ABOUT ADDRESSING TO THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL EXPERIENCE OF FOREIGN NONSOCIALIST COUNTRIES DURING THE DRAFTING OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE USSR (1977)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the USSR (1977). The background of making of the main law is considered in the article, in particular, the aspect of the legal-political borrowings of various norms, names and institutions from the experience of foreign countries. It was found out by the study that the creators who took part in scrutinizing the constitutional project were informed enough about the practice of foreign countries that were not included in the international socialist bloc and were named at some periods as capitalist countries, Italy, Germany, USA, Great Britain among them, for instance. The authors of the Soviet Constitution project were eager to examine the practice of these states in different aspects, such as political culture, as well as the borrowing of separate legal institutions and state bodies. It demonstrates high qualification of soviet lawyers who worked in the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR - the highest state body of the country. The archive documents show that soviet citizens also paid attention to the experience of nonsocialist countries while writing letters to the Constitutional Commission. The question of projects of using such experience and its future was considered in the context of historical events in the USSR in the 1960-1970’s.