Constitution of the Soviet Union (1936)

The 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, also known as the Stalin Constitution, was the basic law of the USSR, adopted on 5 December 1936. It was the second constitution of the Soviet Union, replacing the 1924 Constitution, and 5 December was thereafter celebrated annually as Soviet Constitution Day; the date was regarded as the second foundational moment of the USSR, after the October Revolution of 1917. The 1936 Constitution redesigned the government of the Soviet Union, expanded a wide range of rights and freedoms on paper, and spelled out a number of democratic procedures, and under it the Congress of Soviets replaced itself with the Supreme Soviet, which amended the constitution in 1944. It proved to be the longest-surviving constitution of the Soviet Union, and many Eastern Bloc countries later adopted constitutions closely modeled on it, before it was itself replaced by the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union, known as the Brezhnev Constitution, on 7 October 1977.