Exercise 3: Why Yeltsin's Unconstitutional Decree Prevailed Once Conflict Escalated — Possible Solution
==================================================================================================================

This exercise asks you to explain why constitutional legality alone did
not determine the crisis's real outcome, and what actually did.

WHAT WAS FORMALLY, CONSTITUTIONALLY TRUE
Yeltsin's 21 September 1993 decree dissolving the Congress of People's
Deputies was, by the real terms of the constitution then in force, an act
he had no legal authority to take. The Congress's own response -
declaring the decree void and impeaching him - was, on paper, the
constitutionally correct reaction to an unauthorized presidential action.

WHY LEGALITY ALONE DIDN'T DECIDE THE OUTCOME
A constitution's own rules only function if some real, effective power
exists to enforce them against a violator. Once Yeltsin had already
acted and the Congress had responded by declaring him impeached rather
than accepting the dissolution, the dispute was no longer being settled
through the constitutional text - it had become a real contest over
which side could actually exercise physical control of the state.

WHAT ACTUALLY DECIDED IT
The real, decisive factor was military force. Yeltsin, as president,
retained real command authority over the armed forces; the Congress and
its deputies inside the White House did not have an equivalent
independent military force of their own. When Yeltsin ordered the
military to shell the White House and arrest the lawmakers on 3-4
October 1993, that command was obeyed - meaning the crisis was resolved
by which side could compel real, physical compliance, not by which side
had the stronger formal constitutional argument.

ANSWER: Yeltsin's unconstitutional decree prevailed because a
constitution's own rules only bind through some enforcement mechanism,
and once the dispute escalated past the point of formal argument, real
military command - which Yeltsin held and the Congress did not - became
the actual deciding factor, overriding the Congress's own genuinely
correct constitutional objection because legality without the real power
to enforce it could not stop force being used against it.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
------------------------------
It separates the formal constitutional question (who was legally correct)
from the real question of enforcement (who could compel compliance),
explaining why the crisis's actual outcome tracked the second question
rather than the first.