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Court Cases as a Source of Information on Soviet Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Rudolf Schlesinger
Rudolf Schlesinger*
Affiliation:
Department for the Study of the Social and Economic Institutions of the USSR, University of Glasgow; Soviet Studies
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Extract

The difficulties facing the student of contemporary Soviet conditions in his search for reliable evidence on detail are well known. Court cases, so far as reported, have obvious advantages in comparison, let us say, with the literary productions of authors, who aim at illustrating the direction in which Soviet society is supposed to move, as well as in comparison with the published reports of refugees. These reports may be supposed not to reflect the outlook of the typical Soviet citizen. Further, the refugees’ experiences are subject to processes of selection and editing, which are to a greater or lesser extent conditioned by the state of international relations and of public opinion in the country of publication. The court case, in contrast, represents facts established by the authorities under conditions in which maximum precision is desired, and it is published not only because of its propagandist but (and mainly) for its legal interest.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , October 1951 , pp. 163 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1951

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References

1 There are, or at least were in the past, certain types of hopeless civil cases which were contested by the defendants solely in order to prove to the defendant organization's superior organs, or to the State Bank, that no unnecessary payments had been made, and there may be public prosecutors who appeal even against obviously legitimate discharges merely “for order's sake.” None of these cases is likely to appear in the law reports. See infra in the text.

2 It is true that both of them frequently act on application of the parties injured, and that thus some kind of an informal second instance of appeal has come into being, but, clearly, they would not act were not the merits of the decision in strong doubt.

3 Reference is made to Cases and Readings on Soviet Law, by John N. Hazard and Morris L. Weisberg, Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law, Columbia University (New York, 1950). Names of cases referred to in this article and selected from this source are given in the transliteration of the source, rather than in the system normally used by the Review.

4 This statement is quite separate from that of the completeness of such reports of cases as are published, and has nothing to do with the popular speculation about the alleged “mystery of the confessions.” My point is simply that those of the defendants who have pleaded guilty in forms acceptable to the regime necessarily represented only one aspect of the opposition and that the published court cases were bound to overemphasize this aspect.

5 Case of Savelov, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 43-44.

6 Case of Yakunin and others, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 135-36.

7 Case of Tsybulev and Sevastyanov, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 136-37.

8 Case No. 1068, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 138-39. The case came before the Supreme Court only because it was contested as to whether the will was invalid from the very start, with the implication that the deceased died intestate and her sister was the legal heir; or was invalid only so far as the legacy to the Church was concerned, with the implication that the niece nominated as heir would get her legacy, and the village Soviet that part which had been bequeathed illegally to the Church. The Supreme Court of the USSR decided in the first sense against the Supreme Court of the Georgian Republic.

9 Case of Polezhayeva, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 47-49.

10 Socialističeskaja Zakonnost, No. 6 (1947).

11 There are special judicial hierarchies, headed by special Chambers of the Supreme Court (which are subject to its Plenum) for the Armed Forces, the Railways, the Waterways, and the Labor Camps. Since promotion of judges proceeds normally solely within each hierarchy, a specialist approach, presumably close to that of the administrative officials in question, is unavoidable and, presumably, not undesired. Uniformity of legal concepts is, thus, guaranteed mainly at the top, and corrections of decisions of the various Chambers of the Supreme Court by the Plenum composed of all judges of all Chambers are quite frequent.

12 Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 169-71.

13 Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 171-72.

14 Case of Madzaeva, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 173-74.

15 See Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 172-74.

16 Case of Musienko, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 21-22.

17 The predecessor had also been tried, and convicted and sentenced to four years imprisonment. This sentence was not dealt with by the Supreme Court, evidently because his responsibility appeared obvious.

18 Case of Ermakov, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., p. 84.

19 Case of Bereznev, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 120-21.

20 Case of Hodareva and Gogiya, Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 56-57.

21 If they denied negligence, the imposition of the fine would be subject to the decision of the Conflict Commission. As the Savings Bank's work had been organized in such a way that laywomen, under instructions to check the “general similarity of the signatures” were expected to detect a fraud most common to the Savings Banks of all countries, there would be nothing inconsistent in expecting in the future other laywomen's trade union representatives in the Conflict Commissions to decide whether they had applied such care as to be expected from a laywoman.

22 A slight impediment to such divorces was established in 1936 with the amendment of the law to require that the petitioner be confronted by the other party, and that the petitioner pay a fee which became progressively higher as the number of divorces for the petitioner rose.

23 See cases reported in Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 404 ff.

24 See Soveckoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 7 (1946). Two different translations of the most important parts are available; in the Modern Law Review (April, 1948), and in the author's Changing Attitudes in Soviet Russia: The Family (London, International Library of Sociology, 1949).

25 Soveckoe ZakonodateVstvo o Brake i Seme (Moscow-Leningrad, 1949). Extracts have been summarized in Soviet Studies, II, No. 2, 192 ff.

26 Op. tit., pp. 396 ff.

27 I. v. S., Hazard and Weisberg, op. tit., p. 396.

28 G. v. K., Hazard and Weisberg, op. tit., p. 398.

29 Decision of Supreme Court, quoted by G. M. Sverdlov, Soviet Studies, II, No. 2, 199.

30 Soviet Literature, No. 9 (1950).

31 K. v. K., Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., p. 397. (The case came up from Tashkent.)

32 Khashalia v. Shvangiradze (Kutais, Georgia), Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 415-516. The first court decision was in May, 1943; so the marriage was evidently dissolved in accordance with the former procedure by the Registrar's office, the child automatically passing to the mother's custody. Under the legislation of 1944, the custody of children is decided at the time of the divorce: but as the quoted decision of the Supreme Court is dated 1944, it may be supposed to have been published as a guide to the direction in which the lower courts should exercise their discretion in the future.

33 Cit. supra, note 29.

34 E.g., conditions under the German occupation and its aftermath. See Hazard and Weisberg, op. cit., pp. 242-43, 243-44, 422.

35 See the author's Changing Attitudes in Soviet Russia: The Family, cit. supra. note 24, Documents 6 and 13, and “Conclusions,” pp. 399 ff.

36 See Soviet Studies, II, 189-91 and 323.

37 See Changing Attitudes in Soviet Russia: The Family, cit. supra, note 24, at pp. 363 ff. and 393 ff. See also Soviet Studies, II, pp. 180 ff. and 322 ff.