The Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 as a Legal Basis During Wartime

Abstract

The Article is devoted to the analysis of the RSFSR Constitution of 1918 applied as an act of the supreme legal force of the nascent Soviet State during the wartime period. The paper examines the reasons for the accelerated adoption of the RSFSR Constitution of 1918, among which the author names the emergence of anti-Bolshevik regimes on the territory of Russia. The work emphasizes that the Constitution of 1918 played a significant role in the organization of the Red Army and the formation of its image. The author provides for an independent evaluation of adverse opinions concerning the significance of the Basic Law of 1918 given by the Russian constitutionalists O.I. Chistyakov, S.A. Avakyan, M.V. Baglay. The author focuses special attention on the content of the concepts democratizm and class nature in the RSFSR Constitution of 1918 and correlates them with the period of the Civil War. The author substantiates the idea of ideological significance of the RSFSR Constitution of 1918, and analyzes its influence on the process of Soviet constitutionalism development.