Human Rights in

the Soviet Union

Al Szymanski

To the disappeared persons and thousands o f others

who have been killed in Latin America since the
mid-1960’s for their advocacy o f freedom; and for
D.R.

Zed Books Ltd., 57 C aledonian Road, London N I 9BU.

Human Rights in the Soviet Union was first published by Zed Books Ltd.,
57 Caledonian Road, London NI 9BU, in 1984.
Copyright ©A1 Szymanski, 1984
Proofread by Miranda Davies
Typeset by Shirley Coombs
Cover design by Jacque Solomons
Printed by Biddles of Guildford
All rights reserved
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Szymanski, Albert
Human rights in the Soviet Union.
1. Civil rights — Soviet Union
I. Title
323.4'0947 JC599.R9
ISBN 0 86232 018 6
ISBN 0 86232 019 4 Pbk

US Distributor
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Contents

A cknow ledgem ents i

P reface iv
1. Introduction 1
Freedom: Some Definitions 2
The Historical Logic o f Restricted
Emigration and Exit 13
Comparative Analysis 26
A Note on Sources 30
2. T he A sian N ationalities in th e U SSR 33
Origins of Soviet Power in Central Asia 34
Economic Development 37
Welfare 43
Education 46
Cultural Development 31
Politics 39
Soviet Policy Towards Islam 61
Anti-Soviet and Anti-Socialist Nationalist
Attitudes and Movements 63
Attitude o f Soviet Asians to USSR
Intervention in Afghanistan 66
Conclusion 67
3. T he E u ro p ean N atio n alitie s in th e U SSR 72
Economic Development 72
Health Care and Education 74
Cultural Development 73
Nationalism and Dissidence in the European
Republics 77
The Jewish People in the USSR 88
Conclusion 99
4. W om en in th e U SSR 102
The Rights o f W omen 102
T he Fam ily, H ousew ork and C hild-C are 107
E ducation 110
L abour O utside the H om e 112
Protective Legislation 117
W om en in Political Positions 118
A nalysis 120
C onclusion 124
5. E conom ic R ights 128
Living Standards 128
Im ports 129
Social C onsum ption and the Social W age 134
Job Rights 137
Rights o f Participation in the M anagem ent
o f Enterprises 140
G eneral E nterprise M eetings and the
Perm anent Production Conferences 141
T he Role o f E nterprise B ranches
o f the U nions 142
T he R ole o f the E nterprise B ranch o f the
C om m unist Party 145
Job Rights in the USA 146
C onclusion 148
6. T he L an d o f th e F ree 152
The A m erican R evolution and CivilLiberties 152
Federalists vs Jeffersonians: 1798-1808 155
The C onflict over Slavery and Civil Liberties:
1830-77 157
T he R epression o f the W orking-Class M ovement:
1866-1914 161
R epression o f the Left: 1917-24 164
D epression, W ar and Civil Liberty:1930-45 172
R epression o f the A m erican C om m unist Party and
C ivil Liberties: 1947-56 175
T he 1960s and Political R epression 187
U nited States Support o f Repressive Regimes
O verseas in the 1960s and 1970s 195
C onclusion 198
JS* T o leratio n an d R epression in th e U SSR :
1918-54 204
Civil W ar, Invasion, an d R elaxation (1918-27) 205
How H istory Judges: I. Fam ine and
C ollectivization (1928-34) 212
How H istory Judges: II. The G row ing T hreat o f
Invasion and ‘The G reat Purge’ (1935-39) 229
T raitor M ania and the M oscow Trials o f 1936-38 235
The N um bers o f Those Affected 241
The Politics o f the Executions: 1936-38 248
C auses an d Effects 250
Invasion, R econstruction and the Renewed
T hreat o f Invasion: 1941-54 257
8. T olerance an d R epression in th e Soviet U nion:
1965-82 267
Trends in C ontem porary Soviet Policy and the
D issident M ovem ent 267
D efinition o f D issident Activity in the USSR 269
The Extent o f the D issident M ovem ent 273
Strategy and Tactics o f the D issident M ovement 276
Sanctions against D issidents 279
D issidents C ategorized as Schizophrenic 282
N um bers o f D issidents C onfined 284
Political Tendencies o f D issident Activists 285
C om parisons with the USA 290
9. C o n clu sio n 295
Sum m ary 295
State Power and Civil Liberty 299
Factors D eterm ining the Level o f the Civil
Liberty o f Public Advocacy 305
The C lass Basis o f Civil Liberties 313
D isinform ation and the C old W ar 314
Trends in Rights in C apitalist and
Socialist Societies 318
B ibliography 323
In d ex 333
lis t of Tables
2.1 Produced National Annual Income and Index of
Monthly Wages 1978, by Republic 38
2 2 Percentage o f Total Working Population
Engaged in Different Economic Sectors 40
23 Health Care: 1971 45
2.4 Literacy: Percentage o f Population Aged 9-49 47
2.5 Number o f Pupils and Students in the Union Republics 47
2.6 Higher Education by Nationality 49
2.7 Scientific Workers by Nationality 1971 50
2.8 Books and Newspapers Published
in Union Republics, 1970 52
2.9 Speakers of Languages of Major Nationalities
of USSR, 1970 53
2.10 Titular Nationality as Percent o f Republic
Population, 1959-70 57
2.11 National Composition of CPSU, 1 January 1972:
Union Republic Nationalities 59
3.1 Books/Newspapers in the National Language in the
Baltic Republics, Armenia and Georgia,
compared to % o f Nationals 75
4.1 Women’s Higher Educational Achievements:
Some Comparisons between the USSR and the USA 111
4.2 Distribution o f Women Workers and Employees and
Average Monthly Earnings, by Economic Sector,
1975 (USSR) 113
5.1 Nutrition: Comparative Figures for the USSR
and the West: 1975- 77 129
52 Soviet Grain (Millions of Metric Tons, Annual Average) 130
5.3 Soviet Livestock 1955-1979 131
8.1 US Aid, Investment Climate and Human Rights
in Ten Countries 197
Acknowledgements

This book like all others is, in C. Wright Mills* words, a product of the inter­
section o f biography and history. Its coming into being has been a result of
the social forces operating on myself as author, acting through my family,
my schooling, my structural position as a US professor of sociology, and my
political involvements. This book, perhaps more than others, owes a great
deal to the influence o f my parents who shaped my fundamental attitudes
to equality, tolerance, liberty, authority and freedom. It also owes a great
deal to my teachers from Ward Senior High School, through the University
o f Rhode Island to graduate school at Columbia University, who introduced
me to the theories and debates around the questions o f freedom and rights.
My students and co-teachers at the University o f Oregon during the 1970s
provided continuing stimulation (usually critical, but sometimes supportive)
which had a major impact on the development of the ideas in the book. But
most of all, the ideas have been formed through my political involvements
since the late 1950s.
My first political act was to join the National Association for the
Advancement o f Colored People at the beginning of the civil rights movement
in 1959. My second was, as a naive freshman, to send a letter of outrage to
the student newspaper comparing the harsh penalties inflicted by the Dean
of Women on female students who smoked cigarettes in their dorm rooms to
the horrors of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. In the early 1960s I
defined my political commitments as two: support o f civil rights for Black
people, and support o f civil liberties for all, especially for students who were
then subject to the (since discarded) university doctrine of in loco parentis.
I joined the American Civil Liberties Union and became an outspoken advo­
cate o f the right of all to voice their political views. As president of the
University of Rhode Island S.D.S. Chapter in 1962,1 was responsible, to the
considerable irritation of Dean Quinn, for bringing to town the first Com­
munist Party member in 15 years to speak publicly on the campus.
But gradually, during the mid-1960s, with the intensification of the
student and Black movements, as well as the growth in my generation oi
support for the Cuban, Vietnamese, and Chinese Revolutions, my commit­
ment to abstract civil liberties became transformed into an appreciation of
the more fundamental rights o f national liberation and self-determination.

i
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Swept up in the political and intellectual excitement of the last half of the
1960s, 1 became a Marxist, but retained my earlier concern for questions of
liberty and rights.
Donna Rae Crawford must be specially acknowledged as my research
assistant for this book. She carefully checked the references, quotations and
calculations, thereby making this work considerably stronger. She must also
be thanked for her supportive friendship during the time of this book’s
production.
Robert Molteno, Neil MacDonald and Anna Gourlay of Zed Books, as
well as Beverly Jones and Lawrence Hill, must be especially thanked for
stimulating the growth o f this manuscript into a full fledged book from two
long papers on Asian minorities and dissidents in the USSR. Their critical
comments and suggestions were vital to the forming and shaping both of the
questions dealt with and the content o f this work.
Other individuals who have had an impact on this work through various
combinations o f intellectual stimulation and friendship include Sue Jacobs,
Michel Amieu, Carolyn Dornsife, Catherine Duriez, Gail Lemberger, Evelyn
Sparks, Madelene MacDonald, David Elliott, Val Burris, Charlie Kauften,
Cheyney Ryan, Mike Goldstein, Harry Humphries, Ron Wixman, Juan Linz
and Terry Hopkins.
Both Vicki Van Nortwick and Doris Boylan must be thanked for typing
the various drafts of the manuscript. The research librarians at the University
of Oregon, in particular Robert Lockhart, are also once again thanked for
their invaluable assistance. And of course, all the people at my publishers
and the printers who did the physical production of the manuscript must be
acknowledged.
My interest in the theoretical questions of freedom and rights has deep
roots in my biography, but what compelled me to write this book was the
sharp contention in the world, in the 1970s and early 1980s, between the
growing forces of national liberation and socialist revolution and the
weakening forces of imperialism. In response to the accelerating growth both
of socialism and anti-imperialist movements throughout the world, the
leading forces of the advanced capitalist countries have counter-attacked on
the level of ideology. To the nationalist and socialist slogans of national
liberation and workers’ power they have opposed ‘freedom’. By ‘freedom’
they mean freedom to publicly advocate whatever one wants, freedom of
opportunity to get rich, freedom for professionals in the poor countries to
emigrate to wealthy countries, and freedom for owiiers to buy, sell, hire
labour and otherwise control the economy, in short ‘free enterprise’.
Utilizing highly sophisticated Madison Avenue techniques, a powerful
ideological war has been waged throughout the world: in the advanced and
in the less developed countries, and in the socialist countries themselves by
way of radio and travellers. Western ‘freedom’ has been marketed as a counter
to the rising tide of socialism.
To publicly advocate socialism in the West promptly evokes the retort:
What about the lack of freedom, emigration restrictions, political prisoners,

ii
 A cknowledge merits

refugees and so on, in socialist countries? Statistics on rising living standards,

social security, political participation, national independence, equality,
never satisfy such criticism. Necessarily, then, all socialists must take a
position on the question of civil liberties/repression in the socialist countries.
One tendency of the socialist movement argues that some or all of the ‘so-
called’ socialist countries, are not really socialist, but instead new types of
class societies, equally, if not more repressive than, the older types. Others
answer that because o f such problems as economic backwardness and foreign
invasion faced by socialism where it has come to power, it has become
fundamentally distorted and thus must repress significant numbers of its
people in order to survive. Another sector of the left merely dismisses all
evidence of political repression as ‘capitalist propaganda’.
Having written a book on the basic economic and political nature of the
Soviet Union, it then seemed logical to follow up by attempting to complete
the work already begun with a book on what remained the most compelling
political and theoretical questions: What about freedom? The position of
minorities? What about women? Worker’s participation and economic
security? What about the dissidents? The prison camps and psychiatric wards
used to suppress opposition?
The book deals with the most politically charged question of the last half
of the 20th Century: that of ‘freedom’. A slogan for which a great many have
shed their blood and suffered persecution on both sides of the barricades.
Probably more than any other question people’s feelings about freedom
(variously expressed as commitment to ‘free’ enterprise, to civil liberties,
national liberation, self-determination or socialist revolution) run deep.
Preface

The history o f scholarship is a record of the acceptance of and resistance to

the ideas o f the powerful interests of the day. Bruno was burned at the stake
for advocacy o f the heliocentric view of the universe, Galileo was put under
house arrest and forced publicly to recant his ideas, and Copernicus’s works
were put on the Church’s Index, owing to the conflict between scientific
evidence and the word of the Bible. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries
the scientific ideas of evolution fared little better. Ideas about the social
world, including the characteristics of various social groups, are integrally
related to the dominant political ideology and interests, and thus are
rewarded, encouraged, discouraged, repressed, accepted, derided, on account
o f their social impact, rather than the facts mobilized in their support.
To quote Stephen Jay Gould:

. . . the history of many scientific subjects is virtually free from such

constraints of fact for two msgor reasons. First, some topics are invested
with enormous social importance but blessed with very little reliable
information. When the ratio of data to social impact is so low, a history
of scientific attitudes may be little more than an oblique record of
social change. The history of the scientific view on race, for example,
serves as a mirror of social movements. This mirror reflects in good
times and bad, in periods of belief in equality and in eras of rampart
racism. The death knell of the old eugenics in America was sounded
more by Hitler’s particular use of once-favored arguments for steriliz­
ation and racial purification than by advances in genetic knowledge
Gould 1981, p. 22.

Gould’s comments on ideas about race apply to ideas about freedom, rights
and socialism even more forcefully.
Of all social phenomena, those associated with the questions of political
power, the effectiveness o f different economic systems, the necessity of
social inequality, and the potentialities and effects o f different modes of
production, are the most central and thus particularly subject to acceptance
or rejection on the basis o f factors extraneous to fact. The questions with
the greatest impact and hence where, often, fact is permitted only a minimal

iv
role, are those relating to the potentialities o f socialism in general, and the
inherent compatibility o f ’freedom’ and the Soviet model o f socialism in
particular. This book engages the question in which the ratio o f fact to social
impact has been the lowest. (Less because facts have not been available to
those who want to find them than because the denominator is so enormous.)
In the last few decades, however, the numerator has grown considerably.
By marshalling facts which have become known to most careful Western anal­
ysts over recent years, but which are seldom combined to draw the implicit
logical conclusions, this book attempts to increase the ratio of fact to social
impact to a level generally applicable in the social sciences.
Intellectuals are political beings whose daily activity deeply affects the
political atmosphere o f their countries. Usually, the bulk o f intellectuals of
a given nation are mobilized in support o f its prevailing institutions. Such has
certainly been the case in the United States and the other ’Anglo-Saxon
(Parliamentary) Democracies’ in the post-World War II period. The centre of
intellectual gravity during this period has been the effort to discredit the
liberating potential o f socialism, sometimes in quite sophisticated and indirect
ways, while celebrating the institutions o f capitalism and formal parliamen­
tary forms. To quote Chomsky and Herman:

Quite commonly, intellectuals have a strong moral attachment to some

favored state - usually their own - and have devoted themselves to
lauding its alleged acheivements (sometimes real) and concealing its
abuses and crimes. At times, the ’herd o f independent minds’ has . . .
succeeded in virtually stifling opposing views.
(Chomsky and Herman 1979b, p. 23)
. . . every effort must be made to discredit what is called ’socialism’ or
‘communism.’ In its more vulgar forms, the argument is that ’socialisnf
or ’Marxism’. . . leads inevitably to Gulag.. . . In the United States, this
tactic has become virtually a reflex. Bolshevik and later Stalinist crimes
have regularly been exploited as a weapon against movements seeking
reform or revolutionary change. (Chomsky and Herman 1979b, p. 297)
. . . the general passivity and obedience on the part o f the population
that is a basic requirement in a state committed to counter-revolution­
ary intervention was overcome in significant measure, and dangerous
feelings o f sympathy developed towards movements of national
liberation in the Third World. It is an important task for the intelli­
gentsia in the post-war period to reconstruct the ideological system and
to reinstate the patterns of conformism that were shattered by the
opposition and resistance to the US war in Indochina.
(Chomsky and Herman 1979b, p. 17)

The US Central Intelligence Agency well understands the power o f ideas

—as did its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. In fact 'psychological
warfare’ is a fundamental front of the war between socialism and capitalism.

v
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Everything issued or pronounced, about the socialist societies and the degree
o f rights within them, by the authorities of Western governments and the
spokespeople of the corporations, as well as by those associated with the
institutions established by and funded by them, must thus be evaluated in
this light. According to the Office o f Strategic Services ‘psychological war­
fare’ (to which most o f the US CIA’s budget is allocated) is defined as:

The co-ordination and use of all means, including moral and physical,
by which the end is to be attained —other than those of recognized
military operations, but including the psychological exploitation of
the result of those recognized actions - which tend to destroy the will
of the enemy to achieve victory and to damage his political or
economic capacity to do so; which tend to deprive the enemy of the
support, assistance, or sympathy of his allies or associates or of neutrals,
or to prevent his acquisition of such support, assistance, or sympathy;
or which tend to create, maintain, or increase the will to victory of our
own people and allies and to acquire, maintain, or increase the support,
assistance and sympathy of neutrals.
(Office of Strategic Services, 1949, p. 99)

The all pervasive influence of the institutions of advanced capitalism

permeate not only the work o f the mainstream intelligentsia, but also that of
the great bulk o f the ‘radical’ intelligentsia. For conservative and ‘socialist’
intellectuals and groups to compete to produce the most anti-Soviet analyses
and polemics is not uncommon. The very concepts and definitions employed
by the bulk o f the Left in the English-speaking advanced capitalist countries
are, in good part, a product of mainstream liberal discourse - a discourse
quite compatible with monopoly capitalist institutions in times o f stability -
rather than a product of the Marxist or mainstream socialist traditions. For
example, the definition of socialism in traditional anarcho-syndicalist terms
of decentralized participatory democracy, and the attention given to intellec­
tual freedom (regardless of its consequences for ordinary working peoples’
lives) are very much a product of the classical liberal, rather than the Marxist,
tradition. These two axioms of radical discourse in the ‘Anglo-Saxon Dem­
ocracies’ alone are sufficient to serve to mobilize the great bulk of otherwise
liberal, progressive and social democratic intellectuals to participate in the
Great Distortion and become (often indirectly) part o f the general NATO
mobilization against real, existing socialism and national liberation.
The high stakes involved in the seemingly ‘scholarly’ debates on questions
related to ‘freedom’ and ‘socialism’, and above all in questions at the inter­
section o f these two topics, has meant that, for the proponents and
opponents of a given thesis, the required standards of scholarship and proof
are unequal The scales are so heavüy weighted on the side of those scholars
who argue in favour of their state’s positions that, in the normal course of
events, they are guaranteed an intellectual victory however few their facts
or overwhelming the evidence mobilized by their opponents; this applies

vi
equally in socialist, and in advanced capitalist countries. The only difference
is that because they are relatively new, socialist countries often employ more
direct means to accomplish resuits obtained just as effectively, but more
subtly, by capitalist countries. To quote Chomsky and Herman again:

The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as con­

trasted with their ciumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate
by subtly establishing on a voluntary basis . . . presumptions that set
the limits of debate . . . . Those who do not accept the fundamental
principies of state propaganda are simpiy excluded from the debate
(or if noticed, dismissed as ‘emotional*, ‘irresponsible*, etc.).
The new propaganda line has been established by endiess repetition
of the Big Distortions and negligible grant of access to non-estabiish-
ment points of view .. . . (Chomsky and Herman 1979b, pp. 30,300)

The theses defended in this book are, of course, unacceptable intellectual

discourse both in the US and the other ‘Anglo-Saxon Democracies’. Their
social impact is such that they can, and most probably will, be dismissed by
the majority as Responsible’ without first examining the data and
arguments presented.
This book has been written with, perhaps, insufficient caution, but with
the sense o f an obligation to intervene in the political debates about the
potentials of national liberation, socialism and capitalism, its emotive
reception is a reflection of the book’s focus on the very nerve of capitalist
ideology. 1 can only hope that a significant number of readers will be able to
contain their prior judgments and the commitments they bring to the reading
o f the book to nevertheless evaluate my arguments reasonably objectively.

Eugene, Oregon
June 1983
O ther Books by A1 Szymanski
The C apitalist State and the Politics o f Class, Winthrop, 1978
Sociology: Class Consciousness and Contradictions,
Van Nostrand, 1979
Is the R ed Flag Flying? Zed, 1979
The Logic o f Imperialism, Praeger, 1981
Class Structure, Praeger, 1983
 1. Introduction

The quest for freedom, manifested in the demands for self-determination,

liberation or ’human rights’, has been an increasingly dominant issue through*
out the world since the end of World War Two. The USA and the USSR,
each in their own way, have made the issue o f freedom a central point of
concern in their contention. Each maintains that only under their system
can freedom be ’real’, and that under that of the other it cannot exist. In
this book the notion of freedom and the concept of human rights are
scrutinized, and the degree to which basic freedoms or rights are realized
within the USA and the USSR are compared.
In the ideological war between socialism and Western capitalism, the West
has attempted to make formal civil liberties the central issue between the
two systems. The Western media abundantly disseminates stories of Soviet,
Cuban, Vietnamese and East German refugees ‘fleeing to freedom* in the US,
o f the difficulty o f emigration from the Socialist countries, the ‘repression*
of Soviet dissidents, and so on. President Carter’s ‘human rights* campaign
of the 1977-80 period was premised on the assumption that the US would
be successful in its propaganda war with the Soviet Union by attempting to
establish the battlefield on the grounds o f civil liberties, and interpreting the
flight of professional and business people from Socialist countries as a flight
from repression to ‘freedom* in the US. The fairly high level o f formal civil
liberties obtaining in the US, it was implied, proves the superiority of Western
capitalism, while emigration from socialist countries proves the failure of
socialism. Further, it was argued that the alleged absence of formal civil
liberties in Socialist countries was of greater significance than the rights to
national liberation or civil liberties of most of the peoples of Asia, Africa and
Latin America. Dictatorships such as those in Indonesia, the Philippines,
Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, and the Shah’s Iran, must ultimately be sup­
ported in the fundamental interests o f the peoples o f these countries, creating
the conditions for the later development of formal freedom, or preventing the
loss of such freedom as they already have. The topic of this book is thus
central to the leading ideological and social struggle o f our time: socialism
vs capitalism.
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Freedom: Some Definitions

The term ‘freedom* has meant many things. It has been seen as a negative
concept: freedom from constraints —e.g. state control —as freedom for
each individual to do whatever he or she wants, irrespective of the wants and
needs of others; that is, form al freedom. Conversely, it has been seen as a
positive concept: freedom for each individual to be able to achieve the satis­
faction of their basic wants and needs; that is, subüantivétîreedom. The latter
definition focuses on the degree to which a society facilitates the realization
of national, and women’s, rights, job security, a high standard of living
social security, and so on. Many formal schema develop a hierarchy of
freedom and rights which attempts to counterpose ’substantive’ against
’formal’ freedoms to the relative advantage/detriment of the other. For
example, in the post-1917 world. Western capitalist forces have commonly
celebrated the formal freedom from constraints —for individuals or busi­
nesses - while socialist forces emphasize the attainment of substantive free­
dom by formerly oppressed classes and peoples.
Before we can systematically analyse the degree of comparison between
the US and the USSR on the question o f ’freedom’, it is essential to define
our terms. To avoid the ultimate philosophical question o f determinism vs
free-will, and attempt to defuse the emotive content of the term ’freedom’
generally the term ’rights’ rather than ’freedom’ will be used. ’Rights’, then, is
used to mean social freedom, as distinct from ‘free will’, or other philo­
sophical or ideological concepts o f ‘freedom’.
A ‘right’, then, is the legitimate (i.e. adjudged as ‘just’ or ‘proper’) claim
of an individual or group on society. ‘Legitimate’ implies that a claim is
regarded by those in authority as ‘just’ or ‘proper’, and that when a claim
is made, it is normally successful. ‘Rights’ include both the socially
guaranteed claims on society’s resources (positive) and the social guarantee
of being allowed to exist on equal terms with others. Le., not discriminated
against (negative).
There is sometimes a tendency to restrict use of the term ‘right’ to
societies with a state. This approach sees rights as something that state power
must necessarily guarantee or grant, i.e., an immunity, protection, or access
to goods or services. Consequently, that rights cannot exist in stateless
societies: in egalitarian or fully communist societies where, since there is
ho oppression, immunities or protections are superfluous, and since there is
no state no claims can be made on its resources. A ‘right’, in this book, is
considered to be a claim on society legitimized and guaranteed by either a
state, or by society itself without the mediation of a state. Legitimate claims
on society (rights) can be guaranteed by force (e.g. the police or informal
action) or by concensus/social pressure, and thus do not necessarily require
a state.
Five types of rights may usefully be distinguished:1

1) Property rights: the right, individually or collectively, to own productive

2
property, including the right to employ, or alternatively, not to be exploited
or denied participation in decision making: to alienate property as one
chooses, or alternatively, not to lose one’s patrimony, rights in property or
one’s job, and to manage the property as the individual or one’s collective
sees fit (including the right to invest or not , dispose of the product, operate
an enterprise and allocate labour as one sees fit).

2) Distribution (or consumption) rights: the right to a guaranteed decent

minimum standard o f consumption. This includes access to education and
health-care, either free or economically accessible to all; retirement and dis­
ability benefits; adequate housing; the right to a job and/or unemployment
benefits.

3) G vil rights: the right to full legal equality for all, including: women,
national minorities, ethnic or ‘racial’ groups, ensuring equal access to edu­
cation, jobs, social services, the political process, and so on, on the same
terms as members of the national majority (or majority ethnic group) and
men. This includes the right to use and develop one’s own language, to
celebrate and develop one’s own culture; as well as the right to be free from
all discrimination and interpersonal humiliations, such as racism and sexism.

4) G vil liberties (or form al rights) : the most basic of these personal rights
are what 1 shall term level 1 liberties, including the right to leave one’s job and
find another, the right of internal migration and travel, the right of free
marriage and divorce, reproductive rights, the right to privacy, the right to
be secure in one’s personal property, the right to religious beliefs and
practice, personal beliefs, and so on. Civil liberties also include the right to
fair treatment by the state, especially by the criminal justice system (includ­
ing such due process rights as a fair trial; to know the charges against one;
to be able to confront one’s accusers with contrary evidence: an impartial
judge/jury and a right to a speedy trial: freedom from police harassment and
torture, and other inhumane punishments etc.).

5) Political rights: the right to participate in the society’s political decision

making processes, and in all other institutions in which one is involved
(e.g. neighbourhoods, child-care centres, schools, etc.). (Participation in
economic institutions is defined here as part of property rights).

These liberties, which might be considered as process rights, 1 shall term

level 11 liberties since their exercise affects other members of society to a
greater extent than the exercise of level 1 liberties; and thus, historically,
have been more subject to limitation in the interest of trans-individual
considerations.1 Level HI liberties include the advocacy rights to persuade
others, such as freedom o f the press, public speech, assembly, religious
conversion, and so on, including the right to advocate and organize to achieve
the destruction or undermining of existing political and property

3
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

arrangements, the exercise of which by their very nature will have a direct
impact on others. Also included in this third category of liberties is the right
to travel or to emigrate from one’s country o f origin. The exercise of this
right may affect both the national economy (through loss of labour power)
and the legitimacy of a society’s basic institutions (owing to individuals
returning from other countries having acquired ideologies that are opposed
to those hegemonic in their native country). The potential social impact of
the exercise o f the level 111 liberties have resulted in historical states only
rarely guaranteeing them.
In Western capitalist countries, as we have already noted, interpretations
of freedom or rights tend to focus on individual civil liberties (formal
liberties) based on the notion that individuals should have an absolute or at
least an a priori just or proper claim on society to be left alone to realize
their desires without ‘unwarranted’ constraints. ‘Unwarranted’ normally
means that the only legitimate constraints a society may impose are those that
limit the individual’s right to constrain the rights of other individuals (e.g.
‘my freedom to move my arm stops where another person’s nose begins’).
Defenders of Western ‘civilization’ frequently proclaim such formal liberties
in absolutist, a priori and universalista terms, but no society has ever allowed
wholesale, total civil liberties for any appreciable period o f time, neither has
any non-Western or socialist society ever totally denied civil liberties to all
its people. In every kind o f society ‘some people are more free than others’,
i.e., the dominant class enjoys a greater degree of civil liberty to express
Itself publicly, and to freely associate without ‘unwarranted’ restraints than
do those that present a threat to the prerogatives of that class. Likewise, the
definition of ‘unwarranted restraint’ differs widely In different types o f
societies and at different periods. From time to time the Western
‘democracies’ have banned public protests against slavery or war, or public
utterance in favour of revolution, on the grounds of warranted restraint
(see Chapter 6). While in most socialist societies the rationale for bans on
publishing material favourable to the reinstitution of private property is that
o f ‘warranted constraint’. No modern society has ever effectively denied the
right to free speech or association to all their people all the time, but at
times all societies have formally denied them to certain groups.
Distributive (or consumption) rights, the socially recognized legitimate
individual or group claims for the satisfaction of basic material needs, i.e.
economic rights, are the core of every society. The basic function Q(t all
societies is to produce the means to satisfy the material needs of its people.
A society’s ability to successfully perform this function is to a great extent a
decisive factor for its success or decay. Indeed, if these fundamental needs
remain unfulfilled the other four rights become meaningless. The exercise
or restriction of Civil liberties, as well as political and participatory rights,
are usually concerned with the distribution of material goods and services.
Further, civil rights are typically manifested in the reality of such economic
rights for different groups; and property rights are also important in that
they provide differential access to material goods.

4
 The political rights, or rights to participation in the society and the in-
stitutions in which one is involved within a society must be distinguished
from the dass nature o f society, or the degree to which the actual policies
and processes o f that society differentially benefit different groups, it is
possible for a particular group to benefit even though it is formally excluded
from voting or holding office (e.g., the merchant bourgeoisie in feudal
societies), or alternatively, a group possessing formal rights of participation
might not be a beneficiary of state policies. Socialists, for example, would
argue that this is true of the working class in parliamentary democracies
where the 'false consciousness* induced by the capitalist mode of production
leads the working class to vote against its own interests.
Property rights subsume three distinct types o f property, which must not
be confused: ( i) personal property;(2) simple, private, productive property
which one operates oneself; and (3) property which employs the labour
power of others.
No major society in the 20th Century denies to its people the right of
personal property (considered here as a basic or ievei 1 liberty). All societies
consider it just for an individual to own such personal effects as clothing,
and for the most part one’s own living unit (although there are some
exceptions for reasons o f urban planning). Personal property is distinct from
productive property, i.e., property that produces goods or services which
have economic value. Contemporary productive property is of two types:
the property owned by a small farmer, artisan or professional and primarily
worked by the owner without the employment of other than immediate
family members (petty bourgeois property), and capitalist, or productive
property, which primarily is operated by hired labour power. Forms of
productive property can also utilize slaves, serfs, semi-serfs or sharecroppers
rather than wage labourers.
In some societies the right to acquire and dispose of productive property,
including the right to hire or dismiss the labour power of others for a wage is
guaranteed. This is the most fundamental right of distinctively capitalist
economies in the sense that capitalism would be impossible without such a
right. In other, namely socialist, societies such as the USSR and China, such
a right is considered to be an unwarranted infringement on the property
right* o f others, including the infringement of the right to job security and
the right to participate in the decision making of one’s enterprise; thus
these societies explicitly forbid such forms o f property.
It would seem that the right to employ the labour power of others in
productive property in contrast to the right to either personal or simple
private property in production is inherently contradictory. That is, the
exercise o f the right o f one person to ownership of productive property
which employs others necessarily denies those employees the exercise of
their right to possess private productive property. This is not to say that
the formai universal right to buy productive property (if one has the
resources), and the corollary right to sell one’s labour power is logically
contradictory, only that its exercise necessarily results in a concentration of

5
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

property rights in the hands of a minority; i.e., proletarianization (or depri­

vation o f property rights) for the majority. Nor does the contradictory
nature of private property in the means o f production imply that such a
right is not or never could be ‘progressive’, or that it could never advance
the other four types o f rights.
Civil liberties and, in part, civil rights are based on the notion of freedom
from formal state or social constraints on individuals and social groups.
This is in contrast to the substantive distributive rights, as well as to the
rights o f participation, which are positive legitimate claims on society (in
contrast to the legitimate claim to be free of unwarranted constraints). But
like civil liberties and civil rights, economic and participatory rights can be
consistently stated in universalistic terms, and thus like them differ from
property rights. Property rights are inherently and necessarily contradictory,
at least in their formulation as individual property rights.
Substantive distributive rights and civil rights are based on authentic
needs rather than on conscious desires or wants, as is the case with both
civil liberties and participatory rights. Distributive and civil rights, then,
must primarily be assessed by objective criteria o f the extent to which basic
human needs (economic security, housing, education, social welfare, lack of
discrimination, cultural autonomy, etc.) are satisfied, independently of
conscious desires or wants. Conversely, assessments o f the degree o f formal
civil liberties and participatory rights can be made independently o f the
substance of what people choose to say, do, or how they vote; even while
in the real world the actual exercise o f these rights is typically constrained
if they are used to undermine the dominant social institutions.
Rights are neither abstract nor universal. To ask the question ‘is x free?’
or ‘does y enjoy rights?’ is to ask the question ‘freedom for whom?’ or
‘rights for whom?’ In any modern society, freedom and rights are distributed
differentially according to class position. This is most clearly manifested in
the case o f property rights, that are inherent in class position. If productive
property is collectively owned, it necessarily follows that no individual has
the right to employ others or to buy or sell that property, i.e. a corollary of
collective property is the denial of the right to private productive property.
Conversely, the essential right o f capitalist society, the right to employ the
labour power of others and to alienate productive property at will,
systematically denies the exercise of property rights to those that are
employed. A similar factor is at work, although not usually so apparent, in
the operation o f all the other forms of right.
The substantive right for all members of society to a secure job and all
that implies, necessarily denies to some members of society the right to
dismiss workers from wage labour, or to enjoy a high living standard while
others starve. The right to a relatively equal distribution of income denies
the right to become a millionaire, while the right to become a millionaire
necessarily denies the rights of some to a decent standard o f living.
The right to political participation in the decision making process o f the
institutions in which one is involved (e.g. apartments, work places)

6
necessarily negates the rights of owners to make decisions according to their
will, just as private property in apartment buildings and factories necessarily
denies the right of tenants and workers to authentically participate in
decision making. Likewise, authentic political democracy for the whole
society necessarily negates the right of those with a claim to make societal
decisions (the heirs of royalty, the richest individuals, etc.), just as the right
of generals, royalty, or other formal or informal dictators necessarily denies
the rights of popular self-determination.
Civil liberties are also necessarily contradictory although not in an
immediate sense as with political, distributive or property rights. A society
in which everyone, equally, partook of full, formal liberty to say publicly
or write and publish whatever they wanted, can be conceived of in the
abstract. However, in reality, such has not been, nor could ever be the case
for any significant time in a society in which material benefits, property and
involvement in decision making, are radically distributed in favour of a few.
In any class society, the right to organize and to speak out without inter­
ference from the state is eventually utilized to organize against an unequal
distribution of income and property. Given the fact that few benefit at the
expense of many, civil liberties combined with political rights tend to lead
to government policies which undermine property and wealth, i.e. civil
liberties and political rights sooner or later come into contradiction with the
right to private property.2
What is most important in type 111 civil liberties is the right to advocate
what is in one’s own interest, above all in one’s class interest, not the right
to be a dilettante or an academic. Civil liberties in the real world have a
definite class content. Further civil liberties within a class society have no
substance unless actually exercised in pursuit of class interest.
Lenin argued that formal civil liberties normally have little relevance or
meaning for working people. He maintains that the civil liberty o f "democratic
republics’:

is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation,

and consequently always remains, in reality, a democracy for the
minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in
capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient
Greek republics: freedom for the slaveowners. Owing to the conditions of
capitalist exploitation the modem wage slaves are so crushed by want
and poverty that ‘they cannot be bothered with democracy’, ‘they
cannot be bothered with politics’; in the ordinary peaceful course of
events the majority of the population is debarred from participation in
public and political iife. 3

Unequal wealth and access to places of assembly, the media, leisure time,
verbal skills, education and other resources mean that "equal right’ effects
very unequal substantive outcomes:

7
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

. . . freedom of the press. . . is a deception so long as the best printing-

works and the biggest stocks of paper are appropriated by the
capitalists, and so long as capitalist rule over the press remains.. . .
In capitalist usage, freedom of the press means freedom of the right to
bribe the press, freedom to use their wealth to mould and fabricate
so-called public opinion . . .the defenders of ’pure democracy’ . . .
prove to be deceivers of the people, who, with the aid of plausible,
fine, but thoroughly false phrases, divert them from the concrete
historical task of liberating the press from capitalist enslavement.. . .
The capitalists have always used the term freedom ’ to mean freedom
for the rich to get richer and for the workers to starve to death.4

In fact, the contradiction between civil libertles/political rights and private

property rights came to the fore in all but about a dozen capitalist countries
at some point in the 1940-80 period, and resulted in the abolition of general
civil libertles/political rights. The association of civil Hberties/poHtical rights
with private property in production is thus an exceptional occurrence, made
possible only under exceptional conditions (e.g. rising living standards and
increases in economic and civil rights for the majority of the population).
This is underlined by the reality of only a small handful of capitalist countries
in Asia, Africa or Latin America allowing civil hberties/political rights to the
majority of their population, and by the fact that the two dozen or so stable
parliamentary capitalist democracies are the richest countries in the world,
all of which, until recently, have experienced a consistent growth in working-
class living standards, as well as in the expansion of workers’ distributive
rights.
Civil liberties and the right to formal political participation in the state
(universal franchise) can be maintained only as long as they are not effect­
ively used to secure substantive economic and property rights for the
majority of the population, i.e. only as long as they remain formal rights and
are not utilized to secure substantive rights. That is to say, people are free to
speak in favour of expropriating the wealth of the few and turning It over to
working people only as long as few people listen. Such has been the history
of almost all capitalist countries in the 20th Century (e.g. Southern, Central
and Eastern Europe in the period between the two World Wars, Latin
America, the ex-French and British colonies, Turkey, the Philippines,
Indonesia, etc.). Ultimately, the exercise o f civil liberties and the right of
political participation by the working classes is incompatible with the right
of the wealthy to their privilege and property. Likewise, the right of the
working class to collectively own the means of production and distribute
their product in an egalitarian manner is incompatible with the former
wealthy property-owning class’s right to organize to take their property back
(i.e., it is incompatible with any universal rights of association, public speech,
and due process).
The question of the degree to which formal civil liberties and the rights
of political participation are permitted the working people of capitalist

8
societies historically is reduced to the question of the extent to which they
are exercised in the interest of realizing the substantive distributive rights of
working people, as well as in the attempt to secure collective property rights
(i.e. the expropriation of private property in the means o f production).
In the 20th Century, in the most advanced capitalist countries, it has been
common, historically, to allow universal franchise and civil liberties for even
Socialists and Communists to advocate the expropriation of private
property and to allow their parties to put forward candidates for election.
They have, however, seldom won a parliamentary majority and been in a
position to implement their programme. Czechoslovakia in 1946-7 was a
notable exception. The capitalist class control of most of the media and
education, and the inertia o f traditional values, handed down from
generation to generation and reinforced by interpersonal networks, normally
succeeds in obtaining a sufficient number of working people to lend their -
at least passive - support to the party of property and order; thus, short of
a major 'legitimation crisis’ the propertied class is able to perpetuate its
system. In times of crisis, if a progressive coalition wins an election, or
increasing anti-private property measures are taken or threatened, then usually
either the military intervene or a fascist party is brought into power. The
result in either case is the negation of formal civil liberties and the right of
popular political participation, in order to guarantee the right of private
property in the means o f production.
The definition of freedom in terms of authentic needs instead of
consciously formulated wants or desires (which may be termed false, that is,
not correspond to authentic needs) may be generally more relevant. Social­
ization, the media, education and interpersonal interactions can create or
perpetuate false consciousness of a group’s or an individual’s real needs.
Formal civil liberties and the right of participation can thus be employed by
working classes in the interests of the propertied classes, e.g. by voting for
pro-business parties, or by joining pro-business organizations. The existence
of mere formal liberties tells us little about the real conditions of people.
The degree of substantive freedom, and whether or not civil liberties and
rights o f participation are used in the interests of working people, are the
more fundamental questions.
Civil rights would not be problematic unless fundamental inequality
existed between various ethnic/national/sexuai groups in a society. The right
to freedom from social humiliation and discrimination and, in the case of
minorities, to develop one’s own culture and institutions, is historically
predicated on the previous oppression of a group. Of the five types of rights
defined here, that of civil rights is the farthest removed from class consider­
ations. Logically speaking, while it is true that normally, cultural/'radal’
groups are essentially socially defined by the class position of the majority
of their members, there is also generalized discrimination/humiliation applied
to all members o f the group regardless of whether or not they are in the
class typical of their group. Moreover, other social groups, such as women
*nd/or perhaps 'homosexuals’ are not defined in terms of class because they

