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Upon its adoption in December 1936, Soviet leaders hailed the new so-called Stalin Constitution as the most democratic in the world. Scholars have long scoffed at this claim, noting that the mass repression of 1937–1938 that followed rendered it a hollow document. This study does not address these competing claims, but rather focuses on the six-month long popular discussion of the draft Constitution, which preceded its formal adoption in December 1936. Drawing on rich archival sources,this book uses the discussion of the draft 1936 Constitution to examine discourse between the central state leadership and citizens about the new Soviet social contract, which delineated the roles the state and citizens should play in developing socialism. For the central leadership, mobilizing its citizenry in a variety of state building campaigns was the main goal of the discussion of the draft Constitution. However, the goals of the central leadership at times stood in stark contrast with the people’s expressed interpretation of that social contract. Citizens of the USSR focused on securing rights and privileges, often related to improving their daily lives, from the central government. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315194004, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
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Keywords
- 1936 Soviet Constitition
- Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
- Central Executive Committee
- Central State Leadership
- Collective Farm
- Collective Farm Leaders
- District Executive Committee
- District Party Committee
- Draft Constitution
- Kirov
- Kirov Region
- Large Families
- Lomb Samantha
- Military Coercive Power
- Participatory Society
- Purges
- Regional Executive Committee
- Regional Party Committee
- Rural Soviet
- Russian history
- soviet democracy
- Soviet History
- Stalinist Terror
- State Building Narrative
- thema EDItEUR::G Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary subjects::GT Interdisciplinary studies::GTM Regional / International studies
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHD European history
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHT History: specific events and topics::NHTW Cold wars and proxy conflicts
- USSR
- Young men
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DOI: 10.4324/9781315194004Editions