Human rights in the Soviet Union

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A prisoner about to be shot by NKVD executioners. Painting by Nikolai Getman, provided by the Jamestown Foundation
A prisoner about to be shot by NKVD executioners. Painting by Nikolai Getman, provided by the Jamestown Foundation

The Soviet Union was a single-party state where the Communist Party officially ruled the country according to the Soviet constitution [1]. All key positions in the institutions of the state were occupied by members of the Communist Party. The state proclaimed its adherence to Marxism-Leninism ideology that restricts rights of citizens on the private property. The entire population was mobilized in support of the state ideology and policies. Independent political activities were not tolerated, including the involvement of people with free labour unions, private corporations, non-sanctioned churches or opposition political parties. The regime maintained itself in political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cult, restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics, such as political purges and persecution of specific groups of people. Therefore, the Soviet Union was regarded as a totalitarian state by prominent historians, such as Robert Conquest, Richard Pipes, Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Juan Linz (see Criticisms of Communist party rule).

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[edit] Soviet conception of human rights

Soviet people have been deprived of their basic civil liberties including the protection of law, the rights of assembly and association, and guarantees of property. Moreover, the entire Western concept of the "rule of law" was officially rejected by Soviet justice. According to Western legal theory, "it is the individual who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the government", whereas Soviet law claimed the opposite [2]. Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, but by its perceived potential consequences, as any action dangerous to society, which threatens the foundations of the Soviet state. For example, a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as a counter-revolutionary activity punishable by death. The liquidation and deportation of millions peasants in 1928-31 was carried out within the terms of Soviet Civil Code [3]. According to some Soviet legal scholars, there are "instances in which criminal repression is applied also in the absence of guilt"[3].

According to Soviet propaganda, each individual had to sacrifice his civil rights and desires to fulfill the needs of the collective. It was claimed that Soviet state had provided all necessary rights, including the provision of basic health care, adequate nutrition, and the right to an education.

[edit] Loss of life

The number of people killed under Joseph Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union has been estimated as between 3.5 and 8 million by G. Ponton,[4] 6.6 million by V. V. Tsaplin,[5] 9.5 million by Alec Nove,[6] 20 million by The Black Book of Communism,[7] 50 million by Norman Davies,[8] and 61 million by R. J. Rummel.[9] The numbers of victims are inconsistent because they are determined using different criteria and methods and counted during different periods of time. Most recent publications are probably more reliable, since after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, researchers gained access to Soviet archives.

Nikolai Getman, Moving out
Nikolai Getman, Moving out

[edit] Political repression

Main article: Soviet political repressions

Soviet political repression was a de facto and de jure system of prosecution of people who were or perceived to be enemies of the Soviet system. Its theoretical basis were the theory of Marxism about the class struggle and the resulting notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its legal basis was formalized into the Article 58 in the code of RSFSR and similar articles for other Soviet republics. Aggravation of class struggle under socialism was proclaimed. An extensive network of civilian informants - either volunteers, or those forcibly recruited - was used to collect intelligence for the government and report cases of suspected dissent.[10]

Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya Birth in a prison car for Bessarabian deportees
Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya Birth in a prison car for Bessarabian deportees

The term "repression", "terror", and other strong words were normal working terms, since the dictatorship of the proletariat was supposed to suppress the resistance of other social classes which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of proletariat. The entire "ruling classes" have been exterminated, including "rich people", and a significant part of intelligentsia and peasantry labeled as kulaks. The numerous victims of extrajudicial punishment were called the enemies of the people. The punishment by the state included summary executions, torture, sending innocent people to Gulag, involuntary settlement, and stripping of citizen's rights. Usually, all members of a family, including children, were punished simultaneously as "traitor of Motherland family members". The repressions have been conducted by Cheka, OGPU and NKVD in several consecutive waves known as Red Terror, Collectivisation, Great Purge, Doctor's Plot, and others. The secret police forces conducted massacres of prisoners at numerous occasions. The repressions against "ruling classes" and general population were practiced in Soviet republics and at the territories "liberated" by Soviet Army during World War II, including Baltic States, Eastern Europe, China, and North Korea.

State repression led to uprisings, which were brutally suppressed by military force, like the Tambov rebellion, Kronstadt rebellion, or Vorkuta Uprising. During Tambov rebellion, Soviet military forces widely used chemical weapons against civilians. [11] Most prominent citizens of villages were often taken as hostages and executed if the resistance fighters did not surrender.

After Stalin's death, the suppression of dissent was dramatically reduced and took new forms. The internal critics of the system were convicted for anti-Soviet agitation or as "social parasites". Others were labeled as mentally ill, having sluggishly progressing schizophrenia and incarcerated in "Psikhushkas", i.e. mental hospitals used by the Soviet authorities as prisons[12]. A few notable dissidents were sent to internal or external exile, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Bukovsky, and Andrei Sakharov.

[edit] Genocide

Ukrainian Famine Victim, 1933
Ukrainian Famine Victim, 1933

Entire nations have been collectively punished by the Soviet Government for alleged collaboration with the enemy during World War II. In legal terms, the word "genocide" may be appropriate because specific ethnic groups were targeted. At least nine of distinct ethnic-linguistic groups, including ethnic Germans, ethnic Greeks, ethnic Poles, Crimean Tatars, Balkars, Chechens, and Kalmyks, were deported to remote unpopulated areas of Siberia and Kazakhstan. It is commonly accepted that the ethnicity-targeted population transfers in the Soviet Union led to millions of deaths due to the inflicted hardships. Koreans and Romanians were also deported. Mass operations of the NKVD were needed to deport hundreds of thousands of people.