9
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

are present in all classes. Thus, while civil rights are historically associated
with social inequality this does not necessarily, logically imply class right or
‘right against right’ as do the other types of rights. Logically, it is thus
possible to have a class society in which authentic civil equality (full real­
ization of civil rights) exists for all. However, given the social logic of class
societies which generates racism and sexism, it is unlikely that such would
ever actually come to pass.
There are inherent contradictions within a given right - such as the right
to private property. There are also inherent contradictions among the
different rights. The claim for the abstract and universal character of rights
thus cannot stand. In reality, it is not a question of a ‘higher’ or lower’
level of universal rights for all; but rather a question of ‘right against right’,
the right of one class against the right of another. As long as class society
exists, or as long as its residues remain and hence the seeds of its rebirth
exist, there can be no universal and abstract a priori rights applicable to all.
The question of ‘right against right’ can become rather complex, as there
are often more than two classes, or principles of rights, involved. For example,
imagine a four cornered argument concerning who has a rightful title to a
piece of land in 19th Century France. The descendant of the former feudal
lords of the land would claim that the land was rightfully his on the grounds
of primogeniture and the inalienability of land, since feudal law gave first
born sons exclusive right to all their fathers’ land. A capitalist, with a formal
deed to the land, bought perhaps from the peasants who were the original
beneficiaries of the expropriation o f the feudal lord‘s ancestor (an expro­
priation which the aristocracy never granted legitimacy) would reject the
rules of feudalism and claim the land, on the basis of having bought it ‘fair
and square’ - in an ‘equal’ contract - from the peasants who were forced by
bankruptcy to sell. The farm workers, who actually produced the crops on
the land through their labour being, let us assume, socialists, would reject
both the claims arguing instead ‘that the land belongs to those that work it’,
‘to each according to their labour’; or perhaps simply, as disciples of John
Locke, they would argue that the basis of property is labour, and since they
perform the labour, the land and its products are theirs. Still another group
could make a claim contrary to all three. Either the pre-feudal indigenous
inhabitants (descendants of the primitive Gauls perhaps), or the contem­
porary unemployed poor, could assert a claim to the land and its products
on the basis of need.
There is no absolute criterion to distinguish between these four mutually
contradictory claims. There is no absolute right, independent of class or
time. Historically, such conflicting claims have been resoived not by
philosophical argument, but by arms. For example, in France, the question
of land ownership was resolved by the French Revolution in 1789, just as
the original claims of the primitive Gauls had been negated by force of
arms and their land became the property of aristocrats. The particular
system of property right adopted in 1789 was reaffirmed against socialist
challenges in 1871 and again in 1944-47. This mode of resolving conflicting

10
claims over rights has historically also proved to be decisive in the disagree­
ment between the indigenous inhabitants of Australia and the Americas and
their European settlers, as well as in the philosophical differences between
the former landowning and capitalist classes of China, Russia, Cuba and
Vietnam and the working people and peasants of these countries.
Realism vis-à-vis the resolution of arguments over rights cannot, how­
ever, be reduced either to cynicism or a ‘force theory* of right: those
that win the battles write the philosophy books. Judgments can be made
about conflicting rights and, in the long run, the forcible settlement of rights
questions, tend to conform to the secession of ‘higher’ or more ‘progressive’
rights. There is no absolute and universal right independent of classes, but at
any given time the rights claims of a given class can be judged more
progressive in the dual sense of: (1) facilitating the development of produc­
tive forces, and thereby serve as the basis for the greater wealth and higher
living standards of society; and (2) advancing civil rights, distributive rights,
participatory rights and real civfl liberties for a larger segment of the
population. Because a greater number of people benefit from the realization
of more progressive rights, in the long run, in a struggle of right against right,
the more progressive class normally triumphs. Thus, because more people
benefited from the capitalist organization o f French society than from
feudalism, capitalism eventually triumphed. Capitalism, by allowing for an
extension of rights (of all five types defined here) for more people, consoli­
dated greater popular support than could feudalism; for similar reasons
the socialist revolutions in China, Russia, Vietnam and Cuba triumphed and
were consolidated. Socialism, by extending all five types of rights for the
working class and peasantry of these countries, secured and consolidated
their support in the struggle against the ruling classes.
The question of superior or more progressive right is historically specific.
What is progressive and realistically realizable at any given time, hence a
‘superior right’, may not be so at another time. Further, rights tend to
become transformed into their opposites. A progressive right at one time,
advancing the productive forces and expanding all five types of rights for
more people, may well develop into its opposite at a future time, and
instead hinder the development of the productive forces and lead to the
repression of most rights for most people. There can be no trans-historical
evaluation of rights any more than there can be a trans-class evaluation.
Engels, emphasizing this point, argues that not even slavery could be
judged to be absolutely right or wrong either from the viewpoint of society
asa whole or the slaves themselves. Engels argued that one point in historical
development slavery was progressive, and hence a superior right :

It is very easy to inveigh against slavery and similar things in general

terms, and to give vent to high moral indignation at such infamies.
Unfortunately all that this conveys is only what everyone knows,
namely, that these institutions of antiquity are no longer in accord with
our present conditions and our sentiments, which these conditions

11
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

determine.
It was slaveiy that first made possible the division of labour between
agriculture and industry on a larger scale, and thereby also Hellenism,
the flowering of the ancient world. Without slavery, no Greek state, no
Greek art and science ; without slavery, no Roman Empire. But without
the basis laid by Grecian culture, and the Roman Empire, also no
modern Europe. We should never forget that our whole economic,
political and intellectual development presupposes a state of things in
which slavery was as necessary as it was universally recognized. In this
sense we are entitled to say: Without the slavery of antiquity no
modem socialism . . . . .Slavery was an advance even for the slaves;
the prisoners of war, from whom the mass of slaves was recruited, now
at least had their lives saved, instead of being killed as they had been
before, or even roasted, as at a still earlier period.5

In the same spirit nowhere do Marx and Engels condemn capitalism in

universal and abstract terms, neither do they similarly praise or advocate
socialism. On the contrary, Marx and Engels write positively of capitalism
as a progressive system, at a historically specific point, and defend
capitalist right over the previously dominant forms of right.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end
to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly tom asunder
the motley feudal ties that bound man to his Natural superiors’.
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarcely one hundred years, has
created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have
all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man,
machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture,
steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole con­
tinents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations
coloured out of the ground - what earlier century had even a presen­
timent that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social
labour? 6

Engels goes on to argue that without capitalism and the historically

specific predominance o f capitalist right, socialism would not be a realistic
historical possibility, Le. socialist right is premised on the previous triumphs
and achievements of capitalist right:

Only the immense increase of the productive forces attained by modem

industry has made it possible to distribute labour among all members
of society without exception, and thereby to limit the labour time of
each individual member to such an extent that all have enough free
time left to take part in the general - both theoretical and practical -
affairs of society. It is only now, therefore, that every ruling and
exploiting class has become superfluous and indeed a hindrance to

12
 social development, and it is only now, too, that it will be inexorably
abolished, however much it may be in possession of ’direct force*.7

In Lenin’s words: ’Capitalism is evil compared with socialism. Capitalism

is good compared with medievalism, compared with small production, com­
pared with bureaucracy .. .’8 In places, Lenin even expresses enthusiasm
for the benefits of capitalism for the working class under pre-capitalist
conditions:

In countries like Russia the working class suffers not so much from
capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The
working dass is, therefore, most certainly interested in the broadest,
freeist, and most rapid development of capitalism.. . . The bourgeois
revolution is precisely an upheaval that most resolutely sweeps away
survivals of the past, survivals of the serf-owning system (which
indude not only the autocracy but the monarchy as w ell).. 9

The Historical Logic of Restricted Emigration and E x it10

As we have argued, no right is absolute, since the exercise of virtually any
right affects the realization o f the rights of others. The right of —say - a
doctor to emigrate is no more absolute than the right of, for example,
peasants in a poor country to receive the medical care the doctor has been
trained to give. Neither, in an absolute sense, is one superior to the other.
If, by revolutionary orlom e other means, legislation is enacted requiring
doctors to spend a specific number of years attending to the medical needs
of the peasants in their country of origin, before they are permitted to
emigrate then, from the upper middle-class doctors’ viewpoint, their right to
emigrate is seriously infringed. The peasants, however, are more likely to
assert that their own and their children’s right to a healthy life is more
important. But in reality, such philosophical considerations are resolved not
by intellectual discourse but by social revolution and emigration restrictions.
Whether or not one right is more progressive than the other can be deter­
mined on the basis of which right advances the forces of production and the
living standards of a poor country and which right best serves to advance the
other rights of the greater number of people in the country. The application
of such criteria enables one to understand the rationale of the imposition of
emigration restrictions in many post-revoiutionary countries.
The right to international travel and emigration is one of the two most
celebrated ‘unalienable rights* - the other being the right to express
publicly ideas contrary to official ideology. To illustrate the underlying
forces both of the establishment and celebration of ‘human rights’ an
examination of the history and logic of the imposition of exit restrictions
is revealing.
From their origins, states have routinely regulated the entry and exit of

13
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

persons to and from their territories in accordance with what they judged to
be their national interest. Invariably, the ’rights’ of emigration and
immigration or international travel have been a derivative of the 'community
interest’. Thus the variations over time and among countries both in the
restrictions on the geographical mobility of persons and the celebration of the
right of exit must be understood in these terms.
Virtually all empires and kingdoms, city-states and republics, ancient and
modem, have restricted the right of their nationals to travel overseas or
permanently to emigrate. The population of a country has historically been
part of the wealth that should not be allowed to leave and thereby add to the
wealth of another power. This principle, in fact, became a central and
explicit tenet of mercantilism in 17th and 18th-Century Europe. Many city-
states of Ancient Greece, such as Sparta and Argos, forbade their citizens to
go abroad, but citizens of the more commercially developed Athens (but
not their slaves) were permitted to do so. For Sparta the consideration of
maximizing the number of soldiers for its army was the determinant, while
for Athens it was the need to engage in external commerce. Since the wealth
of most societies largely depends on international trade, merchants have
generally been exempted from travel restrictions.
Political restrictions on nationals leaving their country have always been
common. Persons suspected of potentially engaging in plotting with foreign
powers, or of seeking to acquire an ideological or religious education at
variance with the official state ideology or religion, have normally been pro­
hibited from overseas travel. Aristocrats and the upper classes were normally
subject to restrictions on overseas travel by royalty, since they might conspire
with the king’s enemies or be away when the king needed them. It was,
however, far easier for these classes to travel outside their country of origin
than it was for peasants or labourers, whose labour was vital for the creation
of national wealth. Artisans and other skilled workers were often especially
restricted, as states were anxious to keep them for themselves and prevent
them being acquired by other states.
Conversely, certain political or religious groups have frequently been
encouraged to leave their country, or even exiled from it owing to their
potentially ideologically disrupting effects; for example, French Huguenots
who refused to give allegiance to the state religion. Some groups have been
considered to be both redundant to a country’s needs as well as competitors
for relative advantage, and often have been expelled, e.g. Jewish or Indian
merchants, and more recently Asians from Uganda and Ghanians from
Nigeria.
A common corollary of emigration restriction is the encouragement of
immigration. Normally, if political/religious ideological homogeneity could
be maintained, traditional states or empires encouraged the immigration of
additional labourers and potential soldiers - especially those with vital
skills. England, for example, encouraged the immigration of Dutch artisans
in the 17th and 18th Centuries because they were of great value in
developing the economy; simultaneously emigration of her own artisans was

14
very difficult. Since the 1830s, the US has actively encouraged immigration
because of the need for labour in its rapidly industrializing economy, while
throughout the mid-19th Century continental Europe discouraged it, in
order to maintain its level of labour resources.
European states did not relax restrictions on emigration until commercial­
ization had produced a surplus population. At this point emigration was
encouraged, since the alternative would have been either political disruption
or heavy state welfare expenses to pacify the unemployed ex-peasants.
Holland, the premier commercial economy in the world in the first half of
the 17th Century was the first major country to relax emigration restrictions.
The next area to allow significant emigration was Ireland, where British
commercial agriculture produced a surplus population in the latter part of
the 17th Century, followed by Scotland and England. The emigration of
machinists, however, was not sanctioned by England; their skills were vital
for British commercial supremacy in the emerging textile industry; mariners
too, vital for British naval supremacy, were similarly restricted. During the 17th
and 18th Century Britain generally permitted emigration only to British
colonies, in order to secure a labour force to exploit the resources of these areas.
Throughout the late 19th Century, France maintained controls over the
emigration of its population. Both her slower commercial development,
and consequent absence of a surplus rural population, as well as her frequent
military involvements, dictated a restrictive emigration policy. In common
with most continental European states at the time, France increased the
penalties for emigration in the mid-17th Century, and in 1666 instituted
severe penalties for navigators, shipbuilders, sailors and fishermen who
attempted to emigrate.
Occasionally the French would expel certain groups considered undesir­
able: the Jews in 1390 because the developing native French bourgeoisie
wanted their Jewish competitors eliminated; and in the 16th Century the
Huguenots who represented an ideological threat to the Catholic ideology on
which the French state was based. France even placed severe restrictions on
the migration of French subjects to such French colonies as Canada which as
a result remained rather sparsely populated. In Canada itself, the death
penalty was enacted for those attempting to leave for non-French areas
without authorization.
Spain and Portugal also prevented emigration to their colonies during
the 19th Century because they feared the loss of the labour power of their
peasants. Although, in 1791, the Declaration of the Rights of Man pro­
claimed the right to leave France, in 1792 this right was suspended in the face
of France’s compelling need for a large army. The secret of French military
strength during the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars was that it relied on a
massive peasant army fighting for its own land. Restrictions on emigration
were increased under the Restoration regime. Not until the 1870s did France
remove formal restrictions on leaving the country. Nevertheless, adminis­
trative practices acted to deter emigration, except to the French colony of
Algeria, for many more years.13

15
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Before the 18th Century the various German principalities and kingdoms
generally permitted the eastward German colonization of Slavic lands even
while maintaining formal emigration restrictions to other areas. Eastern
colonies such as the Hanseatic League cities around the Baltic and their
hinterland German speaking settlements facilitated trade with Germany. In
the 18th Century, however, the German states tightened up their emigration
policies as they came to play a stronger role in economic life, and greater
emphasis was given to production. The German and Scandinavian states for
the most part continued to prohibit emigration throughout the early- and
mid- 19th Century. Austria largely restricted emigration and foreign travel
throughout the 1850s, and Russia, Romania and Serbia restricted emigration
until the latter years of the 19th Century. On the eve of World War 1 these
three countries were among the few whose nationals still required official
permission to leave. In the decades before World War 1 such permission was
freely given in most cases owing to the surplus ex-peasant population that
had developed within their boundaries.
The Magna Carta, signed by the English King John under pressure from his
nobles in 1215, guaranteed to English merchants ‘safe and secure exit’ a.«d to
others freedom ‘to go out of our Kingdom and to return, safely and securely,
by land or water, saving his allegiance to us, unless it be in time of war, for
some short space, for the common good of the Kingdom’. The serfdom
prevalent in England at the time, coupled with the general poverty of the
peasantry and urban.labourers meant that these guarantees were specifically
for the nobility and clergy. Common peasants did not normally leave even
the domain of their lords without permission, and only then if their services
were no longer needed, or their land was compensated for their lost labour.
Even if their services were no longer needed, at least a token compensation
or fine, for example a few chickens, had to be given to their lord as a symbol
of their dependence.
In 1216, the year after the Magna Carta’s implementation, the King
suspended the exit guarantees and they disappeared from all subsequent
issues of the Charter. Over the next six centuries the Common Law writ of
ne exeat regno prevailed in English law. This legal doctrine granted the King
the right to ‘command a man that he go not beyond the seas or out of the
realm without a licence’ by issuing a writ declaring ‘that you design to go
privately into foreign parts and intend to prosecute there many things preju­
dicial to u s .. . . ’ 13 Until the beginning of the 19th Century the doctrine
implicit in this writ regulated the international travel and emigration of
British subjects, although, with the development of a surplus ex-peasant
population in the 18th Century, it was less stringently applied. The reliance
of England on international trade, however, dictated the continuing guarantee
of the right of merchants to travel overseas throughout the Middle Ages and
the mercantile period.
From the beginning of the 17th Century all British subjects who wished
to leave the Kingdom were required to possess a formal licence issued by the
King (a passport). Numerous statutes were enacted during the 16th and 17th

16
Centuries reaffirming the royal prohibition on travel out of the country
without such a licence. In the 1620s, the Privy Council adopted a regulation
requiring all noblemen who wished to leave the Kingdom to have a licence
signed by the King personally, and all persons of non-noble rank to have
licences signed by a Royal Secretary of State. Special restrictions on exit
were applied to military personnel at all times, and to everyone in times of
war.
The principle o f the state's right to control exit from England continued
without interruption through the Commonwealth period. During the 1650s
exit permits were issued by the Protectorate Council; the penalty for over­
seas travel without such a licence was confinement in the Tower of London.
Such licences were granted only ‘to persons of known affection to the State
or to such as give good security'. Thus the fundamental principle o f a
guarantee of political loyalty and economic commonwealth prevailed whether
or not a king ruled.
The movement of British clerics was especially closely regulated by the
King, in order to prevent them having direct contact with the Vatican. For
example, in the 14th Century the King instructed his port officials that no
abbots or other religious persons were to be allowed to leave the kingdom. A
general prohibition on all travel to Rome (except for merchants) was issued in
the latter part of the century. Restrictions on ecclesiastics travelling over­
seas intensified during the 16th Century in the reigns o f Henry VIII and of
Elizabeth I; together these monarchs consolidated the independent Church
o f England and strove to protect it from the ideological influence of the
Roman Church. In 1534 King Henry issued a total ban on clerics - and
anyone else - leaving the Kingdom for any religious purpose, a ban that
was enforced with especial rigour on religious councils. In the 17th Century
a number o f royal decrees were issued which prohibited children being sent
overseas for religious education.
As the forces of commercialization in Britain began slowly to produce a
surplus population the King became increasingly lenient in granting licences
for nationals to emigrate to Britain’s new dominions, especially in North
America. Restrictions on overseas travel and emigration for unskilled British
commoners were thus relaxed over the course o f the 17th and 18th Centuries.
In 1718, however, in an attempt to prevent the loss of machinists and crafts­
men, Parliament passed legislation requiring that artisans be forced to deposit
a cash security ‘not to depart out o f the realm for the purpose o f carrying on
their trade or calling in foreign places’.14 After 1720 a further series of
Acts were passed restricting the emigration of skilled workmen. The restric­
tions on mariners leaving England was rigorously enforced until the end of
the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Indeed one of the factors that aggravated the
tension between the US and Britain before the outbreak of the War of 1812,
was the British practice o f apprehending US merchant ships on the high
seas and removing any sailors who had been bom in Britain. In 1788 the
King's Attorney General reaffirmed ‘the constant practice o f prohibiting
mariners, by proclamation, from departing the realm for the purpose of

17
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

entering into foreign service, at times when the state of Europe would render
it dangerous to weaken the strength of the nation’.19
In 1803 the obstacles to emigration were considerably increased, especially
for the poor, by the implementation of a Passenger Act. This limited the
number of passengers that could sail on a ship bound for other than British
colonies, thereby greatly increasing the cost of passage. In 1819 the British
Parliament began to implement measures that facilitated the emigration of
British subjects to British colonies, especially Canada and the Cape Colony.
In 1824, Parliament repealed the legal restrictions on the emigration of
artisans and seamen, thereby becoming one of the first countries in the world
to permit the free emigration of any o f their nationals. The 1903 Passage
Act was abolished in 1827, and as a result the last of the British restrictions
on emigration was removed.16 The rapid pace of industrialization sweeping
over British society at that time resulted both in a large surplus population
and insufficiently high wages to provide adequate material incentives for a
sufficient number of skilled sailors and craftsmen to stay voluntarily in
Britain. Further, the early industrial secrets that Britain tried to protect by
its emigration restrictions had, by the third decade of the 19th Century,
ceased to be a monopoly of the British.
Through the mid-19th Century the various European colonial powers
generally prohibited emigration from the areas under their control,
especially for those of non-European stock upon whose labour power colonial
wealth was based. For example, until the middle of the 19th Century the
Spanish colonial administration forbade all native Filipinos to travel outside
the Philippines. They did not, however, forbid the immigration of Chinese
merchants, whose international activities were found to be most advantageous
to the Spanish dominated state.
In general, the period between the 1820s and the 1880s saw the gradual
abolition of virtually all restrictions on international travel and emigration
throughout the world. Most countries even dropped the formal requirement
to secure an exit licence or passport, neither were passports now needed for
entry. Indeed, the half century before World War 1 was unique in so far as
it was the first time when international travel within and between most
countries was relatively unimpeded by politically imposed restrictions on
either emigration or immigration. Millions left the commercializing societies
and crossed the oceans without requiring either official permission to leave
their country or official permission to work and settle in the country of
their choice.
In 1914, with the outbreak of World War 1 however, restrictions on
international travel were reimposed, initially for purposes of military security
and recruitment of nationals into the armed forces. They were then main­
tained by most countries after 1918 and the Armistice. In the 1930s many
European countries once again intensified restrictions on the emigration of
their nationals. In its Emergency Powers Act of 1939 Britain once again
formally restricted emigration.
During the interwar period Germany, Italy, Poland and other European

18
 dictatorships restricted emigration of their populations on the grounds that
the economic and military strength of their nations depended on keeping
their populations at home (or in Italy’s case, at least in her colonies). In the
late 1920s Italy enacted legislation making non-approved attempts to leave
the country punishable by six months in prison - or two years for attempting
to leave for political reasons. Border guards were empowered to fire at
anyone attempting to cross the frontier without authorization. As an Italian
government official stated ’Why should Italy still serve as a kind of human
fish pond, to feed countries suffering from demographic impoverishment;
and why should Italian mothers continue to bear sons to serve as soldiers
for other nations?’ 17
In 1936 Poland issued a passport law that made it illegal for a person to
leave the country if there was reason to believe that he or she would
jeopardize an important interest of the state or endanger security, public
peace or order. The 1936 law continued to be applied by the new socialist
regime until 1954 when it was liberalized.18
The classical Chinese state, like virtually all other historical states and
empires, rigorously restricted the exit of its nationals from its territory. For
example an imperial edict of 1712 made emigration a capital offence. In
1729, an edict was issued forbidding any person who had emigrated from ever
returning to China. The Ch’ing Dynasty’s especially stringent measures against
emigration seem primarily to have been motivated by fears of external
subversion perpetrated by returning emigres, as well as by the standard desire
of states to retain the ultimate sources of all national wealth —labour power
—within its frontiers.
The Chinese ban on all emigration was not officially repealed until 1894.
The Western imperialist powers, however, forced China to de facto allow
its nationals to leave by a series of unequal and humiliating treaties,
beginning with the Treaty of Nanking which ended the Opium Wars. The
T’sien-tsin Treaty of 1858, signed with Britain, specifically provided for
legalization of the recruitment of cheap Chinese labour. It read in part:

Chinese subjects choosing to take service in the British colonies or other

parts beyond the seas are at perfect liberty to enter into engagements
with British subjects for that purpose.19

The US enforced a similar treaty on the Chinese state in 1868: the Burling­
ame Treaty, that utilized the rhetoric of ’inalienable human rights’ for the
geographical mobility of individuals to serve the interests of US business in
securing cheap labour for West coast railway construction read:

The United States of America and the Emperor of China are cordially
recognizing the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his
home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free
migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively,
from one country to the other, for the purpose of curiosity, of trade.

19
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

or as permanent residents.30

In view of the fact that Western imperial powers forced China to sanction
the recruitment of its nationals as cheap contract labourers (‘coolies’) for
their colonies, and to help in the construction of the US, plus the
humiliating treatment accorded to these labourers including pogroms, it was
not surprising that, in the post-1948 period, China’s new Communist
government restored the traditional emigration restrictions as a matter o f
national pride and to protect its people, as well as to conserve labour power
to aid in socialist construction. The emigration policy in Socialist China
however, has never been as restrictive as that of the pre-1842 period. Unlike
the Ch’ing Empire, the Chinese Socialist state has always allowed its nationals
to travel abroad or to emigrate for ‘good reasons', such as education and the
unification of families.
From the 1930s to the 1950s the Soviet Union tightly restricted inter­
national travel and emigration - for similar reasons to those of most states
throughout history - i.e. to conserve economic and military strength and to
prevent internal subversion through collusion with external enemies with the
potential result of undermining the official ideology. During the 1960s
and 1970s, however, as its economic, military and legitimacy situations
became stronger, Soviet exit policies became increasingly more liberal.
In the 1960s university educated émigrés were generally required to pay
back to the state the costs of their free higher education.
By the 1970s it became relatively easy for Soviet citizens to emigrate -
although a number of obstacles continued to exist in order to discourage
emigration. The standard procedure for emigration at that time was the
payment o f 300 roubles fee for an exit visa; additionally, Soviet citizens who
wished to emigrate were required to officially renounce their citizenship,
includingtheir right to return. Soviet citizens who emigrate to capitalist
countries must pay a fee of 500 roubles to officially renounce their citizen­
ship, while those citizens intending to emigrate to a socialist country must
pay 50 roubles. The prerequisite o f the renunciation of Soviet citizenship
stresses the finality and lack of patriotism inherent in the act of emigration
and is a deterrent. The total exit fees (approximately US S 1,000) charged to
those emigrating to the capitalist world is considered to serve both as partial
compensation for the social labour invested in the education of the departing
citizen, and an impediment to ill-considered emigration.
Prospective Soviet émigrés must also secure the consent of their immediate
family members. Further, members of the intelligentsia applying for exit
visas commonly lose their professional positions, and must work as labourers
while awaiting approval for their exit. This process usually takes time, partly
in order, to investigate persons desiring to leave and ensure that they are not
privy to state secrets, and partly as a further obstacle to discourage emi­
gration. Intellectuals involved in scientific or military related work are often
denied permission to emigrate on the grounds that they possess state secrets.
During the 1970s, not only did the Soviets liberalize the implementation of

20
 their emigration policies (tens of thousands emigrated annually)» but it also
adopted a policy of enforced emigration for prominent dissidents (For
example, Solzhenitsyn, Gigorenko, Z. Medvedev). In the 1970s, emigration
from the Soviet Union was easier than it had been in the feudal and mercan­
tile states of pre-19th Century Europe: by historical standards then, Soviet
exit policies had become quite liberal, thus reflecting the stability, strength
and legitimacy o f contemporary Soviet society.21
Some socialist countries have permitted and even encouraged the emig­
ration of those (usually o f the formerly privileged class) who are ideologically
opposed to socialism. Cuba and Vietnam have adopted similar policies.
The object being to procure greater ideological homogeneity and remove a
source of continuing demoralization. Conversely, the compelling need to
retain highly skilled labour, without resorting to grossly inequalitarian pay
scales, has led other socialist countries, for example, the German Democratic
Republic since 1961, to adopt severely restrictive emigration policies. Stitt
other socialist countries, e.g. Yugoslavia, Poland, 1956-81 and post-1956
Hungary have had no important restrictions on either exit or return for the
vast majority of citizens.
Because throughout its history the US has had sufficient resources and
wage levels high enough to attract many more immigrants than those desiring
to emigrate, its exit restrictions have been limited only in so far as to deny
travel in and out o f the country to those who might undermine the legiti­
macy of its institutions. During the American Revolution, for example,
those who wished to cross into British territory had to obtain a pass from the
various State governments or military commanders. Generally a pass was
granted only to individuals of known and acceptable ’character and views’
and after their promise neither to inform or otherwise to act to the prejudice
of the United States. Passes, even for those whose loyalty was guaranteed,
were generally difficult to acquire; for example, General Washington was
reluctant to grant passes into British controlled areas except ’on very impor­
tant and necessary occasions’.22
Although it began to issue passports in 1796, the new federal govern­
ment did not require individuals wishing to leave the country to obtain one;
these early US passports served as documents of identification and intro­
duction for persons travelling in foreign countries, and were not exit permits
—as they became later. Not until World War 1 did the Congress make it
unlawful to leave the US without a valid passport, but in the 1920s and
1930s passports again became optional. In 1941, once more as a war measure,
passports were required as a condition of exit from the US. After the Second
World War the US maintained its authority to forbid individuals to travel
abroad if, it was thought, this might not be ’in the best interests of the
United States’. From 1947 to the mid-1950s numerous individuals were
denied the right to leave the US on the grounds of their leftist political
• » d a tio n s or beliefs, while blanket prohibitions were applied to travel to
Certain socialist countries. The US State Department's policy of denying exit
-from the country to those whose overseas activities might not be in the ’best

21
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

interests o f the United States’ was incorporated into the 1950 McCarran
Act, which forbade the issue o f passports to members of the Communist
Party, and the 1954 Internal Security Act, which gave the Secretary o f State
discretionary powers to refuse to issue an individual a passport. At this
time, individuals who left the US without a valid passport (even to go to
Mexico or Canada) were subject to criminal penalties on their return. As the
Cold War diminished in the late 1950s the Secretary of State’s discretionary
powers withered away. However, restrictions remained on travel to some
countries, for political reasons (for example, Cuba, China, Vietnam,
Albania) throughout the mid-1970s, and Iran in 1980, and were reinforced
by the threat of criminal action. In 1981, the Reagan administration once
again restricted travel to certain countries - for example, to Cuba and
Vietnam.
Unlike 20th Century Europe - a region of emigration until the present
century —the US’s main concern has been to regulate immigration. Begin­
ning with restrictions and then absolute prohibitions on immigrants from
Asia, in the last two decades of the 20th Century, US immigration restrictions
became increasingly severe until the 1924 Immigration Act, which prohibited
virtually all immigration for any reason whatsoever from most countries of
the world, with the exception of North-Western Europe, with its highly
skilled, educated and politically reliable populations. Ample reserves of
displaced peasants were now available in the Southern US States, Puerto
Rico and Mexico meant it was no longer necessary to absorb the surplus
peasantries of Eastern and Southern Europe. In fact, had European immi­
grants been permitted to continue to enter the US, the rapid commercial­
ization of agriculture in the US South would have resulted in a massive
redundant labour pool in the Northern US industrial cities. Further, after
the First World War many European immigrants had associations with leftist
groups in Europe - unlike the US South, or even Puerto Rico and Mexico
migrants. The prohibition on European immigration thus served as a
politically stabilising factor in the US.
Meanwhile, North-Western Europe’s rapid industrialization created a
labour shortage there. In some places this was dealt with by a reinstitution
of emigration restrictions in the inter-war years, and increasingly (especially
in the 1950s and 1960s) by the immigration of workers from North-Western
Europe’s periphery. In the post-War period Europe, in common with the US,
became primarily concerned with regulating immigration rather than emi­
gration —expecially in the 1970s and 1980s as its economies began to stag­
nate and the supply o f immigrants began to exceed the demand.
In 1965 the US immigration law was changed to allow immigration from
any country, with priority given to those with skills needed by the economy.
This new law produced a ‘brain drain* of educated professionals from India,
South Korea and Hong Kong, as well as from Latin America and Europe.
Many highly educated individuals took up residence in the US in order to
benefit from high incomes, rather than work for lower financial rewards in
their own countries, where, in most cases, their services would have made a

22
valuable contribution to the lives of the common people.
Another priority of US immigration law has been to grant the right of
immigration to those (usually upper-and upper middle-class persons) who
leave such socialist countries (as the USSR, Poland, Vietnam, Hungary and
Cuba, both as a gesture o f support for those whose political views accord
with the US’s, and as part of its international propaganda war against
totalitarian socialism’ and for "human rights’.
The law is worded in terms of granting refugee status to those who leave
their countries for reasons o f political persecution, but the US has systemati­
cally determined that virtually anyone who leaves a socialist country does
so for reasons o f political persecution (in spite of the well established fact
that in most socialist countries in the 1970s and 1980s there has been
relatively little political persecution).23 On the other hand, refugees who
oppose murderous right-wing regimes operating in their country - regimes
such as those in Guatemala, El Salvador and Haiti that protect US business
interests and in turn are supported by the US state - are routinely denied
refugee status. For the US to acknowledge that their lives would probably
be endangered if they were forcibly repatriated, would be an admission of
support for countries that disregard basic human rights - in contradiction to
one of the major ideological premises justifying US foreign policy.
It should be noted that the right of Western Europeans (and Poles) to
emigrate, and of those individuals with highly saleable skills and "correct*
politics from the less developed countries, is de facto substantially greater
than the right o f peasants, workers and the urban unemployed in the less
developed countries, even when formal emigration restrictions are the same.
If China, India or Haiti allows its citizens to emigrate and Australia, Canada,
Japan, the US, the UK and Western Europe (and virtually all other high wage
areas) are closed to immigrants from those areas (unless a high level of needed
skill or special political assets can be demonstrated) then their emigration
policies are irrelevant.
The brief overview of the history of exit restrictions clearly demonstrates
that a state’s restrictions on emigration have always been a product of the
general economic, military and ideological welfare o f a society as assessed
by its ruling class, and that virtually all states, almost throughout history,
have put serious difficulties in the way of those members of their populations
who wished to leave their territory, liiere are substantial reasons why "the
right to emigrate’, together with the right to publicly express political ideas
contrary to official ideology have historically been the two most generally
restricted "rights’; both directly affect the common economic health and
ideological security. Labour —the source of all wealth —is a vital national
resource. If a substantial portion of a country’s population, or a substantial
proportion of those with specific vital skills, were to leave a country, its
overall economic situation would be substantially weakened. Since the
purpose o f any state is to advance the welfare of that class which controls
the wealth o f the country, it thus follows logically that no state will allow
the exit of any substantial portion of its population, unless the economic and

23
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

political costs of maintaining it within the national boundaries exceed the

costs of allowing it to ieave.
The contemporary eievation of the ‘freedom to emigrate’ to the status
of one of the most important ‘inalienable human rights’ is largely a product
of liberal capitalist ideology, which directly reflects the underlying interests
o f advanced capitalism and imperialism rather than the interests of working
people of the worid (as is alleged by the discourse of abstract human rights),
in the real worid most émigrés are economic refugees leaving their homelands
because of inadequate economic opportunities who have the intention of
returning after they ‘have made their fortunes’. The right to a good job in
their native country is obviously more important to them than the ‘right’
to ieave their homeland in search of a job overseas.
Emigrés who do not ieave their countries out of economic desperation
do so owing to persecution on grounds of their ethnicity, nationality, or
religious or political activities, it is reasonable to assume that émigrés would
normally prefer the right to be protected from discrimination, the right to
peacefully practice their religion, and to attempt to achieve their political
goals, rather than the ‘right of emigration’, in the real worid, the celebration
of the right to emigrate typically camouflages the struggle between the rights
of capital to obtain a labour force or secure domestic ideological homogen­
eity (and to score ideological points against socialist societies) and the right
of working people to a decent standard of living, as well as a basic guarantee
of a life free from structural humiliations.
The institutionalization of the right to overseas travel and ¿migration and
their associated general liberal ideology of ‘freedom’ is more tlrmly established
in Dutch, British and American culture than elsewhere because of these
countries’ particular economic history. The fact that Britain was the first
country to undergo capitalist industrialization meant that it was among the
first to eliminate emigration restrictions, because it was the first to produce
a massive surplus population of ex-peasants which became too economically
and politically costiy to maintain at home. As a result, emigration restrictions
were not only considerably relaxed in the i 8th Century, and abolished al­
together in the eariy i 9 t h , but emigration was strongly encouraged - even
forced in the case of penal colonies such as Georgia and Australia - in order
to ensure a labour force for the British colonies.
Across the Atlantic, the US - as the primary recipient of most of Europe’s
emigrants throughout the Worid War I period, abie to attract sufficient labour
power without the need to restrict emigration —had every reason to cele­
brate the ‘inalienable right of people to ieave their countries’, since such
discourse was convenient propaganda with which to encourage the older
states of Europe and China to release their labour reserve to be utilized by
rapidly accumulating US capital, in these latter years of the 20th Century,
the US continues to be the world’s chief practitioner of the rhetoric of the
‘inalienable right to emigrate’, since such rhetoric continues to serve it in the
appropriation of the highly skilled labour of the less developed worid, and
simultaneously enables it continuously to score a propaganda victory over

24
the poorer socialist countries. Countries that are attempting to institutionalize
egalitarian wage policies, and carry out rapid industrialization must deter
their more highly skilled workers from emigrating and succumbing to the
temptation o f the high salaries and luxurious living styles attainable in the US.
By asserting that among the most fundamental of all ’human rights’ issues is
to be permitted to leave one’s country, US propaganda categorizes socialist
countries’ restrictions on emigration as proof of the superiority of inegali­
tarian capitalism over ’totalitarian’ socialism.
In reality, emigration restrictions are irrelevant to the inherent possibilities
of abstract freedom in capitalist and socialist societies, but reflect only the
particular circumstances of the latter half of the 20th Century in which most
of the highly industrialized countries of the world are capitalist and able to
offer its workforce generous financial rewards - especially to the highly
skilled. Faced with the emigration of a significant part of the labour force,
doubtless the Western capitalist countries would take similar action to that
of their predecessor states and other states throughout history and impose
exit restrictions on their nationals.
The relative liberalism of the world’s leading capitalist states towards
the international mobility of their nationals that has prevailed since the
mid- i9th Century, has to a large extent been associated with the general
liberalism o f this period: free trade, free labour (the abolition of slavery,
serfdom and the rights of craftsworkers in their jobs), and the freedom of
public expression. All these ’rights’ have proved to be highly beneficial to
the most rich and powerful countries —first Holland, then Britain, then the
US, then the rest of Western Europe —and it is for this reason these coun­
tries have instituted and celebrated such ’rights’ and other countries have not.
Under such circumstances ’freedom’ is not simply permitted but often
enforced. Thus, Britain, the US and other Western powers forced free trade,
free emigration, freedom o f ideology (i.e. the rights of missionaries to con­
vert), and ’free’ labour, upon most of the iess deveioped worid. This
imperialist discourse of ’inalienable rights’, however, has concealed the most
crass material interests of expanding capitalism, and the destruction and
humiliation of the iess developed countries, including the premature deaths
of many millions of their peopie.
In the iate 20th Century the discourse o f ’human rights’ similarly dis­
guises the interests of those who materially benefit from the emigration of
skilled persons from socialist societies. Indeed, this illustrates the general
principle that the discourse of ’inalienable’ absolute individual or ‘inherent
human rights’ is merely an ideological cioak overlying the class interests of
those who employ it.
The ’community’ (i.e. propertied class) interest always prevails, and is
the real basis of all ’rights’ (the rhetoric of social contract or inalienable
individual rights notwithstanding). The conceptualization of individual rights
as sometimes overridden by the community interest (which reflects an
individual vs. society dualism) is fundamentally faulty. It is sufficient to
understand the logic o f a particular type of society and its ievei of wealth

25
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

and stability to know what individual "rights’ will be permitted and

celebrated; no other hypotheses are necessary.

