The Soviet Constitution of 1977: Obama's Dream for America

A thread asking to compare the USA to the USSR reminded me that I once read the USSR's 1977 constitution, way back when. So I googled it and was even more astounded now than years ago, as we've pretty much turned America into Bolshevik Russia.

Read the 1977 USSR Constitution Here in English Translation

Here are a few tasty morsels for the Hope and Change crowd. Of course, we know how this worked out for the Russians. Well, most of you probably have no idea, actually. You should procure and read, "The Gulag Archipelago" and "The Black Book of Communism" to see just how much a paradise it was.

Anyway, here are a few Soviet rights. Sound familiar, anyone?

Article 34. Citizens of the USSR are equal before the law, without distinction of origin, social or property status, race or nationality, sex, education, language, attitude to religion, type and nature of occupation, domicile, or other status.

Article 35. Women and men have equal rights in the USSR.

Article 36. Citizens of the USSR of different races and nationalities have equal rights.

Article 37. Citizens of other countries and stateless persons in the USSR are guaranteed the rights and freedoms provided by law, including the right to apply to a court and other state bodies for the protection of their personal, property, family, and other rights.

Article 38. The USSR grants the right of asylum to foreigners persecuted for defending the interests of the working people and the cause of peace, or for participation in the revolutionary and national-liberation movement, or for progressive social and political, scientific, or other creative activity.

Article 39. Citizens of the USSR enjoy in full the social, economic, political and personal rights and freedoms proclaimed and guaranteed by the Constitution of the USSR and by Soviet laws. The socialist system ensures enlargement of the rights and freedoms of citizens and continuous improvement of their living standards as social, economic, and cultural development programmes are fulfilled.

Article 40. Citizens of the USSR have the right to work (that is, to guaranteed employment and pay in accordance wit the quantity and quality of their work, and not below the state-established minimum), including the right to choose their trade or profession, type of job and work in accordance with their inclinations, abilities, training and education, with due account of the needs of society.

Article 41. Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest and leisure.

Article 42. Citizens of the USSR have the right to health protection.

Article 43. Citizens of the USSR have the right to maintenance in old age, in sickness, and in the event of complete or partial disability or loss of the breadwinner.

Article 44. Citizens of the USSR have the rights to housing.

Article 45. Citizens of the USSR have the right to education.

Article 46. Citizens of the USSR have the right to enjoy cultural benefits.

Article 47. Citizens of the USSR, in accordance with the aims of building communism, are guaranteed freedom of scientific, technical, and artistic work. This freedom is ensured by broadening scientific research, encouraging invention and innovation, and developing literature and the arts. THe state provides the necessary material conditions for this and support for voluntary societies and unions of workers in the arts, organises introduction of inventions and innovations in production and other spheres of activity.

Article 52. Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda. Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited.

Article 53. The family enjoys the protection of the state.
Marriage is based on the free consent of the woman and the man; the spouses are completely equal in their family relations.
The state helps the family by providing and developing a broad system of childcare institutions, by organising and improving communal services and public catering, by paying grants on the birth of a child, by providing children's allowances and benefits for large families, and other forms of family allowances and assistance.

Article 63. Military service in the ranks of the Armed Forces of the USSR is an honorable duty of Soviet citizens.

Article 64. It is the duty of every citizen of the USSR to respect the national dignity of other citizens, and to strengthen friendship of the nations and nationalities of the multinational Soviet state.

Article 65. A citizen of the USSR is obliged to respect the rights and lawful interests of other persons, to be uncompromising toward anti-social behaviour, and to help maintain public order.

Article 66. Citizens of the USSR are obliged to concern themselves with the upbringing of children, to train them for socially useful work, and to raise them as worthy members of socialist society. Children are obliged to care for their parents and help them.

Article 67. Citizens of the USSR are obliged to protect nature and conserve its riches.

Article 68. Concern for the preservation of historical monuments and other cultural values is a duty and obligation of citizens of the USSR.

