The Doctrine of Socialist Democracy as One of the Foundations of the USSR Constitution of 1936

The article examines the problems of democracy in its theoretical understanding during the constitutional reform of the 1930s. The article traces the change in Stalin's approach to socialist democracy in the period of preparation for the adoption of the new Constitution of the USSR in 1936 in comparison with the approach of the founders of Marxism-Leninism.

It is concluded that despite the initial categorical rejection by I. V. Stalin of the ideas of «bourgeois democracy» and its opposition to the Soviet system, in the end, the 1936 Constitution actually included «bourgeois» general democratic requirements. However, while the goal of a genuine socialist democracy should not have been the illusion that people have rights, but the real involvement of the people in governing the country and guarantees of general democratic rights and freedoms, in fact, the principles of democracy and the very «socialist democracy» of I. V. Stalin and his allies, who were in key positions in the administrative apparatus of the Soviet state, depended on circumstances, time and place, and were subordinated to «revolutionary expediency». Having declaratively enshrined in the Constitution some rights and freedoms that are «dangerous» for the party and its leaders, the party has come up with externally legitimate ways to limit these rights in order to preserve the completeness and uniqueness of its power.