Editing Politics of Russia (section)

=== The Soviet inheritance===

The [[1924 Soviet Constitution|first constitution of the Soviet Union]], as promulgated in 1924, incorporated a [[Treaty on the Creation of the USSR|treaty of union]] between various Soviet republics. Under the treaty, the [[Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]] became known as the [[Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic]] (RSFSR). Nominally, the borders of each subunit incorporated the territory of a specific nationality. The constitution endowed the new republics with sovereignty, although they were said to have voluntarily delegated most of their sovereign powers to the Soviet center. <ref>Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2008. pp. 157–159.</ref><ref>Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States. Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. 281–283.</ref> Formal sovereignty was evidenced by the existence of flags, constitutions, and other state symbols, and by the republics' constitutionally guaranteed "right" to secede from the union.

Russia was the largest of the Union republics in terms of territory and population. During the [[Cold War]] era (ca 1947-1991), because of the Russians' dominance in the affairs of the union, the RSFSR failed to develop some of the institutions of governance and administration that were typical of public life in the other republics: a republic-level communist party, a Russian academy of sciences, and Russian branches of trade unions, for example. In the late 1980s, during the period of perestroika and glasnost, demands for autonomy and national rights grew across the Soviet republics. Ethnic Russians, too, began to call for the creation of distinct Russian institutions within the RSFSR, leading to a revival of Russian national identity. In 1990, the RSFSR asserted the primacy of its laws over those of the Soviet Union, signaling a significant shift toward sovereignty and eventual independence.<ref name="Suny">Suny, Ronald Grigor. ''The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union''. Stanford University Press, 1993. pp. 113–115.</ref>