Comparative Analysis
It can be argued legitimately that for purposes of illustrating the condition
of rights in the contemporary Soviet Union comparisons would most appro­
priately be made: (1) with the country’s Czarist (pre-1917) past as well as
with previous periods in Soviet history, focusing on the rate of change in the
advance or regression of rights; (2) with countries at a similar level of the
development of the productive forces, either today or at the time of the
Bolshevik Revolution; or, (3) with the other major economic and military
power and chief representative of the major competing social and economic
system in the world today - the USA
For those sympathetic to Soviet achievements in the area of rights it
would be desirable to assume the first framework. It can easily be demon­
strated that the vast majority of the Soviet people have experienced a
significant improvement in all types of rights: (1) basic civil liberties and
participatory rights: before 1917 the Russian Empire was a Monarchist
absolutism in which no effective participation or civil liberties to oppose the
system or to advocate the interests of the working people or minorities were
allowed; (2) civil rights: a policy of forced Russification existed as well as
a policy of systematic persecution of the Jews; (3) productive property was
concentrated in the hands o f a few, with most of the urban population being
propertyless, workers having no rights in their jobs; and finally, (4) in terms
of distributive rights, there was no right to work, housing, education,
medicine, social security, etc. for the common people. Similarly, comparisons
of conditions in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s with those in the
mid-1930s to mid-1955s can (by the concensus o f Western scholars) easily
demonstrate considerable expansion in the area of popular rights, especially
civil liberties and participatory rights. My analysis will refer to the Soviet
past, but this will not be the primary mode of comparison.
That there is an advanced level of rights in the USSR today in comparison
with countries with an equivalent level of economic development and living
standard of the common people in the Russian Empire in 1917 is also easily
demonstrable. The situation in Soviet Central Asia in all five areas (including
civil liberties) are considerably more advanced than in those areas across the
Soviet Union’s southern borders, which traditionally shared the same cultures,
for example, Turkey, Iran under the Shah, Afghanistan before its 1978
revolution, as well as such countries as Pakistan. Similarly the popular rights
experienced today in the Slavic and the Baltic and Transcaucasian Republics
in comparison with countries such as Argentina, Portugal and Chile, which
roughly, were at similar levels of the development of their productive forces
in 1917 reflects favourably on the Soviet Union. To a large extent such
comparisons form a peripheral strand of my argument, especially in

26
reference to conditions in Soviet Central Asia.
A somewhat more difficult case for a supporter of the thesis that rights
are fairly advanced in the Soviet Union would be to contrast the degree
of rights in the Soviet Union with countries which today are on a similar
level of development of the productive forces, and hence living standards
of the people, for example, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. While
a strong case could be made (at least for the UK and Italy) that there
is a higher level of type III civil liberties in the West, It would be more
difficult to demonstrate that civil rights for minorities, substantive
economic rights, property rights for the majority, or participatory
rights were more advanced in capitalist countries. Comparisons between
Italy, Spain, the UK and the USSR are made occasionally in this
book.
That rights in the USSR are more advanced in comparison with its chief
competitor in the world today - the USA ‘the land of the free’ - is perhaps
most difficult of all assertions to maintain. To do so might prove to be the
strongest case against those who categorize the competition between the
socialist system (as typified by the USSR) and the capitalist system (as
typified by the USA) in terms of ‘human rights’ rather than in terms of
living standards.
In the comparisons between the US and the USSR every effort is made
to locate more or less comparable data for the same or comparable time
periods. Thus the history of repression and tolerance in the two countries
is taken from the time of their respective revolutions through to about 1980.
Comparisons of the conditions of minorities and women in the two
countries focuses on the 1960-80 period. Whenever possible, the most
recently available Soviet data is compared with data from the US for the
same years - or for years as close as possible. In some cases, however, data
for the Soviet Union is available in English for only selected time periods,
usually because it was reported in a specific study (sometimes done in the
mid- or late 1960s) and is not regularly updated in any available English
language source. Data for the US is sometimes available for its census years
only, or in a few cases, solely in special reports which cover only selected
years. When it is impossible to locate data for the same (or approximately
the same) year for the two countries, earlier Soviet data is compared with
later US data. Such a comparison has a built-in pro-US bias since this gives
the US longer to have improved the conditions of minorities or women, than
the Soviets. Since such comparisons are inherently biased against demon­
strating that the Soviets have made more progress than the US, contrary
evidence in such comparisons is strongly indicative that the USSR is more
progressive on questions of minority or women’s rights than the US. Com­
parisons for the US and the USSR on economic conditions and rights are
made largely from the most recently available 1970s data, which, for the
most part, are for comparable time periods.
In comparing and contrasting the conditions of rights in the Soviet Union
and the United States of America this book will focus only on three and a

27
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

half of the basic types of rights outlined in this chapter: (1) civil rights (the
position o f national minorities and women); (2) distributive rights; (3) civil
liberties; and (4) property rights o f woiking people in relation to job
security, workers’ participation and other job rights. The question o f
participation in the state (political rights) and other aspects of property
rights were treated in one of my earlier books.24 These latter two questions
are the two central aspects of which class has power in the USSR, i.e.,
whether or not the country is socialist, while the former questions, though
not an integral part of socialism, are nevertheless closely linked to it. It is to
be expected that an authentically socialist society would create an advanced
structure of civil rights for national minorities and women, and that the
rights o f these groups would be considerably more advanced than under
comparable capitalist societies; that the basic social security and job rights
(including participation in management) for woiking people should be
considerably more advanced than in capitalist societies; that working people
should exercise real civil liberties in participation in public discussions on the
development of their society (although not necessarily in publicly expressing
anti-socialist ideas); and that working people should enjoy an advanced level
o f social services as well as the guarantee o f the right to work.
Chapter two examines the position of the major Asian minorities vis-à-vis
the extent to which they have maintained a colonial or neo-colonial relation­
ship with the European parts o f the USSR. Their economic development,
social welfare, education, cultural and linguistic development and political
participation are examined, as is the evidence for separatism, anti-socialist
or anti-Russian sentiments and movements. Chapter three is a parallel study
of the major European nationalities and of the Jews, and concludes that there
is little or no semblance o f national oppression in the USSR. That consider­
able advances have been made in virtually all aspects of the life o f the
minorities, and that little o f the previous inferior status o f the oppressed
nationalities o f the USSR remains. The comparison with the USA shows that
there is considerably more substantial and rapid progress in these regards in
the USSR.
Chapter four is a systematic analysis of the position of women in the
USSR. The legal rights of women, the socialization o f child care, the sharing
o f housework by husbands and wives, the readily availability of abortion, the
educational opportunities open to women, the economic integration of
women in the economy, the special protections for women workers and the
role of women in management, the Party and in the government are closely
examined. It is concluded that women have achieved a considerably more
egalitarian position in Soviet society than have US women, even though, in
1917, US women were in a considerably better position relative to men:
progress for Soviet women has thus been extremely rapid.
Chapter five covers the question o f distributive rights as well as job rights,
including participation in the decision making processes o f the enterprises.
The standard o f living o f Soviet and Western workers is compared (in terms of
necessities, luxuries, housing, etc.). The rights to free education and medical

28
care, as well as retirement and disability benefits are treated. The considerable
rights to remunerative employment, job security and participation of Soviet
workers is elaborated and contrasted with the rights of US workers. Most
areas of distributive and job rights (safety conditions being one exception) are
found to be significantly more advanced in the USSR than in the US.
Chapters six, seven and eight systematically examine civil liberties
(especially type 111 advocacy rights) in the USSR and the USA. Chapter seven
traces the history o f advocacy and due process rights (and their repression or
suspension) from the 1917 revolution to the mid-1950s. The period of
cultural revolution (1928-31), and of collectivization of agriculture/famine
(1928-33), as well as the period of the so-called ‘Great Purge* (1936-38) are
concentrated upon, as it is in these periods that ’human rights’ are most
commonly alleged to have been the most repressed in Soviet history. In this
chapter it will be shown that the considerable variations in the level o f due
process and advocacy rights from 1917 to 1955 were a product of the degree
o f international and domestic crisis, and not a product of individual
personalities. Chapter eight focuses on the contemporary Soviet dissident
movement, first defining the range of tolerated public opinion in the country,
the extent of and definitions of ‘dissidents’, their strategy, the sanctions
against them, and the different political currents among them. The level of
tolerance and repression o f those who oppose the Soviet socialist system is
carefully compared with the history of repression of those who have opposed
the dominant institutions of US society over the 200 years of US history, and
concludes that there is no qualitative difference between the two types of
societies in this respect. The states o f both the USSR and the USA have
always done whatever was necessary to preserve their dominant system of
property. Periods o f increased repression in both countries have corresponded
to the degree of the threat to the dominant class, while periods of tolerance
have corresponded to periods of latency of opposition movements. As is
shown in Chapter six, the difference between the repression practised in US
history during times of crisis and war and that which has been practised since
the mid-1950s in the USSR, while it does not differ in essence or extent,
does differ in the dimension of V ho benefits’, as one would expect from the
qualitatively different class nature of the two countries. Finally, Chapter
nine is a summary of the data presented, and outlines a general theory of
advocacy rights.
It must be emphasized that the analysis in Chapters six to nine, on toler­
ance and civil liberties, is a materialist attempt to explain the causes of
tolerance and repression in a given society at a given time and not an attempt
to evaluate repression or tolerance as ’bad’ or ’good’. The underlying assump­
tion here is that a scientific understanding of why repression or tolerance
occurs is more useful than are the all-too-easy value judgements (which fill
many library shelves). Armed with an understanding o f the causes of
repression and tolerance we may be able not only to objectively evaluate the
relative liberation potential of capitalism and socialism, but also act in such a
way as to avoid misplaced repression or liberalism in the future.

29
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

It must also be emphasized that the attempt to explain the causes o f the
more repressive periods of either US or Soviet history in no way ‘justifies’
or ‘legitimates’ such repressions. On the contrary, a scientific understanding
of such repressive periods in both countries avoids trivializing them either as
simply ‘mistakes’, or a result o f the policies o f ‘bad’ leaders. Again, with an
understanding o f the structural causes o f tolerance and repression we are in
a better position to objectively evaluate and explain to others the relative
potential o f capitalism and socialism to realize ‘human rights’, as well as to
minimize the probability o f future mistaken liberalism or repression.

A Note on Sources
The discussion of human rights in the USSR and the USA is based almost
entirely on fundamentally anti-Soviet, pro-capitalist sources; sources
generally considered in Western academic circles to be respectable and
objective. Pro-Soviet sources, as a general rule, are not used (with the
exception of a few statistics from the Soviet statistical year-book and
citations from the Soviet Constitution). The generally anti-Soviet sources
utilized almost exclusively in this book can be expected to be biased in the
direction o f exaggerating the extent o f the absence of human rights in the
USSR, while at the same time magnifying the West’s achievements in this
respect. For the most part, these sources can also be expected to approach
the study o f the USSR within a philosophical framework, or problematic,
of rights native to the Western liberal tradition. A framework which empha­
sizes formal universal and abstract civil liberties and minimizes the emphasis
both on substantive rights and the class nature o f all rights. Because of their
anticipated bias, such works can generally be considered exceptionally
reliable when they include evidence for the existence o f a high level o f rights,
especially civil liberties, in the USSR. Since any claims made in pro-Soviet
sources can be easily discredited as mere propaganda (and can, in fact, be
expected generally to exaggerate the level o f rights in the USSR, and play
down any failings in Soviet rights) these are not relied upon.
An examination of the substantial body of scholarly work produced on
most aspects o f Soviet society since the 1960s in the Anglo-Saxon countries
reveals an interesting pattern. The polemic cold war rhetoric that permeated
the works o f the ‘Sovietologists’ in the 1950s has largely been replaced by
fairly careful and balanced discussions o f whatever particular area of Soviet
life a writer is covering (such is the case even in official US government
publications such as the US International Communications Agency’s
Problems o f Communism). However, the introductions and conclusions of
such works (and usually the introductions and conclusions o f each chapter
as well) sandwich such valuable empirical discussions between generally
anti-Soviet and pro-Western analyses, which for the most part are not based
on the evidence the writers present. Rather, the generalities, in contrast to
the specifics, of such works, seem to be an assertion of ‘common sense’,

30
‘what we all know’, or the assumptions of the field; or perhaps more
cynically, what must be said in order to get the works published and to
maintain academic respectability (as well as future funding). There seems to
be a sincere ambivalence towards the Soviet Union at the heart of contem­
porary Soviet studies. The USSR’s considerable accomplishments are now
generally recognized by mose careful Western students of that society, but
very few draw the general, logical conclusions from the corpus of their work,
instead preferring the privileges traditional to the practitioners of their field.
The present author Is deeply indebted to the integrity of their detailed
scholarship, but being less cautious, draws the conclusions lying just below
the surface o f the corpus of their work.

References
1. In times of revolution, civil war or other major crisis, all societies have
found it necessary to restrict such due process rights in the interest of
order, mobilization for war or social transformation. In the 20th
Century, restrictions in these areas have been more common both in
socialist and capitalist societies than restrictions classified as level 1
liberties. At the same time in both socialist and capitalist societies they
have been much less common (or consistently applied) than have
restrictions on level 111 liberties.
2. Karl Marx put forward this argument in his analysis of the French
Constitution of 1848 which attempted both to guarantee the universal
franchise and private property in the means of production: The
comprehensive contradiction of this constitution, however, consists
in the following: the classes whose social slavery the constitution is to
perpetuate, proletariat, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, it puts in possession
of political power through universal suffrage. And from the class whose
old social power it sanctions, the bourgeoisie, it withdraws the political
guarantees of this power. It forces the political rule of the bourgeoisie
into democratic conditions, which at every moment help the hostile
classes to victory and jeopardize the very foundations of bourgeois
society.’ Gass Struggles in France 1848-1850, Karl Marx, 1850, p. 172.
3. V.l. Lenin (1917B), Vol. Ill, p. 371.
4. V.l. Lenin (1919), Vol. Ill, p. 165.
5. F. Engels, 1894, pp. 249-50, 251.
6. K. Marx and F. Engels, 1849, pp. 38-9.
7. F. Engels, 1894, p. 251.
8. V.l. Lenin, 192IB, Vol. Ill, p. 654.
9. V.l. Lenin, 1905, Vol. 1, p. 516.
10. Discussion in this section is based largely on the following sources:
Doman 1957;Fleming 1952;Gabin 1959;Glass 1967;Goodman 1966;
Hansen 1940; Isaac 1947; Mehl and Rappaport 1978; Parker 1957;
Turack 1970; Zo 1978, andZolberg 1978.
11. Zolberg, 1978, p. 246.
12. Zolberg, 1978, pp. 262-3.

31
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

13. See Ingles, 1964, p. 3.

14. Turak, 1970, p. 294.
15. Ibid., p. 295.
16. Zolbeig, 1978.
17 Cited in ibid., p. 272.
18. Doman, 1957, p. 310.
19. Cited in Zo, p. 29.
20. Ibid., p. 31.
21. Mehr and Rappaport, 1978.
22. Goodman, 1966.
23. See US Department of State, 1981.
24. Szymanski, 1979.
2. The Asian Nationalities
in the USSR

While Great Britain, France and the other Western European imperialist
powers were conquering most of the Caribbean, Africa, India, South-East
Asia and the Pacific, Russia was expanding overland towards the Pacific and
deep into Central Asia. By the late 19th Century Russia had conquered and
secured as colonies a considerable section o f Asia including the Transcaucus,
Kazakhstan and Turkestan. With the upheavals of the 1917 revolution and
the consequent civil war much of this area became temporarily independent
under rightist governments. By the early 1920s, however, all of this area
again became associated with Russia in the USSR. There was a period of
guerrilla type resistance by some conservative sections of the population
(the ‘Basmachi’) for a few years in the early 1920s with the local population
divided between progressives supporting socialist transformation and
conservatives resisting it.
Under the Czar, and at the beginning of Soviet rule, the societies of
Central Asia and the Islamic parts of the Transcaucus were more or less
identical to those in the adjacent areas: parts of the Ottoman or Persian
empires, Afghanistan or British India. Their administration differed in no
significant way from the colonies and dependencies of Britain, France or the
other Western European powers. They were economically exploited for the
benefit of the Russian ruling class and kept undeveloped as sources of raw
materials and markets. Their populations were impoverished and denied
basic welfare services and education, their native languages and cultures were
discouraged and they were denied self-government.
It is important to examine the relationship between the Asiatic areas of
the Soviet Union, and the present day Slavic areas of the USSR in order to
assess the extent to which the pre-1917 colonial relations between a
European colonial power and its Asiatic colonies have beén either main­
tained or transformed during 60 years of Soviet rule. If the Slavic areas of
the USSR, particularly Russia, are essentially imperialist, then we would
expect the relationship between them and the Asiatic areas to be fundamen­
tally the same as that between the US - as well as other leading capitalist
countries - and their colonies and semi-colonies throughout the less
developed areas. If, on the other hand, the characteristics of a colonial or
neo-colonial relationship are absent, this would lend considerable evidence

33
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

to the thesis that Russia, and the rest o f the Slavic areas, are not imperialist.
For the purposes of this book, Azerbaidzhán (in the Transcaucus) and the
five Republics in the central part of Asia: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kirgi-
zistan, Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan, are categorized as Soviet Asia. (The
latter four are commonly referred to as 'Soviet Central Asia’, but 1 use the
term to include Kazakhstan as well.) In order to determine whether or not
the relationships between Soviet Asia and Russia are characteristically
colonial or neo-colonial, an examination will be made of: economic relations,
living standards, including health and education, the development of local
language and culture, the degree of self-government and manifestations of
nationalism, pan-lslamic sentiments and separatism or anti-Sovietism in
Soviet Asia. If there is a strong colonial or neo-colonial character in Russia’s
relations with Soviet Asia it is to be expected that this will be manifested by
exploitation, hindrance of its industrialization, maintenance o f low living
standards, perpetuation o f poor welfare and educational standards, general
discrimination against Soviet Asians for good jobs, education and govern­
ment positions, and discouragement of the use and development of native
languages and culture. Further, that such colonial and neo-colonial oppression
would result in resentment and resistance by the native populations towards
Russian domination and oppression and consequently that riots, Islamic
revivalism, hostility to Russians, and dissident movements among intellectuals
would arise.

Origins o f Soviet Power in Central Asia

The Bolshevik revolution resonated through Central Asia. Younger Asian

intellectuals especially rallied behind the Bolshevik cause in the Civil War
against the traditional ruling classes of Central Asia, and in the transform­
ation o f the region after 1920. Before the 1917 Revolution there were both
strong progressive nationalist and national Communist movements among the
Asians. In the decade before 1917, Central Asian nationalists had been
moving towards Marxism in reaction to their failure to gain concessions
from the Czar. National Marxism thrived in Baku and Kazakhstan. The
Bolshevik emphasis on the 'national question’ and their sensitivity to the
concerns o f colonized peoples were well received among the colonized Asians
as were the efforts of the Bolsheviks to recruit members. A distinctive
'Muslim National Communism’ developed, the predecessor o f similar latter
day developments in China, Cuba, and elsewhere in the less developed
countries. Many Asian leaders of this movement at first proposed autonomy
from the Russian dominated CPSU (Communist Party o f the Soviet Union)
and emphasized separate political and cultural development within a feder­
ation with European Russia.1
In June 1918 a separate Muslim Bolshevik Party was created out o f the
former Socialist Muslim Party. This Party claimed equal status with the
Russian Communist Party. Party membership was limited exclusively to

34
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

persons of Muslim background. In the immediate post-1917 years the

Bolshevik parties were joined by a wide variety of radicals, socialists and
nationalists who supported the Bolsheviks against their common enemies.
By 1920 the Bolsheviks seemed to have gained hegemony among radical
intellectuals o f Islamic backgrounds, including such non-Marxist nationalist
groupings as the Young Bukharans. In some places whole clans and tribes
joined. There were relatively few workers in the Muslim Bolshevik Party,
with the principle exception of the Baku area, simply because there were few
workers in the region ; the class background of the new Party was heavily
middle class, especially among nationalist intellectuals. Within a few years
after its formation the autonomous Muslim Bolshevik Party was merged into
the CPSU.2
Muslim troops played a decisive role in the defeat of the counter­
revolutionary White armies in the Russian Civil War as well as in establishing
Soviet power in Central Asia. In July 1918, about 50,000 Tatar-Bashkir
soldiers were fighting with the Sixth Red Army in the East. Early in 1919,
approximately a quarter of a million soldiers of Muslim background were
fighting with the Red Armies on all fronts. At the beginning of the Civil
War the White counter-revolutionary forces were able to recruit, or more
usually draft, considerable numbers o f Muslims into their armies. However,
as the War progressed more and more of these troops defected, typically as
whole units, to the Reds. Defecting units often played a positive role in
Bolshevik military victories, for example, 2,000 trained Bashkir troops who
defected in 1919 on the Urals front made a crucial contribution to
Kolchaks defeat. Coincidental with the defection of troops was the desertion
of various non-Marxist Asian nationalist groups to the side of the Reds as
they came to see what a White restoration would mean for Central Asia. By
1920 the Bolsheviks had secured the support, or at least the neutrality, of
almost all radical nationalists in Central Asia.3
The Bolshevik Revolution was first carried into Central Asia by Slavic
workers who organized the Tashkent Soviet (composed entirely of Slavs)
which took power in Tashkent at the end of October 1917. By allying with
the progressive nationalist Young Bukharans the Tashkent Soviet set the
pattern throughout Central Asia. In March 1918 the Tashkent Soviet sent
a detachment of Russian workers with a larger group of Young Bokharans
to overthrow the Emir of Turkestan who had established an independent
government in the ancient city of Bukhara; this attempt to overthrow the
reactionary Emir was repulsed. Tashkent and its Soviet was cut off from
Russia proper by the White armies for more than a year, but with progressive
nationalist support it was able to maintain itself until the White encirclement
was broken. The policies followed by the Slavic workers who ran the Tashkent
Soviet, however, tended to alienate many Asians, and not until Tashkent
was again linked up with the mainstream of the Bolshevik Revolution were
its policies moderated and its discriminatory measures against Muslims,
including excluding them from government posts and the forced appro­
priation of food from the local population, eliminated. Another separatist

35
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

nationalist government in Turkestan, set up in December 1918 in the old city

o f Kokand, was suppressed by the Tashkent Soviet in February 1919.4
The Emir of Bukhara, who had been ruling this city and its environs since
1917 in an attempt to consolidate his regime, launched a reign o f terror
against all progressives, including the nationalist Young Bukharans. He also
established relations with the British forces in Persia and other anti-Socialist
forces abroad. In September 1920, the Young Bukharans organized a revolt
in Bukhara and, aided by the Red Army, finally succeeded in overthrowing
the Emir and establishing the People’s Republic o f Bukhara. Similar events
occurred at the same time in Khiva, the other principal Khanate of Central
Asia.5
The new Soviet regimes in Central Asia began a campaign of intensive
reform that included radical land redistribution; in Turkestan, large stretches
of land seized by Russian settlers were returned to Muslim peasants.6
Intensive campaigns were launched against what were considered to be
backward aspects of Islam, such as the cloistering and veiling of women
(see Chapter 4) and the Ramadan fast. Such campaigns were combined with
a wide range of economic, social and cultural improvements in people’s
lives, including mass literacy campaigns, universal education, modernization
o f agriculture, industrialization, and the provision of basic medical and
welfare services. Within a relatively short time most of the population was
consolidated behind Soviet power.7
In the 1920-24 period, differences appeared between the non-Marxists,
who initially formed the dominant force in the new People’s Republics of
Khiva and Bukhara, in most of the territory of the old Czarist colony of
Turkestan; the Central Asian National Communists, who aspired to create
one large 'Republic of Turan’ which would unite all Islamic and Turkic
peoples in the old Russian empire into one Soviet Republic to be loosely
affiliated with the European Socialist area; and the Moscow centred Bol­
sheviks. The Central Asian national Communists wanted to use the
Republic of Turan in aid of the Bolshevik’s policy of extending the
Revolution into Asia. One Tatar leader of this persuasion argued:

To attract the Muslim proletariat to communism we must offer„him a

national flag, which will act on him as a m agnet.. . . If we want to
sponsor the revolution in the East, we must create in Soviet Russia a
territory close to the Muslim East, which could become an experimental
laboratory for the building of communism, where the best revolutionary
forces can be concentrated.8

By 1923-24 Marxist forces had succeeded in displacing non-Marxist

elements in the progressive nationalist movements in the People’s Republics
of Khiva and Bukhara. In 1924 the high degree of autonomy in these two
republics ended, and the idea o f a unified Republic o f Turan was officially
rejected. Instead, Central Asia was divided into five Soviet Republics
according to traditional ethnic/linguistic lines; separate republics were

36
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

established for the Uzbeks, Takzhiks, Turkmen, Kirgiz and Kazakhs. It was
argued that only by such means would traditional antagonisms among various
ethnic groups (such as that between the sedentary Uzbeks and the nomadic
Turkmens) be minimized and the progressive aspects o f each group’s culture
be developed.9
In 1918, the Tashkent Soviet’s policies towards the native Asians, par­
ticularly campaigns to requisition food, drove many of them to rebel,
especially those in the more remote areas where traditional religious and
political figures remained influential. Initially, many Asians joined with the
White armies and later continued their resistance as guerrillas - the Basmachi.
In autumn 1919, after the central government had re-established control over
the Tashkent Soviet and Muslims were incorporated into it, a more intensive
campaign to suppress guerrilla resistance to Soviet power was instituted,
under General Frunze. By autumn 1922, the Bolsheviks (both Slavic and
Asian) working with the Young Bukharans were able to put down the bulk
of traditionalist Basmachi resistance, and although until 1931 scattered
resistance continued in some areas, by 1923 violent resistance became
almost negligible.10
Armed resistance to Soviet Power was revitalized on a smaller scale in
some areas in response to the rapid collectivization campaigns after 1928.
Resistance to collectivization was especially strong among the largely
nomadic Kazakhs and Kirgiz who were forced to abandon their nomadic
lifestyle.11

Economic Development
Soviet Asia, formerly extremely poor and industrially underdeveloped, was
rapidly industrialized and the standard of living brought up to Southern
European standards, in sharp contrast to the equivalent areas of the Middle
East. The per capita income, in relative terms, in 1970 ranged from
Tadzhikistan at 673 roubles per capita (44% below the national average) to
Estonia at 1,587 roubles per capita (33% above the national average). See
Table 2.1.
The per capita variation is largely owing to the much higher percentage
of children among the Asian nationalities than among the European
nationalities. When a calculation is made of roubles per adult, which is more
relevant as a measure than income per capita in that it more accurately
reflects remuneration per worker, we see a smaller spread. The variation
between the richest and poorest republics is then reduced to 17% above the
USSR average for Estonia and to 21% below for Tadzhikistan; most o f the
variance is thus seen to be a result of the age structure. Whereas in per capita
terms the average for the five Central Asian republics is 32% below the
USSR average, measured in terms per adult it is 11% below. While the per
capita income for Azerbaidzhán is 38% below the USSR average the income
per adult is only 18% below. The data on wages in 1978 reveals an even more

37
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Tabic 2.1
Produced National Annual Income and Index of Monthly Wages 1978, by
Republic

Roubles Roubles per GNP/Capita Ratio o f Average

per A dult Equivalent M onthly Wages
Capita (over 20 in 1974 to the all-Soviet
1970 years old) US Dollars Average:
1970 1978

Estonia 1,587 2,254 $ 3,618 1.11

Latvia 1,574 2,204 3,589 1.01
Lithuania 1,336 2,044 3,046 .99
RSFSR 1,332 2,078 3,037 1.05
Ukraine 1,158 1,725 2,640 .91
Belorussia 1,092 1,747 2,490 .88
Kazakhstan 979 1,830 2,332 1.00
Moldavia 969 1,667 2,209 .81
Armenia 923 1,818 2,104 .96
Turkmenia 878 1,923 2,002 1.07
Georgia 871 1,428 1,986 .84
Kirgizia 797 1,634 1,817 .90
Azerbaidzhán 737 1,570 1,680 .86
Uzbekistan 728 1,609 1,660 .92
Tadzhikistan 673 1,514 1,534 .88
USSR average 1,194 1,922 $ 2,720 1.00

Source: Katz et al., 1975, The Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalists,

pp. 443-52; Lane, 1982, p. 87.

egalitarian picture. Here it is seen that the average wage level in the Asian
Republics is only 7% below the all-Soviet average, while Estonia, the Republic
with the highest overall wage, has only 11% higher than average wages.
Translating the Soviet conception of National Produced Income into
dollars, gives an average of about US $1,700 per capita in 1970 (as
calculated in 1974 dollars) for the Asian Republics. In comparison, the
ñgure for Turkey is $630, for Iran $900, for Spain $1,950, for Portugal
$ 1,150 and for Greece $1,850. Soviet Asia compares very favourably with
the equivalent parts o f the Middle East, being in fact on a similar economic
level to Southern Europe. It should also be noted that the gap in even per
capita income of Russia proper and the poorest of the Asian republics is
significantly less than that between, say, West Germany ($5,650) and
Italy ($2,430), and very much less than that between West Germany and the
poorest of the Southern European countries, such as Portugal or Greece.
The income gap between the poorest and richest States in the USA in the

38
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

1960s approximated the income spread among Soviet Republics in 1970. In

1960 the per capita income of Mississippi, the poorest state, was 46% below
the national average, and 35% below in 1970. In 1960, Connecticut, the
wealthiest state, had a per capita income of 29% above the national average,
in 1970 it was 25%. Puerto Rico’s per capita income in 1960 was 25% of that
of the Continental US, in 1970 it was 36% and in 1978 28%.12
The income spread among the Soviet Republics is thus virtually identical
to that of the US States, and is far more egalitarian than the spread between
the US mainland and its colony of Puerto Rico, which is frequently cited as
an example of the economic benefits of US colonialism. While per capita
income in Central Asia averaged two-thirds the national average (as it did in
the 1960s in the deep South of the US) in Puerto Rico, per capita income
averaged only one-third. Additionally, unlike the operative trends, both
among the 50 States o f the US and among the 15 Soviet Republics, the
income gap between Puerto Rico and the US increased, rather than decreased
over the course o f the 1970s, as indication of the qualitatively different
relationship between that island and the US on the one hand and that
between Central Asia and the Slavic areas of the USSR on the other.
A UN Economic Commission for Europe report commented that the
disparities in living standards between Central Asia and the Soviet average:

were probably one-fifth to one-fourth lower than the Soviet average

[and that] this regional disparity in living standards cannot be regarded
as large compared with those found in other countries. There is hardly
any European country without regions where per capita income or
consumption is one-fifth or more below the national average.. . . The
conclusion that average living standards in Central Asia are only one-
fifth to one-fourth below those of the Soviet Union as a whole is
tantamount to saying that they are on much higher levels than those
in the neighboring Asian countries, and that they have improved very
considerably in the three decades since the end of the Civil War.13

The rapid economic growth and improvement in living standards in Soviet

Asia is reflected in the rapid industrialization of the area since the Bolshevik
Revolution. In Turkmen SRR from 1913 to 1978 industrial output increased
by 74 times (11 times since 1940); In Tadzhik SSRby 138 times (16 times
since 1940); in Kirghiz SSR by 333 times (34 times since 1940); by 71 times
in Uzbek SSR (15 times since 1940); by 232 times in Kazarkh SSR (30 times
since 1940) and by 62 times in Azerbaidzhán SSR (11 times since 1940).
This compares with an increase of 151 times in the Russian Republic since
1913 (and an increase o f 17 times since 1940).14
The level of industrialization, as reflected in the proportion of the work
force in industry, building and transport, contrasted with agriculture, has not
yet reached the Soviet average, but there is considerable movement in this
direction. In 1939, in the five Central Asian republics, the proportion of
industrial workers in the population was 54% that o f the Soviet average, but

39
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Table 2.2
Percentages of Total Working Population Engaged in Different Economic
Sectors

1939 1959
Industry Industry
Building Building
Transport Agriculture Transport Agriculture

USSR average 30.1 50.1 36.9 39.8

RSFSR 33.9 45.9 43.2 30.4
Uzbekistan 14.3 70.8 21.1 58.9
Kazakhstan 21.7 54.0 33.8 39.1
Azerbaidzhán 23.1 57.5 26.5 49.6
Kirgizia 13.9 70.9 24.9 52.2
Tadzhikistan 10.9 75.3 18.9 62.0
Turkmenia 20.3 59.1 26.7 48.6

Source: Alec Nove and J. A. Newth, 1967, The Soviet Middle East, p. 41.

by 1959 it had risen to 68%.15

In 1956 13% of Iran’s working population was employed in industry,
building or transport compared to the average of 25% for the five Central
Asian republics and 26.5% for Azerbaidzhán in 1959. The contrast between
Soviet Asia and the equivalent regions of the mid-East is also seen in Kwh
of electrical energy produced per capita. In 1962 it averaged 754 Kwh per
capita in the five Central Asian Republics and 1,995 Kwh per capita in
Azerbaidzhán, compared to 121 Kwh per capita in Turkey and 32 Kwh
per capita in Iran in 1960.16
In both Transcaucasia and Central Asia rural incomes are considerably
higher than in Russia and other parts of the European USSR. In 1958,
(in cash and kind) they were 1.70 times higher in Central Asia than the
USSR average, and in Transcaucasia 1.64 times.17 The higher incomes and
living standards of the rural population in the Asiatic Soviet Union compared
to those in the European USSR is largely owing to the long term policies,
especially prominent in the 1930s and 1940s, of subsidizing Soviet industrial
development and industrial workers’ living standards by requiring peasants
on collective and state farms to supply the state with such basic foodstuffs
as potatoes, wheat, barley, meat, milk and eggs, at very low prices. However,
the Asiatic Republics, being semi-tropical, specialized in other products such
as cotton, tea, citrus fruits and grapes, which were not required to be supplied
at low prices; the higher prices paid for these products stimulated their out­
put.1* Roy Medvedev, one of the most prominent Soviet dissidents, testifies
that with the exception of Moscow, the living standard of people in
Azerbaidzhán and Central Asia is higher than in the heart of Russia.

40
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

In the US in the 1970s, a smaller proportion of blacks than whites was

employed in agriculture (a reversal of the traditional situation) but a sig­
nificantly higher proportion of those of Mexican origin than whites were so
employed: 7% and 4% respectively in 1977. Unlike in the USSR, rural
incomes are highest in the more developed parts of the US. In 1970, rural
wages in the US South averaged $8.35 a day compared to $11.75 in the
West and $9.95 in the North-east; furthermore, ethnic minorities in the US
earn less than the dominant ethnic groups, again unlike in the USSR. In
1970 non-white rural workers earned $8.00 a day compared to $9.70 for
whites.20
Average earned income per adult for the five Central Asian republics of
the USSR was 11% below the national average in 1970, while average
monthly wages were only 5% below in 1978. Though not strictly comparable,
this may be considered in the light of the ratio of black to white family
income in the US in 1970 of 61%, that is 39% below the national average.21
While the income gap among the nationalities in the USSR has been closing
rapidly over the years and has now reached the point where there is relatively
little difference between them, in the US during the 1970s the income gap
has increased in favour of white families.
In the Soviet Union, in contrast to the US and other capitalist countries,
wage scales are uniform throughout the country (except that supplements
are offered above the basic rates in remote areas where economic develop­
ment is encouraged). Thus workers throughout Central Asia and the
Transcaucus are paid at at least the same rate for the same jobs as are workers
in Russia proper, i.e. industrial workers of the Asiatic nationalities receive
the same pay as Russian workers. According to Nove and Newth, ‘There is
certainly no evidence of wage discrimination*.22 Because of the lack of
development in the past, however, the Asiatic nationalities are still
significantly under-represented in the more skilled and higher paying jobs,
and in the industrial working class in general; thus they do not benefit fully
from the standard all-Union wage scales. Nevertheless, they are rapidly enter­
ing all levels of the industrial occupations, consequently the remaining
income disparities are disappearing.23
Welfare payments, old age pensions, free education and health care, as
well as other social services, are also standard throughout the Soviet Union
(unlike in the US where welfare benefits in the poorer States are lower than
in the richer States). Such services considerably enhance the living standards
of the Asiatic population, although Central Asians receive less per capita in
social wage benefits because their populations are more rural than the Soviet
average;peasants receive less in social benefits from the state than do
workers. However,

the relatively backward areas share, in terms of formal equality, in the

social service benefits of the USSR as a whole, and the financial burden
appears to fall disproportionately on the more Advanced* Russians,
Ukrainians, etc.24
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Both the industrialization and the rapid improvement in living standards

in Soviet Asia have largely been subsidized by the European USSR. Much of
their industrial development, especially before 1955, was financed directly
from the Union (rather than the local Republic budgets).25 Almost all the
capital goods imported into Soviet Asia during the period of industrialization
were from the European USSR, through allocations from the central plan, in
order to develop this region. According to Nove and Newth \ .. it seems
reasonable to conclude that this capital flow, coming in the main from
Russia proper, represented a net gain to the republics, after making all
allowances for offsetting factors1.26
The Asiatic Republics have historically been required to provide a smaller
proportion of their revenues to the All Union Budget than was required
o f the European Republics. Likewise, taxes on enterprises in Soviet Asia
provided relatively little to the central budget. Taxes on enterprise profits
in Uzbekistan in 1961 for example, were less than half the all-Unlon average
per capita.27

By and large, they were permitted to retain a more than average propor­
tion of all-Union revenues raised in their territories, to finance
economic and social development. This was a consequence of the fact
that investment, educational and health expenditure in these areas
were greater, relatively to local resources, than elsewhere in the Soviet
Union . . . it follows from the financial evidence that the Russian
connection, membership of a large and more developed polity, greatly
facilitated such social and economic progress as was achieved in these

In both the US and the USSR there has been a tendency for regional
variations in per capita income to disappear; however, there are qualitative
differences in the way this process is being achieved in the two countries.
The European USSR, unlike virtually all the advanced capitalist countries,
has not experienced an immigration of potential industrial and service
workers from poorer regions. In the US an inter-migration has occurred with
poor whites and blacks migrating North, as well as migration of Latinos to
the US; the United Kingdom has received East and West Indian immigrants,
France, Portuguese, Arabs, etc., and Germany, Turks, Italians, etc. The
direction of migration within the USSR has, instead, been from the more
developed to the less developed regions; this is consequent upon a state
policy of heavy investment in the least developed areas, and the subsequent
opening up o f job opportunities (especially at the more skilled levels) in the
least developed regions. In the capitalist world, labour migration of peripheral
peoples to the advanced countries and regions is caused by massive unemploy­
ment at home and the potentiality of earning considerably higher wages than
would otherwise be possible. In the USSR the migration in the opposite
direction is motivated by prospects of job promotion and a more favourable
climate, and by wage supplements in the case of the more remote areas. In

42
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

the capitalist world capital flows to low wage areas in order to minimize costs,
but since wages are uniform throughout the USSR minimization o f labour
cost cannot be a consideration. The differential growth of industry in the
less developed regions o f the USSR is rather a matter of the state’s policy
to equalize the level o f development throughout the country.
In good measure the Asiatic republic’s industrialization has come to be
integrated with local resources. For example, the Uzbek republic is the
leading producer o f tractors for cotton sowing and cleaning equipment,
Azerbaidzhán is the leading producer of oil drilling machinery, and Armenia
is a centre for non-ferrous metallurgy, being rich in molybdenum and a
aluminium as well as more rare metals.29
Overall, Soviet economic, as well as social, policies have proved to be
quite successful in Soviet Asia. So much so that many Western scholars
speculate about the ’subversive effect’ such a ’Soviet Showplace’ could have
on the adjacent Middle Eastern regions as their people become aware of
conditions on the other side of the border.
It is virtually universally conceded that economic development has been
achieved due to Soviet efforts:

The Soviet Union in the past fifty years had conducted social experi­
ments . . . in raising the standards of its Asian minorities well above
those of the neighbours from whom they were virtually indistinguish­
able in 1917.. .. The gist of the Soviet ’message’ is that a developing
country can convert itself reasonably rapidly into a developed industrial
one precisely as the Soviet Union has done - with minimal dependence
on Western capital, little or no abatement of political hostility to the
West, without the introduction of a fully-fledged capitalist system, and
with concomitant advancement of education and the social services.30

The European areas of the Soviet Union have heavily subsidized the rapid
economic growth and industrialization of Soviet Asia and the speedily
improving living conditions of the Asiatic peoples o f these areas. There is no
evidence, either in the flow of resources or in the effects on Asian economic
conditions, o f a colonial or neo-colonial relationship between Russia and the
Asian regions of the USSR. Rather the evidence indicates that considerable
efforts have been made to modernize this region and bring it up to the
economic standards o f the European USSR.

Welfare
Before the Bolshevik Revolution very few modern medical services were
available in Russia’s Asiatic colonies. Standards of sanitation and diet were
low, and as a result life expectancy was minimal, and infant mortality high.
The Soviet system has radically reduced the death rate and thus increased
life expectancy. Statistics by Republic are not available for the period after

43
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

the mid-1960s, but the official crude death rate for the five Central Asian
Republics was 6.0 per 1,000, and for Azerbaidzhán 7.0 per 1,000, compared
to 7.2 for the USSR as a whole. In 1965 the crude death rate in the US was
9.4 for whites and 9.9 for non-whites.31
According to Nove and Newth ‘. . . there is some evidence to suggest that
regional differences in Soviet crude death rates are now . . . due principally
to differences in age-structure rather than to sanitary or medical conditions.
. . .,32 In Turkey, in 1959, the crude death rate in towns was 12.9 per 1,000
and much higher in rural areas;33 in Iran it was approximately 25 per
1.000. 34 Nove and Newth estimate that the death rates in Turkey and Iran
as a whole may well be three times those in Soviet Central Asia.35 These
high death rates —in common with those in Central Asia before the
Revolution - are owing primarily to high infant mortality and inferior
sanitary conditions. In 1975 the estimated infant mortality rate in Soviet
Central Asia, although high by contemporary Western European standards,
was 30% of that in Turkey ; 38% of Iran’s ; and 17% of Afghanistan’s. The
estimated Central Asian infant mortality rate of 46 per 1,000 was roughly
equivalent to that of Italy in I960.36
Soviet medical and public health care, combined with improved diet,
have brought Central Asia up to Western European standards. There is little
difference in per capita expenses for medicine in the Asian and European
USSR. For example, in 1959, per capita expenditure was 14.1 roubles in
Uzbekistan, 16.5 in Kazakhstan, 17.7 in Georgia and 18.9 in Russia.37 In
1968, the number o f hospital beds per 10,000 in the five Central Asian
Republics was 99.8, and in Azerbaidzhán 87.8. This compares to the USSR
average of 104.1 per 10,000. In 1971 there were21 doctors per 10,000 forthe
five Central Asian Republics and 25 per 10,000 in Azerbaidzhán, compared
to an average of 28 per 10,000 in the USSR. The slight differential between
the Slavic and Asiatic areas appears to be caused by the fact that the Asian
population is considerably younger - and thus healthier - than the
European population.
The virtually identical medical care available throughout the USSR,
reflected in the number of doctors and hospital beds per capita and expendi­
ture on medical care, is a radical improvement on pre-Socialist conditions.
For example, in 1913 the number of hospital beds per capita in the five
Asiatic Republics was 2 per 10,000 compared to 15 per 10,000 in Russia
proper ; most of the beds were reserved for European immigrants and
officials, and the ratio of doctors to population was 30 per million, com­
pared to 150 per million in Russia.38
The contrast between Soviet Asia and neighbouring areas is particularly
revealing. In 1970, Iran had three doctors and 13 hospital beds per 10,000
population; while Turkey had five doctors and 20 hospital beds per
10.000. 39
The qualitative difference in medical care between Soviet Asia and the
equivalent areas of the Middle East should also be stressed. In Iran and
Turkey doctors and hospitals are heavily concentrated in the major urban

44
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

Tabic 2 3
H ealthcare: 1971

Doctors Doctors Hospital Beds Hospital Beds

per 10,000 per 10,000 per 10,000 per 10,000
Population Adults Population A dults

USSR average 28.3 45.7 104.1 167.6

Georgia 36.8 60.4 88.0 144.3
Latvia 36.2 50.7 116.8 163.5
Estonia 33.8 48.0 113.1 160.6
RSFSR 30.1 47.0 107.2 167.2
Armenia 29.4 57.9 85.3 168.0
Lithuania 28.6 43.8 97.6 1493
Ukraine 28.3 42.2 102.5 152.7
Belorussia 26.7 42.7 98.5 157.6
Azerbaidzhán 25.1 53.5 — —

Tatar ASSR 23.5 39.7 109.7 205.1

Kazakhstan 22.9 42.8 100.6 220.5
Turkmenia 21.9 47.9 94.9 163.2
Moldavia 21.5 37.0 98.9 202.7
Kirgizia 21.4 43.9 96.9 214.1
Uzbekistan 21.0 46.4 93.1 209.5
Tadzhikistan 16.5 37.1

Sources: Katz et al., 1975, Soviet Social Science Data Handbook o f Major
Soviet Nationalities, pp. 443,458; Mickiewicz, 1973, Handbook o f Soviet
Social Science Data, p. 113.

centres and are primarily available only to those who can pay. In Soviet Asia
medical care is available both in the rural and urban areas and is available to
all on the basis of need. According to the UN Economic Commission for
Europe, medical care in Soviet Asia ‘has improved so strikingly in the period
of Soviet rule that the relevant comparison is no longer with neighbouring
Asian countries, but with the countries of Western Europe'.40

the progress of even the most backward part of Central Asia is

remarkable; by 1961 even Tadzhikistan had one doctor per 850
inhabitants, with three or four auxiliaries supplementing each doctor,
and one hospital bed for every 140 inhabitants. This is a state of things
which neighbouring states, and even some European states, may well

While the ratio o f doctors per adult in the USSR in 1971 was 1:63, in the
US in 1970 the ratio per capita among the States was 2:62; New York had

45
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

233 doctors per 100,000, and Mississippi 89 per 100,000. In the

same year Puerto Rico had 91 doctors per 100,000 population, and 35
hospital beds per 10,000 compared to the mainland average of 150
doctors per 100,000, and the US average of 65 hospital beds per
10,00o.42
Because o f the largely private system of medical care in the US there
is a considerable differential in the availability of high quality treat­
ment within any given area - with the poorer ethnic minorities
suffering disproportionately. This differential in the standard o f health
care based on economic factors, combined with inadequate diet, poor
sanitary conditions, dangerous jobs and neighbourhoods, and the greater
stress associated with manual labour, poverty and racism, produce much
higher death rates for most ethnic minorities than for the ethnic majority
in the US. In 1977, the death rate o f blacks between the ages o f 25 and
44 averaged 2.5 times that of whites, i.e. a black in the 25-44 age group
had a 2.5 times greater probability of dying in a given year than a white
of the same age. Blacks in the 45-54 age group die at a rate 2.0 times
greater than whites.43 In ensuring adequate health for its minorities
the USSR is clearly much more effective than is the US.

