Soviet criminal law

LL.B., Harvard Law School 1966; M.A., Harvard University 1966.     

The Rights of an Urban Soviet Subordinate to Another Urban Soviet

As a consequence of the reorganization of the soviets in accordance with the production principle, many small towns have been detached from rural districts, and the soviets of these towns have been subordinated to those of larger cities that are directly subordinate to territories and regions. In individual cases, the soviets of the small towns have been placed under district soviets of cities which have district subdivisions. At present some 300 towns have thus been subordinated to others, including 230 in the RSFSR.     

Soviet Household Saving Function

In this paper, the Soviet household saving function is estimated using reconstructed data from the unpublished archival material: the Soviet family budget survey data. In addition, a shortage indicator is developed to capture both household purchasing power in comparison with the availability of consumer goods in the official market and the spillover of the household demand for consumer goods from the official retail market to the secondary one. A long-run solution of the Soviet household saving function, which includes a shortage indicator as one of the independent variables, is estimated using these data. The reliability of the long-run solution is confirmed by the short-run dynamics of the Soviet household saving function, which satisfy super-exogeneity, parameter constancy, and several diagnostic tests. The highly significant coefficient of the shortage indicator suggests that Soviet household saving behaviour was affected by shortages of consumer goods during 1965–1989.     

Soviet Law and Government

Broad preparations are now under way for the forthcoming elections to the supreme Soviets of the union and autonomous republics and the local Soviets of working people's deputies. As we know, elections will take place on March 3 in the RSFSR, the Ukrainian, Belorussian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Moldavian, Latvian, Tajik and Turkmenian union republics, and on March 17 in the Georgian, Azerbaijan, Lithuanian, Kirgiz, Armenian and Estonian union republics.     

Soviet Science in Figures

For Soviet science 1974 is a jubilee year. It was 250 years ago that the Academy of Sciences was founded, precursor of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which today unites the most important research institutions doing fundamental research.     

The Soviet Bank for Foreign Trade and Soviet Banks abroad: A note

Economic Change and Restructuring -     

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.     

Criminal Justice in Soviet Russia

Compared to American criminal justice, the fabric of Russia's system is a tightly woven structure operating under centralized co-ordination. During recent history, the goals of Russia's criminal justice system have shifted from repression by terrorism to crime prevention through education and an emphasis on individual duty in peace-keeping matters.

The militia (police), created in 1917, has been mandated to prevent crime through intelligence activities, direct intervention, and citizen education. In 1966, it was given the responsibility for the supervision of offenders newly released from correctional institutions. Peoples Volunteer Brigades and the DRUZHINNIKS aid the militia in crime prevention.

The courts also make use of non-professionals in the persons of lay assessors to insure that the accused is judged by his “peers.” The court system itself is inquisitorial in nature as opposed to the American accusational model. As the accused person moves through pre-trial and trial procedures, one can see how his “rights” may be legally abridged at every step.

Russian courts have a variety of sentences from which to choose, ranging in harshness from public censure to death by shooting. Deprivation of liberty may be applied by degree from “education” to compulsory labor to strict incarceration. The Soviets are attempting an organized plan of diversionary sentencing, in order to reduce prison populations to all but the most dangerous offenders.

Correctional facilities depend on inmate commissions to keep order and motivate good behavior through group influence and peer pressure. Inmates as well as civilians have “a national duty to mind other people's business.”

In the United States, justice is fragmented into a variety of jurisdictions: municipal, county, state, and federal, each with its own law enforcement agencies, courts, and correctional agencies. Further, there is only limited coordination among the various segments of the system. There is little argument to the proposition that the American “system” of criminal justice is inefficient.

Unlike America's disjointed system, the Russian Criminal justice system is unified; militia (police), procurators (prosecutors), courts, and correctional facilities operate under a centralized coordinating body. This body is characterized by a unity of purpose and a high degree of systemic integration (Juviler, 1979, p. 1).     

Adoption under Soviet Family Law

A ramified system of public institutions for children has been established in the USSR, in which children who have been left without parents live and study. At the same time, legislation has provided for the adoption of children by individual citizens who may wish to take children into their families, raise and take care of them as they would their own.     

The Last Year of Soviet Inertia

This article addresses the radical changes in Russian foreign policy that took place in 2014. By the end of 2013, Moscow had exhausted the potential for progressively raising its international status by evolutionary means. As 2014 approached, Russia started to define its own habitat. The trigger was a clash between comprehensive and mutually exclusive integration projects.     

New Charter of the Soviet Railroads

In April 1964, the USSR Council of Ministers gave its approval to the new Charter of the Soviet Railroads, which went into effect on October 1, 1964. (1) This Charter replaces that of 1954, the shortcomings of which were among the basic factors necessitating a new codification of the norms regulating the operation of railway transport. Many of the provisions of the 1954 Charter gave the railroads privileged status over other branches of the economy and created a number of utterly unjustified benefits and advantages, thereby undermining the principle of cost accounting in the relationships between railway transport and its clientele.     

Ideology and Politics in Soviet Society

A few days ago the former leader of the Lithuanian Communists, A. Brazauskas, became president of Lithuania, the republic where democratic transformations first began in the old USSR. The circle has been closed, as it were. The Party's old guard in Russia is celebrating, counting the days until it can "begin to roll" again in Moscow. The Communist Party has risen again from the ashes. On the television screens, the "Gekachepists" [members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency] are being hailed as good angels. Rumors of their impending demise—dear Tat'iana Ivanovna Koriagina, indeed you defended them so zealously—have turned out to be greatly exaggerated. There they are, all having grown a little younger, with shining eyes. …