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Origins of Communist Politically Motivated Criminal Justice

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Politically Motivated Justice

Abstract

This chapter presents detailed analysis of communist show trials, their categorization and the Soviet legacy of ‘Twofold Constitutionalism’. It offers a critical assessment of the Soviet system of criminal justice and its trials. My analysis of these trials is made in chronological order—from the earliest Soviet ‘agitation trials’ and show trials against ‘people’s enemies’ to a regional ‘model show trial’ in communist Hungary and persecution of political dissidents in the late Soviet period of “Brezhnev’s Stagnation” and “Perestroika”. One of the aims of the chapter is to demonstrate that the communist traditions of politicized justice became an unwritten Constitution of the USSR, dividing its legal system into two coexisting legal orders of formal and informal norms. To achieve this aim, the chapter provides two outcomes. First, it makes a categorization of the communist trials with a special emphasis on victims of arbitrary justice and goals pursued by these trials. Second, the chapter analyses major legal characteristics of political justice during the communist regime. Categorization of political trials under Communism and their features helps me scrutinize my hypothesis that, unlike in established democracies, trials against politicians in selected former Soviet republics can reveal a split into a nominal written Constitution and its informal unwritten counterpart.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Christenson 1999, p. xiii.

  2. 2.

    Ibid., p. xiii.

  3. 3.

    Solomon 1996, pp. 2–5.

  4. 4.

    Foglesong and Solomon 2001, p. 58.

  5. 5.

    Zviagintsev and Orlov 1997.

  6. 6.

    Zviagintsev and Orlov 1994.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., p. 6.

  8. 8.

    Zviagintsev and Orlov 1997.

  9. 9.

    Zviagintsev and Orlov 1994.

  10. 10.

    Zviagintsev and Orlov 1996.

  11. 11.

    Sajó 2001.

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    Zviagintsev and Orlov 2001.

  14. 14.

    Sajó 2001.

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    Medushevsky 2006, p. 99.

  17. 17.

    Solomon 1996, p. 3.

  18. 18.

    Ibid.

  19. 19.

    Markovits 1989, p. 1333.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., p. 1319.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    Markovits 1989, p. 1319.

  23. 23.

    Edele 2011, p. 64.

  24. 24.

    See Law and Justice in the Third Reich in the Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005467. Accessed 23 December 2020.

  25. 25.

    Solomon 1996, p. 64.

  26. 26.

    Sajó 2001.

  27. 27.

    Sajó 2001.

  28. 28.

    Ibid.

  29. 29.

    Rebitschek 2015.

  30. 30.

    Sajó 2001.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    Solomon 1996, p. 31.

  33. 33.

    Liszt and Schmidt 1932.

  34. 34.

    Solomon 2015, p. 162.

  35. 35.

    Sajó 2001.

  36. 36.

    Zweigert et al. 1987, p. 302.

  37. 37.

    Ibid.

  38. 38.

    Bloom 1946.

  39. 39.

    Lenin V.I.Polnoye sobranie sochineniy, tom 33, Gosudarstvo i Revolutsia s. 95.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., tom 44, s. 465.

  41. 41.

    Maksimova 2014.

  42. 42.

    Solomon 1996, p. 4.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., p. 3.

  44. 44.

    Argenbright 2002, p. 252.

  45. 45.

    For instance, Lenin criticized negative aspects of Stalin, who, “[h]aving become General Secretary,...has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands.” In: Buranov 1994, p. 180.

  46. 46.

    The Political Bureau (Russian: Пoлитбюpo) was the chief decision making body of the Soviet leadership established by the Communist Party during the October Revolution of 1917 and preserved until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

  47. 47.

    Joint State Political Directorate under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR (Russian: Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye pri Sovnarkome SSSR).

  48. 48.

    Rayfield 2004, p. 136.

  49. 49.

    Ibid.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., page 137.

  51. 51.

    Davies and Harris 2005, p. 63.

  52. 52.

    Service 2005, p. 247.

  53. 53.

    Solomon 1978, p. 19.

  54. 54.

    Solomon 1996, p. 462.

  55. 55.

    For instance, Stalin published books on various topics such as ‘The new Russian policy’ (1931), ‘Dialectical and Historical Materialism’ (1938), ‘The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’ (1938), ‘Marxism and Problems of Linguistics’ (1950), ‘Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.’ (1952) as well as articles and even personal poetry.

  56. 56.

