Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin

by Peter H. Solomon, Jr

• ISBN13: 9780521400893
• ISBN10: 0521400899
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-10-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin is the first comprehensive account of Stalin's struggle to make criminal law in the USSR a reliable instrument of rule. Using recently declassified archives, Peter Solomon tells the revealing story of non-political justice, on the local scene as well as in the center. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Solomon emphasizes the initial weakness of the Soviet state and the limits of Stalin's capacity to rule. Solomon's study also offers new perspectives on collectivization, the Great Terror, the politics of abortion, and the disciplining of the labour force. This book should appeal to anyone interested in the political, social, or legal history of the USSR, judicial reform in post-Soviet states, law in authoritarian regimes, or comparative legal development.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I. The First Phase: 1. The design of an experiment

2. Criminal justice under NEP

Part II. The Years of Collectivization: 3. Campaign justice

4. The decline of legality

Part III. The Conservative Shift: 5. The return to tradition: Vyshinsky and legal order

6. Stalin's criminal policy: from tradition to excess

7. Criminal justice and the great terror

8. The reconstruction of criminal justice

9. Preparing for war: the criminalization of labour infractions

Part IV. The Stalinist Synthesis: 10. Moulding legal officials for careers

11. The dynamics of Stalinist justice: bureaucratic and political pressures on legal officials

12. The distortion and limits of criminal policy

Conclusion.