Art. 11 of the
1918 Constitution of the RSFSR stated that autonomous regional unions "distinguished by their distinctive way of life and ethnic composition" may be formed. With explicit reference to the article, the
Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR passed a decree on October 19, 1918 to establish the
Labour Commune of Volga Germans, a precursor to the future autonomous republics and oblasts. The
Karelian Labor Commune was later established in 1920. The
labor commune as a type of administrative division did not receive further consolidation of legal status due to the transformation of both of them into ASSRs in 1923. While the
1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union simply mentioned the existence of autonomous republics and oblasts, the codified them as part of the power structure. The
1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union would follow suit while also listing all existing autonomous units in Art. 22 to 29. The
1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union renamed national okrugs to
autonomous okrugs and defined them alongside the autonomous oblasts, albeit without listing each of them.
Parade of sovereignties Unlike for the union republics, the Constitution did not spcify a right to disaffiliate from the Union for autonomous units. On April 3, 1990, a law was passed which stated that when a union republic was voting to leave the Soviet Union, autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, and autonomous okrugs had the right, by means of a
referendum, to independently resolve whether they would stay in the USSR or leave with the seceding union republic, as well as broader rights to raise the issue of their state-legal status. On April 26, 1990, a law was passed where autonomous republics were considered "constituent entities of the federation, the USSR". In the months following the proposal of
New Union Treaty by Gorbachev during the
Communist Party Congress in July 1990, most of autonomous republics declared sovereignty and expressed the desire to be a party to the new treaty during the
parade of sovereignties. Most of them participated in the to draft the treaty, and the status of former autonomous republics was a major point of contention among participants. On July 12, 1991, the Supreme Soviet passed the resolution "About the draft treaty on Union of Sovereign States" to state its stance on the matter that each of "the subjects of the federation, including both the sovereign states - the republics - and the republics incorporated within them on a treaty or constitutional basis" "possesses the right to sign the text of the Union Treaty". As a compromise, the final draft of the treaty allowed a state to join the Union as a part of another state, but the autonomous republics were not invited to sign it on July 23. The effort was ultimately futile due to the
August Coup. ==Russian SFSR==