    In particular, “Stalin’s obsession with literature and writers, with science and scientists, and his personal jealousies in these fields, mirror Georgian kings such as Teimuraz I, who like Nero, envied his rivals as much in poetry as in politics.” In: Rayfield 2004, p. 17.

  57. 57.

    Solomon 1996, pp. 461–462.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., p.19.

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    Berman 1966.

  61. 61.

    Solomon 1996, p. 463.

  62. 62.

    Rosenfeldt 2009, p. 392.

  63. 63.

    Oleg Khlevniuk found archive documents that corroborate Stalin’s personal involvement in the Great Purge. See Khlevniuk 2008.

  64. 64.

    Rayfield 2004, p. 309.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., p. 310.

  66. 66.

    Rayfield 2004, p. 311.

  67. 67.

    Ibid.

  68. 68.

    Lustiger and Brackman 2003, p. 200.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., p. 47.

  70. 70.

    Redlich 1982, p. xii.

  71. 71.

    Redlich 1982, p. 12.

  72. 72.

    Lustiger and Brackman 2003, p. 50.

  73. 73.

    Rubenstein and Naumov 2005, p. 33.

  74. 74.

    For instance, when Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana dated Alexei Kapler, a war correspondent and a Jew, Stalin said, “[s]he couldn’t even find herself a Russian… Stalin [also] liked to tell Svetlana [, who married her Jewish classmate] that ‘the Zionists put him over on you.’” In: Alliluyeva 1969, p. 152. In: Rubenstein and Naumov 2005, p. 35.

  75. 75.

    Rubenstein and Naumov 2005, p. 33.

  76. 76.

    Ibid.

  77. 77.

    Rubenstein and Naumov 2005, p. 200.

  78. 78.

    Lustiger and Brackman 2003, p. 201.

  79. 79.

    Ibid., page 222.

  80. 80.

    Redlich 1982.

  81. 81.

    Lustiger and Brackman 2003, p. 243.

  82. 82.

    Rubenstein and Naumov 2005, p. 62.

  83. 83.

    Sean’s Russia Blog 2009.

  84. 84.

    Rosenfeldt 2009, p. 392.

  85. 85.

    SZ (1934), no. 64, item 459; cf. SU (1935), no. 2, item 8. In: Berman 1972, p. 55.

  86. 86.

    Rosenfeldt 2009, p. 391.

  87. 87.

    Vedomosti SSSR (1956), no. 8, item 193. In: Berman 1972, p. 50.

  88. 88.

    Kuromiya 2003, p. 253.

  89. 89.

    Ibid.

  90. 90.

    For example, the Vichuga workers uprising of 1932, during which 16,000 textile workers temporarily took control of an entire town, see Harman 2007.

  91. 91.

    Ward 1993, p. 41.

  92. 92.

    Viola 2002, p. 33.

  93. 93.

    Osokina 2002, pp. 170–200.

  94. 94.

    Osokina 2002, pp. 170–200.

  95. 95.

    “The annual numbers convicted in the Russian Federation (RSFSR) alone exceeded one million at that time”, see Osokina 2002, p. 195.

  96. 96.

    Edele 2011, pp. 64–65.

  97. 97.

    Osokina 2002, p. 10.

  98. 98.

    “The maximum penalties for speculation as a form of business or on a large scale…[were] seven years in the RSFSR, eight years in Latvian SSR, ten years in the Turkmen SSR, and ten years with resettlement and confiscation of property in Armenian SSR”. See Berman 1966, p. 16.

  99. 99.

    Viola 2002, p. 184.

  100. 100.

    Ibid., p. 192.

  101. 101.

    Serio and Razinkin 1995.

  102. 102.

    The acronym GULAG stands for ‘Principle Administration of Camps’ (Russian: Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey).

  103. 103.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 309.

  104. 104.

    Ibid., pp. 194–196.

  105. 105.

    Ward 1993, p 50.

  106. 106.

    Mishina 2013.

  107. 107.

    Solomon 1996, p. 4.

  108. 108.

    Osakwe 1985, p. 332.

  109. 109.

    Ironically, Stalin was himself a bank robber and a convict in his youth.

  110. 110.

    Ward 1993, p. 197.

  111. 111.

    Berman 1966, p. 27.

  112. 112.

    Ibid.

  113. 113.

    Berman 1966, p. 27.

  114. 114.

    Sajó 2001, pp. 14493–96.

  115. 115.

    Berman 1966, p. 27.

