ABSTRACT
The Bolsheviks claim that the elimination of a landlord and capitalist class has rendered redundant political parties, whose raison d’ettre is the existence of economic conflicts, now done away with. Once dictatorship has got rid of large private ownership in land and capital, has laid the basis of the Soviet constitution, then automatically the old parties become unnecessary. The civil war and foreign intervention, however, sharpened the conflict, and the Soviets dispensed with opposition. The Communist Party became the sole party in the Soviets, the bauble of opposition was removed and the Soviet Congress became the Rump Parliament. Looking at Russian history from a legal and constitutional point of view it may be noted that Russian tradition has always from the earliest times favoured the executive power in the state rather than the legislature. Economically, the revolution had gone forward, and socialist planning in industry and agriculture had made it possible greatly to increase public development schemes.
