Talk:Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union

Soviet=Council
Why tha article not called council but "soviet"? Soviets in their original meaning refer to 1920s, while "Верховный Совет" refers to the other meaning of the word - "council" (supreme council), a "soviet" and a "council" are similar words in russian.

Name
Why isn't Supreme Council of the Soviet Union?UeArtemis (talk) 11:26, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Notable members
Would it be possible to include a list of notable members of the Supreme Soviet not on the executive level? Orville Eastland (talk) 00:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Ivan Laptev
Someone has removed Ivan Laptev from the list of Chairmen of the Supreme Soviet. I saw with my own eyes that he and Rafiq Nishonov presided over the meetings of the USSR Supreme Soviet on CNN after the failed coup d'etat in August 1991. Please do not remove him

User:Mbakkel2 20:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

First entry should not have an equal bullet point
The Soviet Union was the country as a whole and the other bullet points were provinces within it. Therefore, an equal bullet point for the country along with its provinces is misleading. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 21:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed for unsupported seemingly biased statement?
" In practice, however, it functioned as a rubber stamp for decisions already made by the CPSU. This later became common practice in all Communist countries. "

Is there any citation or sources support for this? Preferably disinterested ones. The statement have an anti-soviet feeling for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.69.62.136 (talk) 04:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

More importantly is their any unbiased sources.71.17.109.113 (talk) 08:40, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Elections not mentioned yet
There are articles for all "elections" between 1946 and the end of the Sowjet Union: Imo, they should be mentioned. Any pro's / con's ? --Neun-x (talk) 19:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * 2nd convocation session 1946 - 1950 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1946
 * 3rd convocation session 1950 - 1954 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1950
 * 4th convocation session 1954 - 1958 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1954
 * 5th convocation session 1958 - 1962 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1958
 * 6th convocation session 1962 - 1966 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1962
 * 7th convocation session 1966 - 1970 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1966
 * 8th convocation session 1970 - 1974 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1970
 * 9th convocation session 1974 - 1979 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1974
 * 10th convocation session 1979 - 1984 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1979
 * 11th convocation session 1984 - 1989 / Soviet Union legislative election, 1984

New Disambiguation Page
Depending on the era, either this or the Federal Council may be simply referred to as "The Soviet" (based on Сове́т, the Russian word for "Senate," "Upper House of Parliament," or "Governing Council"). For that reason, I will now create a Disambiguation Page to this effect. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 06:09, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Inconsistency
On this article it talks about how it was rubber stamp institution with no real power, however in the article for the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet it states that the Presidium (an institution that was powerful enough to remove a General Secretary at one point) was elected directly from the Supreme Soviet. Someone else also said that the rubber stamp line was biased and unsourced so it might be related.

Orchastrattor (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet never had the power to remove the General Secretary of the CPSU (since that was a party office, answerable not to the Supreme Soviet or any of its subordinate bodies, but rather to the Central Committee of the CPSU). Khrushchev was removed by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which is what the Politburo was denominated from 1952 to 1966.—MNTRT2009 (talk) 11:15, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Council of Ministers vs. Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
Can it be clarified what the difference was between the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, both of which seems to have been elected jointly by the houses of the Supreme Soviet? At first blush, you'd imagine they'd consist of the same individuals, totally or mostly. If I had to guess the difference in membership, it would seem the Presidium had to consist of members from the Supreme Soviet itself, whereas the Council could consists of members from the Supreme Soviet, but could also include members from without. I'd also guess the Council was functioned in practice as the executive branch of government, whereas the Presidium was something comparable to a parliamentary Speaker, that is to say that controlled the inner/day-to-day workings of the legislature. Though, different articles on here also seem to imply that it very much was part of an executive branch of government, too, and seen as a collective head of state in the same way as the Council was seen as a collective head of government. In that same vein, did members of the Presidium and Council ever overlap? For instance, was the Chairman of the Presidium ever also Chairmen of the Council of Ministers?

Weirdly, the Council also seems to have had its own presidium which further confuses things, and the 1977 Soviet constitution seems to imply that the Presidium of the Council of Ministers had the same membership as the entire Council of Ministers.

Excuse me for asking all of these questions bunched together like this, but if anyone could clarify this and make appropriate changes to this articles and the ones related to this, that would be great. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:19, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , the Soviet system of government is weird and was created to mimic a democracy rather than to make it work (my opinion). The Council of Ministers is roughly corresponds to a cabinet of ministers as a top executive departments forum, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet served as a collective head of state with its chair person de facto the conditional head of state if it makes any sense. The presidium would be elected among the members of the Soviet (council). The Soviet is roughly corresponds to a parliament. Now, in the Soviet Union all those things did not really matter as everything was decided at the Party's Congresses, those were the key driving forces and posed all agendas in the Soviet Union. The party's General Secretary was the Fuhrer/Vozhd or a national leader. The Soviet Union was not a common country and before establishing of the total Stalin's rule around 1930 was supposed to be a union of socialist republics of the whole world following the world revolution and the Bolshevik's conquest, hence the Soviet state emblem showing the Earth. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 22:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , no, I understood all of the basics, but I did have some specific questions about composition of each in my original post.


 * 1. Was their overlap in the membership of each? By that I mean could someone be in both the Council of Ministers (government) and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviety (collective head of state)?  If it was allowed, how common was it?


 * 2. In that same vein, was there ever a time when the Chairmen of the Council of Ministers was also the Chairmen of the Presidium?    There is mention that in the 60's, the party sought to decentralize power by making sure no one held the title of both party General/First Secretary and Chairment of the Council of Ministers.  But was a Premier ever also the President prior to the reformation of the state in the late 1980's?


 * 3. Lastly, while I realize that in practice every decision of appointment/selection was made during party congresses, nominally, who formally selected and then elected the Council of Ministers including it's Chairman? Was it simply the responsibility of the Supreme Soviet to choose its ministers and chairmen?  Oh, also, did members of the Council of Members have to previously be elected as deputies in the Supreme Soviet, or could they also be individuals from outside of the Supreme Soviet?


 * --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:00, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , interesting questions you have. Those are details that I am not thoroughly familiar with. I can tell you for sure that a chairman of the Presidium was never at the same time a chairman of government (Council of Ministers/People's Commissars). The government and the "parliament's" presidium was elected by the Supreme Soviet ("the parliament") which was dominated by the Bloc of Communists and Komsomol activists with small portion of non-partisan members. Please, note and to confuse you even more beside the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, there also was the Presidium of the Council of Ministers. This phenomenon was a hybrid of the Leninist type of government (a system of Soviets) and normal type of government that was partially introduced by Stalin in 1936. It was a total bureaucratic paradise. A number of ministerial portfolios was ridiculous and deal with it there were introduced state committees that combined those ministries and chairmen of which became members of the government's presidium. Now, the chairman of government was at the same time the chairman of the government's presidium. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 15:17, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , during the 1936 Stalin administrative reform there was reintroduced reformed "estates of the realm" where members of the Party's Central Committee and government officials belonged to the "first estate", security forces, clergy, intellectuals, and workers belonged to the "second estate", and peasants belonged to the "third estate". Peasants in the Soviet Union were not allowed to leave their collective farms and were working for free (for labor days - trudo-dni). Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 15:26, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , please note also that even the English Wikipedia annotates the Soviet officials' membership in the Party's political bureau (Politburo) as the most important government and political office. No one really remembers chair persons of the Supreme Soviet Presidium, but everyone knows the General Secretary of the Party. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 15:41, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

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