Education

Before the Bolshevik Revolution, the vast majority of the peoples of

Soviet Asia were illiterate. Even in 1926, a decade after the Revolution,
only 3.8% o f the people in Tadzhikistan, 11.6% of those in Uzbekistan,
14.0% of those in Turkmenistan, and 16.5% of those in Kirgizia were
literate; a high proportion of the literates were in fact Russian immigrants.
By the end o f the 1930s most people throughout the USSR were literate,
and by the end o f the 1950s literacy was virtually universal (see Table 2.4).
The achievement in Soviet Asia was particularly noteworthy among
girls and women who, in this largely Islamic area, were traditionally con­
fined to the home.
In Iran, in 1971, 63.1% of the total population and 74.5% of all women
were illiterate, and in 1975, in Turkey, the same applied to 39.7% of the total
population and 56.9% of women.44 The contrast between Soviet Asia and
regions of the Near East with ethnically similar populations Is obvious.
The number o f school students in the Asiatic Republics increased after
the Revolution. In Russia proper the number o f students of all types
increased by 3.6 times between 1914-15 and 1978-79, compared to over
2,000 times for Tadzhik SSR, over 200 for Uzbek SSR, over 100 for Kirghiz
SSR and 90 times for Turkmen SSR (see Table 2.5).
In 1939 2.2% of Kazakhs, 1.5% o f Uzbeks, 1.4% of Turkmens, 1.2% of
Tadzhiks and 0.9% o f Kirgiz had received a secondary education (at least
seven years of schooling) compared to the USSR average of 8.3%. By 1959,
however, 24.2% of Turkmens, 20.8% o f Uzbeks, 20.1% of Tadzhiks, 19.9%

46
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

Table 2.4
Literacy: Percentage o f Population Aged 9-4 9

Territory Both Sexes Male Female

1926 1959 1926 1959 1926 1959
Urban and Rural:
USSR 56.6 98.5 71.5 99.3 42.7 97.8
Azerbaidzhán 28.2 97.3 36.1 98.8 19.2 96.0
Kazakhstan 25.2 96.9 35.4 98.8 14.5 95.1
Kirgizia 16.5 98.0 23.9 99.0 8.4 97.0
Tadzhikistan 3.8 96.2 6.4 98.0 0.9 94.6
Turkmenia 14.0 95.4 18.3 97.7 8.8 93.4
Uzbekistan 11.6 98.1 15.3 99.0 7.3 97.3

Source: Mickiewicz, 1973, Handbook o f Soviet Social Science Data, p. 139.

Table 2.5
Number of Pupils and Students in the Union Republics (at the beginning
of school year; 1,000s)

Pupils in General Educational Ratio o f 1914-15

Schools o f A ll Types to 1978-79
1914-15 1978-79

USSR 9,656 44,711 4.6

RSFSR 5.684 20.739 3.6
Ukrainian SSR 2,607 7,600 2.9
Byelorussian SSR 489 1,575 3.2
Uzbek SSR 18 3,876 21.5
Kazakh SSR 105 3,257 31.0
Georgian SSR 157 975 6.2
Azerbaidzhán 73 1,594 21.8
Lithuanian SSR 118 612 5.2
Moldavian SSR 92 747 8.1
Latvian SSR 172 349 2.0
Kirghiz SSR 7 857 122
Tajik SSR 0.4 999 2,498
Armenian SSR 35 616 17.2
Turkmen SSR 7 698 99.7
Estonian SSR 92 217 2.4

Source: USSR in Figures, 1978, p. 220.

47
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

o f Kirgiz, and 18.2% o f Kazakhs had received such an education, compared

to 28.1% o f the Soviet population as a whole (these figures refer to
nationalities, not residents o f the republics*.45

Allowing for the laige number of children among the Muslim nation­
alities, and for the relative backwardness of rural schools which still
persists, these nationalities are well on the way to reaching the general
level of the whole Soviet population —and all this in the space of a
couple of decades. On the foundations of this great advance in
secondary education, a fund of highly skilled specialist manpower is
being built u p . . . -40

In the US, in 1960, 20.1 % o f all blacks over the age of 25 had completed
secondary education, compared to 43.2% o f whites. 7 This black to white
ratio o f .47 contrasts with comparable Soviet ratio in 1959 o f .74 or Asians
to Europeans who completed secondary school. In 1970, Puerto Ricans over
the age o f 25 averaged a total o f only 6.9 years o f schooling, compared with
12.2 for the US. These figures reflect the comparably immense progress made
by minorities in education in the USSR.48
The Soviets’ expenditure per capita on education in the non-Asiatic and
Transcaucasian republics has been consistently higher than in the European
areas. For example, in 1955, annual expenditure per capita in Azerbaidzhán
was 1.18 times the USSR average; in Turkmenistan 1.30 times; in Tajikistan
1.27 times; in Kirgizia, 1.15 times and in Uzbekistan 1.00 times the USSR
average. This is because o f the higher birth rates in Central Asia; in 1955
the Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics had 15% o f the population,
but 18% o f the school children and 18% o f the teachers.50 In most cases,
the higher proportion o f school age children, which corresponds almost
exactly to the distribution o f teachers, is closely proportional to the
additional expenditure in the republics.
This Soviet practice o f allocating resources proportional to the number of
students differs radically from the US practice o f spending far more per
student in wealthy than in poor areas, as well as maintaining significantly
lower faculty/student ratios in the wealthier areas and districts. In 1975,
New York State spent $409 per primary and secondary school student
compared to $194 per student in Kentucky and $197 in Mississippi. In New
York City in 1970, the student/teacher ratio was 18.5 to 1 and in San
Francisco 19.2 to 1, compared to 29.2 to 1 for Detroit and 28.5 to 1 for
St. Louis.51 The variation, both in funds allocated per student and student/
teacher ratios is significantly greater between wealthy suburban neighbour­
hoods and urban ghettos and impoverished rural areas (e.g. the South,
Appalachia) than it is between States or cities.
In higher education the Asiatic peoples have also made great progress.
In the USSR in 1970-71, six nationalities had a higher student/population
ratio than the national average: Jews 2.60, Georgians 1.43, Armenians 1.34,
Russians 1.12 and Azerbaidzhani 1.04. The Asiatic nationalities compared

48
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

favourably to the European in all cases in this respect; for example, in

addition to the Azerbaidzhana the Kazakhs, Kirgiz and Uzbeks rank above
the Ukrainians and Latvians (all of these are at least 80% of the USSR
average). Of all the Republics only Uzbekistan is spending significantly less
on higher education per pupil than the Russian Republic (here it is about
20% less). The highest expenditure per student is in Armenia and Estonia
where it is about 28% higher than in the Russian Republic (see Table 2.6).

Table 2.6
Higher Education by Nationality

Students per Expenditure

1,000 per Student
Population o f Over­ by Republic
Nationality representation 1965
1970-71 Index (roubles)

USSR 18.95 1.00 413

Jews 49.19 2.60 —

Georgians 27.06 1.43 322

Armenians 22.90 1.34 458
Russians 21.15 1.12 358
Azerbaidzhani 19.35 1.04 348
Kazakhs 18.93 1.00 338
Lithuanians 18.69 0.99 405
Kirgiz 18.18 0.97 335
Estonians 17.78 0.93 462
Uzbeks 16.39 0.87 290
Ukrainians 15.25 0.80 331
Latvians 15.24 0.81 347
Tatars 14.67 0.78 —

Turkmen 14.75 0.78 328

Belorussians 14.38 0.76 403
Tadzhiks 13.16 0.69 338
Moldavians 11.42 0.60 360

Source: Katz et al., 1975, Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities, p. 456;

and Mickiewicz, 1973, Handbook o f Soviet Social Science Data, p. 156.

The Soviets have achieved virtual equality for the Asiatic nationalities both
in effort invested in higher education and results. To appreciate the Soviet
achievement, educational attainments should be compared to the equivalent
areas of the Middle East, e.g. Turkey and Iran. In 1959 the number of
students in higher education in Iran was 9 per 10,000, and in Turkey 15 per
10,000.° This compares to 194 per 10,000 for Soviet Azerbaidzhán, 147 for

49
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Soviet Turkmenistan and 132 for Soviet Tadzhikstan, which share the same
ethnic groups with Turkey and Iran (1970-71 figures). This represents a
ratio o f about 10 times in favour of the equivalent Soviet populations.53
In 1970 in the US, the overall student/population ratio in higher education
was 239 per 10,000; with 153 for blacks (64% o f the national rate) and 113
for Latins.54 The access to higher education of national minorities in the
USSR is significantly greater than in the US.
The educational advances of Soviet Asians are reflected in statistics for the
number o f scientific workers by nationality. Government policy has been to
systematically develop a national intelligentsia in each republic.

Table 2.7
Scientific Workers by Nationality 1971

Index o f Over-representation
Per A dult
Nationality Number % o f Total Per Capita Population

USSR TOTAL 1,002,930 100% 1.00 1.00

Jews 66,793 6.66 7.48 —

Armenians 22,056 2.20 1.50 1.83

Georgians 19,411 1.94 1.45 1.48
Russians 666,059 66.41 1.24 1.20
Estonians 4,959 0.49 1.17 1.03
Latvians 6,262 0.62 1.05 .91
Lithuanians 8,751 0.87 0.79 .75
Azerbaidzhani 13,998 1.40 0.77 1.02
Ukrainians 107,475 10.72 0.64 .59
Belorussians 20,538 2.05 0.55 .55
Tatars 12,619 1.26 0.51 —

Turkmen 1,946 0.19 0.40 .55

Kazakhs 8,629 0.86 0.39 .45
Kirgiz 2,100 0.21 0.35 .45
Uzbeks 12,928 1.29 0.34 .47
Tadzhiks 2,550 0.25 0.28 .39
Moldavians 2,624 0.26 0.23 .25

Source: Katz et al., 1975, Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities, p. 457.

* Computed on the assumption that the age structure of each nationality
is identical to that o f its titular republic.

Although the average number of scientific workers per capita for the
seven Asiatic nationalities (including Tatars) is only 43% o f the Soviet average,
since there was virtually no native scientific intelligentsia in the Asian region
before the Bolshevik Revolution, these groups have clearly made considerable

50
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

progress. It should also be noted that, owing to the fact that compared to the
European groups the Asian population is significantly younger, computing
a ratio o f over-representation on a per capita basis, rather than on a per
employed person basis, substantially lowers the index for the Asian peoples
and raises it for the older, European populations. When age structure is taken
into account the representation index of scientific workers from the Asiatic
nationalities rises to over 50%. Nevertheless, because it takes time to develop
a native intelligentsia from a backward society, even under the most favour­
able conditions, many scientific workers in the Asian Republics are people
who have migrated from the European USSR. That this is not as a result of
*Russification’ policies or of discrimination is testified to by the low involve­
ment of Slavic intelligentsia in Georgia and Armenia, and the fact that
Georgians and Armenians are more strongly represented among the scientific
intelligentsia than any other national group with the exception of the Jews.
In 1969,94% of all scientific workers in Armenia were Armenian, while
nearly half the total of Armenian scientific workers worked outside
Armenia.55
According to Wheeler, \ .. the same standards of preliminary, secon­
dary and higher education obtain throughout the Union, and academic
posts, whether in the social sciences or in technology, appear to be
open to all alike.’ Wheeler also notes that in the mid-1960s the president
of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences was an Uzbek geologist of
international reputation who had not learnt to read until he was 19
years old.56

Cultural Development
Soviet policy has been to encourage the development o f national cultures and
the preservation of the native languages.* Under the Czar there existed a
policy of Russification, but now education, and all forms of media, are in the
native languages. Russian is taught as a second language throughout the
country, both as a lingua franca and because, as a major world language, it
affords access to a far wider body of literary and scientific writings than it
could ever be possible to translate into each of the minor languages.
Numerous books, magazines and newspapers are published, and are
readily available, in all the major minority languages. The relative number

* The Soviet Constitution (Article 36) specifies the formal rights of national minorities
in the USSR:
Citizens of the USSR of different races and nationalities have equal rights. Exercise of
these rights is ensured by a policy of all-round development and drawing together of all
the nations and nationalities of the USSR, by educating citizens in the spirit of Soviet
patriotism and socialist internationalism, and by the possibility to use their native
language and the languages of other peoples of the USSR. Any direct or indirect limit­
ation of the rights of citizens, or establishment of direct or indirect privileges on grounds
of race or nationality, or any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness, hostility or
contempt, are punishable by law.

51
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

of publications in the native languages in the various republics is roughly

proportional to the percentage of thé local population of that nationality,
(see Table 2.8).

Table 2.8
Books and Newspapers Published in Union Republics, 1970

% o f Book Total Copies % o f A ll National

Titles o f Books Newspapers Group % in
Published, Published per which are in Population
Which are in 100 Speakers the Titular o f Each
the Titular o f the Titular Language Republic
Republic Language Language

RSFSR 93 562 93 82.2

Ukraine 37 226 80 74.9
Belorussia 21 110 75 81.1
Uzbekistan 44 239 57 64.7
Kazakhstan 31 239 37 32.4
Georgia 73 370 86 66.8
Azerbaidzhán 64 192 80 73.8
Lithuania 64 433 81 80.1
Moldavia 31 211 47 64.6
Latvia 52 739 64 56.8
Kirgizia 47 223 55 43.8
Tadzhikistan 52 167 84 56.2
Armenia 75 212 88 88.6
Turkmenia 65 242 70 65.6
Estonia 74 890 72 68.2

Source: Katz et al., 1975, Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities, pp. 459-
60.

In many republics the share of total circulation of books in the native

language is higher than the number of titles, for example, in Kazakhstan,
about one-third of the titles published are in Kazakh, but over half the
circulation is of Kazakh books.57 In Azerbaidzhán, 81% o f newspapers
but 97% o f magazine circulation is of Azerbaidzhani language periodicals.
In Kirgizia both the magazine circulation and the percentage of the total
number of copies of books published in Kirgiz is much higher than the
proportion o f titles in Kirgiz.58
The annual number o f copies o f new books published in the native lan­
guages o f Soviet Asia varies from 2.4 per capita in Turkmen, Uzbek and
Kazakh, to 2.2 in Kirgiz, and 1.9 in Azerbaidzhani to 1.7 in Tadzhik.
(see Table 2.8).

52
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

Before the Bolshevik Revolution virtually no books were published in any of

these languages. The few books written by native authors were published
outside their native areas in languages other than their native tongue. Printing
in Central Asian languages was strictly limited to direct lithography, i.e.
reproduction from material written on stone surfaces by hand. Only Kazakh
and Turkmen were beginning to assume a literary form.59
In the USSR the highest ratio of total copies of new books published per
capita annually is in Estonian and Latvian, with ratios of 8.9 and 7.4 per
capita in 1970 (see Table 2.8). The ratio of books in Russian per capita
published each year in 1970 was 5.6. Naturally, the number of books issued
in Russian is considerably higher than for the Asian languages since so much
scientific and technical work, as well as world literature and special studies,
appear in this language. Russian is read both by experts and the general
intelligentsia as a second language throughout the nation. The very high
ratios of the Baltic republics bear witness to the fact that this is not as a result
of a Russification policy or of suppression of local languages.
For at least 80% of all the major nationalities of the USSR, with the
exception o f Jews, their mother tongue is their primary language. The per­
centage is higher - almost 99% - in Soviet Asia.

Table 2.9
Speakers of Languages of Major Nationalities of USSR, 1970

Language % o f the Nationality Identifying National

Language as M other Tongue
Russian
Turkmen 98.9
Kirgiz 98.8
Uzbek 98.6
Tadzhik 98.5
Georgian 98.4
Azerbaidzhani 98.2
Kazakh 98.0
Lithuanian 97.9
Estonian 95.5
Latvian 95.2
Moldavian 95.0
Armenian 91.4
Tatar 89.2
Ukrainian 85.7
Belorussian 80.2
Jewish languages 17.7

Source: Katz et al., 1975, Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities, p, 446.

53
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

All nationalities of the USSR may choose to be educated in their native

languages, and all the major nationalities may receive their entire education
through college in the language of their republic.60 That most students from
the various nationalities take advantage of this option without discrimination
has been testified to by many Western scholars. For example, in Lithuania,
'students who begin their education in Lithuanian suffer no discrimination
at higher levels; university instruction is almost exclusively in Lithuanian.’61
Most students in the Baltic countries receive their education in the Baltic
languages. In Estonia’s general schools, for example, 73% use Estonian and
8% use both Estonian and Russian. In 1960, 89% of higher education
students studied in Estonian. Further, a significant number of those of
Russian nationality attend Estonian language schools at all levels.62
In Central Asia, however, there is a disproportionate number of non-Asian
immigrants in higher education - 30% in 1959 —even though they
represented only about 20% of the population. Nevertheless, compared to the
situation before the Revolution, or even in the late 1920s, the progress in
this context is significant. To quote a Western scholar 'When . . . this
situation is compared with that prevailing thirty years ago when there were
no higher educational establishments which Muslims could attend, progress
can be seen as remarkable.’63
There is no tendency for native languages to be undermined and replaced
by Russian; the evidence indicates precisely the opposite, including officially
sponsored campaigns to purify the native languages of 'Russianisms’.64 From
1959 to 1970, the percentage of Azerbaidzhanis speaking their native
language increased from 97.6% to 98.2% (and of these only 16.6% said they
spoke Russian as a second language).65 Similarly among the Uzbeks, of
whom, in 1970, only 13% stated they spoke Russian as a second language.
The US’s language policy contrasts very sharply with that of the USSR.
The long standing tradition implemented in the policies of American schools,
courts and all governmental institutions, has been to make English the only
acceptable language. As part of the official 'Americanization’ policy, the
languages of the various European immigrant groups, as well as those of the
native peoples and the blacks forcibly taken from Africa, the Spanish and
other Latin-based languages of recent immigrants from the other Americas,
have, along with the traditional cultures and national practices o f these
groups, been undermined. US policy has been consistently to submit all
peoples resident in the US to one 'melting pot’ in which the English language
and 'American values’ were universal. Traditionally, education in all public
schools was in English; the legal system operated in English only, as did road
signs and so on.
Beginning in the late 1960s the traditional, enforced monolinguistic/
monocultural Americanization policy was moderated somewhat with the
passing of a Federal Bilingual Education Act which gave grants to those
schools in districts wishing to set up bilingual education programmes (the
decision whether or not to set up such programmes was left entirely to each
school district). In 1974, the US Supreme Court ruled that those school

54
 The Asian Nationalities fn the USSR

districts with large proportions of non-English speaking students were

violating the 'civil rights' of those students by not providing bilingual
programmes for them, but did not specify how this was to be implemented.
In 1975, to comply with the Supreme Court decision, the US Department of
Education issued guidelines (which, however, did not have the authority of
law) for the establishment of bilingual education programmes. The issue of
bilingual education became highly controversial in the latter part of the
1970s and the early 1980s. Some arguing that the basic curriculum should be
taught in all languages where the majority o f students did not speak English,
others that only special courses to teach English to non-native speakers
should be available - designed to prepare them for basic instruction in
English; and still others that the traditional policy of 'sink or swim' (with
no Federal or State requirements for non-English instruction) should
continue at the discretion o f each local school district. Finally, at the end of
1980, the Federal government issued strict guidelines requiring those school
districts with more than 25 students all speaking the same foreign language
to offer them instruction in their own language as well as in English. The
first official act o f the new Secretary of Education in the Reagan Adminis­
tration in 1981 was to revoke these requirements as 'harsh, inflexible, burden­
some, unworkable and incredibly costly'.66
In 1980, approximately 500, or 3%, or the US‘s around 16,500 school dis-
t nets had some form of bilingual educational programme. In the Fiscal Vear
1981, the Federal government provided these 500 districts with SI75 million
to support their programmes. It has been estimated that in 1980 there were
3.5 million non-English speaking school-age children in the US; 70% o f whom
were native Spanish speakers. In New York City, for example, 30% of all
students in the public schools were Latins.67 The Federal subsidy for
bilingual education averages out to $50 per non-English speaking student, or
a third of a million per school district with bilingual programmes. Compared
to Soviet language policy, the US effort is insignificant.
In the USSR Russian is taught as a second language in all republics. To
advance in most professional careers beyond a certain point the ability to
at least read and write Russian is essential. This is because - to quote the
prominent Soviet dissident Roy Medvedev —

you can't do without the Russian language . . . which enables the

different nationalities to communicate with one another.. . . Most
scientific and literary works are published in Russian in all the
republics. A book on mathematics or philosophy published in Georgian
say, would have no circulation outside of Georgia.68

Medvedev goes on to illustrate his point by relating that at one time there
was a tendency for official Ukrainian agencies to correspond with other
regions o f the USSR in their own language only. When a Ukrainian minister
wrote to Moscow there was usually someone who could understand the
language, but in Georgia or Tadjikistan, there were very few who could.

55
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Consequently they began to respond to the Ukrainians in their language

(which hardly anyone in the Ukraine could understand). Papers at national
scientific conferences were often read in the various local languages. In both
cases, the problem of each group speaking its own language to other groups
soon became apparent, and Russian again became the common language of
communication.
The universality of Russian perhaps makes professional advancement a
little easier for those whose mother tongue is Russian. But that such an
advantage is minimal is exemplified by the Armenians and Georgians (neither
of whose native tongues are Slavic) who are more successful than Russians In
pursuing scientific careers.
Soviet policy, while it favours the development and preservation of native
culture and language, also encourages migration of various nationalities
throughout the USSR, especially to the resource rich, underpopulated areas
of Siberia and much of Central Asia. Thus large numbers of Slavs, mostly
Russians and Ukrainians, have settled in Central Asia, especially in
Kazakhstan where they have become the majority of the total population.
In recent years, however, apparently largely because of the high birth rates
among Soviet Asians, the proportion of the population that is of the titular
nationality has increased in all six Asiatic republics (see Table 2.10).
Soviet policy has always been to encourage preservation and development
of the local cultures. In the 1920s, any group that felt itself to be a nation­
ality was officially encouraged to develop its language, culture and sense of
social cohesion. This was supported by the state by opening schools,
publishing books and periodicals, and wherever the group was sufficiently
concentrated geographically, given various degrees of local self-government.
Generally the larger the group, the greater the extent of local autonomy. In
the post-World War II period, this policy has been continued for groups of
any significant size and geographical concentration.69 From the 1920s, in
Soviet Asia, literature in the native languages and native art forms accessible
to the people blossomed with government and Party support. The theatre
and opera were introduced and proved extremely popular. Theatres built in
all the principal towns of Central Asia maintain their own repertory com­
panies which perform works both by local playwrights and of translations
into the local languages, of works by Shakespeare, Moliere, Puccini,
Jack London, as well as major Russian authors. Ballet and orchestral music
have also proved to be very popular in Central Asia. Many native music
writers have worked in traditional themes with traditional music.*70 The
cinema too has been widely developed. In 1915 there were said to be 52
cinemas throughout Central Asia, but by the 1960s there were approximately
7,000 permanent and mobile cinemas in operation.71 In Uzbekistan there
are 5,820 public libraries with holdings of over 32 million books and
magazines.72
Soviets celebrate the native cultures on a Union-wide level. For example,
there are regular and widely publicized cultural festivals which give the
artists and cultures of the various Republics not only nation-wide but also

56
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

Table 2.10
Titular Nationality as Percent of Republic Population, 1959-70

Titular Nationality
as % o f Total
Republic Republic Population % Russian
1959 1970 1979 1970 1979

Armenian SSR 88.0 88.6 89.7 2.7% 2.3

RSFSR 83.3 82.8 82.6 82.8 82.6
Belorussian SSR 81.1 81.0 79.4 10.4 11.9
Lithuanian SSR 79.3 80.1 80.0 8.6 8.9
Ukraine SSR 76.8 74.9 73.6 19.4 21.1
Azerbaidzhán SSR 67.5 73.8 78.1 10.1 7.9
Estonian SSR 74.6 68.2 64.7 24.7 27.9
Georgian SSR 64.3 66.8 68.8 8.5 7.4
Turkmen SSR 60.9 65.6 68.4 14.5 12.6
Uzbek SSR 61.1 64.7 68.7 12.5 10.8
Moldavian SSR 65.4 64.6 63.9 11.6 12.8
Latvian SSR 62.0 56.8 53.7 29.8 32.8
Tadzhik SSR 53.1 56.2 58.8 11.9 10.4
Tatar ASSR 47.2 49.1 — — —

Kirgiz SSR 40.5 43.8 47.9 29.2 25.9

Kazakh SSR 30.0 32.6 36.0 42.4 40.8

Source: Katz et al., 191S .H andbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities, pp. 10,
444; Sharp, The East European and Soviet Data Handbook, pp. 148-55.

international publicity. Between 1936 and 1960 25 Republics staged

festivals in Moscow, and between 1957 and 1969 14 Republics staged
festivals in Uzbekistan.
This multinational culture developed by the Soviets both gives expression
to the various national traditions and promotes the adoption of new Socialist
culture.
Publishing, the theatre and the other arts in the native languages are far
more highly developed in Soviet Asia than in the comparable countries of the
east. In the words of one Soviet Central Asia expert:

Taken on the basis of population, publishing of all forms of literature

in Central Asia was soon far to exceed that in any of the other Muslim
countries in Asia, and with one or two exceptions the standard of
printing and production was much higher. The technical literary quality
of modem Central Asian literature in the 1960s was probably as good if
not better than that of Middle Eastern literature and it was free from
the pernicious rubbish circulating either in original writing or in

57
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

translation in many non-Soviet Muslim countries. Some of the novels

of such Kazakh writers as Auezov and Mukanov, of the Turkmen writer
Kerbabayev, and the memoirs of the Tadzhik writer Sadreddin Aini, are
works of undoubted literary merit, and many other examples could
be cited.73
For ethnic minorities in the US the situation is radically different.
Traditional ethnic cultures are systematically undermined through
official policies designed to create an ethnically homogeneous "American
culture*. Virtually nothing is done to encourage either the development or
the perpetuation o f traditional black, Indian, Latin, Asian or European
cultures o f those peoples in the US. The result o f the long term "melting
pot* policies has been the destruction or eventual disappearance of all these
peoples* traditional cultures.
Except for a few Republics in the USSR with very low birth rates and a
high level o f wealth, for example Estonia, most of the non-Russian Republics
(and autonomous regions) are becoming increasingly homogeneous in their
titular nationality. The percentage o f the population o f most republics who
speak the titular tongue as their primary language is generally increasing. In
the US it has been consistently the opposite. Most o f the original European
settlers at first tended to settle in relatively ethnically homogeneous enclaves
(Scandinavians in various upper Mid-West and North-Western rural areas;
Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, etc. in ethnically distinct neighbourhoods o f the
Northern cities). Almost all blacks were originally concentrated in the
"black belt* counties of the South, where slavery and share-cropping thrived;
and most Latins were concentrated in New Mexico and other South-Western
enclaves o f original settlement. Since World War 1 all these ethnic concen­
trations have been rapidly dissipating —the indigenous American Indians
have also in good part been dispersed to the cities. European ethnic neigh­
bourhoods are now rare in the US, having been replaced by neighbourhoods
geographically segregated by class. Latins are rapidly dispersing out o f the
South-West (Chícanos) and New York City (Puerto Ricans) to all the major
industrial areas. Blacks, 90% of whom lived in the South in 1910, were, by
1980, almost equally divided between the South and the rest of the country.
The process of geographical dispersal continues. In 1960, the State of
Mississippi was 42.0% black, in 1976 35.6%; Alabama was 30.0% black, in
1976 20.7%. On the other hand, New York State was 8.4% black in 1960,
and 12.5% black in 1976; Illinois 10.3% and 15.4%; and California 5.6%
and 7.8%.* Again, the pattern is opposite to that in the USSR. Soviet
developmental policies which favour the minority areas have resulted in the
economically favoured less developed areas retaining their indigenous popu­
lations, rather than in their systematic dispersal as in the capitalist countries
—where minority areas serve as sources of low paid immigrant workers to the
industrial heartland.

58
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

Politics
Communist Party membership in the six Asiatic republics is somewhat less
than the Soviet average, the ratio of the percentage of all Party members to
the percentage of the total adult population here is .78.75 Communist Párty
membership o f the various nationalities, however, is low relative to their
population. The ratio of the percentage of Communist Party members in the
six major Asian nationalities to their percentage o f the total population in
1971 averaged .54 (see Table 2.11). The main reasons for this disparity are:
( 1) higher birth rates among the Soviet Asians which results in a significantly
younger age structure and thus reduces the number of those eligible for
membership; and (2) the CPSU recruitment policy which, especially since the
mid-1960s, favours industrial workers and the intelligentsia above rural
populations. In spite o f the rapid increase both in technical education and
urbanization, the rural backwardness of the Asian nationalities has not been
entirely eliminated and consequently they are still under-represented in the
Party.

Table 2.11
National Composition of CPSU, 1 January 1972: Union Republic
Nationalities

Party Members index o f

a s% o f Over­
Nationality No. Union Total representation

Georgians 242,253 1.66 1.24

Russians 8,927,400 61.02 1.14
Armenians 223,372 1.52 1.04
Ukrainians 2,333,750 15.95 0.95
Belorussians 511,981 3.50 0.94
Azerbaidzhani 206,184 1.41 0.78
Kazakhs 246,393 1.68 0.77
Estonians 45,454 0.31 0.74
Latvians 60,843 0.42 0.71
Lithuanians 93,271 0.64 0.58
Kirgiz 45,205 0.31 0.52
Uzbeks 282,918 1.93 0.51
Turkmen 43,111 0.29 0.46
Tadzhiks 57,271 0.39 0.44
Moldavians 58,062 0.40 036
Other Nationalities 1,253,821 8.57 1.28
Total 14,631,289 100.00 1.00

Source: Katz et al., 1975, Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities, p. 449.

59
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

It should be noted that in 1924 only 8% of the Piarty members in

Kazakhstan were Kazakh, compared to about 40% in the mid- 1960s. In this
later period the proportion of Kazakhs who were Party members exceeded
the proportion of the Kazakhs (about 33%) in the total population of
Kazakhstan.76 Likewise, Kazakhs are over-represented in the Kazakh
Supreme Soviet, comprising about 40% of delegates, and among leading
party officials. A study of Kazakh party leaders in the 1955-64 period
showed that approximately half of all provincial, district and city first sec­
retaries were ethnically Kazakh.77 In Uzbekistan in 1967, 67% of the
deputies of the local ¡Supreme Soviet were Uzbeks compared to about 64%
of the population. In general, throughout the Asiatic Republics the official
heads of state, most ministers, first party secretaries, and most responsible
government officials at all levels (except where Russians predominate) are
natives.78 Non-Asians, however, owing to their higher technical qualifications,
generally predominate among industrial managers - who usually need to have
an engineering degree - and heads o f departments where technical expertize
Is required. The concentration of non-Asians in positions in which high levels
of technical competence are necessary, is a result o f the time lag in technical
education among native peoples rather than discrimination in favour of
Slavs, as the substantial role played by Armenians and Georgians as managers
and technical experts in Soviet Asia demonstrates.79
It is sometimes argued that the considerable limits on the political
autonomy o f the various Republics necessarily means that they are
dominated by the Russian Republic. But in fact, all the Republics, Including
Russia, are centrally controlled by a single Party and economic plan
corresponding to a relatively rational division of labour. In the words o f the
Soviet dissident Roy Medvedev:

If our republics have no real political or economic autonomy, that’s

not because Russia . . . controls them. The Russian Republic has even
less autonom y.. . .
In countries like the Soviet Union, economic planning embraces the
interests of the entire state and provides for a division of labour
calculated on a statewide basis. It wouldn’t make much sense to convert
the cotton plantations of Uzbekistan into wheat fields or Georgia’s
tea plantations, vineyards, and market gardens,. . . to potato
cultivation. Nor would it be logical to build a steel mill in Georgia to
produce steel only for Georgia.®

In the US where 11.7% of the total population was black in 1978, 3.0%
of all members of the US Congress and 3.5% of all State legislators were
black. In Mississippi, the State with the highest percentage o f blacks in the
US (35.6%) 3.5% of legislators were black; in South Carolina where in 1978
3 1.6% were black, 7.7% o f the State legislators were black, and in Louisiana
(28.6% black), 7.0% of State legislators were black.81 Blacks, the largest
ethnic minority in the US, are significantly under-represented politically -

60
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

by a factor o f 3-4. In the USSR, in contrast, the Asian minorities are at

least proportionately represented in their Republics both in leading
governmental and Party positions. It should also be noted that while over
the 1919-35 period there were no Asians on the Politburo (Praesidium)
of the CPSU, and in the 1939-63 period only 2% were Asians, in 1973,
8%, and in 1980 11.5%, were ethnically Asian. The six major Asian
nationalities - those with Republics - were 12% of the Soviet population
in 1979, and all ethnically Asian about 15% (17% counting Tatars).

Soviet Policy Towards Islam

All six Asiatic Republics were strongly Islamic before the 1917 Revolution.
Immediately after their seizure of power the Bolsheviks appealed to the
Muslim nationalities for support, and in December 1917 they issued the
following:

Muslims of Russia, Tatars of the Volga and the Crimea, Kirgiz and
Sarts of Siberia and Turkestan, Chechens and mountain Cossacks!
All you, whose mosques and shrines have been destroyed, whose faith
and customs have been violated by the Tsars and oppressors of Russia!
Henceforward your beliefs and customs, your national and cultural
institutions, are declared free and inviolable! Build your national life
freely and without hindrance. It is your right. Know that your rights,
like those of all the peoples of Russia, will be protected by the might
of the Revolution, by the councils of workers, soldiers, peasants,
deputies!82

While the Bolsheviks, as we have seen, generally supported the rights o f

the Muslim nationalities they adopted a policy of undermining the influence
o f the Islamic religion as part o f their general campaign to undermine all
religion as superstition, TTiey considered Islam to be as pernicious as other
religions because o f its past manipulation both by Eastern potentates and
Western imperial powers. Primarily, the attack on Islam was directed at its
less fundamental aspects, such as the veiling, and the seclusion, of women,
polygamy, child betrothal, bride price, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and
circumcision, which the Soviets regarded as a barbaric abuse of children.83
The Soviet’s emphasized women’s liberation, especially in Turkestan, where
the practice o f female seclusion took extreme forms.83 In the late 1920s and
1930s many mosques were closed and a number o f religious leaders either
deported or imprisoned. The practice of Islam itself, however, was never
proscribed, and, according to at least some Western experts on the area, the
campaign against the customs that the Soviets regard as harmful were never
•as repressive as those taken by the nationalist governments of some non-
Soviet Muslim countries, such as Turkey.85
There are two Islamic theological colleges in the USSR, one in Bukhara,

61
Human Right* in the Soviet Union

with 63 students in 1980, and one in Tashkent with 36 students.86 In 1953,

the Mufti o f Tashkent estimated that there were between 200 and 300
active mosques in Central Asia.87 A limited number of Islamic books are
publirfied by the Spiritual Directorate for Sunni Muslims in Central Asia and
Kazakhstan, including the Koran, in Arabic, in 1947, and another edition in
1964. Each year it also publishes a limited edition of an Islamic calendar.88
The theology and rites of Islam in the Soviet Union remain orthodox -
mostly Sunni. The leaders of Islam in the Soviet Union have never been
accused o f heresy (shirq), infidelity (kufr)o r innovation (bida). Nevertheless,
all religious students trained in the USSR receive a thorough political and
social education along with their orthodox theology. Both as a result of the
method of selection and of education their political attitudes tend to be
progressive and pro-Soviet. Muslim delegations from the Islamic world
regularly visit Central Asia and are received by Soviet Islamic leaders; like­
wise, Muslim delegations from the USSR regularly tour the Islamic countries.
Members o f such Soviet goodwill delegations speak perfect Arabic and have
a thorough knowledge o f all aspects o f the Islamic faith. These meetings,
between Soviet and non-Soviet Islamic delegations, function as an important
mechanism for winning friends in the Islamic world.89
While many Islamic customs are maintained, today, according to Jukes,
‘the influence of Islam, while difficult to gauge, does not appear great’.90
This appears to apply especially to Azerbaidzhán. The Handbook o f Major
Soviet Nationalities reports that in Azerbaidzhán 'Islam withered away’,
and experienced a 'gradual erosion of traditional Islamic life’.91

Azerbaidzhán presents two cultural worlds: one urban in which Islam

and its traditional customs, art, and literature have largely died; the
other rural and isolated in which women still wear black shawls and
Moslem values have more than historical significance. But, in sum,
Islam lingers on more as a source of tradition than as an actively
worshipped religion. While such Moslem customs persist as circum­
cision, religious proverbs, naming of children with Allah’s attributes,
and early marriage for women, the five pillars of faith are no longer
observed. Zakat [alms] is forbidden, public prayer is quite rare,
Ramadan (month of fasting) conflicts with work schedules and is
effectively discouraged, and Haü is limited to a handful of token
pilgrims allowed to visit Mecca.92

To a somewhat lesser degree, what is true of Azerbaidzhán is true of

Central Asia. As urbanization and education proceed apace the residues of
Islam are everywhere being undermined.
That religious Islamic sentiments have become largely eroded throughout
Soviet Asia even while some traditional non-religious Islamic customs remain
seems virtually to be the consensus of scholarly Western experts, as well as
of journalists and diplomats personally familiar with the region. A feature
article in the New York Times reported:

62
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

Western and other foreign specialists here are skeptical of a theory

widely circulated in the West that the Sbviet military intervention in
Afghanistan was motivated laigely by fear that a spread of Islamic
fundamentalism through Central Asia might infect the adjacent Soviet
Moslem peoples.
Diplomats and journalists who have traveled recently in the Moslem
republics of Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus report that religion
has been eroded in the lives of the 40 million or so people of Moslem
tradition. . ..
The Soviet authorities seem to feel complete confidence now in the
loyalty of their Moslem peoples,. . . Moscow’s confidence appears to
be illustrated by reports from Afghanistan that many of the soldiers
sent for the intervention are Tadzhiks or others of Moslem tradition.
The atmosphere is even more secular in Central Asia than in Moslem
areas of the Caucasus. The mosques, minarets and mausoleums of
ancient glory are state museums now, tourist attractions. The small
and humble mosques open for worship are sparsely attended by the
elderly. Young people are seldom seen there.93

Anti-Soviet and Anti-Socialist Nationalist Attitudes and

Movements
If the people of the Asiatic republics were, or felt that they were, oppressed
by the Soviet regime it is to be expected that in some way this would be
manifested by such phenomena as nationalist movements, spontaneous resis­
tance, hostile attitudes expressed by the population against Russians, a
resurgence of religion, pan-Islamic sympathies or a dissident movement
among intellectuals. Such events have occurred in Lithuania and Estonia,
as well as in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
However, there is virtually no evidence of any such activity in Soviet Asia —
most major Western experts on the area seem to agree on this. Acceptance of
Soviet institutions appears to be complete and the potential for any signifi­
cant secessionist or anti-socialist nationalist movement absent.
One expert, Wheeler, for example, tells us of:

The absence of characteristic indications of nationalism or nationalist

movement. . . . [He goes on] Of the existence even in embryo of
nationalist movements of the kind experienced in other empires there
are few if any characteristic indications. Elsewhere, and before the
Revolution in the Russian empire such indications have included the
existence of easily identifiable, nationalist leaders either at large or in
exile, internal disturbances and acts of sabotage, the existence abroad
of dedicated nationalist committees receiving active support from
foreign governments, and a more or less steady stream of refugees into
adjoining countries. In empires other than the Russian and Soviet there

63
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

have been added the phenomena of the nationalist press and literature
and the presence of active, or at any rate vocal, opposition groups in
parliament. Of all these hitherto characteristic indications of
nationalism the only one which can be discerned today in relation to
Central Asia is the existence abroad of a few nationalist organizations
most of them formed and all of them financed from foreign, usually
private, resources.94

Wheeler approvingly quotes another Soviet Central Asian expert,

Alexander Bennigsen, who states:

. . . there is no question of opposition to the system; indeed, it seems

that the Muslims of the USSR, peasants, workers and intellectuals alike,
are really trying to adapt themselves to the way of life of the ‘model
man’ advocated by the authorities.95

Nove and Newth argue that the lack of any reports in the West of
opposition to the Soviet system in Central Asia is evidence of the absence of
such opposition, on the grounds that anti-Russian sentiments in other areas,
such as the Baltic countries and Georgia are widely reported in the West.

