 | You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Russian. (January 2013)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Anti-Sovietism oranti-Soviet sentiment are activities that were actually or allegedly aimed against theSoviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union.[1]
Three common uses of the term include the following:
.jpg)
During theRussian Civil War that followed theOctober Revolution of 1917, the anti-Soviet side was theWhite movement. During theInterwar period, some resistance movements, particularly in the 1920s, were cultivated byPolish intelligence in the form of thePromethean project. AfterGermany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, anti-Soviet forces were created and led primarily byNazi Germany (seeRussian Liberation Movement). During theCold War, theUnited States led the anti-Soviet and anti-communistWestern Bloc.
During the Russian Civil War, whole classes of people, such as the clergy,kulaks and formerImperial Russian officers, were automatically considered anti-Soviet. More categories are listed in the article "Enemy of the People". Those who were deemed anti-Soviet in this way, because of their former social status, were often presumed guilty whenever tried for a crime.[2][page needed]
The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term "enemy of the people" (Russian:враг народа,romanized: vrag naroda). The term was first used in a speech byFelix Dzerzhinsky, the first chairman of theCheka, after theOctober Revolution. ThePetrograd Military Revolutionary Committee printed lists of "enemies of the people", andVladimir Lenin invoked it in his decree of 28 November 1917:[3]
all leaders of theConstitutional Democratic Party, as a party of enemies of the people, are hereby to be considered outlaws, and are to be arrested immediately and brought before the revolutionary court.[4]
Other similar terms were in use as well:
In particular, the term "enemy of the workers" was formalized in theArticle 58 (RSFSR Penal Code),[5] and similar articles in the codes of the otherSoviet Republics.
At various times these terms were applied, in particular, toTsar Nicholas II and theImperial family,aristocrats, thebourgeoisie,clerics,business entrepreneurs,anarchists,kulaks,monarchists,Mensheviks,Esers,Bundists,Trotskyists,Bukharinists, the "old Bolsheviks", the army and police,emigrants,saboteurs,wreckers (вредители, "vrediteli"), "social parasites" (тунеядцы, "tuneyadtsy"),Kavezhedists (people who administered and serviced theKVZhD (China Far East Railway), particularly the Russian population ofHarbin, China), and those consideredbourgeois nationalists (notablyRussian,Ukrainian,Belarusian,Armenian,Lithuanian, Latvian,Estonian nationalists,Zionists,Basmachi).[6]
Since 1927, Article 20 of the Common Part of the penal code that listed possible "measures ofsocial defence" had the following item 20a: "declaration to be an enemy of the workers with deprivation of the union republic citizenship and hence of theUSSR citizenship, with obligatory expulsion from its territory". Nevertheless, most "enemies of the people" suffered labor camps, rather than expulsion.
Later in the Soviet Union, being anti-Soviet was a criminal offense, known as "Anti-Soviet agitation". Theepithet "antisoviet" wassynonymous with "counter-revolutionary". The noun "antisovietism" was rarely used and the noun "antisovietist" (Russian:антисоветчик,romanized: antisovetchik) was used in a derogatory sense.Anti-Soviet agitation and activities werepolitical crimes handled by theArticle 58 and later Article 70 of theRSFSR penal code and similar articles in otherSoviet republics. In February 1930, there was an anti-Sovietinsurgency in theKazak Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic village ofSozak.[7]
After the end of theSecond World War, there wereEastern European anti-Communist insurgencies against the Soviet Union.
In August 2022Estonia began removing Soviet monuments, beginning with aT-34 tank in Narva, claiming it was necessary for "public order" and "internal security".[8][9]
.jpg)
On 6 May 2022, following theRussian invasion of Ukraine, Latvian Prime MinisterKrišjānis Kariņš announced that the removal of the controversialmonument to theRed Army was inevitable.[11] Five days later a public fundraising campaign was launched and more than 39,000 euros had been donated by 12 May[12] when theSaeima voted to suspend the functioning of a section regarding the preservation of memorial structures in an agreement between Latvia and Russia.[13] By 13 May, the total amount of donations had almost reached 200,000 euros.[14]
A rally "Getting Rid of Soviet Heritage" taking place on March 20 was attended by approximately 5,000 people,[15] while a counter rally byLatvian Russian Union was prevented from taking place by security forces, claiming threat to "public security".[16]
A list of 93 street names still glorifying theSoviet regime (such as 13 streets named after thePioneer movement), as well as 48 street names given during theRussification at the end of the 19th century (like streets named afterAlexander Pushkin), has been compiled by historians of the Public Memory Center and sent to the corresponding municipalities who were recommended to change them.[17]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)