian Ultra]

More and more, I've found myself defending comrade Stalin on this board and finding myself in opposition to Trotskyism. Which is weird for me, because at one point I was active in ISO. I'm almost ready to come out as an ML, but I still have some doubts, like this one.

So, in 1936, the Soviet Union under Stalin passes a new constitution - authored by Bukharin and Radek, but known almost universally as the 'Stalin Constitution'.

Under the 1918 and 1924 constitutions, elections had been conducted 'indirectly' according to the model put forward by the Paris Commune and approved by Marx. Locall soviets elected provincial soviets, who elected the national soviet, who elected the executive committee and council of minsters, etc.

China and North Korea still use similar systems.

But under the 1936 and subsequent soviet constitutions, elections to the Supreme Soviet are done directly by secret ballot, as in bourgeois parliamentary systems. East Bloc constitutions did likewise.

Stepping backward from the communard constitutional form to the parliamentary one. Isn't that revisionism?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I know that the secret direct ballot was written into the Stalin constitution, but what did those changes actually mean as far as the actual political system was concerned?

[ComradeOm]

So, in 1936, the Soviet Union under Stalin passes a new constitution - authored by Bukharin and Radek, but known almost universally as the 'Stalin Constitution'.

...

Stepping backward from the communard constitutional form to the parliamentary one. Isn't that revisionism?Maybe that's why Bukharin and Radek were arrested and murdered?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Stepping backward from the communard constitutional form to the parliamentary one. Isn't that revisionism?

The last claim to "Marxism-Leninism" that Stalin had was during the late 20s and early 30s.

After that, revisionist or worse shit came about like the "anti-fascist" Popular Front, the Great Purges, maintaining commodity production for some indefinite time (Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR), and setting up the bureaucratic conditions for Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Co. to succeed him instead of Malenkov or Suslov (similar conditions which, according to Trots, allowed Stalin to take power).

[Kléber]

The last claim to "Marxism-Leninism" that Stalin had was during the late 20s and early 30s.
I agree with you that the niceties of constitutional form are irrelevant, what really matters is whether dissident opinions (socialist ones at least) are allowed to exist and the entire working class, not just the "center people" have a say in policy. Starting 1936 that was definitely not the case. But I should note that Stalin's team of slanderers created the "Marxist-Leninist" religion, so it meant whatever the patriarch wanted it to mean, pop fronts, social-fascism and all. The works of Marx and Lenin were revised to make this possible.

[RED DAVE]

Stepping backward from the communard constitutional form to the parliamentary one. Isn't that revisionism?Using the term as stalinists and maoists use it, yes, of course. It is not possible for a workers state to be adminstered as a parliamentary democracy. Such a system precludes direct workers control on the shop floor and higher levels.

Stalinism had liquidated this by 1928 anyway, as you should know having been in contact with the ISO.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

But I should note that Stalin's team of slanderers created the "Marxist-Leninist" religion, so it meant whatever the patriarch wanted it to mean, pop fronts, social-fascism and all. The works of Marx and Lenin were revised to make this possible.

Social corporatism is a real political phenomenon, though.

[Ismail]

See: http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html

21. Candidates were to be allowed not only from the Bolshevik Party -- called the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) at that time -- but from other citizens' groups as well, based on residence, affiliation (such as religious groups), or workplace organizations. This last provision was never put into effect. Contested elections were never held.

22. The democratic aspects of the Constitution were inserted at the express insistence of Joseph Stalin. Together with his closest supporters in the Politburo of the Bolshevik Party Stalin fought tenaciously to keep these provisions. (Getty, "State") He, and they, yielded only when confronted by the complete refusal by the Party's Central Committee, and by the panic surrounding the discovery of serious conspiracies, in collaboration with Japanese and German fascism, to overthrow the Soviet government.There was a serious possibility of multi-candidate elections in 1937, but it was shelved at the last minute. Still, a sense of democratization of the party itself did occur that year. (As J. Arch Getty explains in his article "State and Society Under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s," cited by Furr)

So no, not revisionist. The 1936 Constitution was a positive development, albeit one which was stillborn.


Maybe that's why Bukharin and Radek were arrested and murdered?I'm pretty sure it's because they were found guilty of collaborating with fascism, but nice try anyway. As Getty notes, Bukharin (and I think Radek) had relatively little to do with the actual, active writing-up of the constitution, whereas Stalin was very active in it.