The Georgians happen to be particularly open in telling foreign visitors

just what they think about Russia and Muscovite rule. It is rarer to hear
such things from the Uzbeks and Tajiks. Since the police system is
much the same throughout the Soviet Union and since the Georgians
appear to have no special difficulty in conveying their views to others,
the fact that one hears much less of anti-Russian nationalism in Central
Asia cannot be attributed merely to fear.96

The Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities reports that no apparent

national antagonism exists in Central Asia between the native and Russian
intelligentsia. Analyses of interviews with those who have left the Soviet
Union confirm the good relationship between Russians and Asians in the
Asiatic republics. These anti-Soviet emigrées "attached little significance to
various incidents of national friction which, being prompted, they had been
able to recall’.97 Experts on each of the different Asiatic nationalities reach
the same conclusion.

If the term ‘Uzbek nationalists’ is used to mean those who demand a

fully independent state for an Uzbek or Turkic nation - complete
sovereignty based on separation from the USSR - then Moscow has not
had to confront Uzbek nationalists since the 1920s, certainly no later
than the 1930s.98

In Azerbaidzhán ‘In recent years no outbreaks of nationalism have been

documented by Western sources, Russian official media, or sam izdat\ and.

64
 The Asian Nationalities In the USSR

'Nationalism, if it exists, is expressed through a distinctive iife style and

national pride rather than by political agitation’.99
In Turkmenia ’in recent times, manifestations of nationalism have been
restricted primarily to activities within established institutions’, such as
arguing ’that all leading posts should be occupied by Turkmen’.100 In
Kazakhstan there is a 'lack o f expression of nationalist tensions’ and 'of
dissent, only isolated cases are known and those involved non-Kazakhs’.101
Wheeler reports

. . . active resistance to the process of Westernization gradually dis­

appeared. Although one would hardly expect any extensive labour or
social disturbances to be reported in the Soviet press, it is significant
that the only disturbances even rumored have been among the non-
Asian inhabitants of Central Asia.* 102

Almost the sole substantive claim relating to nationalism which appears

in the Western literature is that younger Asian artists and writers seem to be
developing an increasing interest in their past and their cultural traditions.
This is not discouraged by Soviet policies, which have consistently aimed to
build up national consciousness (as opposed to Islamic or tribal conscious­
ness) among the people of Soviet Asia, and thus, it cannot be considered as
a sign o f discontent with either socialism or integration into the Soviet
Union.
While experts on the area generally agree that there is little or no separatist
or anti-Soviet feeling in the Asiatic republics, some do suggest that possibly
such sentiments may develop in the future. These predictions tend to be
based solely on the fact that Central Asians have an Islamic and Asiatic
background;

Not all Western students of the nationality question are as convinced

that the ’nationality problem’ has been resolved in the USSR. In 1971
Zbigniew Brzezinski was quoted as observing: ’It is not inconceivable
that in the next several decades the nationality problem will become
politically more important in the Soviet Union than the racial issue
has become in the United States.’ Many Western specialists who deal

* An exception to what almost all Western analysts and observers report as the absence
of anti-Russian hostility appears in a 1979 article by Steven Burg. He claimed that there
is "increasing evidence of inter-ethnic conflict and hostility In Soviet Asia’, and that very
recent emigres fromthe USSRreport a relatively high level of tension between Europeans
and Muslims. Interestingly, he argues that this is happening because as Central Asians
become more educated and enter into the scientific and technical elite, and occupy
more and more responsible positions in the Party and state apparatus, they are
experiencing Increasing competition with cadres of European background. Burg claims
(together with Brzezinski*s) should probably be treated as a speculation about possible
future developments rather than as empirically documented fact.10*

65
 with Uzbekistan are somewhat more cautious in their projections, but
most agree that difficulties for the Soviet regime are possible.104

Attitude of Soviet Asians to USSR Intervention in Afghanistan

The Soviet system’s generally high level o f legitimacy among Soviet Asians
of Islamic background extends to strong support for Soviet foreign policy
in the Near East, especially for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in
1979. Since the 1920s, most educated Central Asians have tended to press
the Soviet government to pursue a more active foreign policy in the Near
East, by giving more support to progressive and revolutionary regimes,
including the use o f the Soviet Army, and incorporation of parts of the
region into the Soviet Union. There is a long tradition among Soviet Asian
leaders endorsing the ’transfer of revolutionary energies’ from Europe to the
Muslim world. In the 1920s many Muslims expressed the hope that Central
Asia and the Transcaucus would be used as a ’revolutionary springboard’
for the liberation of fellow Muslims, especially in Turkey, Iran and
Afghanistan, whose ethnic groups in good part overlap with those in Soviet
Central Asia, and also throughout Asia in general. Educated Soviet Asians
are usually highly knowledgeable about and very interested in developments
across their borders; generally, they empathize with fellow Muslims who are
seeking revolutionary change. This was manifested in the immediate post-
World War 11 period when, with the support of the Soviet Army, revolution­
ary regimes existed in Iranian Azerbaidzhán and Kurdistan. At this time
Central Asians were inclined to argue that both areas should be incorporated
into the Soviet Union.105
The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979 was seen by
Central Asians largely as help to fellow Muslims who had been oppressed
by one of the most backward feudal regimes in the world. There are signifi­
cant populations both of Tadjiks and Uzbeks in Afghanistan, consequently
these two peoples have been especially favourable towards Soviet aid to
their fellow nationals. Bennigsen, one of the principal Western experts on
Soviet Central Asia, argued in the US International Communications Agency’s
publication Problems o f Communism that: ’It is likely that the present-day
elites favor Soviet annexation of, if not the whole of Afghanistan, then at
least Afghan Turkestan north o f the Hindu Kush.*106 Before the Soviet
Army’s intervention in Afghanistan there had been growing Soviet support
for that country’s revolutionary government which had been installed in
April 1978. This support largely took the form of thousands of Soviet
Muslims (many of whom spoke Afghan languages as their mother
tongue) becoming advisers to the Afghan revolutionary government; not
infrequently they would assume governmental positions. The number of
Soviet Central Asians working with the Afghan government increased after
December 1979. According to Bennigsen, ’ . . . far from opposing the occu­
pation of a brother Muslim land, the Central Asian Muslim elites seemed to

66
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

welcome the adventure’.107

Most of the Soviet troops initially sent into Afghanistan were Central
Asians. After the first few months, however, military units with a higher
concentration of Slavs began to be introduced into the country, especially
in the Pushtun area. Historically, the Pushtuns have been the political and
economically dominant group in Afghanistan, and traditionally their atti­
tude has been one of superiority to other ethnic groups which they have
ruled, including the Uzbeks, other Turks and Tadjiks - whose Soviet cousins
comprised the bulk of the Soviet Army. In Pushtunstan many o f the Soviet
Turk and Tadjik troops were attacked, and in some cases killed, not so much
because of anti-Soviet sentiment, but out of Pushtun resentment against
Tadjiks and Turks.108
Nearly all analysts and observers of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution
in Iran report that, while it was welcomed by the people o f Central Asia
in that it deposed the pro-US and repressive Shah, it had no resonance among
the masses of the people. A feature article in the New York Times in April
1980 concluded:4. . . it seems clear that the Ayatollah’s Islamic revival has
little chance o f infecting Iran’s Soviet neighbors with its militancy.’ The
article cites as typical o f the attitudes of Soviet Asians a young Tatar woman
from Bukhara who told the Times reporter: 4Of course, people here were
glad to see the Shah out of Iran. But on the other hand we don’t like the
Ayatollah because of his cruelty.’109
In contrast to the Asiatic republics there is documented evidence of
significant anti-Russian sentiment in Soviet Georgia, Estonia and Lithuania.
There have been significant dissident movements and popular demonstrations
in Estonia and Lithuania against various Soviet policies - something virtually
unknown in Central Asia. The contrast between the two areas o f the USSR
is elaborated on in the next chapter.

Conclusion
Most experts agree that it would be difficult to characterize the relationship
between Russia and Central Asia as Colonial’ even though decision making
in the USSR is highly centralized.

If one’s picture of colonialism is associated with exploitation, with

grinding the faces of the poor, then clearly the word does not fit the
circumstances of the case. It must also be admitted that some of the
accusations which are sometimes leveled against the Soviet policy in
these areas are wide of the mark. Living standards do compare favour­
ably not only with neighbouring Asian countries but also with Russia
itself. The use of the Russian language in schools and universities is in
some respects a mere convenience rather than a means of
Russification.110

67
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

. . . the fostering of a sense of nationhood, and the long-sustained effort

to raise levels of industrialization, personal income, educational
standards and availability of social services towards those prevailing
in the European USSR go considerably beyond those made by the
other colonial powers in their former mq'or possessions, and suggest
strongly that the Soviet leaders have consistently striven to avoid
treating the Transcaucasian and Central Asian nationalities in ways
which could be defined by a Marxist as ‘colonial’.
For propaganda to Asia, the Soviet Central Asian states offer a
number of undoubted showpieces. . . the economic development of
Central Asia and Transcaucasia is an obvious success for the Soviet
regime.111

The Soviets broadcast their accomplishments in Central Asia, both by

sending Central Asians to Africa and Asia as technical specialists to aid these
countries’ development, and in making a point of having visiting dignitaries
and delegations from Asian and African countries visit the Transcaucasian,
Central Asian and Siberian minority areas where the visitors can view con­
ditions for themselves.112
Clearly, in no sense can the Asiatic Republics of the USSR be character­
ized as colonies or neo-colonies of the Slavic areas; they have been rapidly
and thoroughly integrated into the USSR while their native languages and
cultures have thrived. Their living standards, educational opportunities, and
welfare systems have been raised to those o f the European USSR. Rather
than being exploited by Russia, and their industrialization and all around
economic development impeded, their economies have been rapidly
industrialized and modernized, largely at the expense of heavy economic
subsidies from the European areas. Natives of the Asiatic Republics predom­
inate in the politically responsible positions. The absence o f any significant
signs o f discontent with the Soviet system among Soviet Asians contrasts
radically with nationalist and anti-imperialist movements across the Soviet
borders in such countries as pre-1979 Iran, and is evidence of the lack of
felt national oppression among Soviet Asians.
Even Soviet dissidents such as Roy Medvedev essentially concur with the
opinions of all Western experts on Central Asia:

. . . the West exaggerates the importance of our nationalist movements.

The Soviet authorities aren’t misrepresenting the facts when they say
that the national components of the old tsarist Russian empire . . .
have experienced rapid change in both national-cultural and economic
structures, and that they have profited enormously from the October
revolution. In the past, the authorities put much effort into solving all
kinds of regional issues; therefore I don’t believe there’s any danger of
the USSR breaking up.113

All the evidence, based not only on statistics but also on the virtually

68
 The Asian Nationalities In the USSR

universal opinions o f experts on Soviet Asia, points in the same direction.

The Soviets have thoroughly transformed the oid czarist imperialist
relationship between Russia and Asia, and no longer does it bear the marks
of a colonial or neo-colonial connection. Elsewhere, Western imperialism's
exploitation and humiliations have resulted in independence movements.
Only the Soviets have been able to integrate formerly backward, colonial
areas into the oid European heartland without the development of a nation­
alist separatist movement. In this respect Soviet socialism must thus be
seen as radically different from Western capitalism.

References
1. Bennigsen and Wimbush, 1979, pp. 5-7,27.
2. ibid, pp. 26-33,60.
3. Ibid, pp. 25, 26,64.
4. Wheeler, 1964, pp. iO i-8.
5. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 29; Wheeler, 1964, pp. iO i-9.
6. Wheeler, 1964; Katz et al., p. 24i.
7. Wheeler, 1964, pp. 46ff, i28ff.
8. Bennigsen and Wimbush, 1979, p. 67.
9. Aliworth, 1967, Chapter 10; Katz et al., 1975, p. 266; Wheeier, 1964,
Chapter 7.
10. Katz et ai., 1975, pp. 286-7; Wheeier, 1967, pp. 108-9.
i i. Nove and Newth, i 967, p. 56 ; Katz et al., i 975, 2 i 7,24 i ; Wheeier,
1964, i 29.
i 2. US Department of Commerce i 980a, p. 445.
13. See Wheeier, 1964,pp. 165-6.
14. USSR in Figures, 1978, p. 92.
15. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 4 i.
16. Ibid., p. i i i.
17. Ibid., p. i 03.
i 8. Ibid., pp. 94, 95, 114.
19. Roy Medvedev, 1980, p. 48.
20. US Department of Commerce, 1980a, p. 703.
21. US Department of Commerce, i 979, p. 3 i .
22. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. i 14; Wheeier, 1964, p. 16*.
23. Nove and Newth, 1967, pp. i 14-15.
24. Ibid., p. 66.
25. Ibid., Chapter 5.
26. Ibid., p. i 25.
27. Ibid., pp. 95-7.
28. Ibid., p. 97.
29. Katz et al., 1975, pp. 144, 190, 284.
30. Jukes, 1973, p. 64.
31. US Department of Commerce, 1980a, p. 72.
32. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 107.
33. Ibid., p. 106.
34. UN Demographic Yearbook, 1961, p. 273.
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

35. Nove and Newth, 1967, pp. 106-7.

36. World Bank, Worid De veto pm ent Report, 1979, Table 3.
37. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 90.
38. Mickiewicz, 1973, pp. 108, 112.
39. UN Statistical Yearbook, 1971.
40. Cited, Wheeler, 1964, p. 168.
41. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 89.
42. US Department of Commerce, 1980a, pp. 107, 113.
43. Ibid., p. 73.
44. UNESCO; UNESCO Yearbook, 1977, pp. 47, 48.
45. Nove and Newth, 1967, pp. 70-72.
46. Ibid., p. 72.
47. US Department of Commerce, 1980a, p. 145.
48. Ibid., pp. 145,875.
49. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 84.
50. Ibid., p. 85.
51. US Department of Commerce, 1980, pp. 156, 157.
52. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 109.
53. K atzetal., 1975, p. 456.
54. US Department of Commerce, 1980, pp. 160-1.
55. Katz et al., 1975, p. 154.
56. Wheeler, 1964, p. 206.
57. K atzetal., 1975, p. 225.
58. Ibid., p. 199, 249.
59. Wheeler, 1964, p. 215.
60. Katz et al., 1975, p. 340.
61. Ibid., p. 132.
62. Ibid., p. 83.
63. Wheeler, 1964, p. 206.
64. K atzetal., 1975, p. 296.
65. Ibid., p. 197.
66. New York Times, 3 February 1981, pp. 1,9.
67. Ibid.
68. Roy Medvedev, 1980, p. 46.
69. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 127.
70. Wheeler, 1964, pp. 221-2; Katz et al., 1975, p. 222.
71. Wheeler, 1964, p. 222.
72. K atzetal., 1975, p. 298.
73. Wheeler, 1964, p. 217.
74. US Department of Commerce, 1980a, p. 34.
75. K atzetal., 1975, p. 451.
76. Ibid., p. 221.
77. Ibid.
78. Nove and Newth, 1967, pp. 130-1.
79. Ibid., p. 167.
80. Roy Medvedev, 1980, pp. 48-9.
81. US Department of Commerce, 1980a, pp. 29, 34, 509, 511,512.
82. Cited in Wheeler, 1964, p. 188.
83. Wheeler, 1964, p. 189; Jukes, 1973, p. 43.
84. K atzetal., 1975, p. 294.

70
 The Asian Nationalities in the USSR

85. Wheeler, 1964, p. 190.

86. New York Times, 12 April 1980, p. 6.
87. Ibid., and Wheeler, 1964, p. 191.
88. K atzetal., 1975, p.294.
89. Bennigsen, 1980, pp. 39, 44.
90. Jukes, 1974, p. 47.
91. K atzetal., 1975, p. 193; see also Wheeler, 1964, p. 192.
92. K atzetal., 1975, p. 195.
93. New York Times, 13 January 1980, p.A:14, and 12 April 1980, pp. 1, 6.
94. Wheeler, 1964, p. 152.
95. Cited in ibid., p. 184.
96. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 121.
97. K atzetal., 1975, p. 305.
98. Ibid., p.309.
99. Ibid., pp. 206-7.
100. .Ibid., p. 279.
101. Ibid., p.234.
102. Wheeler, 1964, p. 169.
103. Burg, 1979.
104. Katz et al., 1975 ; Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities, p. 307.
105. Bennigsen, 1980, pp. 41-2.
106. Bennigsen, 1980, p. 42.
107. Ibid., p. 47.
108. Ibid.
109. New York Times, 12 April 1980, pp. 1, 6.
110. Nove and Newth, 1967, p. 120.
111. Jukes, 1973, p. 49.
112. Ibid., p. 64.
113. Roy Medvedev, 1980, p. 46.
3. The European
Nationalities in the USSR

In this chapter a careful examination is made of the condition of the non-

Russian European Republics, and of the Soviet Jews. The rates of economic
growth, industrialization, specialization in raw materials, and so on in the
European Republics is scrutinized to detect any tendency for them to
become colonial-like appendages o f the Russian Republic. The status o f their
languages and cultures is also carefully examined for any ’Russification’
attributes. The historical development of the association of each people first
with Russia then with the USSR is treated. Finally, the degree of opposition
to membership in the USSR, hostility to socialist institutions, and anti-
Russian sentiment in the major areas is examined. Special attention is given
to the position of Soviet Jews because o f the publicity they have received in
the West, and an analysis is made of accusations of anti-Semitism, as well
as the recent Jewish emigration.

Economic Development
While the most rapid improvement in economic conditions, social welfare
and cultural development has generally occurred in the Asian Republics of
the USSR, the various European national minorities, especially those of the
Baltic Republics and the Jews have achieved the highest level of economic
development and social welfare in the entire USSR. The three Baltic Repub­
lics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, are respectively the wealthiest of all
Republics. In 1970, the average income in roubles per capita for the three
Republics was 1,500 (US $3,420 in 1974) - 13% higher than in the Russian
Republic. The average income per capita for Georgia and Armenia was
R897 (two-thirds o f that o f the Russian Republics); while the average for
the Ukraine, Belorussia and Moldavia was Rl,073 (80% of the Russian
Republic), (see Table 2.1).
During pre-1917 Czarist rule, and its independence period before 1940,
Lithuania was a relatively backward, largely agricultural economy.1 Since it
became part of the Soviet Union its rate of industrial output lias beeen the
most rapid of all the Republics, increasing 54 times between 1940 and
1978, compared to 20 times for the Soviet Union average and 17 times for

72
 The European Nationalities

Russia proper.3 In 1970, the third richest Republic, after only Estonia and
Latvia - Lithuania - had its greatest growth in heavy industry. For example,
gross production of electrical energy increased eight times between 1960
and 1970; chemical and oil refining more than 13 times; machine-building
and metal-working six times; and the manufacture of construction materials
four times. In that decade the proportion of all industrial workers employed
in metal-working and machine building increased from 23% to 33%, while
the proportion of workers in light industry decreased from 45% and 38%.
With only 1.3% of the USSR’s population, Lithuania, in 1970, produced
11% of all metal-cutting lathes, and also specialized in the production of
machine tools and instruments, automated equipment, electronic computers,
radio and television sets and refrigerators.3 Lithuania’s rapid industrialization
during the Soviet period has been reflected in the standard of living of its
people. In the 1960 to 1970 period it led all Soviet Republics in the rate of
growth of national income.
In 1970, Latvia was second only to Estonia in living standards throughout
the USSR.4 In contrast to Lithuania, Latvia (especially its coastal region)
was one of the most industrialized parts of the czarist empire, and its
industrial working class played an important role in the movement against
the czar. Much o f Latvian industry was destroyed or dismantled during World
War I and little reindustrialization occurred during the pre-1940 independence
period. The policy of the independent Republic’s government was to concen­
trate on the development of agricultural exports, but since 1940 Soviet
policy has been to concentrate on the redevelopment of Latvian industry,
and in the 1970s Latvia was the most industrialized of all the Soviet
Republics with 38% of its labour force employed in industry in 1971, the
highest figure in the Union. Between 1940 and 1978 industrial output grew
43 times (a rate of increase exceeded only by Lithuania and Moldavia).
Latvian industry is concentrated on machine building and metal-working,
which together employed 33% of the industrial labour force in 1970. With
less than 1% o f the population of the country, in the early 1970s Latvia
produced more than half of all the motorcycles, almost half of all the tele­
phones, one-third of the trolley cars, over a quarter of all railway passenger
cars, and about a quarter of all radios and record players.
Estonia is the richest Republic o f the USSR; its rate of industrialization
has been the same as Latvia’s. From 1940 to 1978 its industrial output
increased 43 times.5 As in the other two Baltic Republics heavy industry
has been given priority, and Estonia leads the USSR in a number o f high
technology areas, such as the application of computers to various aspects of
management.6
Over the entire 1913 to 1978 period Armenia led all Soviet Republics in
rate of industrialization, with, in 1978, an industrial output 335 times higher
than that in 1913 (compared to a 151 times increase for Russia proper).
Georgia’s rate of industrialization has also been rapid, with its industrial
output in 1978 144 times higher than that for 1913 - slightly less than the
Russian rate o f industrial growth« In 1970, Armenia’s national income per

73
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

adult was 87% of the Russian, while Georgia’s was 69%.7

In 1970, Georgia ranked third among all the Union Republics in metal'
lurgical production. It is a major producer of pig iron, steel and rolled metal.
The machine building industry (especially metal-cutting lathes, motor
vehicles, tractors, electric locomotives and agricultural machinery) as well
as the chemical industry have been growing rapidly.8
Nonferrous metallurgy is one of the most important economic sectors of
Armenia, and it processes much of its own mineral wealth of molybdenum,
aluminium and rare metals. Metal-working and machine building employed
over one-third of Armenia’s industrial labour force in 1969. Recently the
chemical industry has also become a major industrial sector. Armenia is also
one of the most important Soviet centres for scientific research, and the
production of calculators, measuring instruments employing semi-conductor
electronics, and computers.9
The rates of industrialization in Moldavia and Belorussia during the period
1940 to 1978 were considerably more rapid than the Russian; in the Ukraine
It was somewhat less.10 The living standards in Ukraine, Belorussia and
Moldavia rank just below Russia proper. Economically, in general, the
European Republics have fared very well under Soviet power. Six of them
have had a more rapid rate of industrialization than has Russia proper, and
two of them less rapid; three of them are more developed than the Russian
Republic, and five somewhat less developed. In general, there is no evidence
that the economic relationship between the non-Russian European Republics
and the Russian Republic is either exploitative, or of a type in which
industrial production is concentrated in Russia. All the eight European
national minority Republics appear to have derived considerable benefit
from their association in the Soviet Union.

Health Care and Education

The improvement in such basic social services as health care and education
has also been very significant in the period of Soviet power. Georgia, Latvia
and Estonia lead the Russian Republic in the number of doctors per 10,000
population, and in doctors per 10,000 adults. Of the other European
major minorities only the Moldavians rank significantly below the Russian
majority in this respect (see Table 2.3). There is little difference between the
Republics either in hospital beds per 10,000 population or per 10,000 adults.
Of the eight major European minorities with their own Republics, both
Georgia and Armenia have more students per capita in higher education than
do the Russians, while the three Baltic nationalities average a ratio of about
80% that of the Russians, the Belorussians and Ukrainians about 70%. and
the Moldavians a low 53% (see Table 2.6). The general rates of increase in
school attendance are largely inversely proportional to the educational level
before the Soviet system was instituted; Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania and
Moldavia have had higher rates than Russia, while Estonia and Latvia have

74
 The European Nationalities

had significantly lower rates (see Table 2.5).

Corresponding to their over-representation among university students,
Armenia and Georgia have the highest concentration of scientific workers
per capita o f any of the major Soviet nationalities, except the Jews. The three
Baltic nationalities rank just below the Russian over-representation index
on this measure. Scientific workers, however, are somewhat under­
represented among Ukrainians and Belorussians, while Moldavians have the
lowest concentration of scientific workers of all Soviet nationalities. This
reflects the underdeveloped state of this area before it was incorporated into
the USSR in 1940, and the relatively short time that has elapsed since the
institutionalization of Soviet power enabled the development of a body of
scientific workers (see Table 2.7).
In summary, all the major European nationalities have made considerable
progress in the basic social services; there is no observable tendency for
Russians to receive preferential treatment in the development of such services.
In general, the gap between the European minorities is closing, although
Moldavia remains to some extent under-represented in institutions of higher
education, and consequently in the number of scientific workers.

Cultural Development
In the three Baltic Republics, and in Georgia and Armenia, the proportion of
books and newspapers printed in the titular language roughly coincides with
the percentage o f nationals in the population, as Table 3.1 demonstrates.

Table 3.1
Books/Newspapers in the National Language in the Baltic Republics,
Armenia and Georgia, compared to % of Nationals

% o f Nationals in
% % Total Population o f
Book Titles Newspapers the Republic

Estonia 74% 72% 68%

Latvia 52% 64% 57%
Lithuania 64% 81% 80%
Armenia 75% 88% 89%
Georgia 73% 86% 67%

Source: Katz et al, 1975, Handbook o f Major Soviet Nationalities,

pp. 459-60.

In the Ukraine, Belorussia and Moldavia, however, the proportion of

books published in the titular language is significantly smaller than the

75
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

extent of these nationalities in the Republic's population; but except in

Moldavia, the proportion of newspapers published in the native language
is proportional to the nationality's share of the population (see Table 2.8).
The smaller proportion of books published in Ukrainian and Belorussian is
as a result of the similarity of these languages to Great Russian, and the
consequent ease of access these nationalities have to the wide corpus o f works
available in Russian.
The proportion of titles and newspapers to population in the minority
European Republics is reflected in the ratios of total numbers of copies
printed to population. In Estonia in 1971 seven newspapers were printed in
Russian with a mean run of 18,000 copies. Twenty-seven newspapers were
published in Estonian with an average run of 33,000 copies. In Lithuania,
12newspapers were printed in Russian with a mean run of 13,000 copies,
while 72 were printed in Lithuania with a mean run of 22,000 copies. In
Armenia, three papers were printed in Russian and 61 in Armenian; both had
an average run of 19,000 copies. In the Ukraine the average run of the 863
Ukrainian newspapers was only slightly less than the 357 Russian language
papers.
Similarly for books published. In Estonia the 1,505 book titles published
in Estonian in 1971 had an average run o f 7,000 copies, while the 674
Russian language titles had an average run of 3,000. In Lithuania the 1,351
Lithuanian language titles had an average run o f 9,000 while the 421 Russian
language books had an average run of 4,000. In Armenia, the 840 Armenian
language titles had an average run of 10,000 each, while those in Russian
averaged 7,000. In the Ukraine, the average run o f the 3,106 Ukrainian titles
published was four times that of the Russian language books.11
In numbers of books published per capita in the native languages of the
Republics Estonia, with 8.9 per year per capita, followed by Latvia with
7.4, lead the entire Soviet Union. The Russian average is 5.6, Lithuania and
Georgia*also rank pretty high in this regard with 4.3 and 3.7 per capita per
year respectively (see Table 2.8).
The native languages thrive in all the European Republics, with the
possible exception o f Belorussia. Only 80% of Belorussians in 1970 iden­
tified Belorussian as their native tongue. Ninety-eight percent of Georgians
and Lithuanians identified their national language as their mother tongue,
as did 96% of Estonians, 95% of Latvians and Moldavians, 91% of Armenians
and 86% of Ukrainians (see Table 2.9). Except possibly in Belorussia there is
no tendency for the native languages to fall into disuse and be replaced by
Great Russian.
The proportion of the population of some European Republics who are
of the titular nationality does tend to decline, in contrast to the universal
pattern for the Asian Republics. This decline is most pronounced in Estonia
where, in 1959,75%, and in 1979,65% of the population were Estonians.
The only other Soviet Republic where a similar decline can be observed is
Latvia, where, in 1959,62% were Latvian, and in 1979, 54%. The proportion
of Ukrainians in the Ukraine also declined slightly, from 77% to 74%, as did

76
that of Belorussians in Belorussia (81% to 79%). Lithuania actually
experienced an increase (from 79% to 80%), as did Armenia (from 88% to
90%) and Georgia (from 64% to 69%) (see Table 2.10).
In general, the linguistic and cultural integrity of the European nation­
alities is being maintained; their cultures, art and literature thrive and show
no sign of being submerged into a homogeneous Russian culture.

Nationalism and Dissidence in the European Republics

The two Soviet Republics with the greatest manifestations of nationalism
and anti-Russian (if not also anti-Soviet) sentiments are Lithuania and
Estonia, in that order. Both Republics were briefly incorporated into the
Soviet Union in 1940-41, under somewhat controversial conditions, and were
permanently incorporated after the nazis were driven out in 1944. There was
some guerrilla warfare/terrorism for about five years after the war in both
Republics involving groups opposed to integration into the Soviet Union.
Considerable resentment on the part of a significant number of the people
in both countries has lingered on. In the 1970s these sentiments were mani­
fested in occasional anti-Russian (not anti-socialist, or usually not anti-
Soviet) nationalist manifestations, especially in Lithuania. By all indications
the Soviet system is least popular in these two Republics.

Estonia
In early October 1980, a nationalist demonstration, estimated by Westerners
to be composed of about 2,000 high school students, occurred in the
Estonia capital directed against the growing Russian immigration into
Estonia - possibly with anti-Soviet overtones as well.12 In 1972, several
hundred Tallin Polytechnic students rioted after the Czechs beat the Soviets
in an ice-hockey match shouting ’We won’. Dissidents protesting against the
Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia have been arrested.13 In Estonia, as
in Poland and Hungary, anti-Russian - and often racist - jokes are popular.
Such jokes tend to make fun of Russians for their alleged lack of culture and
sophistication. Students sometimes chant unorthodox slogans at officially
organized demonstrations. It is reported that in Estonia there was significant
support for New Leftist ideas among the youth, at least in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. Other manifestations of anti-authority sentiments among
the young have included the popularity of wearing crosses around the neck,
as well as other, Western paraphernalia.14 In 1974, two samizdat reached the
West, addressed to the UN Secretary-General and signed the ’Estonian
National Front’ and the 'Estonian National Movement’, which called for the
secession of Estonia from the USSR. Four people were arrested in December
1974 for releasing these statements to the Western press.15 Estonian song
festivals are especially popular, one in 1969 was attended by 250,000 people.
It is reported that at such festivals Finnish choruses (Estonian is rather closely
related to the Finnish language) are applauded enthusiastically, while Russian

77
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

choruses are applauded only politely, allegedly this is a sign of Estonian

nationalism and anti-Russian feeling.16
It seems that significant numbers of Estonians principally object to
increasing Russian influence in their Republic, and especially the increasing
settlement of Russians.17 While there is some sentiment in favour of secession
from the Soviet Union, this does not reflect majority opinion. There is little
or no evidence of any significant inclination to replace socialism with
capitalism, despite significant dissent about the particular forms of Soviet
institutions existent today. The benefits to Estonia of being part of the
Soviet Union have proved to be immense. Anthony Asrakhand, former
Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post, wrote in 1970, ‘National­
ism in Estonia and neighbouring Latvia is easy for a visitor to sense, but hard
to document. What you see with your eyes is more a wish for cultural
autonomy than a plan or dream of seceding from the Soviet Union.’18
Since the 13th Century Estonia had been dominated by German land-
owners and merchants, and although it was conquered by the Russian
Empire in 1710, the German speaking aristocracy maintained their domin­
ant position until the mid-19th Century. It was in the latter part of the 19th
Century that a sense of national consciousness first developed. The new
Estonian nationalist movement demanded a voice in local administration and
envisaged Estonia as an autonomous unit within a more loosely federated
Greater Russia; there was no significant movement for independence until
after the 1917 Revolution. Initially, there was strong support for the
Bolsheviks within Estonia, as was indicated in the 1917 elections for the
Constituent Assembly by the Communist vote of 37%, compared to a
national average of about 25% of the total. In reaction to the Bolshevik
seizure of power in November 1917 the local propertied groups in Estonia
opted for independence, which was declared early in 1918. After two years
of civil war, in which the anti-Communists received considerable material
support from the Western powers, independence was confirmed, establishing
Estonia as a capitalist economy with parliamentary political forms.
The strong Estonian Communist Party was banned in 1924 and its leaders
arrested and imprisoned until 1938. Parliamentary forms, however, were
maintained in Estonia for longer than in the remainder of capitalist Eastern
and Central Europe. Not until 1934 were these abolished in favour of an
anti-Soviet, rightist dictatorship. In 1939, with the USSR increasingly afraid
of a German invasion, the Estonian government (in common with the
governments of Latvia and Lithuania) was forced to sign a treaty of mutual
assistance. This treaty permitted Soviet troops to be stationed on Estonian
soil. The Soviets, after protesting that the rightist government was not
honouring the terms of the treaty, insisted on holding elections which were
manipulated in such a way as to guarantee victory for the Communist domin­
ated list —in all three Baltic Republics. In August 1940, the new Communist-
led Estonian government asked for incorporation o f Estonia into the Soviet
Union as a Union Republic.14
There was considerable resistance to the socialist transformation of the

78
 The European Nationalities

Estonian economy and the political integration of the nation with the Soviet
Union; and resistance to collectivization on the part of landowners, rich
peasants and businessmen. The suppression of this opposition may have
resulted in the execution of up to 2,000 people and the deportation of about
19,000 people to Siberia. In 1941 a significant segment of Estonian society,
especially the former privileged and wealthy classes, welcomed the nazi
invaders as liberators. It is estimated that during World War II about 25,000
Estonians in German organized military units were killed fighting the Soviets.
About 6% of the population, comprising many German collaborators and
members of the formerly privileged classes, fled with the retreating German
army in 1944. With the restoration of Soviet power in 1944, the number of
people deported to Siberia as collaborators has been assessed at perhaps
30,00o.20 The Sovietization of Estonia and its incorporation into the USSR
was not a gentle process, and some bitterness remains among significant
segments of the population, especially those in the middle classes.

Lithuania
The greatest manifestations of political discontent have occurred in Lithuania.
Zhor es Medvedev, a prominent dissident in exile, reports that nationalism is
much stronger in Lithuania than in Estonia.21 The bulk of the nationalist
opposition movement has been centred around the Catholic Church. In 1968,
the Catholic clergy initiated a campaign of petitioning against such restric-
tions on the Church as limits imposed on new admissions to the Catholic
seminary. Two priests were arrested, one in 1970 and another in 1971, for
violating the law against imparting religious training to children. At the trial
o f one, a riot broke out involving about 500 people; the priest was sentenced
to one year in gaol. From 1971 to 1973, as a result of these trials, a campaign
o f mass petitions took place which collected 60,000 signatures.
A namber of clandestine nationalist/religious groups of intellectuals and
students were formed during the late 1960s. An underground samizdat
journal, the Chronicle o f the Lithuanian Catholic Church, began to appear
early in the 1970s; by February 1977, 24 issues had reached the West. In
May 1972, a 19-year-old youth who had expressed interest in attending the
religious seminary burned himself alive in Kaunas. His funeral precipitated a
riot involving clashes with the police, and a number of fires. An estimated
200 rioters were held in gaol for at least 15 days. There were two further self-
immolations by fire in 1972. Up to 1975, of the three known attempts to
hijack planes in the USSR, two (including the only successful one) have
involved Lithuanians.22 Anti-Russian protest in Lithuania has also taken the
form of refusals to speak Russian, defections to the West, a fairly well organ­
ized dissident network, petition campaigns, and a riot after a Lithuanian-
Russian soccer game in 1977.23 The relatively strong nationalist movement in
Lithuania contrasts sharply with the absence of such movements in Soviet
Asia.
The thrust of most Lithuanian protests is for greater autonomy for the
Catholic Church. In the opinion of most Western experts the opposition

79
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

movement in Lithuania would subside to the extent that the Church was left
alone. Nevertheless, it seems that national pride is strong, especially among
young people, and the desire for greater autonomy, as opposed to secession
from the USSR, or hostility to socialism, is a potent force. Lithuanians are,
on the whole, proud of their history and culture, and their ties with the
West.24
As in Estonia (or, for that matter, Georgia) there is a significant anti-
Russian sentiment in Lithuania, with strong overtones of racist arrogance
toward a people whom they consider to be culturally inferior. But hostility
towards Russians, in both Lithuania and Estonia, is reported to be of a rather
abstract quality directed towards Russians in general and not so much to
individual Russians. Indeed, it is quite common for Estonians or Lithuanians
to feel very close to individual Russians while at the same time telling anti-
Russian jokes.25 That anti-Russian feelings are based on nationalist traditions,
rather than on any contemporary oppression by Russians, is borne out by
analyses of the attitudes of Lithuanian emigrants in the West, who report
that their fellow nationals in Lithuania have equal chances for important
jobs and official honours with ethnic Russians. They also report that
systematic favouritism towards Russians or discrimination against
Lithuanians is non-existent.26
Unlike Estonia, Latvia, the Ukraine, Belorussia or Moldavia, at one time
Lithuania was an important independent state, both on its own and in union
with Poland. Nationalist sentiments, including the re-establishment of
national independence, have been active since Lithuania was forcibly inte­
grated into the czarist empire in the late 18th Century. After the collapse
of czarism these sentiments exploded in an independence movement. In
contrast the movements for Estonian and Latvian independence were created
after the 1917 Revolution; in Estonia, nationalist sentiment had traditionally
been directed toward achieving autonomous status in a federal Greater
Russia.27
Unlike Latvia, which was highly industrialized in the czarist period, with
a strong socialist working class movement, heavily rural Lithuania had only a
small working class and little in the way of a revolutionary socialist move­
ment. Although Vilnius (the traditional capital) was a centre of the Jewish
Bund, the Polish Socialist Party and the Lithuanian Social Democrats were
based largely among intellectuals.28
The Red Army took Vilnius in January 1919 and proclaimed a Soviet
regime; a civil war with anti-Communist nationalists based in Kaunas then
followed. Because of considerable financial and material assistance for the
nationalists from Western countries, together with the ultra-left policies of
the Bolsheviks, who alienated the bulk o f the peasantry with premature
collectivization, the Bolsheviks lost. Consequently, an independent, non­
socialist Lithuania was established, whose government was consistently
hostile to the Soviet Union, and pro-Western.29 Parliamentary forms func­
tioned in the new Lithuanian Republic until 1926 when, after a victory of a
Socialist-Populist coalition, there was a military coup, and a rightist

80
 The European Nationalities

dictatorship was established.

The Lithuanian dictator, Antanas Smetona, was an admirer o f Mussolini.
His dictatorship was weakened when it was forced to cede Lithuania’s
principal seaport, Klaipeda (Memel), to Germany in March 1939. As we
have seen (p. 78) at the outbreak of World War 11 the imminent threat
this represented to Soviet security prompted the Soviets to issue ultimatums
to all three Baltic States requiring them to sign (mutual assistance pacts’. In
1940, in Lithuania, as in Estonia and Latvia, the Soviets maintained that the
government was failing to observe the terms of the pact and insisted on hold­
ing elections, which were manipulated similarly to those in Estonia. The new
Communist-led government which resulted from this election demanded the
formal incorporation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union as a Union Republic.
Initially, this had a significant degree of support, not only from the
Lithuanian left, but also from many nationalists, owing to the reincorpor­
ation into the Republic of the historical Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, which
for the previous 20 years had been occupied by Poland. The process of
Sovietization in 1940 and 1941, however, generated considerable opposition,
especially among the peasantry and middle classes. When the nazis invaded,
in June 1941, there was an anti-Soviet, nationalist-led uprising in Lithuania
which took control of the majority of cities before the German army arrived.
Spurned by the nazis, whom many had first welcomed as liberators, the
Lithuanian nationalists turned to guerrilla warfare against the Germans —
warfare that was turned against the Red army after liberation from the
Germans in 1944.30
Although the bulk of resistance was dissipated within two or three years,
scattered armed action against the Soviet system continued in Lithuania
until 1953. It is estimated that in eight years about 40,000 people (more or
less evenly divided between pro- and anti-Soviet forces) were killed (mostly
in 1944 and 1945). Except perhaps in the formerly Polish western Ukraine,
which was integrated into the USSR at approximately the same time, the
length and scope of the fighting against Soviet power was equalled only by
the Basmachi resistance in Central Asia in the early 1920s.
The Soviet system seems to have achieved basic legitimacy in Lithuania by
the mid-1950s, largely owing to the remarkable economic progress and rapid
rise in living standards consequent upon incorporation into the Soviet Union.
The local Lithuanian Communist Party leadership was given substantial
autonomy from Moscow, and the local language, culture, art and so on, has
thrived.33 The extent of resistance to incorporation into the Soviet Union
throughout the early 1950s, and the level of ongoing dissident activity, is
undoubtedly related to both the strong nationalist traditions of Lithuania and
the overt presence of the Roman Catholic Church, which —as in Poland -
acts as a counter institution to express discontent with various specific
practices o f the regime.