  116. 116.

    Ibid.

  117. 117.

    Argenbright 2002.

  118. 118.

    Ibid.

  119. 119.

    Forsythe 2009, p. 518.

  120. 120.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 308.

  121. 121.

    Solomon 1996, p. 6.

  122. 122.

    Ibid., p. 447.

  123. 123.

    Viola 2017.

  124. 124.

    Solomon 1996, p. 458.

  125. 125.

    Ibid., p. 448.

  126. 126.

    Berman 1966.

  127. 127.

    Ibid., p. 458.

  128. 128.

    Solomon 1996, p. 460.

  129. 129.

    “V. M. Kuritsyn: “1937 god v istorii sovetskogo gosudarstva”, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, 2, 1988, pp. 109–19; Markus Wehner: “Stalinismus und Terror”, Stalinismus. Neue Forschungen und Konzepte, pp. 365–390; Khlevyuk, “The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937–38”, pp. 161–69; McLoughlin: “Vernichtung der Fremden”, pp. 66–69. In: Rosenfeldt 2009, p. 428.

  130. 130.

    “On the development of the extra-judicial organs and their work in the 1920s and 1930s, see e.g. RGASPI (RTsKhIDNI)/Volkogonov papers, box 14, folder 6...Rolf Binner und Marc Junge: Wie der Terror ‘gross’ wurde. Massenmord und Lagerhaft nach Befehl 00447”...V. Kudryashov, A. Trusov: Politicheskaya yustitsiya v SSSR, Moscow 2000, pp. 73–81, 279–87; Barry McLoughlin: “‘Vernichtung der Fremden’”, Der grosse Terror in der UdSSR 1937–38 im Lichte neuerer Publikationen, “Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2001, pp. 64–66.” In: Rosenfeldt 2009, p. 428.

  131. 131.

    Ibid., pp. 389–395.

  132. 132.

    Kudryavtsev, Trusov: Politicheskaya yustitsiya v SSSR, p. 279, 281; McLoughlin: “‘Vernichtung der Fremden’”, pp. 64–67, 81; Suvenirov: Tragediya RKKA, pp. 229–31; Torchinov, Leonchuk: Vokrug Stalina, p. 510. In: Rosenfeldt 2009, p. 428.

  133. 133.

    Ibid., p. 395.

  134. 134.

    Ibid., p. 393.

  135. 135.

    Solomon 1996, p. 31.

  136. 136.

    “Article 16 of the Criminal Code stated: “If any socially dangerous act is not directly provided for by the present Code, the basis and limits of responsibility for it shall be determined by application of those articles of the Code which provide for crimes most similar to it in nature”. In: Berman 1966, p. 22.

  137. 137.

    Berman 1966, p. 22.

  138. 138.

    Cf. decrees of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR of 1937 and 1939 cited in V.M. Chkhivadze, ed., supra, note 30, p. 121. In: Berman 1966, p. 34.

  139. 139.

    Ibid.

  140. 140.

    Kuznetsova and Tiazhkova 2002, s. 41.

  141. 141.

    Solomon 1978, p. 174.

  142. 142.

    Ibid., page 23.

  143. 143.

    Ibid., page 25.

  144. 144.

    Ibid., page 26.

  145. 145.

    “Article 16 of the Criminal Code stated: “If any socially dangerous act is not directly provided for by the present Code, the basis and limits of responsibility for it shall be determined by application of those articles of the Code which provide for crimes most similar to it in nature”. In: Berman 1972, p. 22.

  146. 146.

    In particular, the secret decision of the Politburo #P51/144 from 5 July 1937 ordered imprisonment and exile from five to eight years of the wives of ‘traitors’ and ‘Trotskyists’. In: Gaidar 2012, p. 459.

  147. 147.

    Under Article 58-1 of the 1926 RSFSR Criminal Code “an act was said to be counterrevolutionary if it was ‘directed to the overthrow, subversion, or weakening of the power of the worker-peasant Soviets.” In: Berman 1972, p. 23.

  148. 148.

    Ibid., p. 29.

  149. 149.

    Persak 2007, p. 97.

  150. 150.

    Ibid.

  151. 151.

    Ibid.

  152. 152.

    For instance, in the newly established democracies like Indonesia material unlawfulness is also applied in a ‘positive sense’ to convict a person “for doing something that is reprehensible according to community standards even if that act did not constitute a crime under a statute or other law at the time it was committed (Sapar-djaja 2002: 67,210).” In: Butt 2009.

