ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union contained many of the trappings of a pluralist state. There was no independent judiciary, but party and state bodies coexisted throughout the entire Soviet period. The national parliament, the Supreme Soviet, sat for only a short period of time during the year and had neither the time nor the power to propose its own legislation or to review effectively that of the government. The election on 26 March 1989 for the deputies to the Congress of People's Deputies was the first competitive national election since the Leninist period. The constitution was based on the Russian one written back in 1978 when Brezhnev was General Secretary and the Soviet Union a one-party state. The President saw his election in June 1991 as a mandate from the people, while Congress claimed supremacy with reference to the Russian constitution. The new Federal Assembly consisted of two chambers, the State Duma and the Federation Council.
