[dragonwriter]

> One difference here is that when the USG says "well it's all done according to law", that law was written and passed by an institution who at least nominally represents and is elected by the people. I don't know if the same can be said of the USSR.

The USSR was also nominally run under laws, which were notionally written and formally adopted by an institution which at least nominally represented and was elected by the people, and no doubt for any particular policy the regime could point to some justification in some provision of the Constitution and laws for the authority to carry out the action.

[brown9-2]

I am asking this out of genuine interest and lack of knowledge - was there a representative legislative body in the USSR in the 1920s?

[dragonwriter]

I believe the Congress of Soviets was an indirectly elected representative legislative body elected by the local Soviets.

[flyinRyan]

Pre-WWI, Russia was a feudal system. After the revolution, pretty much everything was done via some kind of parliamentary procedures. Granted, Lenin was a bully and hammered through the things he wanted but he largely did it via parliamentary consensus. At least at first.

[nknighthb]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Soviets_of_the_Sovi...