The right of the republics to leave the Soviet Union was a time bomb, and Russia must avoid such mistakes. This was stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with the program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin “on the TV channel “Russia-1”.
“This is a delayed – action mine that was laid back in 1922 when the Soviet Union was formed,” Putin said, stressing that the rule on the right of republics to secede from the USSR was repeated in the Soviet constitutions of 1924, 1936 and 1977. “Of course, we must avoid such things,” the head of state said.
“I am absolutely convinced that we are doing the right thing by accepting amendments to the current Constitution. They will strengthen our statehood and create conditions for the progressive development of our country for decades to come,” the Russian leader concluded.
The CEC of the Russian Federation at a meeting on Friday approved the results of the all-Russian vote on the law on amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. According to the document, according to the results of the vote, 77.92% of those who voted supported the amendments to the basic law of the country, 21.27% opposed the changes. One of the amendments implies a ban on alienation of the country’s territories.
Lenin’s thesis in the constitutions of the USSR
As the President of the Russian Federation emphasized, the right of withdrawal of the Union republics from a single state was a Leninist thesis, fixed in the Treaty on the formation of the USSR in 1922. As Putin noted, “Lenin was running around with this idea” since 1908-1909, it went back to the idea of the right of Nations to self-determination. “Then [this] was transformed into state – building in such a way that when creating a single state, the Soviet Union-well, in fact, it was a question of restoring historical Russia to its former borders – the newly created Union republics had the right to withdraw from it. By the way, Stalin held a different point of view,” the Russian leader said, noting that, according to Stalin, the relevant national territories should have been part of the RSFSR on the rights of autonomy without the right to exit. “But in the end, the Leninist idea was implemented,” Putin concluded, adding that then these provisions “began to move from the Constitution to the Constitution” during the Soviet era.
At the same time, the head of state stressed, the procedure for leaving the USSR was not prescribed. “The question arises: if a particular Republic became part of the Soviet Union, but received a huge amount of Russian lands, traditional Russian historical territories, and then suddenly decided to withdraw from the Union? Well, at least then I would go out with what I came with, and not drag “gifts” from the Russian people with me. After all, none of this was prescribed!” – Putin stated.
In fact, according to the President of the Russian Federation, it was “a certain trick” on the part of the ruling Communist party in the USSR, since nothing like this was actually intended – as well as the implementation of other theses, such as “land – to the peasants, factories – to the workers”. “The land was nationalized, collective farms were created, factories were nationalized, in fact, the workers did not get these factories,” Putin said. The Russian President also mentioned the actions of the Bolsheviks to decompose the army during the First world war, noting that they then abandoned the thesis “no war, no peace”, and began to create” with the help of a carrot and stick ” the Red army.
At the same time, as Putin recalled, the Soviet Constitution of 1977, as in previous constitutions, spelled out the exclusive monopoly right of the Communist party to power. “It was the core of the entire state system, and there was no right for representatives of various national entities to leave the Communist party, it held everything,” the President said. In fact, he continued, the CPSU linked its own fate and its group interests with the interests of the entire country. “And when the [Communist party] itself, without any external blows, began to crumble from within, the country began to crumble after it. This is absolutely unacceptable, ” the head of state concluded.
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