Parliamentarism

NO ACT DURING THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION is more controversial than the decision to suppress the Constituent Assembly in January 1918. A century later, no question is politically more relevant. The reason is that such bodies are making a comeback. In 2007, Jan Norden’s Internationalist Group reported that constituent-assembly “mania” was underway in Oaxaca, Bolivia, Argentina, and elsewhere,1 while since then they have convened in Nepal, Ecuador, Iceland, and Venezuela. The left social-democrat Jean-Luc Mélenchon made the call for a constituent assembly the centerpiece of his French presidential campaign last spring while Yanis Varoufakis has called for one for the entire European Union. [Read More]