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Human rights in the Soviet Union have been viewed differently, one view by the communist ideology adopted by the Soviet Union and another by its critics. The Soviet Union was established after a revolution that ended centuries of Tsarist monarchy. The emerging Soviet leaders sought to establish a new order and understanding of equality based on Marxist–Leninist ideology.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union ruled the country and mobilized the entire population in support of state ideology and policies. As a result, civil and political rights were limited. The emphasis was placed on the principles of guaranteed economic and social rights.
According to the United Nations human rights are the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled."[1] Examples of rights and freedoms which are often thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as 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.[2]
The Soviet conception of human rights was different from conceptions prevalent in the West. 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 theory states that society as a whole is the beneficiary.[3] Within the Soviet Union, emphasis was placed on economic and social rights such as access to health care, adequate nutrition, education at all levels, and guaranteed employment.[4] The government of the Soviet Union considered these to be the most important rights, without which political and civil rights were meaningless.[4]
It was argued in the West that the Soviets rejected the Western concept of the "rule of law" as the belief that law should be more than just the instrument of politics; the Soviet view on rights was criticized for considering the Marxist–Leninist ideology above natural law.[3]
In the 1930s and 1940s, political repression was practiced by the Soviet secret police services Cheka, OGPU and NKVD.[5] 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.[6]
Soviet political repression was a de facto and de jure system of persecution and prosecution of people who were or perceived to be enemies of the Soviet system. Its theoretical basis was the theory of Marxism concerning class struggle. The terms "repression", "terror", and other strong words were official 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 the proletariat. The legal basis of the repression was formalized into Article 58 in the code of the RSFSR and similar articles for other Soviet republics. Aggravation of class struggle under socialism was proclaimed during the Stalinist terror.
Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.[7] This gave rise to Samizdat, a clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature. Art, literature, education, and science were placed under 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 were 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 during some periods, condemned as "bourgeois pseudoscience". At one point Lysenkoism, which many consider a pseudoscience, was favored in agriculture and biology. In the 1930s and 1940s, many prominent scientists were declared to be "wreckers" or enemies of the people and imprisoned. Some scientists worked as prisoners in "Sharashkas" (research and development laboratories within the Gulag labor camp system).
Every large enterprise and institution of the Soviet Union had a First Department that reported to the KGB; the First Department was responsible for secrecy and political security in the workplace.
According to the Soviet Criminal Code, agitation or propaganda carried on for the purpose of weakening Soviet authority, or circulating materials or literature that defamed the Soviet State and social system were punishable by imprisonment for a term of 2–5 years; for a second offense, punishable for a term of 3–10 years.[8]
According to communist ideologists, the Soviet political system was a true democracy, where workers' councils ("soviets") represented the will of the working class. In particular, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 guaranteed direct universal suffrage with the secret ballot. However, before the June 1987 elections, all candidates had been selected by Communist Party organizations. 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."[9]
Personal property was allowed, with certain limitations. All real property was considered state or socialist property.[10] Health, housing, education, and nutrition were guaranteed through the provision of full employment and economic welfare structures implemented in the workplace.[10]
However, these guarantees were not always met in practice. For instance, over five million people lacked adequate nutrition and starved to death during the Soviet famine of 1932–1933, one of several Soviet famines.[11] The 1932-33 famine was caused primarily by Soviet-mandated collectivization.[12]
Economic protection was also extended to the elderly and the disabled through the payment of pensions and benefits.[13]
Freedom of assembly and of association were limited. Workers were not allowed to organize free trade unions. All existing trade unions were organized and controlled by the state.[14] All political youth organizations, such as Pioneer movement and Komsomol served to enforce the policies of the Communist Party. Participation in non-authorized political organizations could result in imprisonment.[8] Organizing in camps could bring the death penalty.[8]
The Soviet Union promoted atheism. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed outright.
Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers included torture; being sent to prison camps, labour camps, or mental hospitals; and execution.[15][16][17][18] Many Orthodox (along with peoples of other faiths) were also subjected to psychological punishment or torture and mind control experimentation in an attempt to force them give up their religious convictions (see Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union).[16][17][19][20]
Practicing Orthodox Christians were restricted from prominent careers and membership in communist organizations (e.g. the party and the Komsomol). Anti-religious propaganda was openly sponsored and encouraged by the government, to which the Church was not given an opportunity to publicly respond. Seminaries were closed down, and the church was restricted from publishing materials. Atheism was propagated through schools, communist organizations, and the media. Organizations such as the Society of the Godless were created.
Emigration and any travel abroad were not allowed without an explicit permission from the government. People who were not allowed to leave the country and campaigned for their right to leave in 1970s were known as "refuseniks". According to the Soviet Criminal Code, a refusal to return from abroad was treason, punishable by imprisonment for a term of 10–15 years, or death with confiscation of property.[8]
The passport system in the Soviet Union restricted migration of citizens within the country through the "propiska" (residential permit/registration system) and the use of internal passports. For a long period of Soviet history, peasants did not have internal passports, and could not move into towns without permission. Many former inmates received "wolf tickets" and were only allowed to live a minimum of 101 km away from city borders. Travel to closed cities and to the regions near USSR state borders was strongly restricted. An attempt to illegally escape abroad was punishable by imprisonment for 1–3 years.[8]
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