Latvia
Latvia, in common with Estonia but unlike Lithuania, had no history as an

81
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

independent entity before the Bolshevik revolution. A number of small,

independent and autonomous states, which did not encompass all of Latvia,
had existed on Latvian territory, but for most of the period between the 13th
and 18th Century Latvia was divided up by the great powers in the area,
including Germany, Poland and Sweden. During this time, the ruling class
consisted of German nobles, as in Estonia. Between 1721 and 1795 Latvia
was incorporated piecemeal into the Czarist Empire. The first Latvian
nationalist movement grew up among young intellectuals in the latter part
o f the 19th Century.
Latvia, as we have noted (p. 80), was heavily industrialized under the
czars with a strong working class, out of which an effective working-class,
socialist movement grew up. In 1904, the Latvian Social Democratic Workers’
Party was established, and in late 1905 claimed 14,000 members. Latvian
workers played a central role in the 1905 Russian Revolution with the ratio
of strikers to workers at that time higher in Latvia than in any other part of
the Czarist empire. Socialist, as well as nationalist, sentiments remained
strong after the suppression of tiie 1905 Revolution, and again exploded
in 1917. As in Lithuania, the German advance in the spring of 1918 overran
the country and eliminated Soviet power, and under German protection a
provisional anti-Soviet government was set up in Riga. With the withdrawal
of German troops in 1919 Latvian units of the Red Army (The Latvian
Rifles) re-entered Latvia and a revolutionary civil war commenced with the
anti-Socialist nationalist forces. As in Lithuania and Estonia, money and
supplies from the West (as well as troops from Estonia) proved decisive,
and anti-Soviet forces achieved victory early in 1920.33
Because of the strong revolutionary traditions of the Latvian working class
the pro-Bolshevik forces enjoyed considerably more support in Latvia than
in either Lithuania or Estonia, and as a result the popular resistance to the
Western supported White army and regime was greater here than elsewhere
in the Baltics. In 1920, many revolutionary Latvians fled the White army
victory to seek refuge in the Soviet Union. The Red Latvian Rifles were
one of the most reliable military units available to the Bolsheviks, and played
an important role in many civil war battles from the Ukraine to Siberia.34
Latvian revolutionaries played a disproportionately significant role in the
building of the Soviet Unión in the 1920s.
Independent, capitalist Latvia, in common with Estonia and Lithuania,
began with parliamentary forms, which were overthrown in 1934 when an
authoritarian regime, loosely modelled on Mussolini’s Italy, was set up.
Leftist leaders were gaoled and leftist political parties banned. As in the other
Baltic countries, in 1939 the Soviet Army entered Latvia in order to increase
Soviet security against a possible German invasion; in June 1940, under
Soviet pressure, the rightist regime was forced to resign, a new Communist
supported regime was elected and almost immediately requested integration
into the Soviet Union as a Union Republic. Rapid Sovietization began, only
to be halted by the nazi occupation in summer 1941 ; many who resisted
Sovietization in 1940-41, as well as those who collaborated with the nazis

82
 The European Nationalities

during the German occupation, were deported to Siberia.35

In Latvia, resistance to Sovietization, as well as collaboration with the
nazis, was less common than in either Estonia or Lithuania. This, along with
relatively minor manifestations o f nationalist dissent in comparison with the
other two Baltic States, reflects the long socialist traditions o f the Latvian
working class and the history of strong pro-Bolshevik sentiments among many
Latvians. In strong contrast to her sister Baltic Republics evidence of
demonstrations or samizdat against Soviet power for more autonomy, or
against Russian influence, are quite rare and there seem to be no popular
feelings favouring a secession from the Soviet Union.36

Ukraine
Until the 14th Century there were a number of small principalities on
Ukrainian territory, but from the end of that century the Ukraine was
gradually annexed by Lithuania and Poland, and by 1569 it had all been
absorbed into the joint Lithuanian-Polish state. In 1648, there was a popular
rebellion against Polish rule, which sent the Ukrainians to Moscow for help,
and in 1667, the Ukraine was partitioned between Russia and Poland. When
Russia absorbed most o f Poland in the latter part of the 18th Century the
Ukraine, with the exception of Western Galicia (incorporated into Austria),
was absorbed into the Czarist Empire.
Before World War I only a weak nationalist movement had existed in the
Russian Ukraine. The weakness of nationalist sentiment became apparent in
1917 when the Russian Provisional Government granted autonomy to the
Ukraine but nationalists there were unable to establish either an effective
army or political administration. In January 1918, shortly after the Bolshevik
seizure of power, the autonomous Ukrainian government, weak though it
was, declared independence. The following month this government signed a
peace treaty with the Germans and Austrians, whose troops then entered
the Ukraine expelling the Red Army. With the withdrawal of the German and
Austrian armies, in 1919 the Ukrainian nationalist government was unable to
generate much popular support, again failing to establish either an effective
administration or army. In 1919 and 1920 a multi-sided civil war raged
among right-wing White armies, the moderately leftist nationalist govern­
ment, Anarchist groups, the Red Army, and an invading Polish army,
equipped by the Western powers, which attempted to re-establish Polish
domination o f the Ukraine, ln 1920, the nationalist government, by then in
exile in Poland, agreed to cede the western third of the Ukraine to Poland in
return for Polish help in defeating the Red Army in the rest of the Ukraine.
But the Polish army in the eastern Ukraine was beaten, and a peace treaty
signed between the Polish state and Soviet Russia in 1921 ceded the western
part of the Ukraine to Poland; the eastern two-thirds were incorporated into
the Soviet Union as one of its four original constituent republics in 1922.37
The new Soviet Ukrainian Republic enjoyed considerable autonomy and
cultural development. In the 1930s, some opposition to Soviet rule developed,
especially among the peasantry who were undergoing collectivization. There

83
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

is, however, little evidence to suggest that such opposition was significantly
greater among peasants in the Soviet Ukraine than elsewhere in the Soviet
Union.
Meanwhile, in the western third of the Ukraine, Ukrainian nationalism
grew in opposition to repressive Polish rule. Polish landlords exploited the
Ukrainian peasantry and the Polish Ukraine was not granted the autonomy
initially promised. The organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN),
founded in 1929, carried on a campaign of assassinations and sabotage against
the Polish government. The OUbTs ideology was explicitly fascist, and it
eventually proposed an independent and united Ukraine within Hitler’s
‘New European Order’. In order to prevent it falling into the hands of the
advancing German Armies, which had just conquered Poland proper, the
Western Ukraine was occupied by the Soviet Union in August 1939. The
former Polish Ukraine was immediately reincorporated into the existing
Soviet Ukrainian Republic. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists,
however, continued its campaign of assassinations and sabotage, now against
the expanded Soviet regime in the Western Ukraine. In June 1941, they
welcomed the nazi invasion but soon became disillusioned when the Germans
refused any form of co-operation with them. During the war, organized
Ukrainian nationalist organizations fought both the Germans and the Soviets
in the Western Ukraine, and, although the bulk of OUN resistance was
suppressed in 1944 and 1945, armed actions on the part of rightist Ukrainian
nationalists there did not end completely until the early 1950s.38
Except in the Western Ukraine, which was not incorporated into the
USSR until 1939, there has been very little history of anti-Soviet or anti-
Russian nationalism. In this respect the Ukraine thus differs significantly
from Estonia and Lithuania. There has, however, been some history of
nationalist dissidence in the Ukraine on a level more or less comparable to
that of Latvia. A small group, which considered itself to be the continuation
of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the ‘Ukrainian National Front*
was established in 1964. Before being suppressed, it published a samizdat
in 1965-66 advocating resistance to Soviet rùle. From 1965-72 a campaign
against anti-Soviet pro-Ukrainian nationalism among intellectuals resulted
in the arrest of a number of them for anti-Soviet activity.39
In general, the Soviet system appears to enjoy a very high level of legi­
timacy in the Ukraine, along with little reported hostility to Russians.
However, in the western third o f the Ukraine, where armed resistance to
incorporation into the Soviet Ukraine continued until the early 1950s,
there are still remnants of anti-Soviet sentiment, although this appears to be
no longer a significant force. Nevertheless, the Ukrainians generally retain a
sense of national identity and pride in their distinctive language, history and
culture.40

Bdorussia
There is virtually no evidence of anti-Soviet, anti-Socialist, anti-Russian or
even strongly popular nationalist sentiments or manifestations in Belorussia;

84
 The European Nationalities

the Soviet system, in fact, seems to enjoy an especially high level of

legitimacy.
From the 13 th Century to the latter part of the 18th Century what today
is Belorussia was part of Lithuania; and part of the joint Lithuanian-Polish
Kingdom from 1569. At the partition o f Poland, in the latter part of the
18th Century, it was incorporated into the Czarist Empire. Belorussia has no
history as an independent entity, its nobility adopted both the religion
(Catholicism) and language of Poland. Polish landlords and merchants domin­
ated the area throughout the Bolshevik revolution.43 There were, however,
stirrings o f a Belorussian nationalism in the latter half of the 19th Century.
The Peace Treaty between Poland and Soviet Russia in 1921 ceded the
western part of Belorussia to Poland. In 1922, the bulk of Belorussia became
one o f the four original constituent Republics of the USSR.43 In 1939,
the western part was reincorporated into the Belorussian Soviet Republic
after the Red Army’s occupation of the eastern part of the Polish state.

Armenia
The first unified Armenian state came into existence in 190 BC, and reached
the height of its power in the early years of the first century BC, but in
55 BC Armenia came under Roman hegemony. Armenia later became an
integral part o f the Byzantine Empire; many Byzantine emperors were, in
fact, Armenian. With the decline of the Empire, Armenia experienced a
succession of principalities and states. It became a battleground for the
Persians and Ottoman Turks who finally divided it between them in 1639.
In 1828, the Russian Czar conquered the Persian half of Armenia (the present
Soviet Republic of Armenia) and, although Armenians generally welcomed
the Russian conquest, seeing it as protection against the Persians and Turks,
they vigorously resisted Russification. Armenia has a very long history as a
nation and Armenians have long had a very strong sense of nationalism.
In the 1918-20 period during the Russian Civil War, a nationalist anti­
communist Party formed the government of an independent Eastern Armenia.
The young Soviet government had been forced to cede the entire Transcaucus
area to Germany in the treaty o f Brest Litovsk which secured peace between
Russia and Germany. After 1918, in the wake of the German collapse,
Britain and France did their best to encourage an independent non-Socialist
Armenia. In December 1920, the Red Army entered Armenia in support of
the Armenian Soviet Republic which had been proclaimed by leftists the
previous month. Given the immediate threat o f a revitalized Turkey (one and
a half million Armenians, most of the population of Western Armenia just
across the border, had been massacred five years before) the re-establishment
o f the temporarily broken tie with Russia was generally welcomed, even by
many not otherwise sympathetic to the Soviet system. When the Red Army
entered Armenia in 1920, a Turkish Army was present in the country
preparing for an attack on Yerevan, the capital. Reincorporation into Soviet
Russia was welcomed by the vast majority of Armenians at this time since
it secured the immediate withdrawal of the invading Turkish Army.44

85
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

In 1922, as part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federation, along with

Georgia and Azerbaidzhán, Armenia became one of the four constituent
Republics of the new USSR. In 1936, the Federation was dissolved and
Armenia became a separate Union Republic.45
Although Armenian nationalism remains strong there is no particular
evidence o f anti-Soviet sentiment, neither has there been any manifestation
of popular desire to withdraw from the USSR (unlike that among some
Estonians and Lithuanians). No challenge to basic socialist institutions
is apparent, neither is any special resentment, or sense of superiority, towards
Russians (as there is among Georgians and Estonians). Expressions of Armen­
ian nationalism during the Soviet period have been directed against the
Turks (because of the 1915 massacre) and the Azeris (an Islamic Turkish
people) who have been migrating into Armenia. The 50th anniversary of the
1915 Turkish massacre, on 24 April 1965, witnessed spontaneous, violently
anti-Turkish outbreaks in Yerevan, the Armenian capital.46 The economic
and cultural accomplishments of Soviet Armenia are attested to by the pride
with which they are regarded by the vigorously anti-Soviet Armenian
nationalist party among overseas Armenians, the Dashnaktsutiun —the
governing party in the 1918-20 interim.47

Georgia
Georgia’s history as a nation is even longer than Armenia’s. The first Georgian
state was created in the 5th Century BC, and, like the Armenians, throughout
most of their history the Georgians have been dominated by one or another
of the great empires of the region. Rome, Byzantium, the Arabs, the Moguls,
the Persians, the Ottoman Turks and the Russians have all ruled Georgia, but
throughout their long period of domination Georgians have maintained a
strong sense of national identity.
From the end of the 9th to the middle of the 13th Century and for brief
periods in the 15th and 16th Centuries Georgia was, however, an independent
kingdom, but for most of the period between the 13th and 18th Centuries
it was part of the Turkish and/or Persian Empires; independence was
re-established in the middle of the 18th Century. In 1782, the Georgian
King asked the Russian Czar for protection against Persian reconquest. In
1801, part of Georgia was annexed to Czarist Russia, and the rest was
gradually incorporated in the course of the 19th Century as a result of
continuing Russian victories over Turkey. As in Armenia, incorporation into
the Russian Empire was welcomed, being seen as a protection against domin­
ation by Persians and Turks.48
Georgian nationalism was revitalized in the latter part of the 19th Century.
Like Estonian nationalism, Georgian nationalism traditionally aimed for
autonomy rather than independence.49 From its beginnings, modern
Georgian nationalism was fused with Marxism. In the first Russian Duma
(following the 1905 Revolution) six of the seven Georgian deputies were
Marxists; however, when the Marxist Social Democratic Party split, the major­
ity of Georgian deputies became Mensheviks.

86
 In May 1918, after Germany had forced the new Soviet Russian govern­
ment to renounce sovereignty over the Transcaucus region, Georgian
Mensheviks formed an independent Georgian government, first in alliance
with, and under the protection of, Germany, and after her collapse, with
Britain. These powers, in turn, financed and armed the independent Men­
shevik regime in its attempt to maintain independence from Soviet Russia.
At the beginning o f 1921 the Bolsheviks led a local insurrection, aided,
in February, by the Red Army, whereupon the Menshevik government fled
to Western Europe. The reintegration of Georgia with Soviet Russia was
generally welcomed.50
The Soviet system is very popular in Georgia although anti-Russian
prejudice, somewhat similar to the Estonian sense of superiority, is common.
It could, perhaps, be said that the Soviet system is even more popular in
Georgia than it is in Russia, and that essentially complaints converge upon
a desire for the entire country, once again, to be run by a Georgian. Joseph
Stalin, who remains very popular, is Georgia’s most famous native son.
Visitors find it difficult to resist the insistence upon them visiting Gori,
Stalin’s birthplace. In 1956, riots broke out in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi,
in protest against the ‘destalinization’ campaign.51
Georgians remain fiercely proud of their culture, language and heritage,
and guard it in an almost paranoid fashion. In 1978, a new Georgian Con­
stitution was drafted, which omitted the old clause declaring Georgian as
the official language o f the Republic. By all indications this omission was
owing to the fact that the Georgian language was so firmly established in the
Republic, to declare it to be the official language seemed to be an anachron­
ism. Nevertheless, on 14 April 1978, 5,000, mostly young, people marched
from the University to the building that houses the Georgian Council of
Ministers and demanded the inclusion of the clause in the Constitution; it was
reinserted into the draft Constitution the next day. The traditional language
clause was also reinserted into the Armenian and Azerbaidzhani draft
Constitutions at the same time.53 Although there are many other stories of
the Georgians’ insistence on priority for their language, and of their attitudes
of superiority to the Russians, there is no real evidence of any significant
anti-Socialist or anti-Soviet attitudes.

Party Membership in the European Minority Republics

Georgians have the highest ratio of Party members to population of any of
the major Soviet nationalities; the Armenians too, have a ratio above the
Union average. Ukrainians and Belorussians are slightly below the Union
average; Estonians and Latvians average about 72% of the Union average,
and, in 1972, Lithuanians stood at 58%. Moldavians had the lowest ratio
(36%) of any major Soviet nationality (Table 2.11). Thus the Party seems
especially popular and important in Georgia and Armenia, and somewhat less
influential in Lithuania and Moldavia.
In general, the various European minority republics have done quite well
in the Soviet system. Their economies, cultures and languages have all

87
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

prospered. Only in Estonia and Lithuania has there been significant anti-
Soviet manifestations, and even here the Soviet system has obtained a
considerable degree o f legitimacy. The Estonians* complaint is largely
directed to the influx of Russians and their fear o f being submerged into a
greater Russian culture, while the Lithuanians* complaint focuses primarily
on restrictions placed upon their Church. Only in these two Republics could
a credible claim perhaps be made that a plebiscite to secede from the Soviet
Union would have any chance of success. In the rest of the country, above
all in Central Asia, the system has a very high level o f legitimacy.

The Jewish People in the USSR

During the Czar ist period the Jewish people, largely confined by imperialist
edict to the western part o f the Russian Empire (Le. *the Pâle*) (Poland,
the Baltic states, the Ukraine and Belorussia) suffered vicious anti-Semitism.
Beginning in the last decades o f the 19th Century, the Czarist government
sponsored violent pogroms against the Jewish people during times o f crisis,
making them the scapegoat for economic and political problems, and
thereby deflecting criticism from itself. Jews were systematically excluded
from privileged positions, and many were driven out of the country by
discrimination and pogroms in the generation before the 1917 Revolution,
large numbers o f whom settled in the USA.
Immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution expressions of anti-Semitism
became a crime. In July 1918, the Council of People*s Commissars called for
the destiuction o f ’the anti-Semitic movement at its roots* by forbidding
*pogromists and persons inciting to pogroms*.53 In 1922, the Russian
Criminal Code forbade ’agitation and propaganda arousing national enmities
and dissensions* and specified a minimum sentence of one year’s solitary
confinement (and ’death in time of war*) as punishment. In 1927, the Russian
Republic passed legislation outlawing the dissemination, manufacture or
possession of literature calculated to stir national and religious hostility.
Article 74 o f the Russian Criminal Code, which came into effect in 1961,
reads, ’Propaganda or agitation aimed at inciting racial or national enmity or
discord . . . is punishable by loss of personal freedom for a period of six
months to three years, or exile from two to five years.*54 During the Civil
War and throughout the 1920s there was an active official government
campaign against anti-Semitism, incidents involving, and actions taken against,
were frequently reported in the Soviet press. In this period the Party
published over 100 books and brochures opposing anti-Semitism.99
Jewish intellectuals and workers were disproportionately active in the
revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire. In 1922, Jews represented
5.2% o f Communist Party membership (about five times their percentage of
the population). From the late 1920s through to World War II the proportion
o f Jews in the Party was about 4.3% ." During the Civil War large numbers
of non-Marxist Jews rallied to the Bolsheviks, the only major non anti-

88
Semitic organized force. The White Annies and their allies systematically
promoted pogroms and other forms of anti-Semitism as part o f their
campaign to defeat the revolution. Many of the top Party leaders were
Jews, e.g. Kamenev, Trotsky and Zinoviev (members o f Lenin’s leadership);
Kaganovich and Litvinov (members o f Stalin’s leadership).
After the Soviet regime had removed all the traditional Czarist restrictions
on Jews, they eagerly took advantage o f the new educational, economic and
social activities opened to them. As a result both of the elimination of
traditional barriers and the general leftist mobilization in which most Jews
participated, large numbers gave up their traditional ways, and became part
o f the mainstream o f the newly emerging Soviet society. The majority of the
young generation o f Jews became alienated from both the religion and the
cultural practices o f their parents. As a measure of the rapid integration of
Jews into Soviet society, intermarriage, which was extremely rare before
the Revolution, became quite common.57 In the 25 years after the revolution,
traditional Jewish life was revolutionized as the Communist Party organized
new organizations to impart a socialist content to Jewish culture.
Special ‘Jewish national districts’ for Jewish settlement were set aside in
the south of Russia, the Ukraine and Crimea.58 In 1928, an autonomous
Jewish Republic was established within the Russian Republic of Birobidzhan,
on the border of Manchuria. This was meant not only as a ‘Jewish homeland’,
but as a means of encouraging development o f an undeveloped area of the
East. Birobidzhan was officially proclaimed an autonomous region in 1934,
and although it has attracted relatively few Jewish settlers, it continues to
exist as a Jewish Autonomous Republic.59
Jewish culture, within a socialist rather than a religious or Zionist context,
thrived in the 1920s and 1930s. Both the Ukrainian and Belorussian
Academy o f Sciences included Jewish sections which were described as ‘a
laboratory of scientific thought in the field of Jewish culture’. These
institutions focused on the history of the revolutionary movement among
Jews and the social and economic condition o f their people. In 1919, a
Jewish State Theatre was established in Moscow, and by 1934 a further 18
had been established in other cities. Jewish theatre, as well as other
expressions o f Jewish culture, was strongly supported by the Soviet state. In
1932,653 Yiddish books were published with a total circulation of more
than 2.5 million (an average run o f about 4,000 copies). In 1935, there were
Yiddish dailies in Moscow, Kharkov, Minsk and Birobidzhan; in the Ukraine
alone ten Jewish dailies were in circulation. During the mass hysteria of the
Great Purge Trials (1936-38), essentially caused by the paranoid fear of
Japanese and German invasion (see Chapter 8), many Yiddish cultural
Institutions, along with many other institutions in Soviet society, were
temporarily closed down, to be largely revived during World War II.60
During World War II a Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was set up in the
Soviet Union, to help mobilize both Soviet and non-Soviet Jews against
Fascism, and to encourage the development o f a socialist oriented Jewish
culture. Jews were given priority in evacuation from areas about to be

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

overrun by the Nazi invaders. Virtually all Pölish Jews who survived the
holocaust (250,000) survived by fleeing to the Soviet Union and being
evacuated East. In the immediate post-World War 11 period, Yiddish cul­
ture thrived in the USSR. The Jewish State Theatre continued to
prosper in Moscow; a tri-weekly paper, A ynikayt, was published, also
in Moscow; between 1946 and 1948 110 books were published in
Yiddish. The Soviet Union was the first country to accord diplomatic
recognition to Israel.61
In 1948, with the onset o f the Cold War, the paranoid atmosphere
characteristic of the late 1930s returned to the USSR. There were a
number of official accusations that some politically prominent, pro­
fessional Soviet Jews were involved in ‘cosmopolitan’, pro-Western
or Zionist (anti-Socialist nationalist) plotting against the Soviet state.
The hysterical atmosphere of the 1948-53 period was induced by fear
of another attack, this time by the US and its NATO allies.* There was
a tendency to identify most manifestations o f Jewish nationalism with
‘cosmopolitanism’, ‘Zionism’ and pro-imperialism during these years,
in good part owing to the new state of Israel’s increasing identification
with the West. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was dissolved;
the Jewish State Theatre in Moscow was closed. Shlomo Mikhoels,
a prominent actor and head o f the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee,
was assassinated (by the KGB according to Zionists) and various Yiddish
publishing houses and periodicals closed. Hundreds of prominent Jewish
literary figures and political activists were arrested and charged with under­
mining the Soviet state by working with Western bourgeois or Zionist forces.
The height of the anti-Zionism campaign was manifested in an announcement
in January 1953, that a group, mostly of Jewish doctors, were plotting to
kill prominent Soviet leaders (apparently including Stalin). These doctors
were accused of working on behalf of the Zionist ‘international Jewish bour­
geois national organization’ - the Joint Distribution Committee. In February
1953, a month after the announcement of the discovery of ‘the doctor’s
plot’ the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel, and shortly
thereafter began to support the Arabs in their confrontation with the Zionist
state. The Soviet reversal on the Arab-Israeli question was largely motivated
by Israel’s increasing integration with US imperialism.
After Stalin’s death in March 1953, the campaign against ‘the doctor’s
plot’ was quietly dropped. But it had provoked suspicions against many
Jews working in medical facilities on the grounds of their alleged Zionist
sympathies (and thus anti-Soviet potential). Thousands of Jewish medical
specialists were dismissed from laboratories, hospitals, medical institutes
and faculties during this campaign.62

* The US had a monopoly on the atom bomb until 1949, a far stronger economy than
did the war devastated Soviet Union, and was just rearming an independent Western
Germany (see Chapter 7).

90
 The European Nationalities

Many anti-Soviets in the West, especially Zionists, have argued that the
1948-53 campaign against ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘Zionism’ was really a
manifestation of anti-Semitism (analogous to that of Hitler’s) but a realistic
assessment demonstrates that this argument functioned to serve the
interests of Western and Israeli Zionists in their long-term battle with Jewish
Marxists for hegemony in the Jewish community, as well as to strengthen
Western imperialist support for Israel. Nevertheless, in common with the far
more vicious events of 1936-38 the hysteria and the purges of 1948-53
seem to have been the outcome of a considerable over-estimation of the
danger from pro-Western Jewish and Zionist forces in the Soviet Union.
Many innocent Jews appeared to have suffered, although little permanent
harm seems to have resulted either to individuals or to their careers. The
Soviets were slow, however, in restoring the various Yiddish cultural insti­
tutions that were closed in the 1948-53 campaign, and, combined with the
rapid undermining of Yiddish and Yiddish culture through urbanization,
education and professionalization, this has meant that distinctive Jewish
cultural life never regained the level of the pre-1948 period.

The Economic Position of Soviet Jews

Professionally and economically the Jewish people have fared extremely
well in the period of Soviet power. They are, for example, far more highly
educated than any other nationality in the Soviet Union, and in 1970-71 the
ratio of higher education students per 1,000 population was 49.2. This is
almost twice as high as the next highest group, the Georgians, who had a
ratio of 27.1 per 1,000. (Russians rank fourth on this indicator with a ratio
of 21.1 per 1,000). (see Table 2.6). In the Russian Republic in the early
1970s, of every 1,000 Jews of ten years old and above 344 completed some
form of higher education, compared with only 43 out of 1,000 Russians;
an 8 : 1 ratio in favour of the Jews. Comparable ratios in the Ukraine were
6.5 : 1 in Belorussia 7, : 1 and in Latvia 5.5 : l .63 In the early 1970s
approximately 110,000 Jewish students were in institutions of higher edu­
cation; this represents 2.55% of the total - an over-representation factor of
almost three. In 1960 77,000 Jewish students had been in such institu­
tions.64
In 1971, 6.7% of all scientific workers in the Soviet Union were Jews.
In that year .9% of all Soviets were Jews, therefore, in this field Jews were
over-represented by a factor of 7.5. Armenians, with an over-representation
factor of 1.5 in the same year came next, and Russians, with an over-repre­
sentation factor of 1.2 were fourth in this respect (see Table 2.7). Around
1970 about 68% of all Jews employed in the Russian Republic were
specialists with either a higher or secondary special education; this compares
with 19% of Russians.65 In the mid-1960s, 15% of all Soviet doctors, 9% of
all writers and journalists. 10% of all judges and lawyers and 8% of all actors,
musicians and artists were Jewish.** The percentage of Jews in the various
professions has been declining, even though their absolute numbers have
been rising. In 1972, there were 68,000 Jewish scientific workers,

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

approximately double the number of those so employed in 1960; but in

that year 9.5% o f all scientific workers were Jews compared to 6.1% in
1973. Given the considerable advances o f the traditionally backward
nationalities, especially the Asians, this is to be expected.67

The Jewish Religion

The practice o f Judaism as a religion has received more or less the same
treatment as has the practice of other religions, such as Russian Orthodoxy,
Islam, Catholicism and Lutheranism. Official policy and practice is to permit
religion to be practised, but to discourage its propagation by forbidding
organized religious instruction, active conversion and other forms of
religious propaganda, while at the same time officially propagating anti-
religious and atheistic precepts. The Party considers all religions to be super­
stitions which will gradually die out, as the oppressive conditions which gave
birth to them are eliminated, and the old people brought up in the old
religious environments die. When applied to Judaism, the offical anti-
religious policies in operation for all religions are often singled out by the
Western media or by Zionist interests in the West to substantiate the claim
that the USSR discriminates against Judaism (in a manner analogous to
Hitler), thereby attempting to mobilize world Jewish and public opinion
against the Soviet Union.
Ninety-eight percent of Jews in the USSR live in urban areas, mostly
concentrated in the larger cities. This fact, together with the remarkable
educational and professional progress o f Soviet Jews, manifests their central
integration into Soviet society, with the corollary o f rapid deterioration of
traditional Jewish ways. Most Jews, especially the younger, have adopted
the secular atheism of Soviet society, few any longer subscribe to
Judaism. It is mostly the old, together with nationalist dissidents, who attend
religious services or otherwise practise Judaic rites.68 As a result the number
of active synagogues have been declining.
In the early 1970s there were about 100 active synagogues in the Soviet
Union, although the figure given for 1972 by anti-Soviet Jewish organizations
in the West was 58.09 A small yeshivah operates in Moscow to train rabbis,
and limited editions of prayer books are published: 3,000 in 1957, and
another edition of 5,000 in 1968. Two Judaic religious rites have been
subjected to pressure from the state: Passover and circumcision. Circum­
cision, which is also traditionally practised by the Islamic peoples, is
regarded by the Soviets as a barbaric custom comparable to subincision or
clitoridectomy. The Soviets have attempted to suppress this practice since
the Revolution; more stringently in the Asian republics than among the
Jews. The celebration o f Passover is regarded as primarily a Zionist rather
than a pious manifestation. Passover commemorates the deliverance of the
Jewish people from Egyptian bondage and is marked by the recitation of the
words 'Next Year in Jerusalem’. That Zionists both inside and outside the
Soviet Union, many o f whom are atheists, have, in fact, given the celebration
of Passover a Zionist and anti-Soviet character (asserting that the modem day

92
Egyptian captor is the Soviet state) has not gone unnoticed by the Soviets«
There have been Jewish complaints both inside and outside the USSR that
the Soviet state often puts obstacles in the way o f securing matzo
(unleavened bread) which is used as part o f the Passover celebration«70 Such
mild harassment of what is officially considered to be anti-Soviet or
reactionary aspects of a religion is by no means unique to the treatment of
Judaism« For example, the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca, required of
devout Islamic men, has been largely suppressed, as has the wearing of the veil
for women«
Soviet anti-religious propaganda in general attacks all religions, and in
particular, those aspects that are regarded as specifically harmful within each
religion« An analysis of anti-religious propaganda directed at Jews in the
1960s finds such specific themes as: (1) The Jewish religion promotes alle­
giance to another state, Israel, and to a reactionary, pro-imperialist movement,
Zionism; (2) the Jewish religion promotes the notion that the Jewish people
are superior to others, ‘the chosen people', and thus breeds hatred of other
peoples; (3) the Jewish religion elevates the pursuit o f material wealth, a
pursuit incompatible with the Communist ideal o f Soviet society; and (4) the
Jewish religion calls for genocide and enslavement of other peoples by the
Jews (a reference to the effect o f Zionism on the Arabs)«71

Jewish Culture
Traditional Jewish languages, especially Yiddish, are dying out in the USSR«
In 1970, only 17«7% o f Jews reported that they spoke a Jewish language
as their native tongue; a further 7.7% reported they were able to speak such
a language, but that it was not their mother tongue« Those who con­
tinue to speak Yiddish, or one o f the Oriental Jewish languages, are
either old people or those largely concentrated in the peripheral regions
that were incorporated into the USSR in 1939-41, or both« Very few
younger Russian, Belorussian or Ukrainian Jews now speak or understand
Yiddish« This contrasts sharply with the situation before the Revolution,
when 97% of all Jews in Russia (including Russian Poland) regarded Yiddish
as their mother tongue; by 1926, this figure stood at 70%.72 In 1970,60% o f
Jews in Lithuania specified Yiddish as their native tongue, 40% in Latvia
and approximately 50% in Moldavia«73
The rapid decline o f Yiddish reflects the general decline of distinctively
Jewish culture among a highly urbanized, educated and professionalized
population that has become fully integrated into Soviet society. That the
responsibility for this decline does not rest upon any Russification policies
of the Soviet state is demonstrated by the situation of the various European
and Asian minority nationalities that are geographically concentrated« In
these areas, rapid economic progress has not undermined traditional lan­
guages and cultures« Nevertheless, it should be noted that there have been
no Yiddish language schools in the USSR since 1948.74
A small Yiddish cultural establishment still exists in the USSR, although
on a much smaller scale than in the pre-1948 period. Yiddish papers.

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

publishing houses and theatres were restored after 1956, following their
suppression as part of the 1948-53 ‘anti-cosmopolitan’, anti-Zionist
campaign. In the mid-1970s there were two Yiddish periodicals circulated in
the USSR: Sovetish Heimland, a literary monthly with a circulation of
25,000, and the thrice weekly newspaper the Birobidzhaner Shtem with a
circulation of 12,000, largely outside the Jewish Autonomous Republic of
Birobidzhan where it is published. Yiddish speakers also have access to
Yiddish language publications and periodicals published by Jewish Marxists
overseas.75
A few books continue to be published in Yiddish. Between 1948 and
1970, 32 Yiddish language books were published in the USSR.76 More
important than Yiddish language publications, which can be read by only
about one of eight Soviet Jews, are works translated into Russian which
originally were published in Yiddish. In recent years there have been a
considerable number of these, many of which are issued in quite long press
runs. For example, in 1973 50,000 copies of I. Rabin’s On the Nieman,
originally written in Yiddish, were printed in Russian. Many Russian trans­
lations from the Yiddish are of poetic works.77
The most conspicuous expression of Jewish culture in the USSR, and that
receiving the widest participation, is the Jewish theatre. There are several
Jewish song, music and drama companies, the oldest being the Vilnius
Jewish People’s Theatre, which was established in 1957. Since 1962, the
Moscow Dramatic Ensemble, a Jewish theatrical group, many of whose actors
were part of the old Jewish State Theatre, has been performing regularly
in Moscow; there are also a number of other itinerant Jewish theatre groups,
including the Birobidzhan Yiddish People’s Theatre and the Kishinev Jewish
People’s Theatre.78

Political Positions
Jews have the highest representation in the Communist Party of any other
Soviet nationality. In 1965, 80 out of every 1,000 Jews belonged to the
Party, compared to the Soviet average of 51 per 1,00o.79 In 1969, Jews made
up 1.5% of the Party (an over-representation factor of 1.67).80 As other natio­
nalities, especially Asians, are increasingly brought into the Party, and as the
Party’s recruitment policies increasingly favour the working class, the percen­
tage of Jews in the Party has been declining, even while their absolute number
has been increasing. Between 1920 and 1940 the percentage o f Jews in the
Party fluctuated around 4.5% to 5.0%.81 The percentage of Jews in the princi­
pal leading body of the Party, the Central Committee, is proportional to the
number of Jews in the population. In 1976, three Jews were elected to the
330 person Central Committee.82 In the 1920s, 25% of the Central Committee
was Jewish, 10% in the late 1930s, 2-3% in the 1950s, and .3% in the 1960s.83
Given the strong representation of members from working class and peasant
backgrounds on the Central Committee, and the increasing political mobil­
ization of the more backward nationalities, that the proportion o f Jews now
accords with their percentage o f the population should be considered neither

94
 The European Nationalities

extraordinary nor exemplifying discrimination.

The number of Jews elected to all local Soviets between 1959 and 1973
has averaged about 1,000 per election, or about .4% of aü Soviet delegates
(an under-representation factor of abour .50).84 In 1970 and 1974 six Jews
were elected to the Supreme Soviet: roughly proportionate to their share of
the population.85
Very few Jews now occupy prominent positions in the Party or govern­
ment apparatus, in contrast to the pre-1948 situation when Jews were
prominent in all major aspects of government and Party activities. In the
early 1970s the highest ranking Jewish person was the Deputy Minister for
Supplies, V. Dymshits, who was also the highest ranking Jewish person on
thé Party’s Central Committee; another was Alexander Chakovsky, the editor
of the influential Literary Gazette. Lev Shapiro, the first secretary of the
Birobidzhan Party organization and also a member of the Central Committee,
became increasingly influential during the 1970s.
The evidence seems to point to a certain distrust of Jews in sensitive top
leadership positions, initially aroused during the 1948-53 ‘anti-cosmopolitan’
/anti-Zionist campaign, and reborn after the 1967 Israeli-Arab Six Day War,
when many Soviet Jews adopted pro-Israeli sympathies —thus manifesting
opposition to Soviet policies. While there seems to be no substantial evidence
for discrimination against Jews as Party members or in middle level Party and
government positions, the evidence is compatible with some political dis­
crimination against them for the top leadership roles as heads of ministries,
Politburo members and first secretaries of leading Party organizations. Given
the long history of Jews having filled leading roles in the Party, which
continued throughout the Stalin period, this seems to reflect Soviet doubts
about historically specific Jewish loyalties on the question of Israel/Zioni&m,
rather than classical anti-Semitic attitudes.

Anti-Semitism m the USSR

Not surprisingly, the virulent anti-Semitism of all classes in the pre-1917
Russian Empire has left remnants of anti-Semitic attitudes, especially among
older, less educated and more rural populations, even after two generations of
Soviet education. To the extent that such attitudes linger on, in spite of
official Party policies designed to eradicate them, must be distinguished
from the economic and political policies and educational campaigns of the
Party. Evidence concerning whether or not Jews in the Soviet Union exper­
ienced a significant amount of interpersonal anti-Semitism is mixed. Studies
of recent Soviet emigree’s anti-Semitic experiences casts considerable doubt
on the theory that interpersonal anti-Semitism is a major factor in the
country. A 1973 survey of 2,527 emigrants from the USSR in Israel found
that 25% of those who had been nationalist activists in the USSR claimed
never personally to have experienced an incident of anti-Semitism. In
another survey of emigrants bound for Israel only 39% claimed that anti-
Semitism in the USSR was a primary reason for their emigration. It is of
interest to note that many more emigrants, bound for the US rather than for

95
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Israel, claimed both to have experienced anti-Semitism and that such

experiences were the primary reason for their emigration. Anti-Soviet pro-
Jewish emigrant observers, such as Gitelman, draw the reasonable conclusion
that a language of motives focusing on anti-Semitism has been formulated
that maximizes the probability of being accepted into the US, that is, affirms
the claim to legitimate refugee status. Asserting the desire to make more
money or to advance one’s career as the reason for emigration to the US
would not be effective.86

Ztonisn and anti-Semitism

From the beginning of the Soviet state in 1917, the Soviets, with various
degrees of intensity, have systematically attacked Zionism as reactionary,
pro-imperialist, racist and, since World War 11, essentially Fascist. They
share their analysis with most o f the rest of the world’s Marxists, including
many Jewish Marxists, as well as with most progressive movements in Asia,
Africa and Latin America; especially those in the Islamic world. Anti-Soviets,
especially those sympathetic to Zionism and the Israeli state, often
fallaciously accuse the Soviet Union o f anti-Semitism because o f Soviet
attacks on Zionism. But the two are quite different. Anti-Semitism, the
ideology that Jews are a race to be despised and that to discriminate against
them is justified, is against the law in the Soviet Union and, as far as 1 can
ascertain, totally absent from all official Party and government written
matter. Anti-Zionism, the notion that Jews should not seek or support a
separate state in which all Jews maintain solidarity solely amongst them­
selves - rather than with individuals of other ethnic groups - is official
state and Party policy.
Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda includes such themes as the following:
(1) that most international Jewish organizations in the West are controlled
by Jewish capitalists and, therefore, operate against the interest of workers;
(2) that Israel endeavours to establish an inherently anti-Communist ‘fifth
column’ inside the Socialist countries; (3) that Zionism and Israel are
‘implacable enemies of the socialist camp’; (4) that Israel is intent on
building a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Nile to the Euphrates, where the Israelis
would be a kind of master race comparable to that expounded in Nazi
ideology for the Aryans; (5) that the Israeli state’s ruling class jeopardizes
the very existence of Israel as a state by the expansionist and militarist
policies they follow; and (6) that Zionism, as practised by the Israeli state in
relation to the Arabs, is closely paralleled by the treatment of Jews by
German Fascists.87
Gaims that the Soviet Union engages in anti-Semitic propaganda can
invariably be reduced to statements such as these about Zionism, or to
examples of anti-religious propaganda which, as applied to Judaism, do not
differ qualitatively from that applied to Islam or Giristianity. It is difficult
to see how anti-Zionism and propaganda against the religious aspect of
Judaism can justify the claim that, similar to Fascist anti-Semitic propaganda,
the USSR considers Jews to be racially inferior. Such, however, is the

96
 The European Nationalities

implication o f most statements that employ examples of anti-Zionism to

support the contention of Soviet anti-Semitism.
Indicative of Zionist allegations of official Soviet anti-Semitism was the
response o f some Jewish dissidents, in November 1980, to an article in the
Young Pioneer's Newspaper which attacked Zionism as ’modem day
Fascism’ calling it ’the main enemy of peace on Earth*. This article went on
to argue that Zionists who control ’the major portion’ of the US mass media
have ’orchestrated anti-Soviet campaigns and opposed the strategic arms
limitation treaty’, and that ’Jewish bankers and billionaires’ established the
Jewish Defence League which ’terrorizes* Soviet diplomats in New York, and
that Jewish bankers acted to ’defend their own class interests’. In comment­
ing on this article, Jewish dissidents in the Soviet Union said that:

We regard it as one of the worst examples of anti-Semitic writings to

have appeared in Soviet publications in recent years----- Even more
unfortunately, it is the first time in recent memory that anything so
blatant has appeared in material intended for children.88

If such statements are indeed the most blatant examples of official anti-
Semitism that Zionist critics of the Soviet system can find, one can be assured
that there is no official anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.
The Six Day War between Israel and the Arab states, which was won
decisively by Israel, generated much sympathy for the Israelis among many
Soviet Jews. Given the Soviet’s active support for Egypt and Syria in this war,
and their strong commitment to opposing Israeli expansionism, and to the
creation o f a Palestinian state (it should be noted that the Soviets have never
advocated the elimination of the state of Israel), such sympathy for its
enemies aroused concern. Beginning in 1967 a Zionist dissident movement
began to gain credibility within the Soviet Union ; it manifested itself in such
activities as large numbers of non-religious Jewish youths gathering around
synagogues to demonstrate their support for Zionist ideas and Israel’s cause,
as well as the promotion of emigration to Israel. Jewish dissidents came to
participate in the full range of dissident activities which focused on attacking
Soviet policies and institutions in interviews with Western reporters, and in
documents smuggled out of the Soviet Union.89
The Soviet government’s response was to step up its anti-Zionist propa­
ganda campaign to a considerable extent, emphasizing the six themes
itemized above. In 1966 only ten articles attacking Zionism were reported
in the Soviet press, in 1969 there were 42, and at the peak of the anti-Zionist
campaign in 1970, there were 204 90 The post-1967 campaign was largely
directed towards persuading Soviet Jews not to leave the USSR for Israel.91

The Post-1967 Jewidi Emigration from the USSR

Throughout the 1960s about 1,000 Jews a year emigrated from the USSR
to Israel; mostly on the grounds of reunification with their families. After
the 1967 War, significant numbers of Jews began to apply to leave the USSR

97
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

for Israel. In 1971, the government, apparently recognizing that its campaign
to persuade Zionist Jews to stay was ineffective, began to issue numerous
emigration visas for Israel. In 1971, approximately 13,000 Jews emigrated to
Israel; approximately equal to the total number o f those who had left for
Israel in the previous 12 years.92 From 1972 to 1977 approximately 30,000
Jews left for Israel each year, and in 1978 and 1979, when emigration became
easier, roughly 50,000 left each year. Virtually any Jews wishing to leave
were granted emigration visas during these latter years. Emigration declined
after 1979, indicating that most o f those who wished to leave had already
done so, as well as a stricter emigration policy coincident with the revived
Cold War. Between 1968 and 1976, 133,000 Jews left the USSR,
approximately 6.2% o f all Soviet Jews; by the beginning o f 1980 the per­
centage had risen to roughly 12%,93 a total of approximately 250,000. In
the early 1970s, Roy Medvedev, usually an accurate source of information
about the dissident community in the USSR, estimated that between
200,000 and 300,000 Jews would apply to leave. Maximum estimates from
anti-Soviet sources speculated that the ftgure would reach 500,000, that
is 25% of all Soviet Jews.94 The decline in emigration in 1980 and 1981
indicated that the Medvedev estimate was probably correct - that is, almost
all who had wanted to leave had left.
Those who left the USSR had been heavily concentrated in certain areas
of the country. Over 50% who applied for exit visas between 1968 and
1976 were from the five Republics of Georgia, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Lithuania
and Moldavia. Generally, Jews who emigrated, during that period at least,
were either from areas newly amalgamated with the USSR (Latvia, Lithuania,
Moldavia or the Western Ukraine) where they had not yet fully integrated
themselves into Soviet life, or from Soviet Georgia where, although
conditions were exceptionally good for Jews, their brand o f Judaism virtually
mandated their emigration to the ‘Holy Land*.95 Over 50% o f all Georgian
Jews migrated - mostly to Israel - as did 22% of Latvian, 41% of Lithuanian,
13% o f Moldavian and 8% o f Uzbek Jews between 1968 and 1976. This
contrasted sharply with the picture for the Soviet heartland o f the Russian
Republic, the Ukraine and Belorussia, where, according to the 1970 census,
80% o f Soviet Jews live. In the same period only 1.9% of Russian Jews left
the country, as did 1.6% o f Belorussian Jews and 5.5% of Ukrainian Jews,
most o f whom were from the western third o f the Republic —formerly part
o f Poland. Less than 12% (about 16,000) o f the total Jewish emigration
from the Soviet Union between 1968 and 1976 was from Russia proper.96
These figures indicate that until the mid-1970s the motives for emigration
were overwhelmingly religious and cultural, and neither as a result o f anti-
Semitism nor general dissatisfaction with Soviet life. Seemingly, the vast
majority o f Jews who had been part of the USSR since the Revolution
were quite content to live in the Soviet Union. The emergence of a different
motive in the mid-1970s is.indicated by a radical change in the destination
of Jewish emigrants. In 1974, 18.8% chose to go to the US and the other
Western capitalist countries rather than to Israel, as did 37.2% in 1975, and

98
 The European Nationalities

49.1% in 1976, while only 4.2% chose such destinations in 1973. In 1979 and
1980, only about one-third of Soviet Jewish émigrés went to Israel, in 1981
20%, most now preferring the higher incomes and professional advancement
possible in the US.97 Many Jews who originally migrated to Israel re-emigrated
and settled in the US. This suggests that the desire to maintain Jewish culture
or help build the Zionist state, has been superseded by the desire for financial
gain and to advance one’s career.98 An increased proportion of Russian,
Ukrainian and Belorussian secular Jewish émigrés are another manifestation
of this change of motive.
Perhaps the most significant observation to be made about Jewish emi­
gration from the Soviet Union after 1970 is the relatively small percentage
(3% to 4%) who availed themselves of the opportunity to leave the Soviet
heartland. Presented with the opportunity either to live in a predominantly
Jewish culture in Israel, or obtain a significantly higher standard o f living in
the USA, 95%-97% chose to remain in the Soviet Union. It should be noted
that, over the period 1970-79, only 5.1% of Moscow Jews emigrated, even
though in the latter part of this decade it was very easy for Jews to do so.99
Emigrés were mainly those Jews on the margin of the mainstream o f Soviet
life together with a relatively small number of professionals throughout the
country.
Western attempts to present the Soviet Union as a virulently anti-Semitic
society cannot be substantiated. Historically, the Jewish people in the USSR
have fared, and continue to fare, very well in almost all respects. Jews are
over-represented in the highest paying occupations, in the skilled professions,
in the institutions of higher education and in all except the top levels in the
Communist Party; but, as was noted previously, Jews are no longer over­
represented in state legislative and top administrative positions. There is
no evidence of official or Party approved anti-Semitism, and little evidence
o f interpersonal anti-Semitic expressions. The majority of Jews are fully
integrated into Soviet life and demonstrate their support for Soviet
institutions.

