STALINIST DEMOCRACY, OR HOW ELECTIONS WERE RIGGED IN THE SOVIET UNION

Abstract

Systematic violations of electoral legislation and the use of manipulative technologies during election campaigns to the representative branch of government in the USSR are considered. The Soviet electoral system, which was formed in the Soviet Union after the adoption of the so-called Stalin Constitution, had nothing in common with democracy. The party's dictatorship prevented the free expression of the will of citizens based on universal direct equal suffrage declared in the Constitution, turning the election into a farce of voting for a single pro-government candidate. Examples of protests of citizens against violation of the election legislation by the regime leaders and non-transparency of election procedures are shown. The author gave the text of a document on falsifications committed by employees of the Zaporizhia party apparatus (Ukrainian SSR) during the preparations for the elections to the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR in February 1947. The document was found by Russian scientists in the Central Archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and published in the collection of documents "Lubianka. Stalin i MHB SSSR. Mart 1946 ‒ mart 1953: Dokumenty vysshykh orhanov partiinoi i hosudarstvennoi vlasti". The study demonstrated the need to falsify the election results in the Soviet Union came up from the specific role of the state democratic institutions, which were to legitimize the will of the only ruling Communist Party. Keywords Soviet electoral system, guided democracy, party dictatorship.