p The first multinational socialist slate in the world, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, is a federation of 15 sovereign Soviet republics: namely, the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Armenia, Turkmenia and Estonia.

p Every Union Republic is a socialist stale, which means that the class structure and the political and economic foundations are identical in all the Union Republics. This is the source of the Soviet Union’s inexhaustible strength and stability. The U.S.S.R. is also an integral federal state as regards its social and political structure.

p The Leninist principles underlying the unity of the Soviet republics in a federal state were legislatively recorded first in the 1924 and then in the 1936 Constitution of the U.S.S.R.

p Article 13 of the 1936 Constitution declares that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a federal stale, formed on the basis of voluntary union of equal Soviet socialist republics.

p The Union Republics have entered this union on Ihcir own accord as a result of the free expression of the will of their people, the right to freely secede from Ihe U.S.S.R. being reserved to every Union Republic.

p The equality of the Union Republics is manifested in the fact that all sovereign slales possess equal rights in all spheres of state activity. Irrespective of the size of its territory, the size of its population, its economic potential or the nationality of the people that had established it, 49 every Union Republic has equal rights with all the other Union Republics.

p Take the Russian Federation and Estonia. They have identical rights in all spheres of life in spite of the fact that the population in the Russian Federation is nearly 100 times larger than in Estonia and territorially it is almost 400 times bigger.

p Another manifestation of the equality of the Union Republics is that all of them enjoy equal jurisdiction, have their own republican citizenship and elect an equal number of deputies to the Soviet of Nationalities, one of the two chambers of the Soviet Parliament. All of them retain their sovereign rights and in equal measure limit them in favour of the U.S.S.R.; while exercising equal rights all fulfil the corresponding obligations as members of the Soviet Union.

p The genuinely voluntary union of the Soviet republics and the equal rights enjoyed by them are the result of the Communist Party’s consistent enforcement of the policy of equality of all peoples, their friendship and mutual respect and the free development of the nationalities inhabiting the Soviet Union.

p As a federal state, the Soviet Union is, as represented by its higher organs of state power and state administration, a sovereign state, independent and full-fledged subject of international law.

p The sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. embraces the territories of all states in it and extends to all Soviet citizens. The U.S.S.R. has its own Constitution, which expresses the will of the entire nation. The Constitution is adopted and amended by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the highest organ of state power in the country. The U.S.S.R. has single all-Union organs of state power and state administration, all-Union legislation, a single economy, a single monetary system, a single system of taxes, a single army and a single Union citizenship.

p As a federal state, it determines the extent of its jurisdiction and the fundamentals of the jurisdiction of the Union Republics, defines the competence of state organs and thus guides the functions of all the state organs in the U.S.S.R. towards the fulfilment of its goals.

p The Soviet Union’s state independence is vividly seen in its foreign policy. Charted by the Communist Party this 50 foreign policy immensely influences international affairs and enjoys unquestionable prestige in progressive democraticquarters of all countries. All the freedom-loving peoples justifiably regard the Soviet Union as the standard-bearer of the most advanced ideas and a mighty citadel in the struggle for democracy and socialism, for world peace and security.

p The Soviet Union recognises the equality of all countries, big and small, and their right to self-determination, independent state existence and sovereignty, and consistently upholds this principle in all its international relations.

p The sovereignty of the U.S.S.R., its paramountcy and independence within the country and outside it is expressed in its jurisdiction in accordance with Article 14 of the Constitution.

p Under the Soviet federal system, jurisdiction is divided between the U.S.S.R. and the Union Republics in such a way as to guarantee the interests of the Soviet Union as a whole and all its components.

p Accordingly, the U.S.S.R., as represented by its higher organs of state power and state administration, exercises the rights ensuring the unity of state administration in all key branches of economic, government, cultural, social and political activity, and the establishment of a single legislation founded on socialist democracy and the defence of the Soviet Union against imperialist aggression.

