The activity of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the RSFSR stopped under the decree of the President of the RSFSR

As a result of the elections of June 12, 1991 the RSFSR became a sovereign state with the presidential form of government. Among the first documents signed by the Russian president B.N. Yeltsin there was the decree of July 20, 1991 ‘On ceasing of participation of political parties and mass social movements in the activity of the state bodies, institutions and organizations of the RSFSR’. Under this decree the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its local divisions were disabled of interference into the activity of the state institutions.

However, when the power was seized by the State Committee of the State of Emergency on August 19 – 22, 1991, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and many local party committees had supported the State Committee of the State of Emergency having violated the decree. Therefore on August 23, 1991 during the session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin signed the decree “On suspending the activity of the Communist Party of the RSFSR”, and on August 25 - the decree “On the property of the Communist Party of the RSFSR”, that seized the Party’s property.

After all the investigations, under the President’s decree of November 6, 1991 the activity of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the RSFSR was forbidden in the territory of Russia and their organizational structures were to be dissolved, the property of the Party were to be nationalized.

However a series of clauses of the decree of November 6 rouse some censures of a group of Peoples’ deputies. That is why in 1992 several sessions of the Constitutional court of the Russian Federation took place. During these sessions the legality of the decree on the whole had been confirmed but the provisions that did not correspond to the Russian legislation were abolished. Thus the demands to dissolve primary party organizations formed on the basis of a particular territory and to nationalize the part of the property that belonged to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or had been under its authority, were recognized illegal.

The present Communist Party of the Russian Federation is an independent political organization. It exists from March 1993 in accordance with the standards of the Russian legislation currently in force.

Lit.: О деятельности КПСС и КП РСФСР: указ президента РФ от 8 нояб. 1991 г. // Ведомости Съезда народных депутатов РФ и Верховного Совета РФ. 1991. № 45, ст. 1537.