Gorbachev’s All-Union Treaty: If The Republics Won’t Take It, Can They Leave It?

Introduction

Mikhail Gorbachev’s proposed All-Union Treaty — which is supposed to be the primary focus of the current session of the Congress of People’s Deputies — ostensibly redefines the relationship between the central government in Moscow and the increasingly restive Soviet republics. It has been represented by Gorbachev as a charter for a new Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics, one which would strip Moscow center of its dominant position and vest new autonomy in the governments of fifteen republics.

Republic reformers, bent on achieving genuine independence and democratic- and free market-oriented structural changes, have signalled strong dissatisfaction with Gorbachev’s draft of the All-Union Treaty. Their growing determination not to accept it has been evidenced by the announced intention of six republics not to sign it so far. When combined with Gorbachev’s insistence that all republics must do so and his threat to hold a national referendum on the Treaty in the hopes of “going over the heads” of the popularly elected republic governments, the contest over this document may become the flashpoint for the emerging Soviet crackdown.

The Center for Security Policy believes that it is, therefore, incumbent on Western policy-makers and publics to understand just what is at stake in Gorbachev’s draft All-Union Treaty. The following provisions (indented text) are among the most important — and troublesome — of its provisions. They are reproduced with relevant commentary. [The translation used was published by the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) on 26 November 1990. (All emphasis is added.)]

The All-Union Treaty Preamble

• The sovereign republics parties to the Treaty, expressing the peoples’ will to renew their union…have resolved to build their relations on new principles within a Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics.

   

  • Comment: The Preamble reflects Gorbachev’s determination to cast the All-Union Treaty as one which codifies significant change in the USSR’s fundamental principles and which represents the will of the peoples of the Soviet Union.

  I. Basic Principles

First: Each republic party to the Treaty is a sovereign state and possesses the full plenitude of state power on its territory….The USSR is a sovereign federal state formed as a result of a voluntary association of republics….

• Comment: The ostensibly voluntary nature of the republics’ membership in the Union is belied by Gorbachev’s insistence that the republics accept the Treaty, by the lack of any permissible alternative to adoption of the Treaty and by Gorbachev’s use of enhanced presidential powers to suppress popular demonstrations against the Treaty in the republics.

Article 1 — Membership of the Union

Members of the Union may raise the question of terminating the membership of a republic that violates the terms of the Treaty….

• Comment: This provision for expulsion of republics from the Union is doubly ironic in view of the fact that the Treaty omits any provision for secession, a right which was nominally recognized from the very beginning of the USSR and “guaranteed” under all previous Soviet constitutions.

  Article 5 — Powers of the Union

Parties to the Treaty invest the USSR [i.e., the central authorities] with the following powers:

1. the adoption of the USSR Constitution and…amendments and additions to it…;

1. the defense of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Union;…the guaranteeing of the USSR’s state security; the organization of defense and the exercise of leadership of the USSR Armed Forces;

1. …the coordination of the republics’ foreign policy activity…and…the foreign economic links of the republics;

1. the determination, conjointly with the republics, of the strategy for the country’s economic development and the creation of conditions for the development of the All-Union market;…the conduct of the unified financial, credit, and monetary policy based on a common currency;

1. the management, conjointly with the republics, of a unified fuel and energy system for the country and of railroad, air, maritime, and main pipeline transportation; the establishment of the basic principles for the utilization of natural resources and the protection of the environment…;

1. the establishment, conjointly with the republics, of the basic principles of social policy, including questions pertaining to working conditions (and) labor protection…;

* * *

1. …the coordination of activity for the protection of public order and for fighting crime.

The powers of the Union cannot be changed without the consent of all republics.

• Comment: In contrast to the assertion of autonomous power contained in each of the declarations of independence or sovereignty adopted by every Soviet republic, Gorbachev’s draft of the All-Union Treaty would devolve remarkably little power to the republics. Even the economic sovereignty alluded to is rendered illusory: 
  • the present, non-convertible ruble would be imposed on the republics as a common currency;

   

   

  • the central authorities would, as a practical matter, retain control over the means of production and distribution of goods (natural resources, energy, labor, railroad, air, maritime and pipeline transportation), notwithstanding the nominal obligation that such assets be “conjointly” managed;

   

   

  • all foreign trade relations (indeed, all foreign relations) would remain the exclusive purview of the central authorities.

   

  What is more, the republics would be stripped of control over social policy. All authority for maintaining public order and coordinating law enforcement would rest with Moscow, not the several republics. A provision akin to a juridical “blank check” (Article 5 (1)) would vest the central authorities with full power to amend or even replace the present constitution in the future.

  In short, it is readily apparent to the independence-minded republics and reform-minded citizens of the Soviet Union that Gorbachev’s vaunted All-Union Treaty is a formula for retaining essentially absolute power in Moscow center’s hand — not for devolving it to “sovereign” states.

  Article 6 — Participation by the Republics in the

  Implementation of the Union’s Powers

   

Each republic can, through the conclusion of a treaty with the USSR, additionally transfer to the USSR the implementation of certain of its powers…”

• Comment: This provision magnanimously permits the republics to cede what remains of their powers to the Union.

