1 Gorbachev, M., “Sotsialisticheskaia ideia i revoliutsionnaia perestroika” (The Socialist Idea and Revolutionary Perestroika), Pravda, 26 Nov. 1989, at 2, col. 8.Google Scholar

2 . The USSR Supreme court has consistently adhered to the broad definition of the concept “legislation.” For instance, in its Decree No. 12 of 29 September 1988, the Plenum (full bench) of the USSR Supreme Court included Orders of the State Agro-industrial Committee (Gosagroprom SSSR) among “legislation,” alongside the Fundamental Principles of Civil Legislation (see last paragraph of the decree). Biulleten' Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR (Bulletin of the USSR Supreme Soviet) 1988, No. 6 (Nov.-Dec.), 11–18.Google Scholar

3 Gorbachev, M., “Ob osnovnykh napravleniiakh vnutrennei i vneshnei politiki SSSR” (On the Principal Directions of USSR Domestic and Foreign Policy), Izvestiia, 31 May 1989, at col. 8.Google Scholar

4 . Huskey, Eugene, “Government Rulemaking as a Brake on Perestroika ,” 15 Law & Soc Inquiry 419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 For instance, on 19 December 1988 the RSFSR Council of Ministers issued two decrees on authors' royalties. Decree No. 531 dealt with public performance of works of literature and of art (Sobranie Postanovlenii Ravitel'stva RSFSR [Gazette of Decrees of the RSFSR Government] 1989, No. 4, item 21, at 50–78; Decree No. 532 dealt with publication of works of science, literature, and art (id., 1989, No. 5, item 23, at 82–107). Both decrees stated that they were being issued in implementation of the Decree of the USSR Council of Ministers No. 825 of 12 July 1988. Yet, the Index of USSR Government decrees for 1988 (Sobranie Postanovlenii Pravitel'stva SSSR 1988, No. 38) lists no decrees as issued between 4 July and 12 July (No. 833), and the text was not reproduced elsewhere.Google Scholar

6 For instance, on 19 October 1972 the USSR Council of Ministers enacted Decree No. 762, “On Bilateral Agreements with Socialist Countries Concerning Reciprocal Protection of Copyrights,” which was to serve as the basis for eventual creation of a multilateral CMEA (Comecon) copyright agreement, amended after Soviet accession to the UCC. Yet the text of the Decree is known to us only through publication of detailed excerpts in the Gazette of Decrees of the Government of the Moldavian SSR (SP Mold SSR 1972, No. 11, item 156, at 769–71; amended in SP Mold SSR 1974, No. 8, item 102, at 699–701).Google Scholar

7 . Maurach, Reinhart, Handbuch der Sowjetverfassung 379 (Munich, 1955).Google Scholar

8 For instance, art. 58, clause 2, of the USSR Constitution of 1977 could not be enforced until the entry into force on 1 Jan. 1988 of Law No. 7287-XI of 30 June 1987, “On the Procedure for Filing Complaints in Court Against Illegal Actions of Officials That Violate Citizens' Rights” (Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR [Gazette of the USSR Supreme Soviet] 1987, No. 26, item 388, at 470–74); amended on 20 Oct. 1987 (id., 1987, No. 42, item 692, at 762–63). The Law of 30 June 1987 was repealed and replaced by a new, more detailed law on 2 Nov. 1989 (No. 719-I)—Vedomosti Sezda Narodnykh Deputatov SSSR i Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR (Gazette of the Congress of the People's Deputies of the USSR and the USSR Supreme Swiet), 1989, No. 22, item 416, ar 565–68. The new law took effect on 1 July 1990.Google Scholar

9 Until recently, they could be modified or repealed only by another joint decree.Google Scholar

10 . Keller, Bill, The Moscow correspondent of the New York Times, is quite wrong in dismissing Soviet legislation on “nonlabor income:” (netudovoi dokhod), and, indeed, its criminalization, as just another “moralistic crusade.”“Soviet Economy: A Shattered Dream,”N.Y. Times, 13 May 1990, at 13. For the true significance of this legislation, see, e.g., O. Ioffe, Gorbachev's Economic Dilemma 3, 4, 165, 169–95 passim, 200, 305 (St. Paul, Minn., 1989).Google Scholar

11 I have assembled the most important of these ministerial and administrative enactments in four issues of 25 Soviet Statutes & Decisions 1988–89 (in English translation). The Statute on the Operations of State Acceptance (State Committee for Standards, Decree No. 2258, 28 July 1986, RD 50–612–86; Bull of Normative Am of Ministries and Departments of the USSR 1987, No. 2) is perhaps the most typical of these normative acts in the domain of quality control (reproduced in 25 Sov. Stat. & Dec. 3, at 62–94). It provides an eloquent illustration of Huskey's argument.Google Scholar

12 . Shelley, Louise I., “Policing Soviet Society: The Evolution of State Control,” 15 Law & Soc. Inquiry 479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 An excellent example of “normative overkill” by agencies of central planning (later criticized on these very grounds by the Soviet jurists themselves) was the joint Party-government decree No. 358 of 20 March 1986, “On Further Improvement of the Economic Mechanism of Management in the Country's Agro-industrial Complex” (O dal'neishem sovershenstvovanii ekonomicheskogo mekhanizma khoziaistvovaniia v agropromyshelennom komplekse strany). Ironically, in the fourth paragraph of the decree, a complaint is voiced that “the normative method of planning” is still too little used (Gazette of Decrees of the Government of the USSR 1986, No. 17, item 30) (English translation forthcoming in SoV. Stat. & Dec., ed. S. Levitsky).Google Scholar

14 . I have addressed these themes also during my oral presentation on 17 Feb. 1990 at the Cornell International Law Journal Symposium, “Perspectives on the Legal Perestroika: Soviet Constitutional and Legislative Changes.” See also Levitsky, Serge L., “The Restructuring of Perestroika: Pragmatism and Ideology (The Preamble to the Soviet Constitution of 1977 Revisited),” 23 Cornell Int'l L.J. 227 (1990), and other articles in the Symposium issue. Opinions expressed there are quoted here with permission.Google Scholar

15 . See 23 Cornell Int'l. L.J. 227 (1990).Google Scholar

16 . Shelley, , 15 Law & Soc. Inquiry (cited in note 12).Google Scholar

17 See transcript in Pravda 28 Jan. 1959.Google Scholar

18 . See Levitsky, , 23 Cornell Int'l L.J.Google Scholar

19 . Burrage, Michael, “ Advokatura: In Search of Professionalism and Pluralism in MOC cow and Leningrad,” 15 Law & Soc. Inquiry 433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 See Aron, Raymond, Introduction to the Philosophy of History. An Essay on the Limits of Historical Objectivity trans. from the 1938 French edition, at 122 (Boston, 1961).Google Scholar

21 One by one, however, official Soviet periodicals are dropping this once obligatory slogan. Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo (Soviet State and Law) was one of the first to do so, in 1988, but many other journals still sported it in the late spring of 1990.Google Scholar

22 Izvestiia, 18 Nov. 1989, at 1–2; Pravda, 18 Nov. 1989, at 3.Google Scholar

23 . Law No. 1305-I, “On Ownership in the USSR” (O sobstvennosti v SSSR), of 6 March 1990, Gazette of the Congress of the People's Deputies of the USSR and of the USSR Supreme Soviet 1990, No. 11, item 164.Google Scholar

24 Boiko, A., “The Nature of Ownership” (Sushchestvo sobstvennosti), Izvestiia, 1 March 1990.Google Scholar

25 . See Levitsky, , 23 Cornell Int'l L.J. (cited in note 14).Google Scholar