The deaths of millions of people in Ukraine during the Holodomor famine of 1932–1933 was, according to many historians, caused intentionally by confiscating all food and blocking the migration of starving population by the Soviet government. The number of Holodomor victims was estimated by Robert Conquest at 5 million.[13] The overall number of peasants who died in 1930–1937 from hunger and repressions during collectivisation (including in Kavkaz and Kazakhstan) was at least 14.5 million.[13] More than a million of people died earlier during other droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR.

[edit] Freedom of expression, literature, and science

Main article: Suppressed research in the Soviet Union
Main article: Socialist Realism

Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced [14]. This gave rise to Samizdat, a clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature.

Art, literature, education, and science were placed under a strict ideological scrutiny, since they were supposed to serve the interests of the victorious proletariat. Socialist realism is an example of such teleologically-oriented art that promoted socialism and communism. All humanities and social sciences were tested for strict accordance with historical materialism.

All natural sciences have to be founded on the philosophical base of dialectical materialism. Many scientific disciplines, such as genetics, cybernetics, and comparative linguistics, were suppressed in the Soviet Union, condemned as "bourgeois pseudoscience", and replaced by real pseudoscience, such as Lysenkoism. Many prominent scientists were declared to be "wrecklers" or enemy of the people and imprisoned. Some scientists worked as prisoners in "Sharashkas", i.e. research and development laboratories within the Gulag labor camp system.

Every large enterprise or institution of the Soviet Union had First Department run by KGB people responsible for secrecy and political security of the workplace.

[edit] Right to vote

Main article: Soviet democracy

According to communist ideologists, the Soviet political system was a true democracy, where workers' councils called "soviets" represented the will of the working class. In particular, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 guaranteed direct universal suffrage with the secret ballot. However all candidates had been selected by Communist party organizations, at least before the June 1987 elections. Historian Robert Conquest described this system as "a set of phantom institutions and arrangements which put a human face on the hideous realities: a model constitution adopted in a 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." [15]

[edit] Property rights

Personal property was allowed, with certain limitations. All real property belonged to the state. Unauthorized possession of foreign currency was forbidden and prosecuted as criminal offense.

[edit] Freedoms of assembly and association

Freedoms of assembly and association did not exist. Workers were not allowed to organize free trade unions. All existing trade unions were organized and controlled by the state[16]. All political youth organizations, such as Pioneer movement and Komsomol served to enforce the policies of the Communist Party.

[edit] Freedom of religion

Main article: Religion in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was an officially atheistic state. The stated goal was control, suppression, and, ultimately, the elimination of religious beliefs. Atheism was propagated through schools, communist organizations, and the media. The Society of the Godless was created. All religious movements were either prosecuted or controlled by the state and KGB.

[edit] Freedom of movement

Main article: Passport system in the Soviet Union

Emigration and any travel abroad were not allowed without an explicit permission from the government. People who were not allowed to leave the country are known as "refuseniks".

Passport system in the Soviet Union restricted migration of citizens within the country through "propiska" (residential permit/registration system) and use of internal passports. For a long period of the Soviet history peasants did not have internal passports and could not move into towns without permission.

Many former inmates received "wolf ticket" and were allowed to live only at 101 km away from city borders.

Travel to closed cities and to the regions near USSR state borders was strongly restricted.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Constitution of the Soviet Union. Preamble
  2. ^ Lambelet, Doriane. "The Contradiction Between Soviet and American Human Rights Doctrine: Reconciliation Through Perestroika and Pragmatism." 7 Boston University International Law Journal. 1989. p. 61-62.
  3. ^ a b Richard Pipes Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, Vintage books, Random House Inc., New York, 1995, ISBN 0-394-50242-6, pages 402-403
  4. ^ Ponton, G. (1994) The Soviet Era.
  5. ^ Tsaplin, V.V. (1989) Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody.
  6. ^ Nove, Alec. Victims of Stalinism: How Many?, in Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (edited by J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning), Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-521-44670-8.
  7. ^ Bibliography: Courtois et al. The Black Book of Communism
  8. ^ Davies, Norman. Europe: A History, Harper Perennial, 1998. ISBN 0-06-097468-0.
  9. ^ Bibliography: Rummel.
  10. ^ Koehler, John O. Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police. Westview Press. 2000. ISBN 0-8133-3744-5
  11. ^ Fragments from Tambov rebellion by B.V. Sennikov (Russian)
  12. ^ The Soviet Case: Prelude to a Global Consensus on Psychiatry and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch. 2005
  13. ^ a b Bibliography: Conquest. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.
  14. ^ A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former). Chapter 9 - Mass Media and the Arts. The Library of Congress. Country Studies
  15. ^ Robert Conquest Reflections on a Ravaged Century (2000) ISBN 0-393-04818-7, page 97
  16. ^ A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former). Chapter 5. Trade Unions. The Library of Congress. Country Studies. 2005.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

[edit] For other articles on the topic see: