From the Constituent Assembly to «Non-Predetermination»: White Constitutionalism in the Continental European Context

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the sources of legitimation of power in Central and Eastern Europe after the First World War and in anti-Bolshevik regimes on the territory of the former Russian Empire. Relying on the works by O. A. Kudinov, Ya. A. Butakov, V. D. Zimina, D. R. Zaynutdinov and on the corpus of acts of the White Movement, the author demonstrates that the «White» legal legacy represents an alternative trajectory of Russian statehood that is compatible with European developments. The study identifies the key mechanisms of legitimation employed by White regimes: legal succession to pre-revolutionary law and the decisions of the Provisional Government; the doctrine of nepredreshenija [non-predetermination] with the promise of the Constituent Assembly; the restoration of zemstvos and courts; declarations of rights and the principle of separation of powers implemented alongside a de facto military dictatorship. The analysis reveals an internal synthesis of liberal and conservative elements, as well as the debate over a «written» versus an «unwritten» constitution as competing models for future state organization. Within a parallel European context, the paper reconstructs the trajectory from the liberal-democratic constitutions of the early 1920s (Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.) to the authoritarian drift of the 1930s, legitimized through new fundamental laws, plebiscites, and the figure of a leader. The study proposes a typology of interwar models of legitimation, namely: popular sovereignty and constitutionalism; imperial succession and national unity; personalist, leader-centered monarchy/presidentialism; and ideological mobilization. From this perspective, the White Movement combines several models: it is oriented toward the rule of law and European standards while simultaneously insisting on a «united and indivisible» Russia and on temporary dictatorship as an instrument for saving the state. The scientific novelty of the study lies in clarifying the place of White constitutional projects within the European legal continuum and in specifying the reasons for the failed institutionalization of the White Alternative. The findings support further comparative research into mechanisms of legitimation across the Eurasian area.

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