Conclusion
As is the case for the Soviet Asian Republics, there is no evidence of exploit­
ation or economic discrimination by the Soviet government in the European
Republics; with rapid industrialization their economies have all prospered.
Additionally, education, books, newspapers, theatre and so on in the various
native languages have been actively promoted. Although, as a result of the
integration o f Jewish people into modern Soviet society, traditional Jewish
culture is dying out, the Jewish people, too, have thrived. In short, the
success of Soviet policy towards the European and Asian Republics in the
USSR is one of the principal accomplishments of the Soviet system.
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

References
1. Katz et al., 1975, pp. 119-20.
2. The USSR in Figures, 1978, p. 92.
3. K atzetal., 1975, p. 120.
4. Ibid.
5. The USSR in Figures, 1978, p. 92.
6. Panning and Jarvesoo, 1978, pp. 9-11.
7. The USSR in Figures, 1978, p. 92.
8. Katz et aL, 1975, p. 162.
9. Ibid., p. 144.
10. USSR in Figures, 1978, p. 92.
11. Katz et al., 1975, Tables 2.2, 4.2, 6.2, 7.2.
12. New York Times, 5 October 1980, p. 30.
13. K atzetal., 1975, p. 90.
14. Ibid., p. 90; Panning and Jarvesoo, 1978, pp. 77-83.
15. Panning and Jarvesoo, 1978, pp. 82-3.
16. Ibid., p. 77.
17. Katz et al., 1975, p. 80.
18. Gted ibid., p. 114.
19. Ibid., pp. 76-7.
20. Panning and Jarvesoo, 1978, pp. 25-6; Katz et al., 1975, p. 77.
21. Medvedev, 1979, p. 27.
22. Allworth (ed.), 1977, pp. 179-80; Katz et al., 1975, pp. 137-8.
23. Katz et al., 1975, pp. 137-8.
24. Ibid., pp. 135-8.
25. Allworth (ed.), 1977, p. 241.
26. Ibid., pp. 240-1.
27. Ibid., p. 49.
28. Katz et aL, 1975, p. 90.
29. Ibid., pp. 122-3.
30. Ibid., p. 123.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., pp. 98-9.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., pp. 99-100.
36. Ibid., pp. 113-4.
37. Ibid., pp. 23-4.
38. Ibid., pp. 24-5.
39. Ibid., pp. 44-5.
40. Allworth (ed.), 1977, p. 167; Katz et al., 1975, pp. 44-5.
41. K atzetal., 1975, pp. 67-8.
42. Ibid., p. 51.
43. Ibid., p. 52.
44. Jukes, 1973, p. 63.
45. Katz et al., 1975, pp. 145-6.
46. Katz et aL, 1975, p. 158.
47. Ibid., p. 149.
48. Ibid., pp. 163-4.

100
49. Jukes, 1973, p. 63.
50. Ibid., and Katz et al., 1975, p. 165.
51. K atzetal., 1975, p. 181.
52. New York Times, 21 December 1979, p. 2.
53. Korey, 1973, p. 65;Kochan, 1978, p. 97.
54. Kochan, 1978, p. 97.
55. Korey, 1973, p. 65.
56. Katz et al., 1975, p. 368.
57. Ibid., and Kochan, 1978, p. 79; Gitelman, 1980, p. 24.
58. Gitelman, 1980, p. 24; Katz et al., 1975, p. 362.
59. Katz et al., 1975, p. 362.
60. Ibid., p. 373.
61. Korey, 1973, pp. 34, 73.
62. Ibid., pp. 34, 73, 76-7.
63. Katz et al., 1975, p. 377.
64. Korey, 1973, p. 59.
65. K atzetal., 1975, p. 377.
66. Kochan, 1978, p. 157.
67. Ibid., p. 380; Gitelman, 1980, p. 24.
68. Korey, 1973, p. 175.
69. Ibid., pp. 4 2,44; Katz et al., 1975, p. 370.
70. Korey, 1973, p. 46.
71. Kochan, 1978, pp. 186, 326, 329, 334-5.
72. Katz et al., 1975, pp. 371-2; Korey, 1973, pp. 26, 31.
73. Korey, 1973, p. 27.
74. Kochan, 1978, p. 40.
75. K atzetal., 1975, p. 373.
76. Ibid.; Korey, 1973, p. 35.
77. Kochan, 1978, p. 387.
78. Ibid.
79. Korey, 1973, p. 57.
80. Kochan, 1978, p. 345.
81. Ibid.;Katz et al., 1975, p. 368.
82. Kochan, 1978, p. 386.
83. Korey, 1973, p. 56.
84. Kochan, 1978, p. 95.
85. Ibid., p. 386.
86. Gitelman, 1980, p. 30.
87. Ibid., p. 28; Kochan, 1978, 334-5.
88. New York Times, 8 November 1980, p. 2.
89. Katz et al., 1975, pp. 383-5.
90. Gitelman, 1980, p. 26.
91. Ibid., p. 25.
92. K atzetal., 1975, p. 305.
93. Kochan, 1978, pp. 367,378-9.
94. Korey, 1973, p. 178.
95. Kochan, 1978, pp. 372-3; Korey, 1973, p. 252.
96. Kochan, 1978, pp. 372-3.
97. Scherer, 1982, p. 379.
98. Kochan, 1978, p. 370.
99. Scherer, 1982, p. 379.
101
4. Women in the USSR

The Rights of Women

The Bolshevik Revolution o f 1917 was followed by a radical transformation
in the legal and economic position of women. Marriage and divorce became
matters of mutual consent effected by simple registration. Divorce could be
initiated by either party, and marriage became a formally egalitarian
institution with all legally enshrined forms of male dominance eliminated.
All restrictions on women’s freedom of movement were abolished; a wife was
no longer required to reside with her husband or to change her place of
residence when he did. Fundamental changes in inheritance and property
laws undermined the traditional authority of the husband-father and of the
family in general. Women acquired the right to own personal property and to
act as the head of a household, and in general, attained equal legal status with
men. In addition, abortion was legalized, and socialized forms of child care
were developed, while the distinction between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’
children was abolished.1
The radical transformations in the legal status of the family proved to be
too advanced for the very backward conditions of the 1920s. TTús was
especially clear during the period of extreme crisis arising from rapid
industrialization in the 1930s (see also Chapter 7). The Soviet peasantry,
who comprised the majority of the population in the 1920s, still lived in
extremely backward and superstition ridden conditions. The liberating
climate, both of the intelligentsia, which had provided the leaders of the
Communist Revolution, and the urban working class, which provided the
leadership, was swamped by the influx of peasants into the cities who came
to work in the rapidly expanding industries in the 1930s and 1940s. Many
of these men allegedly took advantage of the advanced family legislation to
enter into unions in which they had no intention of remaining, misleading
their wives and deserting them at will, freed of any legal responsibility, except
for the support of any children which may have resulted.
In the 1920s abortion became widely practised as a form of birth control.
In the 1930s this, together with the tendency, facilitated by the early family
legislation, for long term unions to be undermined, presented a serious prob­
lem, since in order to secure a sound demographical base both for defence

102
 Women in the USSR

and modernization population growth was essential. Divorce was thus made
considerably more difficult, and in 1936 abortion was banned, except for
medical reasons, and only became legal again in 1955. In 1944 the catas­
trophic death rate caused by the German invasion provoked a further retreat
to more orthodox family legislation and divorce was made even more difficult;
requiring the payment of a considerable fee and involving a lengthy and
complicated procedure. Suits to establish paternity were banned, with the
state taking on the responsibility for supporting the children of unmarried
mothers. At the same time, both material and moral incentives were
instituted to encourage motherhood. Rigorous measures were considered
necessary in order to counter the loss of 20 million, mostly young, people
in the War. In the 1950s and 1960s with the recovery from the effects of the
war and the rapid improvement in material living standards, most of the
more progressive aspects of Soviet family legislation and policies were
reinstated.2
Two articles in the 1977 Soviet Constitution refer directly to women’s
role in society: Article 35:

Women and men have equal rights in the USSR. Exercise of these
rights is ensured by according women equal access with men to
education and vocational and professional training, equal opportunities
in employment, remuneration, and promotion, and in social and
political, and cultural activity, and by special labour and health pro­
tection measures for women, by providing conditions enabling motheis
to work; by legal protection, and material and moral support for
mothers and children, including paid leaves and other benefits for
expectant mothers and mothers, and gradual reduction of working time
for mothers with small children.

and Article 53:

Marriage is based on the free consent of the woman and the man;
the spouses are completely equal in their family relations. The state
helps the family by providing and developing a broad system of child­
care institutions, by organizing and improving communal services and
public catering, by paying grants on the birth of a child, by providing
children’s allowances and benefits for large families, and other forms
of family allowances and assistance.

Contemporary Soviet family legislation treats husbands and wives as

equals. Marriage is considered to be neither a means for the economic support
of women, nor for the provision of household services by women. Men have
no legal obligation to support their wives or ex-wives; women have no legal
obligation to provide their husbands with any services. Forcible sex by
husbands is legally defined as rape ; women have the right to retain their
maiden name, to control an equal share of the communal property and, of

103
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

course, enjoy equal personal and property rights.3

Mothers (in contrast to wives) do have special protective legislation;
pregnant women, and wives with children under the age o f one year, may not
be divorced without their consent,4 and in the case of divorce child support
is mandatory. An ex-husband is required to contribute 25% o f his earnings
to his former wife if she is looking after one child, and one third if two
children are involved, and 50% if there are three or more children. The fact
that virtually everyone works in a state-owned enterprise easily facilitates
this legal requirement, as deductions are made automatically from paychecks
and the money given to the mother. Exceptions to the lçgal requirement can
be made by the courts under conditions of special hardship and a father’s
conflicting responsibilities. The courts commonly reduce the percentage of
income requirement in the case of a father remarrying and taking on the
responsibility o f contributing to the support o f a new family o f children.
After the Revolution, the right, and indeed the obligation, o f women to
work outside the home became official state and Party policy. This was a
realization o f the traditional Marxist theory o f women’s liberation as repre­
sented by Engels’ classical statement in The Origins o f Private Property, the
Family and the State. Engels argued that the subordination o f women to men
is based upon the economic power o f the latter over the former, and that the
liberation o f women would follow from her introduction into public industry
and the abolition o f the family as the economic unit of society; that is, when
both partners have an independent income.
Especially in the 1930s and 1940s, the policy o f encouraging women to
work outside the home was also motivated by the need to expand the labour
force as rapidly as possible in order to industrialize, beat the nazis, and
reconstruct the country. It was considered wasteful for the majority o f
women to work only as homemakers, or be confined to menial blue or white
collar labour. Women’s abilities were tapped in virtually all industrial sectors
and levels, including coal-mining, heavy industry, engineering, medicine,
administration, science and so on. The introduction of women into ‘public
industry’ required a less radical change in attitudes than a similar process
might have done in the West at that time, since the tradition of women’s
labour being limited to housework (women in Islamic areas excepted) did
not operate in the largely peasant country; peasant women were accustomed
to work in the fields and in family handicrafts as well as caring for house and
family. The transformation o f women’s economic roles thus largely encom­
passed the introduction o f ex-peasant women into mining, factories, clerical
jobs and the technical and scientific intelligentsia. Hard, physical labour
was not new to peasant women, the most radical transformation here was the
large scale introduction of these women into higher education, and into such
fields as science, engineering, agronomy, medicine (as doctors).
The Soviet Labour Code grants women workers many important rights.
Paragraph 73 reads:

It is specifically forbidden to refuse empioyment or iower the pay of

104
 any women for the reasons connected with her pregnancy, childbirth,
or child nursing. The dismissal of any pregnant or nursing woman, or
any woman who has children below the age of one year, is specifically
forbidden except in those cases when the enterprise is liquidated
altogether, whereupon all such women must be provided with compar*
able substitute employment.

Women receive the same paid vacations and the same pension rights as
men, the only difference in terms o f such rights is that women are eligible
to receive their pensions at the age of 55 years —five years earlier than men.6
After the Revolution the Party initiated a Communist women's movement,
aiming to stimulate the actual transformation of relationships, to undermine
the traditional attitudes o f men and wom en,, to mobilize women in the
national effort to reconstruct the country after the destruction wrought by
the civil war, and to construct a socialist society. In the 1920s much o f the
actual mobilization of women, in addition to enabling them to overcome
barriers to acquiring literacy, to attend higher education and work in the
modern sector, took the form of encouraging them to construct "institutions
o f daily life’, for example, such as schools, collective dining halls and houses,
and to engage in support activities for the Red Army.7
The strongest impact o f the Communist women’s movement and of Party
and state policy dedicated to the liberation of women, has been upon the
traditionally Islamic areas, where the oppression of women was the greatest.
With the establishment o f Soviet power in Central Asia the most repressive
traditional practices were singled out for attack. Forced marriage, marriage
by abduction, bride price, polygamy, child marriage, female seclusion and
the veil. Such practices were outlawed and made subject to criminal sanctions
The bulk o f the new family legislation was introduced simultaneously in
Central Asia and in Soviet Europe, but with some, more radical, provisions
only gradually introduced into Central Asia.
In 1927, the traditional Islamic courts were divested of all authority
including their ability to adjudicate in family matters; traditionally, two
female witnesses were considered the equivalent o f one male in such courts.
In 1926 a campaign against female seclusion was launched. The first phase
of this campaign was directed to the more urban, intellectual and politicized
sectors of the population that was most likely to accept it; the second phase
was directed to the rest o f the population. The Party organized demonstra­
tions where women publicly took off their veils; these demonstrations were
often violently disrupted by men. Many Asian women were killed, typically
by their brothers, for appearing publicly without the veil, taking jobs outside
the home or actively participating in the anti-seclusion campaigns. In the
public squares of many cities and towns in Soviet Central Asia today there are
monuments to these women. The opposition of the Party and government to
such killings was made clear by well publicized arrests, trials and executions
of the men involved, and by launching a massive public education campaign
against the pernicious effects of traditional Islamic practices.

105
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

The Women’s Department of the Party (Zhenotdel) was most active in

Central Asia, and was committed to eliminating what it considered to be
barbaric practices, but also it saw the liberation of women as an important
means to mobilize the national minorities of Central Asia behind the
Bolshevik Revolution. ZhenotdeTs strategy in Central Asia was to crystallize
discontent around the women’s question and channel it into the all-round
socialist transformation o f society. Asian women were recruited and trained
to staff the new political and social institutions, thereby rooting the new
Soviet forms in the national minority communities.
The Zhenotdel encouraged women to initiate divorce proceedings; trad­
itionally this was the prerogative of men, for whom obtaining a divorce was
very easy. Legal advice centres were set up by the Zhenotdel to help Asian
women learn about, and fight for, their new rights. The new civic and
property rights established by the Revolution were enforced in order to help
release the grip o f Islamic traditions on relations between the sexes. Women
were recruited into professional and administrative positions with a con­
siderable degree of success, thus breaking the monopoly of men. The
Zhenotdel established women’s clubs which engaged in ‘consciousness-raising’.
Women were encouraged to discuss their problems within the framework of
Marxist theory, and the backwardness imposed by the previous social order
was contrasted with the liberating potential of socialism.
Although the Zhenotdel itself was dissolved in 1929, the campaign against
traditional patriarchal practices continued to be actively pursued until the
backbone of traditional resistance was crushed. The process was intensified
during the collectivization of agriculture and the rapid industrialization of
the 1930s and 1940s. Women’s councils were established both on the
collective farms and in new industries o f Central Asia, and functioned to Tight
the ‘survivals of the past way of life’, to politically educate women, and to
attract them away from the home and into public industry.8
The success of Soviet policy on women was highlighted by the number of
Asian women in top professional, governmental and administrative positions
in Central Asia in the 1970s. There were 18 Uzbek women of cabinet or
immediate sub-cabinet rank in the Uzbek Republic in the early 1970s; and
116 women were heads or assistant heads of major industrial enter­
prises. Eighteen percent of all judges in Uzbekistan were women (this
compares with 3% in the US). The ratio of Uzbek women PhDs to the
Uzbek population was six times higher than the ratio of black women
PhDs to American blacks. By 1970, the high school enrolment for Uzbek
girls was exactly proportionate to the percentage (49%) of the Uzbek
population that was female; in 1955, of the total enrolment, only 25% had
been girls. Although in these respects Uzbekistan is perhaps the most
advanced of all the Central Asian Republics, comparable advances have been
achieved in the rest of Central Asia.
The Soviet system’s contribution to liberating Asian women of Islamic
backgrounds must be contrasted with the contemporary condition of women
in capitalist or semi-feudal Islamic countries. The majority of Arab countries

106
 Women in the USSR

in the 1970s did not permit women to vote. In most Islamic countries the
majority of women are illiterate and few rural girls receive any formal
schooling. In only a handful of Arab countries (e.g. Algeria, Sudan) is any
significant proportion of women employed outside the home; patriarchy is
the rule in the family, and wives are subjected not only to the whims of their
husbands and fathers, but to those of their mothers-in-law; throughout most
of the Arab world, divorce is still the prerogative of the male. For women,
pre-marital chastity, and total constancy to her husband after marriage
are decreed, while for men consorting with prostitutes is the norm. It is still
common throughout most of the Islamic world for the brothers or husbands
of women who have had pre- or extra-marital relationships to kill them for
the sake of family ‘honour’.9

The Family, Housework and Child-care

The Soviet system has wrought fundamental changes in the relative status and
power of the sexes within marriage. Legal rights and economic roles have
been radically transformed, the division of labour, decision making within
the family, and the relative importance o f domestic labour for women, have
been significantly changed. The majority of wives are at least as well
educated as their husbands and, especially among younger women, most
wives work full-time outside the home throughout their lives. These facts,
combined with the Soviet marriage code and Communist Party policy on the
equality of the sexes, have obviously deeply affected personal and domestic
relations, even though considerable remnants of older practices still exist.
The growing economic independence of women is reflected in the trends
in the Soviet divorce rate. In 1960, there were 104 divorces per 1,000
marriages, in 1975 there were 325. Apparently neither men nor women are
prepared to maintain unsatisfactory relationships.
Soviet women spend considerably less time on housework than was the
pre-Revolutionary norm, and relative to women (and men) in capitalist
countries. This is partly because housework has to some extent become
mechanized (but far less than in the US) and socialized and partly because
men now participate to a greater degree than was customary. Various studies
on the relative time spent on housework by women and men in the urban
areas of the USSR reveal that household chores are likely to be fairly equally
divided when both marriage partners have full-time jobs outside the home,
particularly in the younger age groups.10 In the US, on the other hand, the
tendency is for men to spend much less time on housework than do women.“
While in the USSR in the 1923-24 period only about 20% of the male’s
contribution to total working time (i.e. time spent on work outside the home,
work related activity, and housework) was committed to housework
compared to 42% of the women’s, in 1972-73 40% of the man’s, compared
to 48% of the woman’s was so spent. McAuley found that in 1972-73 women
spent an average of 37.1 hours weekly on housework and related activity and

107
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

men 29.9 hours. This meant that men spent four-fifths as much time on
housework as women - a rather radical change from the comparable per­
centage of two-fifths as much as women in 1923-24.12 It thus appears that
the introduction of women into the labour force has produced a rather
radical transformation in the responsiblity for housework within the Soviet
family. The traditional 4double day’ with housekeeping and child-care as the
wife’s responsibility would seem to be largely a thing of the past (although
still common among older and more rural couples).*
In the USSR the most radical change in women’s traditional household
responsibilities has been effected by the socialization of child care, primarily
in the form of day care centres for families in which both parents work.
Subsidized day care is available for all urban and most rural families that
desire it. In 1970, there were 103,000 day care centres in the USSR, and
120,000 in 1977, with an enrolment of 12.7 million. The enrolment figure
in 1970 was 9.3 million; in 1960 4.4 million and in 1940 1.1 million. The
1970 figure represents more than 50% of all urban pre-school children and
about 33 V3% of rural children.13 This compares with about 10% of pre­
school children in the US in 1970 who attended day care centres.14 Day
care centres are located both in neighbourhoods and at places of employ­
ment. Soviet legislation requires that all factories with a work force of more
than 500 employees must maintain creches.15
The very extensive day care system is supplemented by a rapidly growing
system of extended day schools, which offer a variety of after school
programmes while parents are still at work. In 1970-71, about 5.2 million
children were enrolled in such institutions (up from .6 million in I960).16
Nurseries for children under three years old are supervised by the Ministry
of Health; in 1977, about one-third of all children in all day care centres
(about 3.7 million) were in this age category. Kindergartens for children
from three to seven years old are supervised by the Ministry of Education,
and provide some basic education and social training.17 The policy of Soviet
day care centres is to foster a spirit of co-operation and sharing. According
to Western observers they seem to be successful in this. The youngest
children engage in group play in communal playpens; while older children

* Lapidus (1978, p. 271) argues on the basis of other studies that women stUl do the
bulk o f the housework in the USSR. She cites studies which purport to show that the
average husband puts 8% of his time into housewodc, compared to the average wife’s
19%. It seems that the discrepancies between the findings of Lapidus and McAuley lie
in the latter’s much broader definition of housework than the former’s. For example,
it appears that the bulk of time men spend in child-care is excluded in the Lapidus
studies, as is probably home repair and ’handyman’ type of housework. It is clear,
however, that when all categories of contributions to the family are considered: work,
work related activity and all family responsibilities around the house including child­
care, that men and women in the Soviet Union now spend about equal amounts of
time, while at the same time, in the typical family both the husband and wife work
outside the home at a full time waged job.

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 Women in the USSR

are organized into small groups for collective play:18

In the late 1960s the state covered about 80% of the costs of the running
o f pre-school institutions, with the balance made up from fees and contri­
butions from unions and enterprises.19 Party policy is gradually to abolish
all fees for day care. Fees vary from three to eight roubles a month (about
$5 to $12) according to parents’ income, and must not exceed 2-3% of
that income. The scale o f payments rises for 24-hour child care. Reductions
o f 25% to 50% are available for lower income families, those who maintain
more than one child in child care centres, children of war widows, and
children o f single mothers who earn less than 60 roubles a month. Families
with four or more children also receive a reduction of 50%.
In addition to paying most o f the cost o f socialized child care (including
that of feeding children while in the creches) the state also provides various
family allowances to aid the economic support of children in the home.
Women who have two or more children are given a grant at the birth o f the
third and all successive children: from 20 roubles for the third child to 250
roubles for the eleventh and subsequent children, plus a monthly allowance
o f four roubles a month for the fourth child, rising to 15 roubles a month for
the eleventh and subsequent children. Working women who become pregnant
receive a set sum o f money to help with the purchase of necessary equip­
ment for the child. Unless the father is supporting the children, single
mothers receive an allowance o f five roubles a month for one child, 7.5 for
two, and 10 per month for three or more.31 Since 1974 all families with a
per capita monthly income of less than 50 roubles have had a monthly in­
come supplement o f 12 roubles until the child’s eighth birthday.23 These
programmes are both a manifestation o f the stated goal o f Soviet welfare
policy increasingly to distribute society’s resources on the basis o f need,
and to provide a material incentive to lighten the economic burden o f child
care in order to increase the birth rate, which, largely because women are
more work oriented than family oriented, has declined below replacement
levels throughout much o f the USSR.
Abortions are available on demand, with a standard fee of five roubles
(about $8), unless a woman’s monthly income is less than 60 roubles, or, if
the operation is performed for medical reasons, there is no fee.23 A conse­
quence of this cheap and easy access to abortions, however, seems to be
a careless attitude towards contraception. Inter-uterine Devices (lUDs)
are available and, since 1968, their use has been encouraged as a matter of
state and Party policy, but few women make use of them. In the mid-1970s
condoms and the practice of coitus mterruptus were the most common
forms of birth control, with about half the women stating that their partners
used condoms, and one-third that they employed coitus interruptus\
spermicidal foam was also used.34 The PID is available, although not generally
encouraged, both because o f doctors’ and women’s concern about its effect
on health.
While Soviet women on average each have about six abortions over the
course o f their reproductive live, 5 the US Population Council estimated

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

that for the USSR in the mid-1960s for every live birth there were approx­
imately 2.5 abortions. In 1977 the ratio of (legal) abortions to live births
in the US was .4, or one-sixth the Soviet rate. This represents an average of
one legal abortion per woman during her life.26

Education
Before the 1917 Revolution illiteracy was widespread among peasant women;
88% of all Russian women were illiterate,27 and in the Asian areas almost
100%. Even primary level education was the exception, especially in the
rural areas where approximately 90% of the female population lived. By
the end of the 1930s almost all girls, even those in rural areas, received some
formal education, and illiteracy among women was virtually eliminated.
By the 1960s primary and secondary education became universal for both
sexes throughout the USSR.
ln 1939, of females over ten years old, only 9% had completed secondary
education, compared to 13% of males in the same age group. By 1977 the
percentage had risen to 55% of females and 63% of males. The 1977 ñgure
indicates an increase o f more than six times in the probability of women
having a secondary education over the 1939-77 period; in fact, by 1959
more than half (53%) of all (men and women) who had completed secondary
school were women.
In 1939 only .5% of all women over ten years old had a higher education,
compared to 1.1 % of all men. But by 1977 5% of all women over the age of
ten had completed higher education, compared to 6% of all men. This repre­
sents an increase of over ten times in the probability of a woman receiving a
higher education and the almost total elimination of the gap between the
sexes. The smali remaining differential is a product of more favourable
opportunities for men in the past, rather than of recent graduation ratios.
In fact, while in 1939 32% of all higher education graduates were women, by
1970 women had achieved parity - being then 49% of all graduates.28
In the US in 1978 slightly more men aged 25 or more had completed
high school than had women (65%). In this year in the US the percentage of
women to men who had completed secondary education was 98%, compared
to the 1977 Soviet average of 87%. It should be noted, however, that while
the differential advantage of men in the USSR is being rapidly undermined,
the opposite trend has been occurring in the US. In 1960 in the US, the
median years of school completed by women was half a year more than for
men, but by 1978 it was one fifth of a year less.29 While the slight
educational advantage for men in the USSR is as a result of educational
practices in the i920s and 1930s, the declining position of women in
comparison with men in total education received in the US seems to be a
product of contemporary conditions.
In the USA in 1978, 19.7% of men (25 or older) had a college degree,
compared to 12.2% of woftien.30 The probability for women to receive a

110
 Women in the USSR

higher education in the US is thus .62 that of men; the equivalent Soviet
ratio is .82.
Table 4.1 illustrates the relative position of women in higher education in
the USSR and the USA. It can be seen that in almost all areas Soviet women
are significantly ahead of their US counterparts. The remarkable improve­
ment in Soviet women’s position is strikingly demonstrated by the fact that
in many cases by the 1960s Soviet women had made much more progress
than US women had achieved by the late 1970s (see Table 4.1).

Table 4.1
Women’s Higher Educational Achievements: Some Comparisons between
the USSR and the USA

Field Degree Year Percentage

USSR Economics/Law All degrees 1975-76 62%

USA Economics Undergraduate 1977 23%
Law All degrees 1977 13%
Economics Ph.D. 1977 11%
USSR Engineering Undergraduate 1975-76 40%
USA Engineering Undergrad and MS. 1977 4.5%
USSR Biology Undergraduate early 1960s 75%
USA Biology Undergraduate 1977 36%
USSR Chemistry All degrees early 1960s 67%
USA Chemistry Undergraduate 1977 23%
Chemistry PhD 1977 12%
USSR Mathematics Undergraduate early 1960s 45%
USA Mathematics Undergraduate 1977 42%
USSR Physics All degrees early 1960s 33%
USA Physics Undergraduate 1977 12%
Physics PhD 1977 6%

Sources: Dodge, 1966; Lapidus, 1978;McAuly, 1981.

* The years for which the comparisons are made are those in which the studies
available in English report data. The fact that the Soviet data is usually about
15 years earlier than the US data makes the Soviet figures all the more striking.
It is clear that relative to men: (I) women are more likely to receive
either a basic university education or a doctorate degree in the USSR than
in the USA; (2) Soviet women are much more likely to be found in the
subjects traditionally virtually reserved for men in the USA —especially
engineering, economics, law, and the natural sciences, where the relative
probability of earning a university degree averages about three times higher
in the USSR than in the U S A /1 In summary, the Soviets are now on par with

III
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

the US in the probability o f providing basic education through secondary

school to both sexes. The Soviets surpass the US in the differential prob­
ability of women completing college and graduate school, and the number
of women graduates in the fields of law and economics, physics, chemistry
and the other natural sciences.
The rapid expansion of women’s position in advanced education was
deliberate Party and state policy, effected in part by a quota system designed
especially to assist women from peasant and worker backgrounds. For
example, in 1929 a quota of 25% was set for chemical and textile technical
schools. Higher education institutions were assigned a minimum quota of
20% for industrial specializations, 30% for agricultural faculties and 35%
for socio-economic specialties.32

Labour Outside die Home

In 1922, 25% of the total Soviet labour force (male and female) was female,
in 1940, 39%, and throughout the 1970s, 51% (roughly the proportion of
women in the population). The labour force participation rate for women
(the percentage o f all women who worked) in the USSR in 1975 was 83.1%
for womenl6-54 (compared to 62.7% in 1960). This compares with a
55.7% labour-force participation rate for US women in the same age group
at the same time.33 In the US in the mid-1970s women represented 39%
of the entire labour force, in Italy 28%, in France 35%, in Spain 21%.
The most rapid increase in the percentage of women workers has occurred
in the USSR’s national minority areas, especially the traditionally Islamic
Republics. Between 1933 and 1964 the percentage of all workers who were
women increased from 19% to 39% in Turkmenistan; in Tadzhikistan from
23% to 37%; in Kirgizia from 21% to 43%; in Uzbekistan from 27% to 40%;
and in Azerbaidzhán from 24% to 39%.?* These figures compared with the
Russian Republics’ percentages of 32% and 51%.
In 1975, women were 28% of all Soviet construction workers, compared
to about 2% in the US at approximately the same time. In the same year
they were 24% of all transportation workers (compared to 8% in the US);
42% o f metal and machinery workers (compared to 3% in the US). In general,
women are much more integrated into the skilled and central industrial
occupations in the USSR than they are in the USA.34
Soviet women have made the most rapid progress in those industries
which traditionally had been virtually closed to them. In 1926, only 1% of
machinists and machine adjusters were women, in 1959 they comprised 6%
and in 1964 9%, representing a 50% increase from 1959-64.36 In the mid-
1970s about 25% of USSR master crafts workers were women,37and in the
US in 1975 women comprised 4.6% of draftsmen and kindred’.3®
Equal pay for equal work is the rule in the Soviet Union but the differ­
ential occupational distribution, although much less than in the West,
remains quite significant. Women are concentrated in relatively low paid

112
 Women in the USSR

jobs (e.g. white collar work, light industry), while men are disproportionately
in more highly paid employment in heavy industry, skilled manual work,
mining and administration.39
Table 4.2 gives the sectoral distribution of Soviet women in paid employ­
ment. The average pay in those sectors in which women comprised less than
40% of the total work force in 1975 was 175 roubles per month, while in
those sectors in which they comprised 60% or more, it was 118 roubles
per month. Thus, predominantly female sectors tend to receive about two-
thirds the pay of predominantly male sectors.

Table 4.2
Distribution of Women Workers and Employees and Average Monthly
Earnings, by Economic Sector, 1975 (USSR)

Number o f Women as A verage M onthly

Women Percentage Earnings
Workers and o f Labour (Roubles)
Economic Sector Employees Force

Construction 3,002,000 28 176.8

Transport 2,211,000 24 173.5
Industry (production
personnel) 1,662,000 49 162.0
Science and scientific
services 2,015,000 50 155.4
Nationwide average 52,539,000 51 145.8
Credit and state insurance 423,000 82 133.8
Apparatus of government
and economic
administration 1,457,000 65 130.6
Education 5,904,000 73 126.9
Agriculture 4,530,000 44 126.8
Communications 1,042,000 68 123.6
Housing and municipal
economy, everyday
services 2,010,000 53 109.0
Trade, public catering,
materials & equipment.
supply and sales 6,763,000 76 108.7
Arts 207,000 47 103.1
Public health, physical
culture, social welfare 4,851,000 84 1023
Culture 747,000 73 92.2

Sources: TsentraTnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR

v 1975g. (Moscow, 1976), pp. 542-43; 546-7 (cited in Lapidus, 1978:192).

113
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

The income differential between men and women in socialist countries

in general (and in the USSR in specific) is somewhat less than in the
advanced capitalist countries (and the USA in particular). In the USSR
the ratio of the average female to male wage in 1972-73 was .66. In
Czechoslovakia and Poland in the 1970-72 period, it was .67, and in Hungary
.73. On the other hand it was .59 in the United States, .62 in the UK and .63
in France and Switzerland at about the same time.40 Studies of specific
industries in the USSR (as in the West) show a significantly smaller earning
differential than do the figures for the economy as a whole, indicating that
the bulk of the earning differential is effected by the occupational distri­
bution of women workers, rather than by direct pay discrimination for equal
work. For example, in 1973 in Kiev, the wages of cotton spinning industries
women were 86% of those paid to men, while in 1970 in the Leningrad
machine building industry, women’s wages were 73% o f those paid to men.41
The differential in pay is largely a result of men being both concentrated
in higher paying industries and in higher paying positions within given
Industries. For example, in the construction industries, where women
comprise only 2$% of the labour force, their average monthly earnings in
1975 were 176.8 roubles and in transport, where they were 24% of the
total labour force, their average monthly earnings were 173.5 roubles. In
contrast in trade where women comprise 76% o f the total labour force, their
average monthly earnings were 108.7 roubles, and in public health and social
welfare, where 84% are women, their monthly earnings were 102.3 roubles.
It should be noted, however, that in some occupations where monthly earn­
ings were above the national average, women accounted for about half the
labour force, e.g. production workers in science and industry; while in others,
where the average income was less than the national average, men made up
the majority, e.g. agriculture. But on average men do tend to be concentrated
in the higher paid occupations. The average monthly pay in those sectors
which comprised of less than 40% women workers was 175 roubles, while
in those sectors with 60% or more of women it was 118 roubles.42
The differential distribution of men and women in the occupation
structure lies in a combination of the effect of: (1) discontinuities in
women’s occupational careers, especially in her 20s and early 30s where
promotion and on-the-job training possibilities are lost to those without
major occupational breaks; (2) a greater orientation to family (especially
children) than to 'career’ among women; and, of less importance (3) protec­
tive legislation prohibiting the employment of women in especially dangerous
occupations or those that require exceptionally heavy lifting (e.g. such
occupations as coal-mining and aspects of heavy construction; these are
among the highest paying occupations in the USSR).
One study of the Russian Republic in the early 1970s found that 54%
of women workers had a break in their employment record compared to
only 10% of men. Twenty-three percent o f all women workers had at one
point or another been out of the active labour force for at least one
year.43 About 75% of breaks in women’s employment record were attributed

114
 Women in the USSR

to childbirth. To quote McAuley, Vomen still regard their occupations more

as a job, and less in terms of a career than do men; they are less responsible
to questions of career advancement.’44 Most Soviet sociologists and econo-
mists who study the question of earning differentials between men and
women attribute it primarily to differential child-care responsibilities.49
The effect of such responsibilities on advancement possibilities is manifested
in the reduced probability of working women who are also mothers attending
continuing education programmes. An early 1970s study found that 12%
of working women without children, compared to 5% of those with one
child and 3% of those with two children, were involved in a continuing
education programme.46
In 1941 in the USSR 31% of all economists were women, while in 1966
women comprised 63% of all economists. In the US in 1970 of all economists
11% were women. In 1970 74% o f USSR physicians were women, compared
to 9% in the USA in the same year, whilst in the Soviet Union in 1939
61% of physicians were women.47
In 1941 there were 44,000 women engineers in the Soviet Union, and by
1970 more than one million (about twice as many as were doctors), that
is, more women engineers in the Soviet Union than in the whole of the rest
of the world, almost as many as male engineers in the US and over 40 times
more than women engineers in the US.4* In 1970, women comprised 30% of
all engineers in the USSR, and 40% of all engineering students. This Geld of
occupation is thus becoming more sex balanced.
Between the end of World War II and the early 1970s, the percentage of
all USSR doctors who were women remained constant at around 75%,
declining as the 1970s drew to a close, and, given medical school enrolments,
this trend will continue. In the early 1970s about 56% of all medical students
were women. Medicine, like engineering, is thus tending to become a more
sex balanced profession. In 1970, there were more women physicians in the
USSR than throughout the rest of the world with about 20 times more than
in the US, (twice as many as male doctors in the US).49
Women within the professions are disproportionately concentrated in the
lower level and non-administrative positions, although to a lesser extent than
in the US. For example, Soviet women in the mid-1970s represented only
30% of surgeons (compared to 5% in the US), 50% of hospital administrators,
and 20% of medical school professors, while they comprised 90% of primary
care doctors - comparable percentages for the US are much lower.90
The percentage of all scientists and scientifíc technicians represented by
women gradually increased from 36% in the 1950s to 40% in 1976; in 1978,
in the US 18% of all scientists were women.51 The number of Soviet women
scientists with the approximate equivalent of the US PhD increased from
11,400 (25% of the total) in 1950 to 97,400 (28% of the total) in 1976.52
The number of Soviet women scientists with academic positions as associate
professor increased from 14.7% of all associate professors in 1950 to 22.9%
of all associate professors in 1976, while the percentage of all associate pro­
fessors who were men correspondingly declined from 85.3% to 77.1%.

