The Constitutional Position of the Partito Nazionale Fascista

Abstract

In the one-party states, of which the U.S.S.R., Germany, and Italy may be taken as the best examples, the definition of relationships between the party and the state has presented a major problem of constitutional theory. No two of these states have solved the problem in the same way. The C.P.S.U., engineering the dictatorship of the proletariat, depends upon methods which are constitutionally indirect. Only in the Commission for Soviet Control is there a constitutionalized inter-relationship between the mechanisms of the party and the state; for the rest, the party relies upon its political discipline over the public personnel. Indirect reference to the Communist party is contained in the new Soviet constitution, in the guarantee to citizens of the right of “uniting in the Communist party of the U.S.S.R.,” and in the incorporation of the hammer and sickle and the slogan of the party into the emblem of the state. On the other hand, the Nazi régime in Germany prohibited the formation of other parties than the N.S.D.A.P. by the law of July 14, 1933, and, by the law of December 1, 1933, proclaimed the formal union of the party and the state.