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Soviet Union [USSR] Socialist Legality
Soviet law displayed many special characteristics that derived
from the
socialist (see Glossary) nature of the Soviet state and
reflected Marxist-Leninist ideology. Lenin accepted the Marxist
conception of the law and the state as instruments of coercion in
the hands of the bourgeoisie and postulated the creation of
popular, informal tribunals to administer revolutionary justice.
Alongside this utopian trend, a dictatorial trend developed that
advocated the use of law and legal institutions to suppress all
opposition to the regime. The latter trend reached its zenith under
Stalin, when the administration of justice was carried out mainly
by the security police in special tribunals. During the deStalinization of the Khrushchev era, a new trend developed, based
on
socialist legality (see Glossary), that stressed the need to
protect the procedural and statutory rights of citizens, while
still calling for obedience to the state. New legal codes,
introduced in 1960, were part of the effort to establish legal
norms in administering laws. Although socialist legality remained
in force after 1960, the dictatorial and utopian trends continued
to influence the legal process. Persecution of political and
religious dissenters, in flagrant violation of their legal rights,
continued, but at the same time there was a tendency to
decriminalize lesser offenses by handing them over to
people's courts (see Glossary) and administrative
agencies and dealing with
them by education rather than by incarceration.
By late 1986, the Gorbachev regime was stressing anew the
importance of individual rights in relation to the state and
criticizing those who violated the procedural laws in implementing
Soviet justice. This signaled a resurgence of socialist legality as
the dominant trend. It should be noted, however, that socialist
legality itself still lacked important features associated with
Western jurisprudence. In particular, the ultimate control of the
legal system lay with the party leadership, which was not
democratically elected by, and therefore not responsible to, the
public at large.
Data as of May 1989
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