  153. 153.

    Berman 1972, p. 11.

  154. 154.

    Ibid.

  155. 155.

    For instance, “Article 7 of the 1926 Code provided: With regard to persons who have committed socially dangerous acts or who represent a danger because of their connection with a criminal environment or because of their past activity, measures of social defense of a judicial-correctional, medical, or medical-education character shall be applied.” In: Berman 1972, p. 21.

  156. 156.

    Ibid., p. 9.

  157. 157.

    Berman 1972, p. 32.

  158. 158.

    Berman 1972, p. 32.

  159. 159.

    Osakwe 1985, p. 334.

  160. 160.

    For instance, Article 102 of the Constitution fails to stipulate that justice is administered only by courts, thus legitimizing the de-facto split of criminal justice into ordinary courts and special extrajudicial political tribunals.

  161. 161.

    See the English version of the 1936 Constitution at https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html#chap10. Accessed 23 December 2020.

  162. 162.

    Republican codes still had to comply with the all-union fundamental principles of criminal legislation from 1924.

  163. 163.

    Osakwe 1985.

  164. 164.

    Solomon 1996, p. 467.

  165. 165.

    Waldron 2009.

  166. 166.

    Ibid.

  167. 167.

    Ibid.

  168. 168.

    Russian: sotsialisticheskaya zakonnost.

  169. 169.

    Wood 2005, p. 7.

  170. 170.

    “Politsud” (Instruksiia), RGVA 9/13/51/215-18; P.M. Vedernikov, “Sansudy I ikh postanovka na osnove kollektivizma ispolnitelei,” Krasnyi put’ 19 (November 1924): 97–122; L. Reinberg, Instsenirovannye proizvodstvennye sudy (Moscow, 1926), 10. In: Wood 2005, p. 6.

  171. 171.

    Ibid.

  172. 172.

    Ibid., p. 8.

  173. 173.

    Ibid., p. 10.

  174. 174.

    Hendley 2017.

  175. 175.

    Wood 2005, page 4.

  176. 176.

    Ibid., p. 11.

  177. 177.

    I.V. Rebel’skii, “Agit sud po likvidatsii negramotnosti,” Prosveshchenie na transporte 9–10 (1923): 34–38; Klubnaya rabota. Prakticheskaia entsiklopediia dlia podgotovki klubnykh rabotnikov (Moscow: Proletkul’t [1926]), 6:13.

  178. 178.

    Wood 2005.

  179. 179.

    Rosenbaum 1962, p. 239.

  180. 180.

    “Stalinskoe delo I prakticheskie zadachi c dele bor’by s nedostatkami khoziaistvennogo stroitel’stva,” Pravda, 12 April 1928. In: Wood 2005, p. 195.

  181. 181.

    Rosenbaum 1962, p. 239. See also Urban 1982.

  182. 182.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 164.

  183. 183.

    Conquest 1990, p. 391.

  184. 184.

    Gorman 2007, p. 50.

  185. 185.

    Ibid.

  186. 186.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 162.

  187. 187.

    Gorman 2007.

  188. 188.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 163.

  189. 189.

    Rosenbaum 1962, p. 250.

  190. 190.

    Gorman 2007.

  191. 191.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 162.

  192. 192.

    Gorman 2007.

  193. 193.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 194.

  194. 194.

    Wood 2005, p. 195.

  195. 195.

    Ibid., p. 195.

  196. 196.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 162.

  197. 197.

    Ibid., p. 163.

  198. 198.

    Rosenbaum 1962, p. 254.

  199. 199.

    Rosenbaum 1962, p. 249.

  200. 200.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 163.

  201. 201.

    Wood 2005, p. 196.

  202. 202.

    B. Shneerson, “Spetsialisty, kul’trabota i bor’ba s vreditel’stvom,” klub i revolutsiia 21–22 (November 1930): 6–14; Vyshinsky’s concluding speech in the Great Purge Trial, ed. Robert C. Tucker and Stephen F. Cohen (New York, 1965), 525–26. In: Wood 2005, p. 196.

  203. 203.

    Rosenbaum 1962, p. 249.

  204. 204.

    Wood 2005, p. 163.

  205. 205.

    For instance, the ‘Industrial Party’ trial in 1930, the ‘Mensheviks trial’ in 1931 and the ‘Metropolitan-Vickers’ trial in 1932.

  206. 206.

    Conquest 2008, p. 11.

