THE NEW FREEDOM

Evening Star, Issue 22447, 18 September 1936, Page 1

THE NEW FREEDOM

REFORMS IN RUSSIA THE DRAFT CONSTITUTION SOME COMPARISONS The observer who compares the draft of the new Russian Constitution with the documents of 1918 and 1923-24 will find signs of a fundamental change, writes Harold Laski in the ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ Economic success has brought a new sense of internal security; the government of a class is being transformed into the government of a community. The dictatorship of the proletariat (significantly, save for a passing reference, it does not figure at all in the new document) is replaced by the “ toiling masses,” and the basis of the new authority seems to be a new conception of the right of the worker as such to determine the character of the government under which he lives. Fundamental to the new proposals is the safeguarding of the rights of individual personality—there are guaranteed freedom to speak, freedom of association and meeting, freedom of election by secret ballot The Legislature is made supremo over the Executive, and by an ingenious device it is given authority over the Executive even when it is not in full session, while the independence of the Judiciary appears to be fully protected. Every one of these points is an immense advance over past technique. It represents a real approach to the classic principles of representative government. ONLY ONE PARTY. An Englishman’s main difficulty wilt be concentrated on the limitation of party organisation to the Communist Party. There will be independent candidatures and to spare—from trade unions, collective farms, co-operatives, and so forth. But, in our own sense, there will be no political parties save that which made the Revolution in 1917. The Russian view, appears to be that a party can only be formed for the fundamental purpose of calling the basic principles of the U.S.S.R. into question, and this is not to be permitted. So far the regime is to remain a dictatorship. But it is to remain one which takes pains to organise criticism of itself within its Legislature upon what may prove to be, on matters of significant detail, a pretty comprehensive scale. And Russians ■point out that, in fact, no State permits an attack on its basic principles. Political parties in Western democracy have been allowed freedom either because they were agreed, like Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives, on the fundamentals of the regime, or, as with the Labour Party in England or the Socialist Party in the United States, they were not regarded by their rivals as a serious threat to the existing order. Western democracy, in fact, seems to the Russians a uni-party system iii which capitalism was safeguarded not less essentially than they are protecting Socialism. They provide the check upon dictatorship by their independent members of the Legislature in tho same way as an Opposition voices criticism in a parliamentary regime. A DIFFERENT AFFAIR. The new Legislature is to be a very different affair from.the .old. The AllRussian Congress of Soviets met, on the average, about once in two years for a week, and its main business was to receive with uncritical enthusiasm a body of reports (which it could hardly discuss) from the Communist leaders. The new body (based in the Lower House on geographical and equal suffrage) ,is to meet. annually for two months. It is to have two Chambers, the Upper representing the constituent republics, with, equal powers. In the intervals between sessions it is to be represented by a joint committee of 37 members, with the rights, first, of declaring. peace and war; secondly, of issuing emergency decrees; and, thirdly, of acting as a Supreme Court where acts of the Executive may be declared ultra vires. Members of the Legislature enjoy parliamentary immunity save where this is suspended by agreement with the Praesidium. Tho latter may also, where a dispute occurs. between the two Chambers which cannot be solved by agreement, arrange for a dissolution. It has the right, further, not only to conduct a referendum on the initiative of one of the constituent republics of the U.S.S.R.; it may also, subject to legislative confirmation, dismiss Ministers from the Executive Council. The members of tho latter are appointed by the Legislature and must act under its direction. Provision is also made for interpellation of Ministers in the Legislature, and questions addressed to them must be answered within three days. No one, I think, who compares these provisions with the present situation can doubt that they represent an immense step forward 1 . They are to bo read in the framework of a remarkable body of social rights (rest, work, education, racial and sexual equality, religious freedom) which are guaranteed to the citizen. Invasion of these rights is prevented by entrusting their protection, first, to tho elected Legislatures, and, secondly, on tho judicial side to judges who in the Courts of Appeal are elected for a five-year period by the Legislature, to whom alone they are responsible. MAKING AMENDMENTS. Provision is made for the amendment of the Constitution by a twothirds majority of botli Chambers of the Legislature. Tho local government system of the country is at tho same time to remain broadly unchanged. Students of written Constitutions will be aware that they work less according to the formulae they announce than by the parallelogram of social forces which gives them their living reality. It is, therefore, too early to do more than emphasise the direction in which these proposed changes seem to move. They are a limitation at every point of Executive discretion such as Russia has never known. They offer a wide and significant prospect to individuals who are not members of iho Communist Party to embark upon a political career. They

compel Ministerial responsibility in a seAse which appears to stand midway between the systems of Great Britain and the United States. They give a constitutional protection to the substance of social freedom which, if validated in the event, will mean, granted continued economic progress, a civil status such as few people enjoy in Western democracies. r There is indeed much that only further discussion and experience can elucidate. It is not easy for the outsider to see how a two-Chamber system can work easily unless the Communist Party retains a predominant hold upon both. It is not easy either to visualise an effective relation between the Executive and the Legislature unless the members of the former are in a position to direct and guide the latter. It may be doubted also whether a twomonthly session of the Legislature will give it an adequate primacy; effective power seems more likely to reside in the Praesidium, which will be in continuous session. The Legislature itself is clearly conceived as a body laying; down general principles the details of which will be worked out by the Executive, under the scrutiny and control of the legislative Praesidium. The composition of this latter body will, therefore, be fundamental to the whole scheme INDEPENDENT JUDGES. But, on any showing once this Constitution is in being, Soviet Russia will enter into a new and vital epoch of its political life, it will move into that region where the State as supreme power still exists but where also the idea of a classless society is envisaged in a not remote future. A period has arrived in which the Communist Party, while maintaining its vigilance against tho danger of counter-revolution, is willing to offer an important share in shaping political directives to men of all opinions. The universal and secret ballots is a great advance, as is the equalisation of the peasant unit with that of the urban centres. It is important also that the judiciary is given a new and independent status. Above all, the place of the individual in the Soviet scheme receives an emphasis and an importance he has not previously possessed. One is tempted to summarise the evolution here presaged by saying that the era of dictatorial' revolution is to bo replaced by the erii of liberalising revolution. It would be a heartening thing it the leaders 'of the Soviet State were to emphasise that view by a wide ami generous amnesty to political prisoners. The contrast between what they are here attempting and the conditions of Italy and Germany is already striking. To enforce its meaning by opening the political prisons would give heart to tho enemies of Fascism all over the world.