Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Models For A Gorbachev Constitution Of The U.S.S.R., John N. Hazard

Michigan Journal of International Law

Western Sovietologists were startled when Secretary General Mikhail S. Gorbachev set his craftsmen to work in the Summer of 1988 to prepare a revised structure for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ("U.S.S.R."). While some hint of what was to come had been given by publications prior to the 19th Communist Party Conference, and while some of these appeared in the theses to be debated at the Conference, Westerners expected little more than a call from the tribune for change in attitudes. Basic State structures established by Leonid Brezhnev in his 1977 Constitution had not previously been questioned. Critics levelled …