  Article 7 — Ownership

   

The republics’ legislative regulation of ownership of land…and other natural resources must not impede the implementation of the Union’s powers.

• Comment: This provision harkens back to Soviet laws of past eras, which typically granted the USSR’s citizens a plethora of rights — except those that had been taken away in other paragraphs of the law. It also serves to counter whatever practical effect might have been achieved by the sovereignty provisions of Article 1 and the republics powers under Article 5.

  Article 9 — Laws

   

Republic legislation on the territory of the republics takes precedence in all question with the exception of those…ascribed to the Union’s jurisdiction. The Constitution and laws of the USSR and…of the republics must not contravene the provisions of this Treaty.

• Comment: This provision has the potential to nullify Part I of the Treaty — which ostensibly recognizes the sovereignty of the republics.

  Articles 11, 12 and 13 — Provisions for the Supreme Soviet
  President and Vice President of the USSR, Respectively

   

The USSR Supreme Soviet has two chambers: The Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities. The Soviet of the Union is elected by the entire country’s population in electoral districts with equal number of voters. The Soviet of Nationalities is composed of delegations of republics’ supreme representative organs of power and of national-territorial formations’ organs of power according to agreed norms….The representation of all peoples living in the USSR on the Soviet of Nationalities is guaranteed.

* * *

The USSR president is the head of the Union state exercising supreme executive power…The president is elected by USSR citizens by a majority of votes in the Union as a whole and in the majority of republics.

* * *

The USSR vice president is elected at the same time as the president….

• Comment: These provisions of Articles 11, 12 and 13 authorize national elections, but do not purport to institute a genuinely free and democratic electoral process. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the serious flaws in evidence in previous Soviet union-wide elections will persist under the new Treaty.

At the time of the March 1990 elections in the republics, for example, election monitors from the West observed numerous electoral violations, including: widespread refusal to register opposition candidates; restrictions on candidate access to paper, printing presses and news organs; restrictions on the right of assembly; the presence of state security and military personnel at polling places; voting without regard to residence; and physical harassment of candidates, citizens and observers. In addition, U.S. congressional delegations wishing to observe the electoral process were denied visas.

Article 14 — Council of the Federation

The Council of the Federation is constituted under the USSR president’s leadership and comprises the USSR vice president and the presidents…of the republics, for the purpose of laying down the main avenues of the Union’s domestic and foreign policy and coordination the republics’ actions.

The Council of the Federation effects coordination and agreement of the activity of supreme organs of state power and administration of the Union and the republics, oversees observance of the Union Treaty, determines measures for the implementation of the Soviet state’s nationalities policy, ensures the republics’ participation in solving questions of union-wide importance and elaborates recommendations for the resolution of disputes and the settlement of conflict situations in inter-ethnic relations.

• Comment: This provision harkens back to traditional Leninist and Stalinist nationalities theory, which envisioned the nationalities as having a narrowly-circumscribed role within a unitary Soviet state.

Article 16 — USSR Constitutional Court

The Constitutional Court monitors the Compliance of USSR and republican laws with the Union Treaty….

• Comment: By executing the Treaty, the republics submit themselves a priori to the jurisdiction of an All-Union court. In doing so, they are obliged to grant the central Soviet government the authority to negate virtually any act of a republic. Moreover, Soviet police mechanisms (army, militia and KGB) remain within Union control and beyond the reach of the judiciary — which would, in any event, not be independent of the central authorities in Moscow.

Article 19 — State Language of the Union

The parties to the Treaty recognize as [the] state language of the USSR the Russian language, which has become the medium of inter-ethnic contacts.

• Comment: Recognition of primacy of the Russian language is in direct conflict with the acts of the non-Russian republics which have rejected Russian as the official republican language. If the Russian language has attained the status of a “medium of inter-ethnic contact” in the non-Russian republics, this has occurred as a result of forcible linguistic assimilation, not as a matter of voluntary choice.

Article 22 — Coming of the Union Treaty into Force

…The 1922 Treaty on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will be deemed to have lapsed as of the same date for the republics which have signed it.

• Comment: Notwithstanding the alleged voluntary nature of the Treaty, this provision makes clear that each republic is being presented with a non-negotiable ultimatum: either continue under the 1922 Treaty, or adopt its substantial equivalent, the Union Treaty. No other options are envisioned.

Conclusion

The Gorbachev regime has expressed no willingness to consider alternatives to its draft of the All-Union Treaty. Effectively, the republics have been told: “Take it or leave it — but understand that if you choose not to take it, as a practical matter, you cannot leave the Union.”

In short, despite the central authorities’ assertions, the Treaty does not contemplate a voluntary, consensual union of equal sovereign states. It is, instead, a repressive solution which Moscow center hopes to force upon the republics as a means of preserving the imperial Soviet state. Western misunderstanding of the Treaty’s basic nature can only contribute to the perpetuation of policies whose effect is to shore up the failed, discredited Soviet political order and to delay the emergence of stable democratic and free market institutions in the republics.