Russia's Constitutional Court on Monday largely upheld President Boris Yeltsin's ban on the Communist Party, but it also allowed the party to resume grassroots activity and try to regain some of its property.
Both sides claimed victory following the decision, which came on the eve of a crucial session of the Congress of People's Deputies.The ruling could shield Yeltsin from impeachment attempts by former Communist holdovers who dominate the Congress.
The court, the country's highest for constitutional issues, decided that Yeltsin acted constitutionally in 1991 when he shut down the national structure of the party that ruled the Soviet Union for seven decades.
But the court said local Communist groups can exist and left open the possibility that they could gradually rebuild a new national organization.
Chief Judge Valery Zorkin, who presided over the four-month landmark trial, said the 13-member court ruled that Yeltsin had the authority to seize state property that had been under the party's control.
But the judges said other party property should not have been seized without a decision of the Court of Arbitration, the country's business court.
The Communist Party owned vast amounts of property, including office buildings, apartments, resorts, hospitals, schools, newspapers, bank accounts and automobiles. Since its dissolution, these have been taken over by the state or groups of workers.
Further legal action almost certainly will be necessary to determine what party property belonged to the state and what portions were purchased from the dues of the party's 19 million members.
"The ruling has all the qualities of a compromise," said Andrei Makarov, a Yeltsin lawyer, speaking after the verdict was announced to a packed courtroom.
Yegor Ligachev, the party's former ideologist, said the court's ruling would allow the party to "both revive and unify."
He predicted it would give a boost to former Communists who have formed smaller parties, and that these will gradually form one large party that will seek to regain some of the party property.
Makarov, however, said he did not think the Communist Party was likely to restore itself on the basis of its "regional organizations."
"These organizations are practically nonexistent, and I doubt that former Communists will rush to join their ranks," he said.
Another Yeltsin lawyer, Mikhail Fedotov, predicted that former Communists will bring lawsuits to try to regain property purchased with party dues, such as old-age homes and youth camps.
"I think this is a victory not so much for the president as for society as a whole, which is learning to resolve such disputes in a normal, legal fashion," Fedotov said.
Valentin Kuptsov, former head of the Russian branch of the Communist Party, said the party would not immediately claim its former newspapers, including Pravda, or prominent buildings on Moscow's Old Square and around St. Petersburg's Smolny Cathedral.
The trial resulted from a lawsuit filed by 37 pro-Communist legislators who contended that Yeltsin exceeded his constitutional authority when he issued three decrees banning the party and nationalizing its property after the failed coup.