p The jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. is determined by the very nature of the socialist economy and the nature of the socialist relations of production which rest on public ownership of the instruments and means of production. The objective economic laws of socialism make it absolutely essential to plan the economy of the whole country. Socialism is inconceivable without centralised planned management, without strict discipline and subordination of local organs to the decisions handed down by the supreme authority in accordance with the principles of democratic centralism. Lenin said that the building of socialism “means the building of a centralised economic system, an economic system directed from the centre”.  [50•*  This acquires still greater significance in the period of communist construction.

p Centralised management requires the enforcement of a uniform technical policy in the national economy, a uniform policy in economic planning, technical progress, capital investments, prices, finances and remuneration of labour.

p All these requirements of the country’s economic growth logically determine the need for a definite measure of centralisation of state power.

p Specifically, centralised planned leadership means that the general problems of economic development connected with production, distribution, circulation and consumption are handled by the Union government. This ensures a single direction for the whole country, co-ordinates different branches of economy and determines its scope and rates of growth.

p These factors predetermined the right of the U.S.S.R. to draw up the country’s economic plans; approve the single state budget of the U.S.S.R. and report on its implementation; manage ail-Union banks, industrial, agricultural and trading institutions and enterprises; provide overall direction to industry and building under Union-republican jurisdiction; manage all-Union transport and means of communications; direct the monetary and credit system; contract and grant loans, and so forth.

p Centralisation is also predetermined by the need to strengthen the unity of the U.S.S.R. as a state which is a subject of law, safeguard the gains of socialism and constantly enhance the country’s defence capacity. Only a strong centralised state can successfully cope with political tasks of this magnitude. Therefore, the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R., as represented by its higher organs of state power and state administration, also covers representation of the U.S.S.R. in international relations; the conclusion, ratification and denunciation of treaties signed by the U.S.S.R. with other countries; the establishment of general procedure governing relations of the Union Republics with foreign states; questions of war and peace; organisation of the defence of the U.S.S.R.; direction of all the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R.; the establishment of the leading principles underlying the organisation of military formations in the Union Republics; foreign trade on the basis of state monopoly; and safeguarding state security.

p Moreover, the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. stems from its 52 internal unity. Accordingly, it has the right, for example, to control the observance of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and to ensure conformity of the constitutions of the Union Republics with the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.; accept new republics into the U.S.S.R. and approve changes of boundaries between the Union Republics, and so forth.

p All-Union principles of legislation that correspond to the uniform tasks of socialist democracy and the building of communism operate throughout the territory of the U.S.S.R. This fully conforms to Lenin’s dictum that “the law must he unified”, that it is absolutely imperative to have “laws uniformly established for the whole Federation....”  [52•* 

p This is essential and indispensable for the consistent observance of socialist law throughout the territory of the Soviet Union. In view of the fact that the entire system of laws of the U.S.S.R. has to rest on uniform principles permeated by a single idea and subordinated to the tasks of communist construction, the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. places within the province of the U.S.S.R. the definition of the fundamentals of legislation on the judicial system and procedure and the fundamentals of criminal and civil legislation; definition of the basic principles of land tenure and the use of mineral wealth, forests and waters; definition of the basic principles in the spheres of education and public health; definition of the fundamentals of legislation on labour, marriage and the family; legislation on Union citizenship and legislation on the rights of foreigners, and the promulgation of all-Union acts of amnesty.

p All these rights show that the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. covers matters that concern the U.S.S.R. as a whole and cannot be decided by any single Union Republic.

p The priority that the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. gives to all-Union laws over the laws of the individual Union Republics is a direct manifestation of the sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. in domestic affairs. The laws of the U.S.S.R. have the same force in every Union Republic (Article 19 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.), but in the event of a discrepancy between a law of a Union Republic and a law of the Union, the Union law prevails (Article 20 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.). These constitutional principles 53 show that a Union Republic is a component of the U.S.S.R. and that an all-Union law expresses the will of all the peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union.

p Thus, the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. embraces diverse spheres of stale, economic and cultural life. This ensures the interests of the U.S.S.R. and of every Union Republic and creates the conditions for combining centralised administration with socialist democracy and for the sue cessful building of communism.

The sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. is based on its economic and political might and its Armed Forces.