| Politics of the Soviet Union |
|---|
.svg) |
 Soviet Union portal |
Human rights in theSoviet Union were severely limited. TheSoviet Union was atotalitarian state from1927 until 1953[1][2][3][4] and aone-party state until 1990.[5]Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether they involved participation in freelabor unions, privatecorporations, independent churches or oppositionpolitical parties. The citizens'freedom of movement was limited both inside and outside the country.
In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed the very powerfulrule of law,civil liberties,protection of law andguarantees of property,[6][7] which were considered examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet legal theorists such asAndrey Vyshinsky.[8] The Soviet Union signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973, but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by the Communist authorities.[9]: 117 Human rights activists in the Soviet Union were regularly subjected to harassment, repressions and arrests.
According to theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights,human rights are the "basicrights andfreedoms to which all humans are entitled."[10] including the right tolife andliberty,freedom of expression, andequality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate inculture, theright to food, theright to work, and the right toeducation.
The Soviet conception of human rights was very different frominternational law. According toSoviet legal theory, "it is the government who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be assertedagainst the individual".[11] TheSoviet state was considered as the source of human rights.[12] Therefore, the Soviet legal system consideredlaw an arm of politics and it also considered courts agencies of the government.[13] Extensiveextrajudicial powers were given to theSoviet secret police agencies. In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed therule of law,civil liberties,protection of law andguarantees of property,[6][7] which were considered as examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet law theorists such asAndrey Vyshinsky.[8]
The USSR and other countries in theSoviet Bloc had abstained from affirming theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), saying that it was "overly juridical" and potentially infringed on national sovereignty.[14]: 167–169 The Soviet Union later signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 (and the 1966International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by the Communist authorities.[9]: 117 UnderJoseph Stalin, thedeath penalty was extended to adolescents as young as 12 years old in 1935.[15][16][17]
Sergei Kovalev recalled "the famous article 125 of the Constitution which enumerated all basic civil and political rights" in the Soviet Union. But when he and other prisoners attempted to use this as a legal basis for their abuse complaints, their prosecutor's argument was that "the Constitution was written not for you, but for American Negroes, so that they know how happy the lives of Soviet citizens are".[18]
Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, instead, it was determined as any action which could threaten the Soviet state and society. For example,a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as acounter-revolutionary activity punishable by death.[13]The liquidation and deportation of millions of peasants in 1928–31 was carried out within the terms of the Soviet Civil Code.[13] Some Soviet legal scholars even said that "criminal repression" may be applied in the absence of guilt.[13]Martin Latsis, chief ofSoviet Ukraine'ssecret police explained: "Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to whichclass he belongs, what is his background, hiseducation, hisprofession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of theRed Terror."[19]
The purpose ofpublic trials was "not to demonstrate the existence or absence of a crime – that was predetermined by the appropriateparty authorities – but to provide yet another forum forpolitical agitation and propaganda for the instruction of the citizenry (seeMoscow Trials for example). Defense lawyers, who had to beparty members, were required to take their client's guilt for granted..."[13]
In the 1930s and 1940s, political repression was widely practiced by the Sovietsecret police services,OGPU andNKVD.[20] An extensive network of civilianinformants – either volunteers, or those forcibly recruited – was used to collect intelligence for the government and report cases of suspected dissent.[21]
Its theoretical basis was the theory ofMarxism concerningclass struggle. The terms "repression", "terror", and other strong words were official working terms, since thedictatorship of the proletariat was supposed to suppress the resistance of othersocial classes, which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of theproletariat. The legal basis of the repression was formalized intoArticle 58 in the code of theRSFSR and similar articles for otherSoviet republics.Aggravation of class struggle under socialism was proclaimed during the Stalinist terror.
Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.[22] This gave rise toSamizdat, a clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature. Art, literature, education, and science were placed under strict ideological scrutiny, since they were supposed to serve the interests of the victoriousproletariat.Socialist realism is an example of such teleologically oriented art that promotedsocialism andcommunism. All humanities and social sciences were tested for strict accordance withhistorical materialism.
