Address by the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the AUCPB to the working people of Russia

The next bourgeois version of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, securing the dominance of big capital and the exploitation of Russian workers, should be rejected

 President of the Russian Federation V. Putin announced amendments to the main law of the state - the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation.

It was adopted at the end of the year (December 12) as a result of tank shots rumbled in Moscow on October 3-4, 1993. Then President B. Yeltsin dispersed the Supreme Council of Russia and shot his defenders, thereby making a coup. The 1993 Constitution was imposed on the people of Russia by force. The proposed revision of the 2020 Constitution preserves the essence, the main content of the Constitution on the blood of 1993. It was adopted in the interests of large Russian capital in order to push through reforms with the help of accelerated methods. Under this Constitution, authoritarian presidential power was introduced, which gave the president the right to form a government and dissolve parliament (State Duma). The role of parliament, in fact, is reduced to decoration: any law adopted by the State Duma is subject to approval by the "upper house" - the Federation Council - and the president, who may reject the adopted laws. Finally, the president has the right to issue his own decrees, which have the same force as laws.

The basic law of the state, providing for the dictatorial powers of the president, is typical for those capitalist countries where power is unstable and the lack of democratic support is replaced by a strong police regime. Similar "constitutions" can be found in Latin America during periods of military dictatorships, when the "constitution" is nothing more than a fig leaf. An authoritarian power scheme was also, for example, in France during the time of General de Gaulle: this power was established when the French regime "staggered" and the bourgeoisie needed to strengthen it.

The 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation was designed to protect bourgeois power, regardless of which parties would be elected to the State Duma. By inheritance, it (the Constitution) passed from Yeltsin to Putin.

The current constitutional amendments are intended to give the appearance of legality to preserving the power of President Putin, who has been at the head of the country for twenty years. It is supposed to change the form of power in Russia so that Putin remains its sovereign leader, and the political regime itself does not change its essence.

The main innovation will be the emergence of another authority - the State Council. The formula, when the president becomes the chairman of a certain high “Council”, has already been successfully tested in Kazakhstan - there N. Nazarbayev moved from one high chair to another.

Moreover, in Russia, the parliament is promised a slight expansion of rights. According to the amendments, the State Duma will be able to vote not only “for” or “against” the new Prime Minister, but also on the candidatures of some of the ministers. However, the powers of the president, formally reduced in favor of the parliament, are expanding elsewhere: now he will receive the right to initiate the dismissal of the chairmen of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts.

It is obvious that within the ruling authorities there is still a struggle of groups for a new look of the Constitution, and amendments are born in this struggle - hence the contradictions in them. One of the leading political scientists suggested that different amendments were written by different groups of people who did not coordinate them with each other. For the sake of masking the main perturbations, it is proposed to add to the basic law such moments as indexation of pensions for pensioners and the minimum wage corresponding to the minimum subsistence level (which looks shameful, but is presented as some good). Someone else jokingly proposed to add to the Constitution that “the weather should be good”, “the right of people to breathe,” etc. Various lobbyists began to compose their own amendments in order to strengthen their influence: for example, the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill suggested mention “God” in the Constitution, and Cossack chieftains proposed the introduction of “Cossack police”. Etc…

But the jokes aside.

Regardless of who specifically becomes the head of state, which body will be added a little more authority, and which one will be slightly reduced, the 2020 Constitution of the Russian Federation, with the introduction of cosmetic amendments to the 1993 Constitution, does not change its essence. This is a bourgeois document that substantiates the power of the capitalists in the country and the lack of rights of the masses of working people with pompous words.

New formulas retain authoritarian, dictatorial forms of government, based primarily on the police force. In Russia, in fact, there is no parliament and parties, even in the form in which they are supposed in bourgeois-democratic states, and the entire system of power is subordinated to the interests of oligarchic groups.

The balance of power between capital and the masses can be changed only as a result of the revolutionary struggle of the working masses for their rights and interests - for socialism. No hope for a “parliamentary republic" or a "good president" is real.

For this reason, conscious workers should not participate but boycott hypocritical attempts by
the current government to draw them into empty "discussions" and "votes" around all sorts of decorative amendments to the bourgeois constitution. Conscious workers should understand that all this fuss was created by liberals to slyly give the “new” Constitution of the Russian Federation hostile to the people the ephemeral status of “popular approval” (“expression of will”). According to the statements of the supreme power of the Russian Federation, with the adoption of the "new" Constitution, there will be no change in the liberal course leading Russia into the abyss. The 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation, dictated by Western puppeteers Yeltsin, cannot be “finalized” and presented to the people in the form of “improved”. The proposed "new" Constitution of the lack of rights of the people should be rejected.

                                                                   February 17, 2020 Leningrad