The Supreme Soviet

Abstract

In identifying those legislative actors who exerted most influence over policy making in the Supreme Soviet, we need look little further than the assembly’s chief steering and agenda setting organ, the praesidium. Comprising the chair and deputy chairs of the Supreme Soviet, the chairs of its two chambers and the chairs of the assembly’s standing committees and commissions — 30 or so members plus an apparatus of over 600 staff — the praesidium was at the centre of the entire legislative process. The notable absence of party political representation in the praesidium underlined the secondary role played by parties in the legislative process, and in contrast to some other presidential regimes, the executive branch had weak formal constitutional control over the parliamentary agenda.KeywordsEconomic ReformCommittee ChairGovernment ReformEconomic AgendaSixth SessionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.