Representative authorities in Russia (Between the Soviet and parliament system)

Abstract

The article had been written a few months before the Supreme Soviet of People's Deputies of Russia, which was the first post-Communist parliament, disappeared from Russia's political scene. The spring of 1990, when the first relatively free elections to the Soviets of people's deputies took place, marked the birth of new representative power in Russia. The fall of 1993 seems to be the fall of the Soviet power. It is for this three-year period that activity of representative organs of power is analyzed by the author.According to the author's view, duality was the main feature of representative power. On the one hand, it is the Soviets of people's deputies that have personified the Soviet Power for seventy years, although they had no real power and were only an entourage of the Communist Party's structures. On the other hand, the permanent legislative work of the deputies seemed to be an embryo of real parliament system. All the elements of legislative power in today's Russia are marked by such a duality.The first issue of the author's analysis is participation of deputies in legislative activity. He stresses that while adopting laws a great number of deputies had poor knowledge about acting legal system. The deputies often had no adequate information about social and economic background for adoption of a certain law, so the consequences of adoption of many laws were unpredictable. Because of insufficient preliminary work the decisions were made which could not be realized due to lack of resources. The research also showed dissatisfaction of many deputies with their work. The author supposes this to be a strong factor for destabilization of the legislative process.In the second part of the paper the author analyses the features of political struggle during nine Congresses of people's deputies, which look place within three years. Here the deployment of political forces, the main sources of conflicts and the key actors of the political play are considered. These Congresses have demonstrated all the negative features of such a big organ of legislative power. The effectiveness of the deputies' work was low, whereas the costs for holding of Congresses were disproportionally high.In the third part the author considers the legislative work of the Supreme Soviet, which was the first post-communist parliament in Russia. The experts' poll showed that bills and amendments adopted by the Supreme Soviet left out of account many principal issues. Thus all the efforts of deputies appeared to be doubtful due to the absence of mechanisms for the realization of laws.Finally, the author analyses the groups inside the parliament, which were shaped already during the first Congress of people's deputies. The deputy factions have not formed as valuable political subjects. For instance, the most of them were characterized by weak faction discipline.According to research practically all deputy factions (especially democratic ones) were very unstable organizations. This had a negative influence upon political climate in the Supreme Soviet and upon the work of the Committees and Commissions.In conclusion the author stresses that within all this three-year period legislative power was in an ambiguous situation. It was doomed to balance between the Soviets with their own rules of political behavior and the Parliament which had absolutely another task. In order to change the situation the new elections into legislative organs of power and adoption of new Constitution are required.