Financial Sovereignty in the Doctrine of Financial Law of Pre-Revolutionary and Soviet Periods: A Historical and Legal Study

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the study of the works of leading pre-revolutionary and Soviet period researchers representing the science of financial law in relation to issues related to financial sovereignty. The work analyzes textbooks on financial law written by E. N. Berendts, S. I. Ilovaisky, V. A. Lebedev, D. M. Lvov, I. I. Patlaevsky, I. I. Yanzhul, V. G. Yarotsky, M. A. Gurvich, G. S. Gurevich, S. A. Kotlyarevsky and E. A. Rovinsky. It is noted that at an early stage of development (the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century), the science of financial law had not yet formed a unified idea not only about financial sovereignty, but also about the content and system of financial law as a science. At the same time, the authors of this period paid special attention to the problems of financial supremacy (the law of supreme power in the field of public economy). At the initial stage of the formation of Soviet power, researchers do not focus on studying the essence of financial sovereignty. Later, the Soviet authors proceeded from the position based on constitutional provisions, according to which it was the Union republics that possessed sovereignty manifested in the recognition of the fullness of their power on their territory and the right to independently carry out financial activities. It is concluded that granting the status of a sovereign State to individual Union republics, also in the field of financial activity, is inconsistent with the essence of sovereignty and the essence of the federation as a form of government. In the federation, the bearer of sovereignty can only be of the federal level of government common to the whole country.