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Soviet Union [USSR] ELECTIONS
In theory, citizens selected the candidates for election to
local soviets. In practice, at least before the June 1987
elections, these candidates had been selected by local CPSU,
Komsomol, and trade union officials under the guidance of the
district (raion) party organization. Elections took place
after six weeks of campaigning, and the candidates, until 1987
always unopposed candidates, had usually received more than 99
percent of the vote.
Despite the party's historic control over local elections--from
the nomination of candidates to their unopposed elections--the
citizens used the elections to make public their concerns. They
sometimes used the furnished paper ballots to write requests for
particular public services. For example, the 1985 elections to an
Omsk soviet included instructions to move the airfield farther from
the city center, construct a new music center, and build parking
facilities for invalids. Subsequently, the Omsk soviet took steps
to provide these services, all of which had the approval of the
relevant party authorities. Thus, citizen demands that were
reconciled with the interests of the party apparatus have been met
through election mandates.
In June 1987, under Moscow's guidance, multicandidate local
elections took place experimentally in less than 5 percent of the
districts. Presented with a paper ballot listing more candidates
than positions, voters indicated their choices by crossing off
enough names so that the number of candidates matched the number of
positions. Although generally opposed by local administrators, who
could no longer assume automatic election, this reform found strong
support among the general public. In early 1989, steps to limit the
power of official organizations over the nominating process also
came under discussion.
Nevertheless, the outcome of efforts to democratize the local
election process remained far from certain in 1989. On the one
hand, public anger over the autocratic and sometimes arbitrary
styles of local leaders, their perceived incompetence, and their
inability to provide needed goods and services forced some reforms.
On the other hand, opposition by government and party bureaucrats,
combined with the lack of a political culture--that is, experience
in self-government--obstructed and diluted reforms of the
government's structure and functions, as advocated by Gorbachev in
the late 1980s.
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Several general works on Soviet politics contain much useful
information on the government. Among these works are Darrell P.
Hammer's The USSR: The Politics of Oligarchy and Jerry F.
Hough and Merle Fainsod's How the Soviet Union Is Governed.
Hough and Fainsod devote special attention to the relationship
between the party and the government. Vadim Medish's The Soviet
Union is a good reference work on the terminology of
government. Other works contain more specialized information.
Julian Towster's Political Power in the USSR provides
material on the first three Soviet constitutions. Boris Toporin's
The New Constitution of the USSR is widely viewed as one of
the best English-language books available on the 1977 Constitution.
Lev Tolkunov's How the Supreme Soviet Functions covers the
legislature, as well as other organs of the central government,
from a Soviet perspective. Everett M. Jacobs's Soviet Local
Government and Politics is an invaluable source for this
little-studied aspect of Soviet government. (For further
information and complete citations,
see Soviet Union USSR -
Bibliography.)
Data as of May 1989
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