The Influence Of The Constitutional Culture Of Soviet Union Towards China

The influence of the constitutional culture of the Soviet Union towards Chinabegan from1920s. It included four periods: Kuomintang and the Communist Partylearned from Russia after the October Revolution, the revolutionary base copied fromthe Soviet Union Constitution, at the background of lean to one side, the new Chinalearned laws from the Soviet Union at the preliminary stage of establishing the newcountry and almost wholly from the Soviet Union, and afterwards, China deviatedfrom transplanting the Soviet Union constitution when the relationship between Chinaand the Soviet Union became worse and continued to transplant the Soviet Unionconstitution when the Chinese reform and open policy was carried out.The transplantation of the constitutional culture of the Soviet Union in newChina was widely and deeply, which related to the broadcasting of the constitutiontheory, the selecting of the constitution mode and the transplanting of theconstitutional system, and so on.The influence of constitution theory of the Soviet Union towards China was firston the concept and then gradually into the deep one. At the preliminary stage ofestablishing the new country, in order to learn the laws well from the Soviet Union,the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China invited a group of legalexperts of the Soviet Union to guide the political and legal work, and they helped toestablish the new mode of legal education system. The legal experts of the SovietUnion, who had the social status of consultant and legal professors, mainly worked inthe Central Government institutions, colleges and universities, they gave the report ofconstitutional jurisprudence and had the lessons and introduced the Soviet Union’smode of education system of constitutional jurisprudence to China, all these played animportant intermediary role in broadcasting the constitutional theory of the SovietUnion. On the other words, as the large number of publishing of articles and treatisesabout the constitutional jurisprudence of the Soviet Union to China, the Chineseacademic circle carried out the upsurge of studying the theory of the Soviet Unionconstitution, which greatly promoted the broadcasting of the theory of the SovietUnion constitution in China.The establishment of new China meant that the Chinese people had been theprincipal part of constituent power, and had the right to carry out the constituentpower independently. But because the objective condition didn’t allow the NationalPeople’s Congress to be convened at that time, the Common Program, which had the nature of provisional constitution, was made, and the transitional political system wasbuilt by basing on it. At the following years, the rapid change of the situation madethe conflict and the contradiction to appear between the Common Program and theChina social development, the constituting of formal constitution had become thefocal point to the worldwide society. At first, the Chinese Communist Party didn’teager to make the formal constitution and they wanted to use the Common Program toreplace the constitution provisionally, and the new constitution would be made afterthe socialism transition period had been reformed. However, at the direct promotionof Stalin’s suggestion of constituting the constitution, Mao Zedong decided to choosethe mode of the Soviet Union, assimilate the experiences of constituting theconstitution, and finally the first constitution of new China was made.“The Five Four Constitution” of China transplanted the1936’s “Stalin’sConstitution” of the Soviet Union wholly with the form and the content, it mainlyincluded the constitution structure, the nature of the country, the organization form ofthe political system, the design of the state organ, the regulations of citizen’s basicrights and duties, and so on. At the aspect of system transplantation, the founders ofnew China summarized the long-term practical experiences of the revolutionary base,consulted the experiences from the Soviet Union and other people’s democratic statesin the world, and stipulated the organization form and the mode of election of the newpolitical system by using the law forms, established the System of People’s Congressand the General Election System, which had become our country’s basic politicalsystems and genuinely reflected that the people had taken the leadership. At the sametime, the mistakes made by the dogmatism should be tried to overcome, and thesystem of regional national autonomy should be creatively carried out in the areasinhabited by minority nationality people of our country, which reflected thecombination of the right of national self-determination theory of Marxism with ourcountry’s specific practice.Definitely, it could not be denied that the problems of “take-ism” and“pragmatism” had existed in the process of transplanting the constitutional culture ofthe Soviet Union to new China in the1950s. Because The Five Four Constitution hadexisted defects, it directly caused the citizens’ rights and the authority of constitutionto suffer the trampling and sabotaging situation during the Cultural Revolution, allthese deserved us to rethink profoundly. The construction of the constitutionalgovernment of China still has a long way to go.