Some Conclusions

Abstract

The contributors to this volume have dealt with a variety of legislatures from a variety of angles and employing a variety of sources — published proceedings, interview data, the daily press and specialist journals. They have nonetheless had, broadly speaking, a common focus and point of departure: the widely prevalent Western stereotype by which legislatures in the communist states are seen as negligible, ‘rubber stamp’ institutions with a purely propagandist role, their proceedings pertaining more to the realm of theatre than to that of politics. It is perhaps the single most important conclusion of this volume that this stereotype has been found seriously misleading, not just in what may be regarded as exceptional cases such as Yugoslavia and Poland, but in the case of most of the communist legislatures considered in this volume.