  207. 207.

    Conquest 2008, p. 81.

  208. 208.

    Ibid.

  209. 209.

    Khlevniuk 2008.

  210. 210.

    Conquest 2008, p. 90.

  211. 211.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 88.

  212. 212.

    Feuchtwanger 1937.

  213. 213.

    Conquest 2008, p. 92.

  214. 214.

    Ibid., p. 84.

  215. 215.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 163.

  216. 216.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2003, p. 47.

  217. 217.

    Conquest 2008, p. 390.

  218. 218.

    Ibid., p. 107.

  219. 219.

    Ibid., p. 84.

  220. 220.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2003, p. 46.

  221. 221.

    Ibid., p. 44.

  222. 222.

    Vaksberg 1990, p. 64.

  223. 223.

    Gorman 2007.

  224. 224.

    Conquest 2008, p. 103.

  225. 225.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2003, p. 48.

  226. 226.

    Ibid., p. 47.

  227. 227.

    Ibid., p. 46. Here VKP(b)—the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

  228. 228.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 255.

  229. 229.

    Ibid., p. 256.

  230. 230.

    Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI), f. 495, op. 175, d. 101, 1. 105. In: McLoughlin and McDermott 2003, p. 44.

  231. 231.

    Conquest 2008, p. 98.

  232. 232.

    Ibid., p. 98.

  233. 233.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 92.

  234. 234.

    Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat (Latin: Proof lies on the person who asserts, not on the person who denies).

  235. 235.

    In particular, Article 111 of the 1936 Constitution envisaged that “in all courts of the U.S.S.R. cases are heard in public, unless otherwise. provided for by law, and the accused is guaranteed the right to be defended by Counsel”, The 1936 Constitution is available in English at https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html#chap10. Accessed 23 December 2020.

  236. 236.

    Fletcher 1968.

  237. 237.

    Ebon 1987.

  238. 238.

    “While the East European socialist states have followed the presumption of innocence…China did not do so during the period in which class struggle figured more prominently than in the East European states.” V. Lukashevich, “Garantii Prav Obviniaemogo v Sovetskom Ugolovnom Protsesse [Guarantees of the Rights of the Accused in Soviet Criminal Procedure.” In: Quigley 1989, p. 303.

  239. 239.

    “Other Soviet jurists of that period objected to a presumption of innocence on the grounds that it was excessively formal and abstract, linking it to the medieval system of formal proofs that had been used in Europe. They feared that it would allow a court an easy solution if proof gathering in a case proved difficult. In such a case the court could avoid difficult issues of fact by simply declaring that there was doubt and pronouncing a judgment of not guilty. They said, moreover, that its meaning was unclear…A prime desideratum in early Soviet legal thought was to make the law understandable to the public. Further in light of its abstractness, the presumption of innocence was seen as conflicting with the Marxist concept of truth.” M. Strogoich, Obvinenie i Obviniaemyi Na Predvaritel’nom Sledstvii i Na Sude [The Accusation and the Accused at the Preliminary Investigation and at Trial]. In: Quigley 1989, p. 304.

  240. 240.

    Ibid.

  241. 241.

    Berman 1974, p. 57.

  242. 242.

    Ibid., p. 60.

  243. 243.

    “The Court formulation is: In order to ensure the accused (or defendant) the right to defense, courts must strictly observe the constitutional principle that the accused (or defendant) is presumed innocent until his guilt is proved in the manner provided by statutory law and is established by a court judgement that has entered into force.” Decree No. 5, Plenum of the USSR Supreme Court, O Praktike Primeneniia Sudami Zakonov, “Obespechivaiushchikh Obviniaemomu Pravo na Zashchitu [On Court Practice in Applying Statutes Protecting the Right of the Accused to Defense], para 2, BULL. Verkh Suda SSR [Bulletin of the USSR Supreme Court] 8 (No. 4, 1978).” In: Quigley 1989, pp. 307–308.

  244. 244.

    Ibid., p. 308.

  245. 245.

    The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted 16 December 1966 (entered into force 23 March 1976) (Article 14-2). This Treaty states: “Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.” In: Quigley 1989, p. 310.

  246. 246.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 92.

  247. 247.

    Ibid., p. 89.

  248. 248.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 99.

  249. 249.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 60.

  250. 250.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 88.

  251. 251.

    Hook 1984.

  252. 252.

    Conquest 2008, p. 110.

  253. 253.

    Ibid., p. 110.