Article 69. It is the internationalist duty of citizens of the USSR to promote friendship and co-operation with peoples of other lands and help maintain and strengthen world peace.

to be honest, everything in that constitution appeals to me.

if only they had managed it to be a working system instead of another rich get richer and poor get trod on system.

i never understood why americans are so against socialist ideals.

what is it about trying to have the government support the people that frightens you?

why is it the idea of that government is so hard to deal with yet your own military dicatorship (by proxy democracy) is not as frightening?

its what i have always wondered!!

reply to post by okamitengu


When you give the state the power to provide these services (health, housing, recreation, etc.) you also give them the power to withhold them.

this is because when you give the state the power to provide these services, you must also give them the means to do so. Once you give them the means to to provide these services, the average person will loose the means to provide these services for themselves.

If you loose the means to provide these things for yourself, you become a slave to the people who can provide them, in this case, the State.

I can not speak for all Americans, but I for one prefer to provide for myself and my family and not be beholden to anyone else to provide for me.

Once you open the door for the state to provide for you, you also give up the power to control HOW they will provide for you, and in what manner they will provide for you. Then you become nothing but a slave to the machine.

The writing was on the wall!

Communist Party Backs Obama


AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | July 3, 2008

Obama showed his gratitude by going to socialist conferences and selecting Marxist professors as his friends in college.

Barack Obama’s patriotic tour has run into a snag. More evidence of communist backing for the candidate has surfaced. The latest to emerge publicly in Obama’s camp is Joelle Fishman, the chairman of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Political Action Commission. In a column titled, “Big political shifts are underway,” Fishman says that Obama could lead “a landslide defeat of the Republican ultra-right” this November and that he is “ready to listen” to the “left and progressive voters” backing him. Fishman makes it clear that the CPUSA is part of this coalition.

Meanwhile, admitted CPUSA member Alan Maki, writing on the official Barack Obama website, in the “community blogs” section under an “Obama 08” banner, has mentioned the unmentionable. That is the role of CPUSA member Frank Marshall Davis in mentoring Obama during his formative high school years in Hawaii.

Although fine print at the bottom of the page says that “Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign,” the information provided by Maki is deadly confirmation that a hard-core CPUSA member played a key role in helping raise Obama. It is a story that most media, including some “conservative” news outlets, have shied away from.

Davis, who died in 1987, was a Stalinist who stayed with the CPUSA when others were abandoning it, and he refused, as late as 1956, to deny his membership in the party. He was selected by Obama’s white grandfather to be the future candidate’s role model and father-figure...

..

read more at

www.aim.org...

reply to post by BomSquad


I'm a big fan of things that go boom.
But I'm not buying any of your assumptions, and I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about.
When one makes a contract, certain expectations are assumed - that the parties are not engaged in fraud for example.
So, although I understand your sentiment about freedom and liberty, and how these things are important to your worldview - please don't confuse subjective truth for objective fact when making assumptions. Thanks - no disrespect intended.

gj

reply to post by joeofthemountain


This just goes to prove that a Constitution is only a bunch of pretty words on a piece of paper. If the people have no way to hold their government accountable to the Constitution, it's no better than a roll of toilet paper.

I remember in high school, a history teacher told us the Soviets had all of the rights and freedoms we American's enjoy written into their Constitution, they just ignored it.

Sounds like the way our Congress behaves today, doesn't it?

reply to post by ganjoa

Thanks - no disrespect intended

And none taken We are all entitled to our own opinions and the right to express them. And while I too am a fan of things that go BOOM, my job was mostly to keep them from doing that lol

Back to the point you made, however...

Call me cynical, but when one party to the contract can rewrite that contract at will, does it remain a truly meaningful document?

There are examples where laws have been passed, but the State, through regulations, have modified those laws to such an extent that they become almost unrecognizable.

One such example is:

en.wikipedia.org...

The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was enacted into law by the Congress of the United States as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.[1] The CSA is the federal U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of certain substances is regulated. The Act also served as the national implementing legislation for the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

The legislation created five Schedules (classifications), with varying qualifications for a substance to be included in each. Two federal agencies, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, determine which substances are added or removed from the various schedules, though the statute passed by Congress created the initial listing. Classification decisions are required to be made on criteria including potential for abuse (an undefined term)[2][3], currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and international treaties.

I added the emphasis above to highlight something that I feel is quite important. Congress (our elected officials) created a law where certain substances would be classified due to their perceived value/harm to society. But they then abdicated the responsability of identifying and classifying these substances to an unelected beaurocracy. The DEA and FDA now decide what substances go into what schedules, in other words, an unelected group gets to decide what substances are and are not legal.

