The Most Important Document of the Epoch

The Communist Party and the Soviet government have always given great attention to the writing and implementation of constitutional legislation. Each Soviet Constitution has written into law a new and higher stage of social development and reflects changes of the greatest importance in society and state. The history of the development of our state totally confirms this.     

Some Questions Concerning the Responsibility of Medical Personnel

The solution of one of the most important social tasks of Soviet society — that of securing the further development of the state health-care system and securing the right of citizens to health care — presupposes increasing the effectiveness of the means for the legal protection of this personal benefit.     

The Development of Legislation on Safeguarding the State Security of the USSR

The implementation of the strategic course of the CPSU and the Soviet state toward a further development of Socialist democracy necessarily requires strengthening the legal foundations of the life of the state and society. This is one of the ways for developing Socialist democracy outlined in the Constitution of the USSR, and it is organically linked to other aspects of the general process of democratization in Soviet society.     

Stepping on the Same Rake Twenty Years Later

The forms and methods of direction (administration) of the courts, as well as the agencies giving this direction, have changed with the development and strengthening of the Soviet judicial system, in accordance with the tasks placed before the courts at each stage of their development by the Communist Party and the Soviet state.     

Improving the Legal Status and Coordination of the Activity of Ministries

Many years of experience with the functioning of the ministries have shown that, under the conditions of a powerful federal socialist state, they constitute the most desirable form of organization for the central agencies of branch administration. The ministries have undergone reorganization at various periods in the development of the agencies of Soviet state administration, sometimes without sufficient grounds and for reasons of a subjective nature. But the process of improvement of the organization of ministries, guided by leading party bodies, has not ceased.     

The Creative Revolutionary Role of Socialist Law in the Period of the Comprehensive Building of Communism

The Draft Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union outlines brilliant prospects for the development of all aspects of life in Soviet society during the coming 20 years, a development that will ultimately lead to the establishment of a communist society. The Draft Program emphasizes that under the conditions of socialism and the construction of a communist society, spontaneous economic development has yielded to the conscious organization of production and the life of society as a whole. As applied to law this means a substantial broadening of the prospects for the use of legal norms in facilitating the creation of the material and technical base of communism and the new social relations of communism, as well as for rearing the entire working population in the spirit of the lofty demands made upon members of a communist society.     

Major Characteristics of Public Organizations in the USSR in the Contemporary Period

The Draft Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union gives much attention to public organizations, to elevating their role in the life of Soviet society. The fact that the rising role of public organizations is treated, first, in indissoluble connection with the long-run development of government and statehood on the road to communism and, second, as part of the more general problem of the further development of socialist democracy is of exceptional significance to the theory and practice of the building of communism. This permits us to probe more deeply into certain propositions related to the place of public organizations in the political structure of Soviet society and to analyze those characteristics of public organizations that have made it possible for them to have such rich opportunities in the period of the building of communism.     

Some Theoretical Problems of the Constitutional Structure of the Soviet State

The Soviet Constitution is the fundamental law stipulating the socio-economic and political system, defining the principles of organization and functioning of the state agencies, the legal position of social organizations and the legal status of citizens (their fundamental rights and duties), and proclaiming the basic tasks of the people and the trends in the development of society and the state. In other words, it reflects a half century of experience in building the society and state, the historical triumphs of the people in various areas of economic, political and cultural life, and it indicates the direction of further development.     

Certain Problems of State Administration under the Conditions of the Socialist State of the Entire People

Soviet state administration, constituting the activities of state bodies in the daily and direct guidance of economic and socio-cultural development, retains its importance in full in the period of the comprehensive building of communism. The direct relationship between this form of state activity and the developing economic and cultural processes defines the role of the administrative machinery in the establishment of the material and technological foundations for communism and of all the conditions needed for socialist social relationships to undergo transition to communist relations. "Along with problems of economic development," N. S. Khrushchev remarked at the 21st Congress of the CPSU, "there arise pressing problems concerning the political organization of society, the state structure and administration during the period of the comprehensive building of communism."     