  254. 254.

    Conquest 2008, p. 110.

  255. 255.

    Rayfield 2005, p. 162.

  256. 256.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 89.

  257. 257.

    Conquest 2008, p. 84.

  258. 258.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  259. 259.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 59.

  260. 260.

    Ibid., p. 61.

  261. 261.

    Conquest 2008, p. 344.

  262. 262.

    Ibid., p. 394.

  263. 263.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 48.

  264. 264.

    Conquest 2008, p. 352.

  265. 265.

    Ibid., p. 353.

  266. 266.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 46.

  267. 267.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 46.

  268. 268.

    Conquest 2008, p. 43.

  269. 269.

    Ibid., p. 93.

  270. 270.

    Vaksberg 1990.

  271. 271.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 46.

  272. 272.

    Conquest 2008, p. 90.

  273. 273.

    Vaksberg 1990, p. 64.

  274. 274.

    The first Moscow trials defendants supposedly refused to have defense councils. During the third trial, defense councils “had to proceed under [prosecutor] Vyshinskii’s direction, and they began…by expressing agreement with the indictment…After their remarks had been ‘doctored’…the contributions from the defence team read like variations of Vyshinskii’s main arguments.” In: McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 47.

  275. 275.

    Sakwa 2012, p. 239.

  276. 276.

    Applebaum 2017. See also Levchuk et al. 2020.

  277. 277.

    According to historian Roy Medvedev, Kosior’s daughter, “having been released from prison, committed suicide by throwing herself under a train.” In: Chirot 1996, p. 155.

  278. 278.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 43.

  279. 279.

    Russian: Semyi vragov naroda.

  280. 280.

    Conquest 2008, p. 75.

  281. 281.

    Gaidar 2012, p. 459.

  282. 282.

    Conquest 2008, p. 395.

  283. 283.

    Osakwe 1985, p. 351.

  284. 284.

    Ibid., pp. 346–350.

  285. 285.

    Markovits 2006, p. 292.

  286. 286.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 90.

  287. 287.

    Conquest 2008, p. 104.

  288. 288.

    Ibid.

  289. 289.

    Ibid., p. 87.

  290. 290.

    Alexandrov 1963.

  291. 291.

    Conquest 2008, p. 186.

  292. 292.

    Ibid., pp. 202–203.

  293. 293.

    Ibid., p. 202.

  294. 294.

    Russian: pokazatenlniye sudebniye protzesy.

  295. 295.

    Conquest 2008, p. 88.

  296. 296.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 38.

  297. 297.

    Ibid., p. 42.

  298. 298.

    Conquest 2008, p. 105.

  299. 299.

    Ibid., p. 107.

  300. 300.

    Heilbrunn 1991, p. 98.

  301. 301.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002, p. 49.

  302. 302.

    Ibid.

  303. 303.

    Vaksberg 1990.

  304. 304.

    McLoughlin and McDermott 2002.

  305. 305.

    Ibid.

  306. 306.

    For instance, in the Soviet system of political justice the presumption of innocence was turned into presumption of guilt, the principle ‘No punishment without Law’ was replaced with the doctrine of analogy, the ‘Judicial Duty of Care’ was transformed into judicial prerogativism and the principle of the “Equality of Arms” was substituted with the accusatorial bias.

  307. 307.

    Shizhou 2010.

  308. 308.

    G L 1956, p. 249.

  309. 309.

    Sakmyster 2011, p. 46.

  310. 310.

    Hodos 1987, p. 25.

  311. 311.

    Ibid., p. 36.

  312. 312.

    Ibid., p. 170.

  313. 313.

    Ibid., p. 35.

  314. 314.

    Hodos 1987, p. 36.

  315. 315.

    Vaksberg 1990.

  316. 316.

    Hodos 1987, p. 50.

  317. 317.

    Ibid.

  318. 318.

    ÁVH—Communist State Security of Hungary (Hungarian: Államvédelmi Hatóság).

  319. 319.

    Hodos 1987, p. 39.

  320. 320.

    Ibid.

  321. 321.

    Koestler 1994.

  322. 322.

    Szasz 1971, p. 165.

  323. 323.

    Hodos 1987, p. 49.

  324. 324.

    Ibid., p. 37.

  325. 325.

    Ibid.

  326. 326.

    G L 1956, p. 250.

  327. 327.

    Sakmyster 2011, p. 46.

  328. 328.

    Hodos 1987, p. 36.