Now do not get me wrong. There are definately substances that should not be freely available in our society. I am NOT arguing for or against drugs. What I am trying to say is that this could be taken as a contract between the state and the people that the State can change at any time, for any reason, by merely changing how the item is regulated. No additional action is needed by Congress to make certain substances illegal, all that is need is for the FDA to classify the substance as Schedule I.

If they can do this with drugs, what would stop them from doing the same with your healthcare, housing, recreation, etc. Once you give them the means to control it, by being the sole provider of it, you abdicate your right to decide how you will use it.

The State could regulate exactly HOW you may use these services they provide, and if you do not adhere strictly to the rules they set up through regulations, they can deny access to these services.

[edit on 8-4-2010 by BomSquad]

reply to post by joeofthemountain


I found the part of the supposed list of rights which basically gives the state the right to revoke those rights at will.

It's right there at the beginning;

Article 39. Citizens of the USSR enjoy in full the social, economic, political and personal rights and freedoms proclaimed and guaranteed by the Constitution of the USSR and by Soviet laws. The socialist system ensures enlargement of the rights and freedoms of citizens and continuous improvement of their living standards as social, economic, and cultural development programmes are fulfilled.

Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state, or infringe the rights of other citizens.

Right there is the state's right to take away any and all rights at the discretion of the state.

Most modern Constitutions have one of these opt-out clauses in them which allows the state to disregard the people's rights at their discretion.

This is why the idea of a new Constitutional convention is so scary.

USSR was not spatially and temporally monolithic. USSR under Lenin was different then under Stalin or Khrushchev. USSR did way from feudal country to industrial superpower during less then 30 years! During same years most of Bolshevik terror happened (tens of millions people died). Did you read anything about pre-revolutionary Russia? It was not place where you would like to live. In all respects = politics, culture, economics, ... . It was retarded feudal country almost without industry. My point is: for majority of Russians was revolution big leap forward. Health care, education, (it sounds funny but) human and political rights - these were unknown for ordinary folks before revolution. History is not black and white. What is not good enough for Americans can be heaven for others.

It probably has something to do with the 60-80,000,000 murders committed by Uncle Joe Stalin and the 10-15,000,000 murders committed by his predecessor, Comrade Lenin.

You might especially have enjoyed the Gulag. I'll let you in on a secret: Guantanamo isn't even in the same league as the Soviet Gulag system.

Yeah man. The Soviet Union was great.

Too bad you're ignorant of it. It makes it easier to reproduce it here and I'll fight to the death to stop that from happening. Too many of my paternal ancestors and kinsmen were murdered by those madmen.

Originally posted by okamitengu
to be honest, everything in that constitution appeals to me.

if only they had managed it to be a working system instead of another rich get richer and poor get trod on system.

i never understood why americans are so against socialist ideals.

what is it about trying to have the government support the people that frightens you?

why is it the idea of that government is so hard to deal with yet your own military dicatorship (by proxy democracy) is not as frightening?

its what i have always wondered!!

Originally posted by joeofthemountain
A thread asking to compare the USA to the USSR reminded me that I once read the USSR's 1977 constitution, way back when. So I googled it and was even more astounded now than years ago, as we've pretty much turned America into Bolshevik Russia.

Read the 1977 USSR Constitution Here in English Translation

Here are a few tasty morsels for the Hope and Change crowd. Of course, we know how this worked out for the Russians. Well, most of you probably have no idea, actually. You should procure and read, "The Gulag Archipelago" and "The Black Book of Communism" to see just how much a paradise it was.




Anyway, here are a few Soviet rights. Sound familiar, anyone?

Article 34. Citizens of the USSR are equal before the law, without distinction of origin, social or property status, race or nationality, sex, education, language, attitude to religion, type and nature of occupation, domicile, or other status.

Article 35. Women and men have equal rights in the USSR.

Article 36. Citizens of the USSR of different races and nationalities have equal rights.

Article 37. Citizens of other countries and stateless persons in the USSR are guaranteed the rights and freedoms provided by law, including the right to apply to a court and other state bodies for the protection of their personal, property, family, and other rights.

