Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet () was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). These soviets were modeled after the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, establ ...

elections were held in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

on 4 March 1984.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1642 The elections were called on December 16, 1983. The elections were not free and fair, as there was no genuine competition and no meaningful choice for voters to make. They were the last in the Soviet Union to be held before

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

's policies of

perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

and demokratizatsiya resulted in partially free elections in

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

. They were also the last direct elections to the Supreme Soviet, as in 1989 deputies were elected to the Congress of People's Deputies, who then elected the Supreme Soviet.

Electoral system

Candidates had to be nominated by the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

(CPSU) or by a public organisation.Nohlen & Stöver, p1630 However, all public organisations were controlled by the party and were subservient to a 1931 law that required them to accept party rule. The CPSU itself remained the only legal one in the country. Voters could vote against the CPSU candidate, but could only do so by using polling booths, whereas votes for the party could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot. Turnout was required to be over 50% for the election to be valid.

Candidates

CPSU candidates accounted for around three quarters of the nominees, whilst many of the others were members of

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

Results

With over 184 million Soviet citizens voting in the election, over 99% of the votes went to a deputy to the

, with over 100,000 votes against Party candidates, the lowest for any election in the Soviet Union.''Party, State, and Citizen in the Soviet Union: A Collection of Documents'', edited by Mervyn Matthews, London: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1989, p. 5-6, 16-18.

Soviet of the Union

Soviet of Nationalities

References

{{Soviet elections

Legislative elections in the Soviet Union One-party elections Single-candidate elections