Stalin S Soviet Justice

The first comprehensive account of Stalin's struggle to make criminal law in the USSR a reliable instrument of rule offers new perspectives on collectivization, the Great Terror, the politics of abortion, and the disciplining of the labor force.

From the 'show' trials of the 1920s and 1930s to the London Conference, this book examines the Soviet role in the Nuremberg IMT trial through the prism of the ideas and practices of earlier Soviet legal history, detailing the evolution of Stalin's ideas about the trail of Nazi war criminals. Stalin believed that an international trial for Nazi war criminals was the best way to show the world the sacrifices his country had made to defeat Hitler, and he, together with his legal mouthpiece Andrei Vyshinsky, maintained tight control over Soviet representatives during talks leading up to the creation of the Nuremberg IMT trial in 1945, and the trial itself. But Soviet prosecutors at Nuremberg were unable to deal comfortably with the complexities of an open, western-style legal proceeding, which undercut their effectiveness throughout the trial. However, they were able to present a significant body of evidence that underscored the brutal nature of Hitler's racial war in Russia from 1941-45, a theme which became central to Stalin's efforts to redefine international criminal law after the war. Stalin's Soviet Justice provides a nuanced analysis of the Soviet justice system at a crucial turning point in European history and it will be vital reading for scholars and advanced students of the legal history of the Soviet Union, the history of war crimes and the aftermath of the Second World War.

USSR. Analysis of the nature and course of soviet law and administration of justice since 1953 - covers prerogative and normative spheres of civil laws, criminal law, housing and labour law, civil rights, marital status, penal sanction practice, etc. References.

Mr. Berman gives a many-sided interpretation of the Soviet legal system in theory and in practice. He presents a threefold explanation of the development of Soviet law, rooted first in the requirements of a socialist planned economy, second in the heritage of the Russian past, and third in the Soviet 'parental' concept of a man as a youth to be educated and disciplined. He compares and contrasts socialist law with capitalist law, the Russian heritage with the Western legal tradition of the past 900 years, the Soviet concept of man with that which is implicit in our own legal system.

Combining a journalist's view of major trials with a political-legal analysis, this text gives a picture of the politics of justice in Russia. Coverage of major court cases ranges from the 1961 trial of the currency speculators to the Communist Party trial of 1992.

"A study of contemporary American reactions to the Moscow show trials of the 1930s and their impact on US-Soviet relations"--

The trial of Piatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov and others accused of treason against the country, espionage, acts of diversion, wrecking activities and the preparation of terrorist acts, held before the Military collegium of the Supreme court of the U. S. S. R., Moscow, January 23-30, 1937, Judge Ulrich presiding.

Organized in the immediate aftermath of World War II to try the former Nazi leaders for war crimes, the Nuremberg trials, known as the International Military Tribunal (IMT), paved the way for global conversations about genocide, justice, and human rights that continue to this day. As Francine Hirsch reveals in this immersive new history of the trials, a central piece of the story has been routinely omitted from standard accounts: the critical role that the Soviet Union played in making Nuremberg happen in the first place. Hirsch's book reveals how the Soviets shaped the trials--only to be written out of their story as Western allies became bitter Cold War rivals. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg offers the first full picture of the war trials, illuminating the many ironies brought to bear as the Soviets did their part to bring the Nazis to justice. Everyone knew that Stalin had originally allied with Hitler before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 hung heavy over the courtroom, as did the suspicion among the Western prosecutors and judges that the Soviets had falsified evidence in an attempt to pin one of their own war crimes, the Katyn massacre of Polish officers, on the Nazis. It did not help that key members of the Soviet delegation, including the Soviet judge and chief prosecutor, had played critical roles in Stalin's infamous show trials of the 1930s. For the lead American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson and his colleagues, Soviet participation in the Nuremberg Trials undermined their overall credibility and possibly even the moral righteousness of the Allied victory. Yet Soviet jurists had been the first to conceive of a legal framework that treated war as an international crime. Without it, the IMT would have had no basis for judgment. The Soviets had borne the brunt of the fighting against Germany--enduring the horrors of the Nazi occupation and experiencing almost unimaginable human losses and devastation. There would be no denying their place on the tribunal, nor their determination to make the most of it. Once the trials were set in motion, however, little went as the Soviets had planned. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg shows how Stalin's efforts to direct the Soviet delegation and to steer the trials from afar backfired, and how Soviet war crimes became exposed in open court. Hirsch's book offers readers both a front-row seat in the courtroom and a behind-the-scenes look at the meetings in which the prosecutors shared secrets and forged alliances. It reveals the shifting relationships among the four countries of the prosecution (the U.S., Great Britain, France, and the USSR), uncovering how and why the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg became a Cold War battleground. In the process Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg offers a new understanding of the trials and a fresh perspective on the post-war movement for human rights.