Justice and Public Opinion

One of the key questions of justice has become the subject of a discussion that has developed in Izvestia. It can be said that its kernel is the matter of the independence of the judiciary. It is this question that underlies the article by Korenevskii and Sukhodolets, "A Cause of Errors" [Otchego byvaiut oshibki] (Izvestia, No. 61), against which Galkin wrote in his article "The Court and Public Passions" [Sud i obshchestvennye] (Izvestia, No. 91).     

The Subject of Soviet Criminology

The question of the subject of Soviet criminology remains in dispute to this day. The authors of the present article, who initially considered criminology a component of criminal law, (1) have now arrived at a different conclusion. Reviews of the textbook Soviet Criminology [Sovetskaia kriminologiia] noted, as one of its shortcomings, a vague solution of the question of the subject of this science. (2) Considering this, as well as the fact that the subject of a science is among the most important questions, we have decided to offer certain of our thoughts on this subject.     

Delimitation Of Competence Between USSR Agencies and Republic Agencies in the Field of Economic Guidance

The question of the scientific bases for distribution of powers [polnomochii] between the USSR and its entities [sub'ekty], the union republics, in the field of economic guidance is of political, practical, and theoretical importance.     

Scientific-Methodological Conference of USSR Supreme Court

The Scientific Consultative Council under the USSR Supreme Court has held a scientific-methodological conference. It was in preparation for a long time. As early as July 1965, the journal Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost' informed its readers of the forthcoming conference and published an article by S. Radzhabov, "Improve the Administration of the Courts" [Sovershenstvovat' sudebnoe upravlenie], and another by S. Komissarov, "The Supervisory Powers of the USSR Supreme Court Need Improving" [Nadzornye polnomochiia Verkhovnogo Suda Soiuza SSR nuzhdaiutsia v sover-shenstvovanii]. In August of last year a report was published of a round-table conference conducted by the editors and devoted to the effectiveness of criminal punishment. Subsequently, the journals Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost', Sovetskaia iustitsiia, and Radians'ke pravo have been publishing, in each of their issues, articles, surveys, and proposals on improving the functioning of the courts and increasing the effectiveness of criminal punishment.     

Chapter 15: Syphilitic Diseases of the Central Nervous System

Syphilitic diseases of the central nervous system (neurosyphilis) are caused by Spirochaeta pallida, and include: syphilis of the brain, progressive paralysis, and syphilis of the spinal cord (tabes dorsalis).     

The Standing Committees: Techniques of Monitoring

Note from the editors of Sovety deputatov trudiashchikhsia: Continuing the study of the functioning of Soviets, personnel of the USSR Academy of Sciences' Institute of State and Law looked into the operations of local organs of power in the Latvian SSR. Jointly with practical workers in the field, they prepared a number of scholarly recommendations, including proposals to improve the techniques of monitoring [kontrol'] by the standing committees of district and city Soviets.     

The Standing Committees and the Ministries

The 23rd Congress of the CPSU posed the task of enhancing the role of the supreme Soviets and defined the principal directions to be followed in solving this task. The most important of them are the further improvement in the activity of the standing committees [postoiannye komissii], which contribute to the development of socialist democracy, the improvement in the work of the supreme Soviets and the agencies of state administration, and the activization of deputies. At the first session of the seventh Supreme Soviet [sed'mogo sozyva] of the USSR, the report by N. V. Podgorny, Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, "On Organizing the Standing Committees of the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities," emphasized the major role of the standing committees in social and economic development and expressed confidence that their functioning would promote the fulfillment of the tasks facing the country. (1) The seventh supreme Soviets of the USSR and of the union republics carried out a number of practical measures to implement the instructions of the party to increase the role of the standing committees.     

On Improving the Legislation on Territorial and Regional Soviets of Working People's Deputies

The Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Twenty-fifth Party Congress advanced the proposal of adopting laws to define the jurisdiction of territorial [krai], regional [oblast'], and area [okrug] soviets of working people's deputies. This proposal was adopted unanimously by the delegates to the congress. In the course of the work begun to draft these laws, which will define the content and form of activity at the present stage of the building of communism of such an important link in the system of soviets as the regional and territorial soviets, many questions have arisen demanding profound and comprehensive scientific study. In this connection the editors invite legal scholars and practical workers to share in the pages of the journal the results of their research and generalizations from the experience of the work of the soviets and from application of the prevailing legislation, and to express judgments, proposals, and recommendations on the paths to be followed in improving the legislation on territorial, regional, and area soviets.     

Population Dynamics and the Law

One of the basic functions of human society is that of assuring the continuation of the human race. "According to the materialist view," wrote Engels, "the production and reproduction of life itself is, in the final analysis, the determining factor in history." (1) At various stages in the development of human society, this function has found realization in differing social forms. (2) At present it is implemented almost everywhere through the contemporary monogamous family. The family is the nucleus of society; through it, the state's population policy is carried out. The other functions of the family (educational, economic) are, as a rule, consequences of its primary function. They supplement it and flow from it.     