  329. 329.

    Hodos 1987, p. 37.

  330. 330.

    G L 1956, p. 250.

  331. 331.

    Ibid., p. 248.

  332. 332.

    Ibid., p. 250.

  333. 333.

    Ibid.

  334. 334.

    Hodos 1987, p. 34.

  335. 335.

    G L 1956, p. 250.

  336. 336.

    Ibid., p. 250.

  337. 337.

    Hodos 1987, p. 35.

  338. 338.

    Hajdú 1996, pp. 82–86.

  339. 339.

    Hodos 1987, p. 45.

  340. 340.

    Ibid., p. 38.

  341. 341.

    Hodos 1987.

  342. 342.

    This term was named after Earl Browder, who as the general secretary of the US Communist Party saw the 1943 Tehran conference between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin as a sign of the peaceful coexistence between Communism and capitalism. Browder’s approach was later denounced as heresy and a deviation from the ‘true Communism’.

  343. 343.

    Koltai 1949, p. 5.

  344. 344.

    Ibid., pp. 253–254.

  345. 345.

    Klajn 2007, p. 140.

  346. 346.

    Hodos 1987, p. 50.

  347. 347.

    Szasz 1971, p. 165.

  348. 348.

    Ibid., p. 165.

  349. 349.

    Daily Worker, 15 September 1949. In: G L 1956, p. 251.

  350. 350.

    Koltai 1949, p. 270.

  351. 351.

    Hodos 1987, p. 46.

  352. 352.

    Ibid., p. 46.

  353. 353.

    Kopacsi 1981, p. 39. In: Hodos 1987, p. 47.

  354. 354.

    Hodos 1987, p. 62.

  355. 355.

    Ibid., p. 50.

  356. 356.

    Ibid.

  357. 357.

    Ibid.

  358. 358.

    Barna and Pető 2015, p. 25.

  359. 359.

    Retroactive norms of the Act stipulated that “the crimes described in this decree shall be punishable where the criminal act has [already] been perpetrated on entry into force of this decree, and was not punishable under the legal provisions in force at the time of the perpetration of the criminal act.” In: Barna and Pető 2015, p. 23.

  360. 360.

    Ibid., p. 17.

  361. 361.

    Hodos 1987, p. 62.

  362. 362.

    Barna and Pető 2015, p. 25.

  363. 363.

    Ibid., p. 24.

  364. 364.

    Sakmyster 2011, pp. 57–58.

  365. 365.

    Hodos 1987, p. 62.

  366. 366.

    Ibid., p. 64.

  367. 367.

    Ibid., p. 66.

  368. 368.

    Balassa 1960, pp. 35–51.

  369. 369.

    Hodos 1987, p. 66.

  370. 370.

    Khrushchev 1956.

  371. 371.

    Nathans 2011.

  372. 372.

    Přibáň 2002, p. 2.

  373. 373.

    Medushevsky 2011.

  374. 374.

    Berman 1974, p. 32.

  375. 375.

    Millar 1992.

  376. 376.

    Berman 1974, p. 38.

  377. 377.

    Berman 1974, p. 37.

  378. 378.

    Ibid., p. 20.

  379. 379.

    Osakwe 1979.

  380. 380.

    See the English version of the 1977 USSR Constitution. https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html#chap07. Accessed 24 December 2020.

  381. 381.

    Ibid.

  382. 382.

    Ibid.

  383. 383.

    Time Magazine 1978a.

  384. 384.

    Yurii Andropov, No. 887–A, (16 Apr. 1969). https://psi.ece.jhu.edu/kaplan1/IRUSS/BUK/GBARC/pdfs/dis60/kgb-69-1.pdf. Accessed 24 December 2020. See also Horvath 2014, pp. 147–175.

  385. 385.

    Beckerman 2011, p. 75.

  386. 386.

    Beckerman 2011.

  387. 387.

    Time Magazine 1978b.

  388. 388.

    Ibid.

  389. 389.

    Ibid.

  390. 390.

    Time Magazine 1978b.

  391. 391.

    Ibid.

  392. 392.

    Ibid.

  393. 393.

    Beckerman 2011.

  394. 394.

    In 1986, the USSR exchanged Shcharansky for two Soviet spies, Karl Koecher and Hana Koecher, detained in West Germany.

  395. 395.

    Rubenstein 1980, p. 244.

  396. 396.

    Time Magazine 1978b.

  397. 397.

