Soviet Law And Soviet Reality

Study commenting on the relationship between the legal system and political system as refleted in legislation in the USSR - discusses the ideology of Soviet law; examines issues relating to democracy, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, the right to work, religious freedom, cultural rights, etc.; considers the impact of social stratification on the legal status of citizens and on judicial procedures; includes judicial decisions. References.

Socialist Law has now joined the Common Law and Civil Law as one of the three main families of legal systems. Soviet foreign policy is an outgrowth of the USSR's internal economic and political structure, which is reflected in Soviet Law. Soviet Law is an integral element of the arena in which the competition and struggle between Socialist and Capitalist systems occurs.

The essays in this volume reassess pre-revolutionary Russian legal culture, the debates of the 1920s over the role of law under socialism, and the abrupt and bloody termination of the debate which took place in the 1930s.

Soviet power rests on two main supports: the comp1ete economic dependence of the citizens upon the state and the unlimited politi cal control of the government over the economic, social and even cultural life. History knows various kinds of despotisms, dicta torships and regimentations of economic activity, but the U .S.S.R. represents a unique kind of dictatorship based on the one party system and integral planning with the specific goal of realization of communism. Mankind had never before known such a system. Even the best of possible comparisons, the ana logy with the period of Ptolemies in Egypt, is good only in so far as it concerns the regimentation of all kind of economic activity. There was in the past no ideology pretending to be adjusted to the needs of the toiling masses, no planning system on the same scale and no Communist party apparatus. As concerns the modern world the comparative method is necessary for giving the most graphical characterization of the differences between the Western democracies, with their ethical traditions, rule of law and the principle of the inviolability of individual rights, and, on the other hand, the Soviet monolithic state, with its unscrupulous policy, extremities of regimentations and drastic penalties.

This is the first treatise on Russia's new legal system, as it emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The first part of the book analyses in detail the political and economic origins of perestroika, indispensable for understanding the basic parameters of the evolution of Russian law. In the following chapters all major legal subjects are discussed against the background of their Soviet past and as the result of the radical changes in the political, social and economic make-up of the country. The appendices include the texts of the U.S.S.R. and Russian Constitutions, the Agreement of Minsk, The Russian Federation Treaty, bibliographical sources, and extensive indices of Soviet and Russian legislation. The book has been written for legal practitioners, comparative lawyers, and students of Russian law, but will also be of interest to a wider audience of political scientists, journalists, etc.