Abolition of the 6th Article of the Soviet Constitution 20 years ago opened the door to political pluralism in Russia

On March 14, Russian democracy celebrated its 20th birthday remembering the past and speculating about the future.

Changes proposed by General Secretary of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev to Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution on this day in 1990 opened the door to political pluralism in Russia.

The fight for a multi-party political system, however, began even earlier – back in May 1989 at the Congress of People's Deputies.

The idea quickly gained widespread national support – with 200,000 people taking to the streets of Moscow in February to call for changes to the constitution.

“Initially, Gorbachev believed that the party could play a major role in Perestroika,” Pavel Palazhchenko, personal interpreter of Mikhail Gorbachev, recalls. “But the party was such a big and difficult bureaucracy that it soon became the hindrance on Perestroika.”

The amendments pushed through by Gorbachev permitted political parties to form and take part in political decision making.

“By that time, within the communist party, within the Central committee and within the party apparatus, there were all kinds of people and all kinds of tendencies and even different ideologies. There were traditional communists, social democrats, and those who later became liberals,” Palazhchenko told RT. “The problem and the challenge for Gorbachev was to initially integrate those groups and find a way to make decisions given those conflicts and dividing lines. But then he concluded that is no longer sustainable and that those groups basically separate and go their separate ways into different political parties and organisations. So he came to believe in a multi-party system.”

Russia Today, 15.03.2010