The Law of the Soviet Union was the law as it developed in the Soviet Union (USSR) following the October Revolution of 1917. Modified versions of the Soviet legal system operated in many Communist states following the Second World War—including Mongolia, the People's Republic of China, the Warsaw Pact countries of eastern Europe, Cuba and Vietnam. In Soviet law, the supreme state organ of power (SSOP) was the supreme articulator and defender of the legal order, and the supreme judicial organ and the supreme procuratorial organ were state organs subjugated to the SSOP's leadership.
Soviet concept of law
Soviet law was rooted in pre-revolutionary Russian law and Marxism-Leninism.<!--Don't replace Marxism/Leninism with Marxism-Leninism. Definitions are ambiguous--> Pre-revolutionary influences included Byzantine law, Mongol law, Russian Orthodox Canon law, and Western law. Western law was mostly absent until the judicial reform of Alexander II in 1864, five decades before the revolution. Despite this, the supremacy of law and equality before the law were not well-known concepts, the tsar was still not bound by the law, and the "police had unlimited authority."
Marxism-Leninism views law as a superstructure in the base and superstructure model of society. "Capitalist" law was a tool of "bourgeois domination and a reflection of bourgeois values." Since law was a tool "to maintain class domination", in a classless society, law would inevitably disappear. For example, profiteering could be interpreted as a counter-revolutionary activity punishable by death. Soviet authors claimed that a new socialist rule of law was created, protecting personal properties and civil liberties, and developing the basis of an international rule of law.
The deportation of the 'Kulaks' in 1928–31 was carried out within the terms of Soviet Civil Code.
The year 1960 saw a new edition the Soviet criminal code. The new Criminal Code replaced the Soviet analogue of 1960.
Constitutional law
- 1918 Soviet Russian Constitution
- 1924 Soviet Constitution
- 1936 Soviet Constitution
- 1977 Soviet Constitution
Court structure
Soviet criminal and civil cases involve trials that were "primarily[...]official investigation[s] of the truth of the claims and defenses presented". Soviet law was very similar in this respect to civil law of European countries like France and Germany.
The trial court consisted of a professional judge with a 5-year term and two assessors (lay judges) from the population with a 2.5-year term. The proceedings were informal compared to criminal procedure in democratic countries based on the rule of law. The judges first questioned accused and witnesses, then the procurator and defense counsel to corroborate the evidence in the indictment. The accused and the victim could question each other or the witnesses. The accused was presumed innocent, though not in the common law sense. The court decided by majority vote. The accused or the procurator could appeal decisions to a higher court consisting of three professional judges that reviewed the facts and the law. If the procurator appealed, the higher court could set aside the judgment and remand the case. Although the decision of the appeals court was "final", higher courts could review them as "supervision". Here, the accused or his/her counsel could submit briefs, but they could not appear in person. including the right to [life] and [liberty], freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education.
The Soviet conception of human rights was very different from international law. According to Soviet legal theory, "it is the government who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the individual". The Soviet state was considered as the source of human rights. Therefore, the Soviet legal system regarded law as an arm of politics and courts as agencies of the government. which were considered as examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet law theorists such as Andrey Vyshinsky. According to Vladimir Lenin, the purpose of socialist courts was "not to eliminate terror ... but to substantiate it and legitimize it in principle". The Soviet Union later signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 (and the 1966 International 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. 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".
Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, but as any action which could threaten the Soviet state and society. For example, a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as a counter-revolutionary activity punishable by death. Some Soviet legal scholars even said that "criminal repression" may be applied in the absence of guilt.