Article 38. The USSR grants the right of asylum to foreigners persecuted for defending the interests of the working people and the cause of peace, or for participation in the revolutionary and national-liberation movement, or for progressive social and political, scientific, or other creative activity.

Article 39. Citizens of the USSR enjoy in full the social, economic, political and personal rights and freedoms proclaimed and guaranteed by the Constitution of the USSR and by Soviet laws. The socialist system ensures enlargement of the rights and freedoms of citizens and continuous improvement of their living standards as social, economic, and cultural development programmes are fulfilled.

Article 40. Citizens of the USSR have the right to work (that is, to guaranteed employment and pay in accordance wit the quantity and quality of their work, and not below the state-established minimum), including the right to choose their trade or profession, type of job and work in accordance with their inclinations, abilities, training and education, with due account of the needs of society.

Article 41. Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest and leisure.

Article 42. Citizens of the USSR have the right to health protection.

Article 43. Citizens of the USSR have the right to maintenance in old age, in sickness, and in the event of complete or partial disability or loss of the breadwinner.

Article 44. Citizens of the USSR have the rights to housing.

Article 45. Citizens of the USSR have the right to education.

Article 46. Citizens of the USSR have the right to enjoy cultural benefits.

Article 47. Citizens of the USSR, in accordance with the aims of building communism, are guaranteed freedom of scientific, technical, and artistic work. This freedom is ensured by broadening scientific research, encouraging invention and innovation, and developing literature and the arts. THe state provides the necessary material conditions for this and support for voluntary societies and unions of workers in the arts, organises introduction of inventions and innovations in production and other spheres of activity.

Article 52. Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda. Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited.

Article 53. The family enjoys the protection of the state.
Marriage is based on the free consent of the woman and the man; the

reply to post by ekiusa



Because the masters are the same you dumbass!!!
sorry no ofence!nothing personal!is it to hard to
understand,the all the things is pointing on one direccion!
But why,we know very soon i think so!


Peace,
ekiusa

I'm glad you pointed that out FortAnthem - it is a pre-arranged justification for concessions such as the HCR "death panels" (yes, yes, yes they are in the bill) and other insults such as "means testing" Social Security, student loan interest deductions, home mortgage deductions, etc.

A long forgotten concept in America is,

"Government by the consent of the governed."

I can't tell you the last time I heard that phrase, it was so long ago. All we hear about is "rights of the minority" when the Ass Party is out of power, and "Majority Rule" when they are back in power.

Consent of the governed is not to be found in the Soviet system. Increasingly it is not to be found in ours, either, as it implies a "citizen veto" that is now considered, by Our Royal Masters, as somewhere between Sedition and Treason.





reply to post by FortAnthem

Hey, why are you calling me a dumbass????

reply to post by ekiusa

Originally posted by joeofthemountain
Hey, why are you calling me a dumbass????

reply to post by ekiusa

 

i sayd sorry!
and i apologize!maybe its that i lived overthere,dont get me wrong
its so obvies,play with countrys take the money and whatever.....
what next...?once again i am sorry,you can call me dumbass if you like!
Best regards,
E

reply to post by ekiusa


And if you not noticed they are doing it right know with different name and the name is EU.


Peace,
Ekiusa

reply to post by FortAnthem


How right you are about the " Opt out clause " ; I have read that Canada has a " not withstanding clause " . This clause can in fact subvert there constitution .

Please note .... I am not comparing Canada to any Communist country .

Originally posted by Max_TO
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

How right you are about the " Opt out clause " ; I have read that Canada has a " not withstanding clause " . This clause can in fact subvert there constitution .

Please note .... I am not comparing Canada to any Communist country .

Dear Friend!

Communist,socialist,capitalist,demokrats......they are just names and words
look at the history last 110 years at least and you know who are the rulers and masters....!!!!

Lol, apology accepted!

Originally posted by ekiusa

Originally posted by joeofthemountain
Hey, why are you calling me a dumbass????

reply to post by ekiusa

 

i sayd sorry!
and i apologize!maybe its that i lived overthere,dont get me wrong
its so obvies,play with countrys take the money and whatever.....
what next...?once again i am sorry,you can call me dumbass if you like!
Best regards,
E