Blind Alleys of Post-Soviet Development: Searching for Exits: Editor's Introduction

The articles in this issue of Russian Politics and Law show that Soviet legacies continue to shape the political development of all of the post-Soviet states. Some articles in the issue focus more specifically on Russia, highlighting how some of the political problems that have resulted from Soviet legacies have derailed the liberalization of the region's most important state.     

Cybernetics and Law

One of the most important tasks posed by the CPSU Program is efficient, rational and economic state administration of the economy. In conjunction with the rising role of the Soviet State in political, economic and cultural development, the CPSU Program notes the need to reduce the cost of state administration and to further improve the forms and methods by which it functions.     

Legality and Justice

The present stage in the history of the Soviet state is characterized by the improvement of socialist democracy in all spheres. Legality is most closely connected with democracy. Legality ensures law and order. The policy of developing democracy does not mean that the individual will be left to himself, that observance of the laws is henceforth not obligatory, or that standards are being lowered and a nihilistic attitude toward state discipline is permissible. Certainly, the majority of Soviet people voluntarily observe the provisions of the law as a result of their great consciousness; they regard these provisions as the expression of the will of society as a whole. But at the same time, under present-day conditions, full force still attaches to Lenin's notion that "law is nothing without a machinery capable of compelling observance of its provisions."     

Soviet Political (State) Sciences Association Centers Attention on the Scientific Foundations of Politics

The decisions of the October and November 1964 plenums of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union have drawn attention, with new force, to problems of the scientific validity of political practices. Prevention of subjectivism and unjustified haste in the solution of affairs of state, and the further improvement of the efficiency of all links in the political organization of Soviet society — this is the range of problems now facing the social sciences.     

The Russian Diaspora in the Baltic Countries

The Constitution of the USSR is the basis for the further improvement and development of all branches of law. One of the most important lines of development of the political system of Soviet society is the strengthening of the legal foundation for the affairs of government and society (Article 9, Constitution of the USSR). This provision expresses the need for further elevating the role of law and strengthening legality in the developed socialist society. (1)     

The Russian mafia: Expulsion of law

The purpose of this paper will be to determine whether the conditions that exist in present‐day Russia are congruent with Foucault's claim that power in modern societies is not ensured by law and punishment but by normalization and control, which go beyond the state and its apparatuses, and that law plays an increasingly subordinate role within contemporary disciplinary society. I will also see what conclusions can be drawn from the Russian‐Soviet case that are relevant to evaluating the paradigms supplied by Foucault in deciphering the modalities of power in the modern world. In what sense can he help us understand how discipline and law in Imperial and Soviet Russia created the necessary conditions for the emergence of the Russian Mafia? Law has been transformed in the hands of the Russian Mafia and has expanded its spheres of influence rather than being displaced. The conditions that exist in present‐day Russia can be applied to Foucault's claim that power in modern societies is not ensured by law and punishment but by normalization and control which go beyond the state and its apparatuses. But it is not the case that law plays an increasingly subordinate role in present‐day Russia. Rather, it is no longer controlled by the sovereign power of the monarchy or by the Soviet state and its apparatuses, but is now predominately controlled by the Russian Mafia.     

The CPSU and the Soviets

"Popular sovereignty in our country," we read in the Theses of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Fifty Years of the Great October Socialist Revolution, "is expressed above all in the soviets — representative bodies combining the features of state and civic organizations." The guidance given the soviets by the Communist Party is a vital factor in the Soviet system. This factor reflects the fundamental qualities of the political organization of socialist society. The entire course of the country's historical development has proved irrefutably that complete disclosure of the fundamental advantages of the Soviet organization of power and their utilization in the interests of socialism would be impossible in the absence of the leading role of the Party in the soviets. The relationship between the Party and the soviets in the system of socialist democracy provides the key to understanding the mechanism of popular sovereignty and reflects a fundamentally new interaction between the political leader, the state organization, and the masses of the people that is impossible under a system of exploitation. It is no accident that the apostles of anticommunism are particularly rabid in their attacks on the position of the Party in the republic of soviets, making it their primary target in their slanderous inventions and verbal attempts to subvert the principles of socialist society.     