Chapter 7: General Information on the Structure of the Nervous System and on Higher Nervous Activity and Its Disorders in Mental Diseases

The nervous system of vertebrates has undergone a long and complex evolution and in man has reached its highest stage of development. The basic structural element of the nervous system in vertebrates and in man is the nerve cell (Fig. 3). Each nerve cell, or neuron, contains cytoplasm, a nucleus, and processes. One fine process, especially long, is called an axon. Nerve impulses pass along axons from the body of a cell to other cells or to innervated organs. Other, shorter processes branch out treelike a short distance from the cell and are called dendrites. Axons of some cells come in contact with dendrites and bodies of other cells to form neuron chains along which nerve impulses are conducted.     

The 1970s : Reply to a Discussion

We are all aware of the vast practical and scientific significance of the problem of studying and preventing crime and of researching its causes and the conditions giving rising to it. That is why one of the principal provisions of Soviet criminal procedure is the demand that the reasons and conditions making possible the commission of the crime be determined in each criminal case, and that measures be taken to eliminate them. But if the most characteristic, the most typical features in the development of criminality are to be discovered, and if its essential causes and conditions are to be determined (and this is a most important task of criminology), we cannot rely upon the study of individual cases and persons. Because these typical, essential characteristics in the realm of criminality manifest themselves in the form of statistical regularities, criminology must therefore make use of the statistical method on the very largest scale, i.e., it must base its conclusions upon mass-scale observations. "We must remember the rule," wrote Lenin, "that in social science... we deal with mass-scale phenomena and not individual cases." (1) Therefore, criminology, like the other social sciences, is required "to make broader and fuller use of the richest statistical material. For statistics, like concrete investigations, are the air without which science suffocates and is distorted into dead scholasticism." (2)     

A Collaboration,Not a Duel

In a number of articles published in LG, advocates take on the appearance, in readers' eyes, of lone fighters for truth, law, and justice in the courts. There is no other party on whom a defendant can depend for defense of his legal rights. The picture that emerges is that of the defense counsel as an "adversary" in the case, conducting a struggle over the defendant with another "adversary," the procurator, the state prosecutor. In such a situation, the latter naturally seeks to incriminate, to bring about punishment of the defendant. And for him this is, after all, easy, for behind him is the entire powerful system of the procuracy with all its organizational and technical resources!     

Counsel for the Defense Has the Floor

The discussion on "The Defense Counsel: Rights and Problems," launched by LG this January, is approaching its conclusion. Today lawyers and an investigator offer their views.     

The Stigma Enigma: Doublespeak,Double Standards,Double Dipping and the Double-Sided Nature of Stigma in Toxic Tort Property Damage Claims

“Ignorance is strength” “2+2=5” Mottos of “Big Brother” excerpted from the novel 1984 by George Orwell     

A New Textbook

Moscow University Press has published a new textbook, Public Law of the Bourgeois Countries and of Countries Liberated from Colonial Dependence. (1) The very title of the textbook is evidence that the team of authors headed by Professor Mishin has abandoned the traditional organization of the course in public law of bourgeois countries by including among the problems studied the systems of public law of countries that upon liberation from colonial dependence took the political forms of bourgeois democracy or of established authoritarian political regimes. This grouping is entirely justified and is explained by the fact that all nonsocialist governmental systems have a number of significant common characteristics, above all the fact that they reinforce and protect the capitalist economic system and capitalist ownership of the implements and means of production.     

Social Interests and the Competence of Administrative Organs

A complex system of interests may be seen in socialist society. (1) With respect to the subject matter of this article, they may be classified as the interests of the country as a whole; the individual republics and territorial administrative units; branches of the economy, economic agencies and enterprises; and personal interests. Moreover, each of these may be comprised of long-range and immediate interests. Socialist property, the fact that state power is in the hands of the working people, and the leadership role played by the Communist Party create the foundation for a harmonious combining of diverse interests and a profound internal unity. The system of Soviet state administration is structured to reckon with all these interests and assures that they will be harmonized in a manner best facilitating the further forward development of society.(2)     

On Promulgation of the Statute on Preliminary Confinement Under Guard

The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics orders:

Article 1. Promulgation of the Statute on Preliminary Confinement Under Guard and that it go into effect as of November 1, 1969.     

The Court Settles the Case!

The discussion of problems of legal defense, begun this year in the pages of LG, has produced a lively exchange of opinions and has touched on important questions of our criminal proceedings.     

Law of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic on the Adoption of the RSFSR Code on Marriage and the Family

The Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic decrees:

Article 1. The RSFSR Code on Marriage and the Family is hereby adopted and shall be put into effect on November 1, 1969.