All natural sciences were to be founded on the philosophical base ofdialectical materialism. Many scientific disciplines, such asgenetics,cybernetics, andcomparative linguistics, weresuppressed in the Soviet Union during some periods, condemned as "bourgeois pseudoscience". At one pointLysenkoism, which many consider apseudoscience, was favored in agriculture and biology. In the 1930s and 1940s, many prominent scientists were declared to be "wreckers" orenemies of the people and imprisoned. Some scientists worked as prisoners in "Sharashkas" (research and development laboratories within theGulag labor camp system).
According to the Soviet Criminal Code, agitation or propaganda carried on for the purpose of weakening Soviet authority, or circulating materials or literature that defamed the Soviet State and social system were punishable by imprisonment for a term of 2–5 years; for a second offense, punishable for a term of 3–10 years.[23]
According tocommunist ideologists, the Soviet political system was a true democracy, whereworkers' councils ("soviets") represented the will of the working class. In particular, theSoviet Constitution of 1936 guaranteed directuniversal suffrage with asecret ballot.[24] Practice, however, departed from principle. For example, all candidates were selected by Communist Party organizations, untildemocratization and theMarch 1989 elections. HistorianRobert Conquest described the Soviet electoral system as "a set of phantom institutions and arrangements which put a human face on the hideous realities:a model constitution adopted ina worst period of terror and guaranteeing human rights, elections in which there was only one candidate, and in which 99 percent voted; a parliament at which no hand was ever raised in opposition or abstention."[25]
Personal property was allowed with limitations.Real property mostly belonged to the State.[26] Many forms of private trade with the intent of gaining profit were considered "speculation" (Russian:спекуляция) and banned as a criminal offense to be punished with fines, imprisonment, confiscation and/orcorrective labor. "Speculation" was specifically defined in article 154 of the Penal Code of the USSR.[27] Health, housing, education, and nutrition were formally guaranteed through the provision of full employment and economic welfare structures,[26] but these guarantees were rarely met in practice. For instance, over five million people lacked adequate nutrition and starved to death during theSoviet famine of 1932–1933, one of severalSoviet famines.[28] The 1932–33 famine was caused primarily bySoviet-mandated collectivization,[29] although the famine in part was also caused by natural conditions.[30][31] In response to frequentshortages, massivesecond economy existed for all categories of goods and services.[32]
Workers were not allowed to organize freeunions.All existing unions were organized and controlled by the state.[33] All political youth organizations, such asPioneer movement andKomsomol served to enforce the policies of the Communist Party. Participation in unauthorized political organizations could result in imprisonment.[23] Organizing in camps could bring the death penalty.[23]
The Soviet Union promotedMarxist-Leninist atheism and persecuted religion. Toward that end, theCommunist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed outright.
Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers included torture; being sent toprison camps,labour camps, ormental hospitals; and execution.[34][35][36][37] Many Orthodox (along with peoples of other faiths) were also subjected topsychological punishment or torture andmind control experimentation in an attempt to force them give up their religious convictions (seePunitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union).[35][36][38][39]
Practicing Orthodox Christians were restricted from prominent careers and membership in communist organizations (e.g. the party and theKomsomol). Anti-religious propaganda was openly sponsored and encouraged by the government, to which the Church was not given an opportunity to publicly respond. Seminaries were closed down, and the church was restricted from publishing materials. Atheism was propagated through schools, communist organizations, and the media. Organizations such as theSociety of the Godless were created.
Thepassport system in the Soviet Union restricted migration of citizens within the country through the "propiska" (residential permit/registration system) and the use ofinternal passports. For a long period of Soviet history, peasants did not haveinternal passports, and could not move into towns without permission. Many former inmates received "wolf tickets" and were only allowed to live a minimum of101 km away from city borders. Travel toclosed cities and to the regions near USSR state borders was strongly restricted. An attempt to illegally escape abroad was punishable by imprisonment for 1–3 years.[23]
Human rights activists in the Soviet Union were regularly subjected to harassment, repressions and arrests. In several cases, only the public profile of individual human rights campaigners such asAndrei Sakharov helped prevent a complete shutdown of the movement's activities.
