ABSTRACT
Some, indeed, were confident that a democratic legislature could not, by its nature, constitute a threat to liberty. Rousseau had argued that where the people is itself the sovereign legislature, 'the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members', nor 'any in particular';6 and though Rousseau would not have said the same for a representative assembly, his Jacobin disciples ignored the distinction. Thus Soviet constitutional apologists have argued that with the disappearance of class conflict and the emergence of a true general will, which finds expression in the Party and the state, the need for internal checks on government disappears.7
