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Soviet Union [USSR] Organs of the Supreme Soviet
The Supreme Soviet has functioned with the help of several
secondary organs. The Presidium has acted as the steering committee
of the Supreme Soviet while it was in session. In 1989 both
chambers of the Supreme Soviet--the Soviet of the Union and the
Soviet of Nationalities--met either individually or jointly in
sessions planned to last six to eight months. Each chamber had
commissions and committees that prepared legislation for passage,
oversaw its implementation, and monitored the activities of other
governmental bodies. In 1989 the Supreme Soviet also had fourteen
joint committees, and each chamber had four commissions.
Presidium
In 1989 the Presidium, as designated by the Constitution, had
forty-two members. The Presidium was made up of a chairman, a first
vice chairman, fifteen vice chairmen (who represented the supreme
soviets of the fifteen republics), the chairmen of the Soviet of
the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities, the chairman of the
Committee of People's Control, and the twenty-two chairmen of the
commissions and committees of the Supreme Soviet. Only a few
members regularly resided in Moscow, where the Presidium has always
met. Before 1989 the Presidium membership served a symbolic
function through the inclusion of twenty-one at-large members, made
up of factory workers, peasants, scientists, professionals, and
leaders of professional organizations. Valentina Tereshkova, the
first woman in space, was the most prominent of these at-large
members. The purpose of this broadened membership was to show that
all strata of society participated in the state's leading organ. In
addition, some high-level party figures who were not members of the
government sat on the Presidium as a symbol of CPSU authority in
the legislature. For instance, General Secretary Gorbachev sat on
the Presidium as an at-large member from 1985 to 1988.
Prior to 1989, the Presidium was the leading legislative organ
between sessions of the Supreme Soviet, which met only a few days
a year and held formal sessions only once every two months.
Announcements of Presidium decrees, however, appeared in the press
nearly every day, which indicated that the Presidium's staff worked
full time. Presidium decrees, issued over the signatures of the
chairman and the secretary, merely certified and legitimated
decisions made by the CPSU. Nevertheless, decrees issued in the
Presidium's name demonstrated wide-ranging powers to supervise the
government bureaucracy.
The 1988 amendments and additions to the Constitution reduced
the powers of the Presidium by making it more of an agenda-setting
and administrative body
(see Soviet Union USSR - The 1977 Constitution
, this ch.).
According to Article 119 of the Constitution, the Presidium was
authorized to convene sessions of the Supreme Soviet and organize
their preparation, coordinate the activities of the commissions and
committees of the Supreme Soviet, oversee conformity of all-union
and republic laws with the Constitution, confer military and
diplomatic ranks, appoint and recall diplomats, issue decrees and
adopt resolutions, and declare war or mobilize troops in between
sessions of the Supreme Soviet, among other duties.
Data as of May 1989
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