A more organized human rights movement in the USSR grew out of the current of dissent of the late 1960s and 1970s known as "rights defenders (pravozashchitniki).[40] Its most importantsamizdat publication, theChronicle of Current Events,[41] circulated its first number in April 1968, after the United Nations declared that it would be the International Year for Human Rights (20 years since Universal Declaration was issued), and continued for the next 15 years until closed down in 1983.
A succession of dedicated human rights groups were set up after 1968: theAction Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR went public in May 1969 with an appeal to theUN Human Rights Committee;[42] theCommittee on Human Rights in the USSR was established in 1970;[43] and a Soviet section ofAmnesty International appeared in 1973. The groups variously wrote appeals, collected signatures for petitions, and attended trials.
The seven member countries of theWarsaw Pact signed theHelsinki Final Act in August 1975. The "third basket" of the Final Act included extensive human rights clauses.[44]: 99–100 In the years 1976–77, several "Helsinki Watch Groups" emerged in the USSR, to monitor the Soviet Union's compliance with the Helsinki Final Act.[45] The first group was the Moscow Helsinki Group, followed by groups in Ukraine, Lithuania, Georgia and Armenia.[46]: 159–194 They succeeded in unifying different branches of the human rights movement.[44]: 159–166 Similar initiatives began in Sovietsatellite states, such asCharter 77 in theCzechoslovak Socialist Republic.
Over the next two years the Helsinki Groups would be harassed and threatened by the Soviet authorities and eventually forced to close down their activities, as leading activists were arrested, put on trial and imprisoned or pressured into leaving the country. By 1979, all had ceased to function.
The period from April 1985 to December 1991 witnessed dramatic change in the USSR.
In February 1987KGB ChairmanVictor Chebrikov reported to Soviet General SecretaryMikhail Gorbachev that 288 people were serving sentences for offenses committed under Articles 70, 190-1 and 142 of the RSFSR Criminal Code; a third of those convicted were being held in psychiatric hospitals.[47] Most were released during the course of the year, spurred on by the death in prison of veteran dissidentAnatoly Marchenko in December 1986.[48] Soon ethnic minorities, confessional groups and entire nations were asserting their rights, respectively, to cultural autonomy, freedom of religion and, led by theBaltic states, to national independence.
Just asglasnost did not represent "freedom of speech", so attempts by activists to hold their own events and create independent associations and political movements met with disapproval and obstruction from Gorbachev and his Politburo. Early in December 1987Shevardnadze,Yakovlev and Chebrikov reported on a proposed human rights seminar to be held in Moscow on 10–14 December 1987 with guests from abroad, and suggested ways of undermining, restricting and containing the event organised by former Soviet dissidents.[49] The reaction to a similar proposal seven months later was much the same.[50] As they conceded more and more of the rights over which the Communists had established their monopoly in the 1920s, events and organisations not initiated or overseen by the regime were frowned on and discouraged by the supposedly liberal authorities of the brief and ambivalent period ofperestroika and officialglasnost.
In the remaining two and a half years the rate of change accelerated. TheCongress of People's Deputies held its second autumnal session in 1989 during a nationwide miners' strike. One consequence was the abolition in March 1990 ofArticle 6 of the Soviet Constitution (1977), which had explicitly established the primacy of the Communist Party within the Soviet State, a hitherto unspoken but all-pervasive dominance of the system.
The authorities formed units of riot policeOMON to deal with the mounting protests and rallies across the USSR. In Moscow, these culminated in a vast demonstration in January 1991, denouncing the actions of Gorbachev and his administration. The demonstrations inLithuania,Tbilisi,Baku andTajikistan have been suppressed resulting in deaths of many protesters.[51][52]
| Sovereign states |
|
|---|---|
| States with limited recognition | |
| Dependencies and other territories | |