    Article 125 of the 1936 Constitution. https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html#chap10. Accessed 24 December 2020.

  398. 398.

    According to Article 190.3, “The organization of, and, likewise, the active participation in, group actions which violate public order in a coarse manner or which are attended by clear disobedience of the legal demands of representatives of authority or which entail the violation of the work of transport or of state and social institutions or enterprises shall be punished by deprivation of freedom for a term not exceeding three years, or by correctional tasks for a term not exceeding one year, for a term not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding 100 rubles”. In: Berman 1974, p. 181.

  399. 399.

    Rubenstein 1980, p. 65.

  400. 400.

    Ibid.

  401. 401.

    The 1960 Code of Criminal Procedure “studiously omit to state express verbis that ‘the burden of proof of the guilt of accused shall rest on the prosecution,’ and that ‘the accused shall be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty’”. In: Berman 1974, p. 59.

  402. 402.

    Kalugin 2008, s. 276.

  403. 403.

    Articles 58 and 59 of the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code, Articles 188, 403–414 of the 1960 RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure. In: Berman 1974, p. 11.

  404. 404.

    Spencer 2000, p. 359.

  405. 405.

    Ibid.

  406. 406.

    Out of the whole group of ‘young specialists’ only Mikhail Rivkin refused to sign a letter of repentance and was sentenced to seven years in prison and five years of exile.

  407. 407.

    Shubin 2008, s. 280.

  408. 408.

    Delo Kagarlitskogo // Solidarnost’. 1991 # 12. S. 13. In: Shubin 2008, s. 280.

  409. 409.

    Time Magazine 1978b.

  410. 410.

    The Helsinki Final Act, signed on 30 July–1 August 1975. https://www.osce.org/mc/39501. Accessed 24 December 2020.

  411. 411.

    Kowalewski 1980, pp. 5–29.

  412. 412.

    Ibid.

  413. 413.

    Přibáň 2002, p. 2.

  414. 414.

    Osakwe 1985.

  415. 415.

    Solomon 1996, p. 467.

  416. 416.

    Medushevsky 2011.

  417. 417.

    “DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies…Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.” In: Orwell 1961.

  418. 418.

    Sadurski 2012, p. 45.

  419. 419.

    Alexander 2001, p. 153.

  420. 420.

    Raz 2009, p. 325.

  421. 421.

    Ibid.

  422. 422.

    The Soviet movie “Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors” Review (1963).

    https://www.thespinningimage.co.uk/cultfilms/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=3267. Accessed 24 December 2020.

  423. 423.

    The USSR had three Constitutions, drawn up respectively in 1924, 1936 and 1977.

  424. 424.

    Getty 1987, p. 112.

  425. 425.

    Shubin 2008, s. 217.

  426. 426.

    Ibid., s. 11-26.

  427. 427.

    In the USSR Homo Sovieticus was given the derogative name of ‘Sovok’ (a scoop in English) to emphasize instrumentalization of a human being by the Communist Party. Also in Medushevsky 2011.

  428. 428.

    Ebon 1987.

  429. 429.

    The term ‘Potiomkin villages’ (Russian: Potiomkinskiye derevni) appeared after the Russian nobleman Grigoriy Potiomkin allegedly ordered the construction of fake villages in Ukraine in order to deceive the Russian Empress Catherine II who went on an inspection trip to the Crimean peninsula.

  430. 430.

    Rosenbaum 1962, pp. 238–60.

  431. 431.

    Ibid., p. 257.

  432. 432.

    Ibid., p. 260.

  433. 433.

    Wood 2005, p. 163.

  434. 434.

    Delo Kagarlitskogo // Solidarnost’. 1991 # 12. S. 13. In: Shubin 2008, s. 280.

  435. 435.

    The Soviet movie ‘Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors’ “is fairly explicit in its commentary, attacking a society’s ability to manufacture a false reality, which here translates as American capitalism…The core idea [of the fairytale]…[is] a society enslaved by a self-manufactured false reality, carries a powerful message regardless of time or place.” In the Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors Review (1963). https://www.thespinningimage.co.uk/cultfilms/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=3267. Accessed 24 December 2020.

  436. 436.

    Tatemae literally means façade in Japanese.

  437. 437.

    The Japan Times 2011.

  438. 438.

    Zachmann 2014.

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Galushko, A. (2021). Origins of Communist Politically Motivated Criminal Justice. In: Politically Motivated Justice. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-459-4_2

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