The constitution enumerated economic rights not included in constitutions in the Western democracies . The constitution was presented as a personal triumph for Stalin , who on this occasion was described by '' Pravda '' as " genius of the new world , the wisest man of the epoch , the great leader of communism " . However , historians have seen the constitution as a propaganda document . Leonard Schapiro , for example , writes : " The decision to alter the electoral system from indirect to direct election , from a limited to a universal franchise , and from open to secret voting , was a measure of the confidence of the party in its ability to ensure the return of candidates of its own choice without the restrictions formerly considered necessary " ; and that " a careful scrutiny of the draft of the new constitution showed that it left the party 's supreme position unimpaired , and was therefore worthless as a guarantee of individual rights " . Isaac Deutscher called it " a veil of liberal phrases and premises over the guillotine in the background " . Hannah Arendt observed that it was hailed as the ending of the Soviet Union 's " revolutionary period " , but was immediately followed by the country 's most intense purges in its history , the Great Terror in which many of the constitution 's organizers and draftees — such as Yakov Yakovlev , Aleksei Stetskii , Boris Markovich Tal ' , Vlas Chubar , Karl Radek , Nikolai Bukharin , and Ivan Akulov — were imprisoned or murdered shortly after their work was complete on charges of being counterrevolutionary
Great Terror
Great Purge
1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union