Advokatura: In Search of Professionalism and Pluralism in Moscow and Leningrad

This investigation sought to discover whether, and in what respects, Soviet advocates in the wake of perestroika are comparable with legal professions in the West. Taped interviews with ten advocates and various other legal specialists in Moscow and Leningrad in the winter of 1988–89 centered on four major professional goals. The responses showed (1) that Soviet advocates felt that their colleges effectively control admission to the bar; (2) that they have little sense of occupational jurisdiction, except in relation to the newly established legal cooperatives; (3) that they behaved like members of a self-governing profession in that bar association chairmen and bureau managers were perceived as colleagues rather than bosses, while party and state intervention control was dismissed as insignificant; (4) although they feel their status has risen dramatically since Gorbachev, it is not clear that this owes much to their collective efforts or that they have developed a corporate ideology to defend their position. Overall, the evidence supports the view that professional aspirations and institutions comparable to those in the West are to be found among Soviet advocates. Whether this might be seen as the reassertion of civil society, and of pluralism, in Soviet society is a much debated but currently unanswerable question. Negative and positive indications on this matter emerged during the research, the latter being rather the more persuasive.     

前苏联“解冻文学”对中国“百花文学”的影响

前苏联的“解冻学”和中国的“百花学”都属于“社会批判学”。“解冻学”在社会批判中阐发“人的尊严”，这一社会批判理论直接影响着“百花学”的形成和发展。“百花学“仿效“解冻学”的创作路数，艺评论思想和组织形式，由于不同的国内形势，“解冻学”得以发展，而“百花学”却被迫中断。     

The Political Organization of Soviet Society: Principal Emphases in Scholarly Research (A Survey of the Literature of 1973-75)

The decisions of the Party orient all the social sciences, including the legal disciplines, to deeper and more diverse investigation of various spheres of the sociopolitical life of Soviet society and to study of the most recent tendencies and phenomena in the work of various sociopolitical institutions. An important place in this regard is occupied by the treatment of questions pertaining to the political organization of Soviet society. Considerable attention has been paid in our literature and in that of the socialist countries to study of this subject, particularly in recent years. This is shown, in part, by the appearance of a number of specialized books treating various aspects of the political organization of Soviet society and also by a large number of articles. (1)     

Informing the Population About the Activity of State Agencies

Under the conditions of developed socialism, the general problem of informing the population, and that of its knowledge about matters of state and law in particular, becomes increasingly more pertinent. "The development of socialist democracy," said L. I. Brezhnev at a meeting with voters of the Bauman Electoral District in Moscow on June 10, 1966, "demands the solution of many problems that the Party has placed on the order of business." One of these tasks is "providing fuller information to the people about everything happening within the country and on the world scene, and increasing publicity [glasnost'] about the work of the agencies of Soviet government." The Communist Party associates improvement of socialist democracy particularly with the level of society's information "about the policies of the Party and state." (1) Therefore, the Soviet government pays much attention to the solution of questions associated with informing the citizenry about the work of governmental agencies and also about their regulation by law. Thus, for example, in the RSFSR law "On the District Soviet of Working People's Deputies of the RSFSR" (June 29, 1971), we read about the responsibility of the executive committee to inform the population about questions placed on the order of business of the soviet (Article 33), to bring decisions of the district soviet to the knowledge of the citizens (Article 38), and to report on its work at meetings of the working population and at citizens' places of employment (Article 55). Article 93 reads: "The district soviet of working people's deputies is responsible for informing the population about its functioning. …" Presidiums of the supreme Soviets of union and autonomous republics monitor observation of provisions of the law, assuring that the population will be widely informed on the work of state agencies. (2) In this connection, examination of the question of the content and forms whereby the population of the USSR becomes informed about the activity of state agencies is of interest.