MOSCOW : Is Party Really Over?
Did President Boris N. Yeltsin violate the Russian consitution when he banned the Communist Party last fall? Was the party anti-constitutional anyway because it acted as the Soviet Union’s all-powerful super-government for 70 years instead of as a normal political organization?
Those are the questions facing Russia’s 13-member Constitutional Court when it convenes today for the most politically explosive trial the country has seen since the Soviet breakup.
The trial is expected to include new disclosures about the inner dealings of the Communist leadership. But it apparently will not feature Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the former Soviet president and Communist Party general secretary, who has declared that he will not, under any circumstances, testify.
No deadline has been publicly set for the court’s decision.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