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

In the US in 1969,15% of all associate professors were women, as were 9%

of full professors and 24% of assistant professors. In contrast, the percentage
of all US college faculties represented by women declined from 32% in 1950
to 18% in 1970.53
Women’s relative position within academic ranks in sciences in the USSR
improved considerably between 1970 and 1976. While in 1950 only about
15% o f all academic women held the high rank of associate professor, the
remaining 85% occupying other ranks, in 1976 almost 40% of all academic
women held this rank. In 1950, there were three times as many women in
the junior research associate and assistant categoiy as in the associate
professor category, but by 1976 these ranks had equal numbers of women.54
Nevertheless, women remain disproportionately concentrated in the relatively
lower positions within the sciences, although to a lesser extent than in the
West. It is necessary to note that, in 1977, the powerful USSR Academy of
Sciences had only 14 women members out of a total of 749.ss
Compared to their position in the professions, Soviet women have been
less successful in attaining administrative positions, but considered in relation
to their earlier position in Russian society and to that of women in the West
(both in countries at similar levels of economic development and such highly
advanced countries as the USA), they have done very well.
In 1975 in the USSR, women were 9% of all directors of industrial enter­
prises, compared to 1% in 1955, while in the US in 1970 women still
comprised just 1% of industrial directors. Overall, in 1970 Soviet women
held 16% of all managerial positions in economic enterprises, compared to
7% in the USA in the same year. Women were much more likely to hold
managerial positions in retail enterprises and the services than in industry
both in the USSR and the USA. For example, in 1970, Soviet women held
64% of all managerial positions in the retail industry, compared to 34% for
US women.56
In the USSR the possession of an engineering degree is a virtual pre­
requisite for a managerial position in industry. Women are a rapidly growing
percentage of all engineers, and this, together with the rapidly increasing
percentage of women managers in industrial enterprises, suggests that their
role in administrative positions will continue to expand. The previous pre­
dominance of men in higher managerial positions was largely as a result of
their early preponderance in engineering training, but this is no longer the
case for younger administrative personnel. The indication is that younger,
technically qualified women will increasingly be promoted to high level
positions of responsibility over time.
In educational institutions a similar pattern holds. In the 1955-56 period,
21% of the directors of secondary schools were women, in 1975-76, 29%;
the percentage o f women who are directors of primary schools increased
from 22% to 33% over the same period.57 The proportion of women school
administrators in the US has declined over the same period: in 1950, about
50% of all primary school principals were women, but by 1970 only about
20%. From about 6% of all high school principals the percentage declined

116
 Women in the USSR

to 1.4% over the same period. In 1970, there were 50 times as many women
high school principals in the Soviet Union as in the United States. In
institutions o f higher education in the USSR in 1950, 12% of department
heads, 7% of deans and 4.8% of directors were women; in 1960 these figures
were 12%, 9% and 53% .59 In Soviet research institutions in the early 1960s
women accounted for about one third of heads and deputy heads of branches,
21% of division heads and their deputies, and 16% o f directors and their
deputies.60
It has been suggested that the strong representation of women in science,
engineering, and especially medicine (predominantly a woman’s occupation)
is accounted for by the low prestige of these occupations, and therefore that
the extent of women’s participation in these fields should not be considered
particularly significant. The financial advantage of the engineering and
medical professions over manual labour, especially heavy industry and mining
is considerably less than in capitalist countries. In general the income differ­
ential between the professions and manual labour in the USSR is significantly
less than in the West; further, the manual working class fares particularly well
in relation to white collar and professional/managerial positions. Science,
engineering and medicine are, in fact, high prestige occupations in the Soviet
Union. A study of occupational prestige conducted amongst Leningrad
secondary school graduates found that the occupations carrying the highest
prestige are physicists, mathematicians and scientists, followed by cultural
workers and aircraft pilots; next were physicians, followed by university
teachers, and engineers.61 Another study, among Estonian students, found
physicians to have the highest prestige of all occupations, followed by
cultural workers, physicists, mathematicians and chemists, then engineers.62
The Leningrad secondary school graduates study also found that out of 40
occupational categories the most attractive career choice for women was that
o f physician; among the young men it was ranked as the tenth most
attractive, after science, and chemical and mechanical engineering, but ahead
of university teaching and construction or metallurgical engineering.63
In the US physicians have a particularly high prestige rating. In 1963,
on a list of 90 occupations, physicians were ranked second in status, led only
by Supreme Court Justices, followed immediately by scientists, and then
top government officials. Civil engineers ranked at 21.5 on the 1 to 90
ranking, rather lower than in the Soviet Union.64

Protective Legislation
After the October 1917 Revolution special protective legislation for women
workers was instituted. The Soviet Labour Code established provisions for
the protection of women’s health at work while outlawing types of work that
might endanger their ability to have children or the health of any such
children. Limits were placed on the number of hours women could work,
and certain types o f especially dangerous and heavy work were reserved for

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

men.65 The current Soviet labour code forbids enterprises to employ women
in any activities which might be hazardous to their health; this is now con­
sidered to include work underground. Pregnant or nursing women, or those
who have children under the age of one year may not be assigned overtime
work. Women with children under the age of eight years may not be sent on
out-of-town assignments, or required to work overtime, or on swing or
‘graveyard* shifts without their consent. Pregnant women, nursing mothers
and mothers with children below the age of one year, who are normally
employed in manual labour, must be assigned lighter work, but with no
reduction in pay. Women receive 56 days of paid leave both before and after
giving birth; this is extended to 70 days for multiple or abnormal births.
Women can choose to extend their leave, on an unpaid basis, for up to one
year after giving birth without jeopardizing their seniority.66 Enterprises
are forbidden to refuse jobs to pregnant and nursing women, to reduce their
pay or to dismiss them, also nursing mothers are entitled to a shorter work
day. A new woman graduate who is pregnant or who has children under one
year of age is guaranteed work in her speciality in an enterprise proximate
to her family residence. Further, as special compensation for their respons­
ibilities both as mothers and workers outside the home, the retirement age
for women is five years earlier than that for men (55), with pensions being
granted after 20 years, instead of the 25 required for men.67

Women in Political Positions

Women Members of the Communist Party as a Percentage of Total
Membership
1920 7.4
1939 14.5
1966 20.6
1971 22.2
1976 24.3
1981 26.5*

In 1961 there were 1,809,688 women Party members, and in 1981

4,615,5 7Ö.69 In the period 1976-80, 32.2% of candidate Party members
were women; and of the 5,000 delegates at the Party’s 26th Congress in
1980, 26.6% were women.'70 In 1975-76, 31.5% and in 1980-81, 35.1%
of the Secretaries (leading administrative post) in the Party’s primary
organizations were women.71
The higher in the leadership and administrative structure the fewer
women are to be found. At the time of the Revolution, three women
served on the Central Committee of the Communist Party - 10% of the
total; in the 1930s also an average of three women served on this body,
then representing 2.5% of the total. In the 1970s, there were 14-15
women on the Central Committee, about 3.5% of the total. Of the 23

118
 Women in the USSR

members of the Politburo, the day-to-day leading body of the Party, in the
mid-1970s none were women.72
In the state apparatus, women fare rather better, especially as delegates
to the various levels o f the Soviet legislature (Soviets). In 1920, the
participation of women in the politically active local Soviets in the urban
areas was 1%; in 1934,32%; stabilizing until the mid-1950s when it began
to increase again.73 The proportion of women delegates has Increased at all
levels. In 1959, 27% of Supreme Soviet, 32% of Republic Soviet (more or
less equivalent to US state legislatures) and 41% o f local Soviet representa­
tives were women.74 In 1975,35% of the delegates to the Soviets of the
Republics and 48% of the representatives to the local Soviets, were women.
In 1979 33% of the delegates to the Supreme Soviet were women.75
In 1973, women held 47% of all elective positions (legislative, admin­
istrative and judicial) in the USSR.76 Between the mid-1950s and the end of
the 1970s only two women held ministerial rank in the Soviet government
(Ministers for Culture and Minister for Health). Considerable numbers of
women occupy lower level positions in the government administrative struc­
ture, although again they tend to be concentrated in such areas as cultural
affairs, health, social security, light industry and consumer related services.77
In 1970, 56% of the heads of Soviet Trade Union Branches were women,
compared to 5% in the USA, although here, too, women are more likely to
be found as head of the local rather than national unions.78 In the judiciary,
in 1972, approximately one third of all judges were women, compared with
2-3% in the USA.79
In the USA, in 1977, 7.8% of all elected local officials (mayors, local
councils) were women,80 and in 1974 3.4% of all Congress members
(Senators and Representatives), 8.0% of all state legislators, and 2% of all
state governors were women. In the Nixon administration there was one
women, in the Carter administration two, and at the beginning of the
Reagan administration (excluding the position of UN ambassador) none.81
Thus, during the 1970s in the US there was an average of one woman at the
ministerial level at any given time. There has never been a woman in the US
equivalent of the Soviet Politburo, that is: the Presidency, Vice-Presidency,
Secretary o f State, Attorney General, Secretary o f the Treasury, Secretary
of Defence, Director o f the CIA and head of the principal financial
institutions and top industrial corporations. In the Supreme Soviet the
percentage o f women is almost ten times greater than the percentage of
women in the US Congress, in the more important Central Committee of the
CPSU it is the same as in the US Congress: about 3.5%. Likewise, the propor­
tion of women holding ministerial positions in the two countries is equiv­
alent. At the Republic/State level the proportion represented by women is
four times higher in the USSR than in the US. On the local level the Soviet
figures are three to six times higher than in the US (depending on whether
party membership, headship of local party units or local elected positions
are compared). In summary, women are in a far better position at the local
and intermediate levels of the political structure in the USSR than they

119
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

are in the US, but are very rare at the very top levels in either country.

Analysis
The Soviet achievement in advancing the position of women both in
relationship to their own recent (pre-1917) past and to comparable countries
in the West (including even the most industrially advanced capitalist
countries) is considerable. Women have been fully ‘integrated into public
industry’, and the family ‘as the economic unit of society’ has been abolished.
Women are considerably more independent of men, and far greater oppor­
tunities are open to them than ever before, or that exist for women in
comparable capitalist countries. Nevertheless, there are two facts which,
although of less significance than Soviet accomplishments, require careful
scrutiny: 1) that relatively few women attain managerial positions,
especially at the highest levels; and 2) the rarity of women in top party
positions, and as government ministers.
Are these as a result o f discriminatory policies of educational institutions
and hiring and promotion policies? Or of differential sex role socialization,
custom, and the inertia of traditional attitudes that in the face of Party
policy, either die hard or persist because the schools and the Party have not
given adequate attention to undermining them? It is assumed that the innate
potentials for accomplishment of both sexes in creative and administrative
roles is equal and that there is no differential sexual distribution of maternal
or familial inclinations; (this is the traditional Marxist and behaviourist
assumption).
Nevertheless, patriarchal values (attenuated to be sure) continue to be
socialized into children, mainly through the family .and to a lesser extent in
schools. But in addition to Party and government efforts to transform these
values, the realities of urban working class and professional life, with their
different demands on husbands and wives, and especially the abolition of
the family as the economic unit of society vis-à-vis women achieving full
economic independence, seem to be transforming the traditional inter­
personal relationship between the sexes. Under this dual pressure it is
reasonable to assume that household responsibilities will increasingly be
shared.
Evidence on schooling has demonstrated that in recent years the quality
or quantity of education received by women and men is equal, and that the
career prospects of women are not affected by any discrimination on this
account. Among older people, however, who predominate in the leading
administrative, Party and government posts, men are considerably better
educated than women, reflecting earlier educational practices. Part of the
differential, at least in high level administrative positions, must be
attributed to this factor, as the rapidly increasing proportion of women
administrators seems to indicate, as well as does the rising percentage of
women engineering graduates. But that the abolition of educational

120
 Women in the USSR

inequalities seems not to have affected the paucity o f women in top

ministerial and Party posts should not be overlooked.
That professional women are not overtly discriminated against in
promotional policies (those with greater achievements are promoted regard­
less of sex) seems to be confirmed by studies of the productivity and
accomplishments of women scientists and professionals. Women’s contribu­
tions in professional journals is significantly less than their proportion in all
the major professions. Women receive very few Lenin prizes or other rewards
for major scientific accomplishments.82 Such indicators may lead us to
speculate that rather than being overtly discriminated against in the
professions, women are perhaps in good part promoted in spite of relatively
poor performance levels (i.e. because of seniority and quotas), but lacking a
good analysis of the quality of women’s and men’s publications and
accomplishments this cannot be asserted.
Overt discrimination in hiring and promotion would be reflected in higher
than average achievement by those who are discriminated against. To be
hired or promoted in spite of overt discrimination, implies that an individ­
ual’s accomplishments are better than the average for people not
discriminated against. Such, for example, has classically been the case for
black athletes in professional sports in the US and for Jewish students when
there were quotas for Jews, but this appears not to apply to Soviet
professional women.
There are no studies on Soviet administrators comparable to the studies
on Soviet professionals, so possibly, women’s accomplishments here are
superior to those of the average men in similar positions, i.e. that overt
discrimination could be occurring here. Evidence suggests, however, that
women’s relatively inferior position in managerial positions is owing to the
inertia o f custom and tradition rather that overt discrimination. The
persistence of custom and tradition, as we have suggested, affects not only
older people but younger as well. That this may in part account for the
under-representation o f women in managerial positions is implied by the
significant changes over time in the percentage o f administrative positions
filled by women.
Soviet education involves much less sex typing than in the West, but it
is not entirely absent. Few, if any, jobs are explicitly portrayed as closed to
women; primary school textbooks feature grandmothers who are construc­
tion engineers and mothers who drive heavy equipment. Women are not
portrayed as primarily wives, mothers and/or sex objects either in textbooks
or the mass media, but more often than men they are portrayed in caring
roles, for example, crying children typically turn for comfort to a woman
rather than a man. The curricula in Soviet schools is the same for both
sexes, but for labour training sessions, the sexes are often separated, with
more emphasis given to domestic skills for girls, and more to such skills as
basic metalworking and carpentry for boys. Thus, boys are subtly
encouraged to envisage their futures primarily in terms of jobs and career
achievement, while girls, somewhat more in terms of motherhood, as well as

121
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

career achievement.83 While in the West, however, mass media extols the
housewife/sex object image, in the USSR the accomplishments of women
scientists, astronauts and other professionals are celebrated. It is deliberate
Party policy to encourage a career orientation among girls and women.84
Virtually all Western observers agree that the majority of Soviet pro­
fessional women in good part still identify with women’s traditional role as
wife and mother, while being at the same time career oriented ; my own
conversations with Soviet women confirm this. Opinions on the proportion
of child care and housework women consider men should do seem to vary
considerably among even professional women. While many women feel that
men should not share equally in housework, the conviction that women
should have an independent career or occupation appears to be nearly
unanimous. Soviet women generally prefer occupations which require less
than an eight hour day/five day week, In order to have sufficient time for
family affairs.85 One reason why the medical profession is so popular with
Soviet women Is that the normal working day for doctors is six hours. Appar­
ently those occupations and positions which require less than a total
commitment of time and energy are preferred by Soviet women, even when
their experience and education fully qualify them for highly responsible
jobs. Women’s greater commitment to the family and associated respons­
ibilities, both because of their desire for such a role, and men’s failure to
assume equal responsibilities when women wish them to do so, naturally
distracts from career advancement, especially in administrative and political
leadership positions in which more or less full time commitment is required.
It should be noted that full time working women annually take about six
more days off work for ‘family reasons’, for example, caring for sick
children, than do men.86
Studies have shown that significantly more Soviet men than women base
their choice of career on job interest - 42% and 28% respectively. More
women (55%) than men (43%) choose their job because ‘circumstances
allowed no alternative’. Soviet researchers attribute these differential motives
to the fact that women choose work that fits into their husbands’ career and
their family commitments more often than vice versa; these considerations
put restrictions on location, as well as working hours.87
The majority of men, as well as women, in high level administrative posts,
or o f the appropriate age for top political and economic positions, were
socialized into the traditional values of the peasantry. In the 1970s 80% of
top Party and government positions were held by people whose parents were
either manual workers or peasants, whereas, for the scientific and technical
intelligentsia, the parents of 50% were members of the intelligentsia. Most of
those from urban manual working-class backgrounds grew up in families
which only recently migrated from the countryside, many during the period
of rapid industrialization after 1928. In common with the family structure
of other Soviet nationalities, that of the Russian peasant was patriarchal.
Owing to the forced industrialization in the 1930s, attitudes generated in
this structure were carried into the working class at an accelerated rate.

122
 Women in the USSR

While the emerging attitudes towards women’s role, strongly encouraged by

the mass media and education, differ significantly from the traditional pat­
riarchal attitudes, the prevalent working-class peasant attitudes of the 1930s
still weighed heavily on those who were 50 and over in the 1970s.
Perhaps the most perplexing fact about the position of women in the
USSR is the failure o f the proportion of women in top government ministries
and Party positions to increase over the last years. It might have been
expected that with women increasingly entering managerial jobs, together
with the Party’s deliberate policy to encourage women to have careers, more
women would have attained top positions. In order to encourage other
women, those who held positions of responsibility throughout the 1930s,
1940s and 1950s could have been promoted, either on the basis of their
past achievements or on that of their potential. Unlike in the United States,
the practice of placing token women in top positions (for example, it has
become the norm for there to be a woman cabinet member even if the
definition of 4the cabinet’ must be occasionally expanded to include the UN
representative in the case o f the Reagan administration) has not been thought
necessary. While it clearly could not be expected that women would have
achieved anything like equal membership in the Central Committee or top
government ministerial positions in the 1970s on the basis of equal achieve­
ments (given the weight of traditional socialization and the past differential
education),possibly there has been overt discrimination against qualified
women who have adequate achievements to be promoted into top level
positions. Such discrimination, to the extent it exists, is probably a result of
lingering patriarchal attitudes on the part o f the top (male) Party leadership
- mostly socialized during the first decades of Soviet power in peasant or
recently ex-peasant families.
As a new generation o f Soviet leaders emerges such attitudes should be
expected to decrease. How much the paucity of women in top leadership
positions is due to overt discrimination, how much to the persistence of
tradition and how much to the lack of equal training 20-30 years ago is
difficult to determine, but it would seem that the latter two factors probably
weigh the most heavily. Because o f the relatively high level of consciousness
of women in the USSR, combined with the legitimacy afforded to the
ideology o f the equality o f the sexes as a matter of active Party policy, it
is to be expected that unless significant progress is made in the relatively
near future, the Party leadership will experience considerable pressure from
women to change. It should not be forgotten that women have experienced
both a long term increase in their share of Party membership and a growing
share o f those in positions of lower and middle level responsibility in the
economic state and Party apparatus. Such women can1be expected to lead
a campaign for promotion into top level jobs.
The question o f why there are not eleven women on the Politburo, 200
women on the Central Committee or 24 women ministers must be seen in
perspective. For women as women the sex of the top leadership is of less
importance than the policies followed by the leadership which affect women.

123
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Whether or not a few hundred or even thousand women 'reach the top’ is
virtually irrelevant to the life chances and position of the 145 million Soviet
women. Overall policies on women of the past and present leadership have
been most progressive and, as has been seen, have resulted in the radical
improvement of women’s lot. In most respects it is difficult to see how these
policies could have been significantly improved upon, given the parameters
within which the Soviet system has had to operate: the need for rapid in­
dustrialization, to improve living standards and militarily to defend the
country, have largely dictated that increasing productivity and efficiency
must be always among the primary goals of Party policy. Consequently, from
time to time, egalitarian social measures have had to take a back seat.
However, a future, more feminine leadership might well press harder for
the mechanization and socialization of housework. Such a mixed leadership
would probably also press more for campaigns both to change women’s
lingering traditional attitudes towards family concerns which inhibit their
careers and to affect quotas (such as were instituted in the 1920s and 1930s
in educational institutions) to assist women to develop their potential, to
provide role models to inspire other women, and to overcome lingering
patriarchal attitudes among those who make promotional decisions.

Conclusion
In summary, problems remain, but clearly the Soviet Union has made
radical and rapid progress in resolving 'the women question’. From being
among the most backward countries in Europe, in so far as the subordin­
ation of women before the 1917 Revolution was concerned, two generations
of Soviet power have improved women’s position vis-à-vis men at least to
equal, and probably surpass, that of women in any country, however
wealthy. This transformation in the position of women must be ranked as
one of the principal accomplishments of the regime.
Even Western feminist critics of the USSR typically credit the Soviets
with having made considerable progress on the 'women question’. For
example, Lapidus, perhaps the most rigorous of Western feminist critics to
have recently written on the USSR, argues:

The decline of the family as a productive unit and the separation of

household from employment were not accompanied by the separation
of large numbers of women from social production, as in the develop­
ment of the European and American middle class. Instead, female
employment occurred in conditions less favourable to family needs
but more independent of family control. Finally, to the extent that
access to education, occupational status, and income became relatively
independent of the family unit, the bases of paternal authority were
further weakened.85

124
 Women in the USSR

. . . even if Soviet families are indeed undergoing a dramatic evolution

from a traditional, patriarchal form of organization characterized by
the subordination of women to a modem and egalitarian structure
in which authority and power are more equally shared, only compara*
tive investigations will make it possible to distinguish the effect of
changes in female resources from the effect of other macro-social
forces.
Dearly, Soviet ideology has altered the fundamental bases of female
status through its devaluation of domestic roles and its emphasis on
education and employment as the source of social prestige. It is also
likely that female access to education, employment, and independent
income enhance women’s freedom of choice in entering and leaving
marriage by reducing the value of the resources gained through marriage
relative to those obtainable outside it. These are by no means minor
matters, and they have enormous significance in and of themselves
for female status and opportunities for self-realization.86

The general opinion of most Soviet women, that their position has greatly
improved under the Soviet system, is also shared by the majority of women
émigrés. To cite Janear:

Although the female emigres I spoke with view the Soviet political
system as a contaminating environment, they share with women in
the Communist countries their enthusiasm for what the Communists
have done for women through legislation and the provision of com­
munal facilities. In one emigre’s view, a girl who gets an abortion in
Israel or in the United States is a social outcast, but this is not true in
the Soviet Union. Others criticize the absence of pre-school facilities
and the prevailing attitudes toward women who have large families.
The émigrés’ comments taken together appear to reflect a sense of
injustice about the Communist system which does not include Com­
munist policies toward women. The injustice covers such areas as the
monolithic state, the tyrannical and ruthless bureaucratic Party
hierarchy, religious and racial discrimination, and a host of other ills,
but not discrimination on the basis of sex.
Indirectly, the attitudes of the emigré women confirm the positive
identification with the Party and government of the successful women
interviewed within the Communist countries.. . . emigré women tend
to view the Party and government as having taken progressive steps
with regard to women.87

125
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

References
1. Lapidus, 1978, pp. 59-60.
2. Ibid., 116-7; Janear, 1978, p. 125.
3. Lapidus, 1978, p. 240.
4. Ibid.
5. George and Manning, 1980, p. 51.
6. St George, 1973, p. 110.
7. Lapidus, 1978, p. 66.
8. Ibid, pp. 61, 66, 67; Dodge, 1966, p. 53; Mandel, 1973, p. 173; Janear,
1978, pp. 59, 127.
9. Mandel, 1973, p. 174.
10. Ibid., pp. 265, 271; Mandel, 1975, pp. 169, 235; Dodge, 1966, pp. 93,
94; and especially McAuley, 1980, p. 183.
11. Handbook o f Women Workers, 1975, p. 174.
12. McAuley, 1981, p. 183.
13. Davis and Feshbach, 1980, p. 19; Lapidus, 1978, Table 2.
14. Krebs(ed.), 1976, p. 111.
15. Conquest, 1967, p. 136.
16. Lapidus, 1978, p. 134.
17. George and Manning, 1970, pp. 82-3; Davis and Feshbach, 1980, p. 19.
18* Dodge, 1966, p. 82.
19. Osborn, 1970, p. 58.
20. Ibid., p. 60; Conquest, 1967, p. 136; George and Manning, 1980, p. 82.
21. McAuley, 1979, p. 282; George and Manning, 1980, pp. 53, 54.
22. George and Manning, 1980, pp. 53-4.
23. St George, 1973, p. 106; Mandel, 1975, p. 116.
24. Mandel, 1975, pp. 238, 239, 263.
25. Davis and Feshbach, 1980, p. 13.
26. US Statistical Abstract, 1979, pp. 64, 69.
27. Bartol and Bartol, 1975, p. 527.
28. Lapidus, 1978, p. 153.
29. US Department of Commerce, 1980A, p. 145.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. 169; 1980B, p. 39.
32. Lapidus, 1978, p. 148.
33. Lapidus, 1978, pp. 162-6; Davis and Feshbach, 1980, p. 11 ; US
Department of Commerce, 1980b, pp. 456; McAuley, 1981, p. 37.
34. Dodge, 1966, p. 182.
35. Lapidus, 1978; Dodge, 1966, p. 112; Lane and O’Dell, 1978, p. 127.
36. Mandel, 1975, pp. 106-7..
37. Lane and O’Dell, 1978, p. 129.
38. US Department of Commerce, 1980A, p. 415.
39. Lapidus, 1978, pp. 186, 191-4.
40. See McAuley, 1981, pp. 23, 30.
41. Ibid., p. 25.
42. Lapidus, 1978, p. 192.
43. See McAuley, 1981, p. 193.
44. Ibid., p. 192.
45. Ibid., p.160.

126
 Women in the USSR

46. Ibid.
47. Ibid., p. 87; Bartol and Bartol, 1975, pp. 527-8.
48. Mandel, 1975, pp. 123, 127; Lapidus, 1978, pp. 182-3.
49. Dodge, 1966, p. 209; Mandel, 1975, pp. 128, 129.
50. George and Manning, 1980, p. 121.
51. US Department of Commerce, 1980b.
52. Lapidus, 1978, Table 9.
53. Deckard, 1975, pp. 138,335.
54. Lapidus, 1978, Table 9.
55. Ibid., p. 189.
56. Ibid., pp. 184-5; Bartol and Bartol, 1975, pp. 530-1 ; Mandel, 1975,
p. 133.
57. Lapidus, 1978, p. 187.
58. Mandel, 1975, p. 126.
59. Dodge, 1966, p. 207.
60. Ibid., p.245.
61. Lane and O’Dell, 1978, p. 75.
62. Ibid., p. 74.
63. Ibid., p. 75.
64. Bendix and Upset, 1966, p. 324.
65. Lapidus, 1978, p. 125; Janear, 1978, p. 126.
66. St George, 1978, pp. 108-9; Dodge, 1966, pp. 68-73.
67. Lapidus, 1978, p. 126.
68. Scherer, 1982, p. 31.
69. Ibid., pp. 28,31.
70. Ibid., p. 24.
71. Ibid.
72. Lapidus, 1980, p. 219; Janear, 1978, p. 89.
73. Ibid., p. 204.
74. Ibid., p.205.
75. Scherer, 1982, p. 23.
76. Mandel, 1975, p. 299.
77. Lapidus, 1978, pp. 17, 22, 216.
78. Mandel, 1975, p. 178.
79. Ibid., pp. 132, 176.
80. US Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract, 1980A, p. 513.
81. World Almanac, 1981 ; US Department of Commerce, 1980B, p. 86.
82. Dodge, 1966, pp. 227-42.
83. -Lane and O’Dell, 1978, pp. 64-5.
84. Dodge, 1966, pp. 232-3.
85. Lapidus, 1978, p. 248.
86. Ibid., p.265.
87. Janear, 1978, pp. 198-9.

127
5. Economic Rights

Basic economic rights include the right to eat, to a secure job, to a viable
standard of living, to participation in economic decision making, access to
medical care, and to education, adequate housing at a reasonable rate, and
adequate retirement and disability benefits. In general, the application of
such economic rights is more advanced in the Soviet Union than in any
Western country, including those on the same level of development as the
Soviet Union, and those most advanced Western capitalist countries, such as
the US and Japan. Some capitalist countries equal or even exceed the Soviet
Union in certain specific social security rights, such as medical care and
disability and retirement benefits, for example, the Scandinavian countries
and West Germany, but none match it overall.

living Standards
The real income of Soviet working people has been rather rapidly increasing
since the 1940s. For example, in the 1970-1980 period real disposable per­
sonal income increased by an annual average of about 3% a year (which
represented an increase of about one third in real income over the decade).
Over the entire 1940-1980 period the real wages of Soviet factory and office
workers increased by a factor of 3.7 times.1 By way of comparison it should
be noted that the real wages of all US workers declined by about 1% a year
over the 1970s and early 1980s.
The improvement in living standards has been especially marked for lower
income groups (particularly rural workers) and industrial workers owing to
an increased minimum wage, the elimination of the traditional urban-rural
differentials that favour the cities, the expansion of the social benefits which
favour lower income groups, and the implementation of wage policies that,
since the mid-1950s, have reduced income inequalities in the Soviet Union
quite sharply.2 Basic foodstuffs (for example, bread, meat, dairy produce,
potatoes) are heavily subsidized by the state, and luxury goods - such as
cars —are heavily taxed in order to secure funds for these subsidies. The
food stamp programme in the US, which subsidizes food purchases for the
poor, is the nearest equivalent. Housing and public transport in the USSR

128
 Economic Rights

are also heavily subsidized; the standard fare on the Soviet subway is five
kopecks (about eight cents) - a fare that has remained unchanged since the
1930s. Housing, medicine, transport and insurance account for an average
of 15% of a Soviet family’s income, compared to 50% In the US,3 while
such services as higher education and child-care are either free or heavily
subsidized.
The Soviets have increased both the quantity and quality of their diet
until it is now comparable to that of Western Europe. This is illustrated by
the data in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1
Nutrition: Comparative Figures for the USSR and the West: 1975-77

Average Intake Per Person Per Day

USSR USA UK W. Germany Sweden Italy

Calories 3,443* 3,552 3,247 3,376 3,152 3,463

Protein
(grams) 103** 107 81 86 93 98
Animal protein
(grams) 51*** 72 54 55 63 45

* An Increase of 5% since 1966-68

** An increase of 7% since 1966-68
An increase of 24% since 1966-68

Source: Food and Agricultural Organization, Production Yearbook, 1978

and 1981, Tables 9 7 ,9 8 ;see also Sivard, 1980, Table 3.

Imports
Agriculture and Grain
It has been claimed that because of the 'failure’ of Soviet agriculture the
USSR must resort to importing grain from the highly productive Western
capitalist economies in order to feed its people, and consequently that the
Soviet Union has become increasingly dependent on the capitalist world
system. Indeed, the US suspension of Soviet grain purchases in 1980 was
premised on this thesis. Let us look at both the trends in Soviet agriculture
and the role of the grain trade with‘the West.
Table 5.2 shows that between the 1956-61 and the 1975-79 periods the
Soviets increased their total grain production by a factor of 1.63 times. In
the latter years total Soviet production averaged 199 million metric tons a
year, compared to the 1956-61 average of 122 million. Soviet utilization of
grains, however, increased even more rapidly, from an annual average of
116 million metric tons to 215 million metric tons - an increase of 1.85

129
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Tabic 5.2
Soviet Grain (Millions of Metric Tons, Annual Averages)

Domestic Total Utilization

Annual Averages Production Im ports Exports Available Feed Food

1956-1961 122 1.2 6.6 116 37 43

(% of total available) 105% 1% 6% 100% 32% 37%
1975-1979 199 18 2.3 215 111 46
(% of total available) 93% 8% 1% 100% 52% 21%
Ratio o f 1956-61 to
1975-1979 average 1.63X 15X .35X 1.85X 3.OX 1.07X

Source: Judith Goldich, ‘USSR Grain and Oilseed Trade in the Seventies',
Soviet Economy in a Time o f Change, 1979, Vol. 11, p. 174.

times. From being a net exporter o f grains (5.4 million tons in the 1956-61
period) the Soviet Union became a net importer (16 million tons in the
1975-79 period).
In the 1956-61 period 37% of available Soviet grain was directly
consumed as human food and 32% was fed to animals. In contrast to the
1975-79 period, when only 21% went directly to human consumption (in
absolute terms only 7% more than in the earlier period), and over half (52%)
was.utiHzed as animal feed; this represented a threefold absolute increase in
grain fed to animals (see Table 5.2). This change reflects a major re­
orientation in Soviet consumer goods policies. In the late 1950s the Soviets
rapidly began to increase the meat, egg and dairy.product consumption of
the Soviet people by increasing the country's animal stock. In order to
do this rapidly and steadily there was a decision to import animal feed
(reversing the Soviet traditional role as a grain exporter), especially in those
years when there was a shortfall in Soviet production.4
Table 5.3 illustrates the Increase in Soviet cattle, hogs and poultry which
occurred in the period 1955 to 1979. In 1979 the Soviets had 114.4 million
head of cattle (2.02 times more than in 1955), 74.7 million hogs (2.41
times more than in 1955) and 940.9 million poultry (2.51 times more than
in 1955). It should be noted that while the number of cattle, hogs and
poultry in the US in 1955 was significantly greater than in the USSR, by the
late 1970s the Soviets had surpassed theXJS figure in every major category.
In 1979 the Soviets had three percent more cattle than did the US, 24%
more hogs and 133% more poultry.5
Not only has Soviet animal production increased in the last generation,
but Soviet agriculture in general has also radically increased its output over
this period. Between 1950 and 1977 total Soviet output in agriculture
increased by 147%, while during the same period US agriculture output

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Table 5.3
Soviet Livestock 1955-1979 (Million Head)

Cattle Hogs Poultry

1955 56.7 (100) 31.0 (100) 375.0 (100)

1960 74.2 (131) 53.4 (172) 5143 (137)
1965 87.1 (154) 52.8 (170) 456.2 (122)
1970 95.2(168) 56.1 (181) 5903(157)
1975 109.1 (192) 72.3 (233) 792.4 (211)
1979 114.4 (202) 74.7 (241) 940.9 (251)

1955-1979 Increase 2.02X 2.4 IX 2.51X

Source: Judith Goldich, ‘USSR Grain and Oilseed Trade in the Seventies’,
Soviet Economy in a Time o f Change, 1979, Vol. 11, p. 177.

increased by 64%. The Soviet rate of growth over this period (about 3.5%
a year) was more than double that of agricultural output in the US.6 In
terms of its dollar value, total Soviet farm output increased from 62% of US
output in the 1950-54 period to 86% in the 1975-77 period, mostly
accounted for by the value of livestock, which increased in dollar value
from 48% of the US total in the 1950-54 period, to 81% in the 1975-77
period. The dollar value o f crop production increased from 72% to 91% of
the US output.7
It should be noted that the Soviet increase in animal stock occurred
largely in the socialized sector (not on private plots). For example, while
in the period 1966-70 27.9% of cattle were privately owned by peasants, in
the 1976-78 period this was down to 20.6%; likewise, the percentage of hogs
owned individually by peasants decreased from 26.1% to 20.5% of the total.8
In general, the private plots have been significantly declining in importance.
In addition to their share of total animal production decreasing, their share
of total vegetable production fell from 41% of the total in 1965 to 31% in
1979 ; of milk, from 39% to 29%, and of eggs from 67% to 33%.9
Why then the periodic, rather large, purchases of animal feed from the
West? The geography o f the USSR is such that much of its crop land is vul­
nerable to climatic variations, and hence its crop yields vary considerably
from year to year, making steady increases in livestock and meat production
difficult tc maintain without imports of animal feed during bad crop years.
The growing season in the moist regions of the USSR is too short, while the
warmest regions of the USSR are too dry. Only about 10% of the total area
of the USSR combines sufficient moisture with adequate heat for all the
basic grain crops, compared to about 20% in the USA (including Alaska).
More than 30% of the USSR is too cold for any type of agriculture, while
an additional 40% is so cold that only hardy, early maturing crops can be

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

grown. In the US, cold is a limiting factor in only about 20% of its total
area, against 70% in the USSR.10 The much greater marginality of
utilizable land in the USSR is reflected in the annual variation in crop
yields. Soviet annual grain production varies by 12.7% a year, compared to
7.2% in the US. Wheat yield varies by 16.5% in the USSR, compared to 6.1%
in the US; corn yield by 14.1%, against 9.2%; oat yield by 14.8%against
8.3%, and barley yield 14.8%, against 6.8%.11
In summary, clearly the import o f grain for animal feed does not make
the Soviets dependent on the world capitalist economy. Net imports of
grain in the 1975-79 period, which averaged about 8% of total grain
utilized, were not significant enough to have an important effect on the
Soviet economy. A total cut-off of Western grain supplies would simply mean
a temporary increase in the slaughter rate of livestock and their slower
future growth rate. An initial culling of livestock by the Soviets would need
to be followed by stabilization o f the availability of feed by storing more
grain in good years for use in bad years, rather than relying on purchases
in the world grain market to even out the production in different years.
Moreover, the existence of a number o f major grain exporting countries in
the West, together with their tendency to over-produce, suggests the unlikeli­
hood of the Soviets being unable to import the marginal quantities needed
for their programme o f increasing meat consumption. The 1980-81
attempted grain boycott of the USSR seemed to show that grain farmers in
the West are more dependent on Soviet grain imports than the Soviets are
on the West.
As part o f their emphasis on increasing the consumption of meat and
dairy produce, the Soviet state, since 1965, has raised subsidies both on the
production and consumption of meat and dairy products by paying farmers
significantly more for these products than they are sold for in the stores.
In 1979, for example, the average price o f a kilogram of beef was 1.65
roubles, while the average price paid to producers was 3.21 roubles. The
state subsidy amounted to 48% of the retail price o f all meat and dairy
production, and in 1979 this represented about 9% of the total Soviet
budget.12

Technology
The Soviet Union is interested in accelerating the pace o f technical
modernization of its economy through importing high technology from the
West. In order to conserve scarce hard currency and avoid incurring serious
debts it has developed two forms of relationships with Western corporations;
counter-purchase agreements (which involve a straight barter trade of Soviet
products for Western products); and, increasingly more important, compen­
sation agreements (which comprise the import of Western high technology
goods into the Soviet Union in exchange for long term payment through a
proportion o f output from the imported technology).
One o f the most famous counter-purchase agreements has been with
Pepsi Cola. In this agreement Pepsi Cola ships Pepsi concentrate to the USSR

132
in exchange for an equivalent Soviet supply of vodka, which Pepsi sells in
the West. Another well known example of this kind is that with the
Occidental Corporation, which obtains Soviet ammonia in exchange for US
fertilizer.13
The USSR concluded more than 45 compensation agreements with
Western transnationals in the 1970s (worth a total of about $8 billion in
Western high technology imports). It is expected that hard currency savings
from these agreements will rise from about $1.5 billion in 1978 to about
$4 billion by 1985, that is the combined value of repayments in kind plus
actual hard currency earnings from additional exports from the facilities
constructed with foreign high technology imports.14 The total value of new
capital flow into the USSR in the 1973-75 period (the latest years for which
data could be obtained) averaged $961 million annually. This represented
.8% of total Soviet gross fixed investment, not a very significant proportion
of the total.15
Most o f the compensation agreements into which the Soviets have
entered have involved the import of equipment, for the production of either
natural gas or chemicals, in exchange for the long term repayment in natural
gas and chemicals produced through these imports. The first gas-for-pipe
deal designed to facilitate the export of natural gas to Europe was signed
with an Austrian Arm in 1968. Since then similar deals have been signed with
Italian, West German and French firms. Since 1978 the Soviets have been
able to import from the West pipe and pipeline equipment worth about
$2.8 billion; they had also imported $3.2 billion worth of chemical producing
equipment. It should be noted that most of the chemical deals usually call
only for an equivalent repayment in Soviet chemicals, while the gas-for-pipe
deals normally call for Soviet exports of much greater value than that
necessitated by repayment. The Soviets thus anticipate earning considerable
hard currency through the ongoing export of natural gas. A few compen­
sation agreements have also been signed with Japanese timber companies,
where logging and lumber transport equipment from Japan was exchanged
for wood and wood product exports from the USSR. Altogether, between
1968 and 1978, the Soviet Union and Western transnational corporation
signed a total o f 11 compensation agreements in natural gas, 28 in chemicals,
four in wood products and one each in petroleum, aluminium and coal.16
It should be stressed that neither the counter-purchase nor the compen­
sation agreements entered into by the Soviet state involve any direct
investment, leasing, management or co-management rights for the Western
corporations in any enterprises within Soviet borders. Although Western
technical advisors are involved in the construction of the high technology
chemical (and other) plants in the USSR, the ownership and management
of all such enterprise is completely in Soviet hands.17
Soviet debt to the West increased from $.6 billion in 1971 to $11 billion
in 1978. In proportion to its national product the Soviet debt is minimal,
representing only .9% of GNP. In contrast, in 1978, South Korea owned
$12.0 billion (26.1% of GNP): Algeria $13.1 (52.6%); Mexico $25.8

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

(28.7%); Brazil $28.8 (15.6%); Pakistan $7.6 (40.8%); Indonesia $13.1

(27.6%); and Egypt $9.9 (71.5%).18 It is clear that the Soviet debt to
Western banks is not (as it has been in Poland) an important mechanism of
economic integration into the world capitalist economy or dependence.

Social Consumption and the Social Wage

Over the years the Soviets have been increasing the proportion of total con­
sumption of goods and services provided on the basis of need, that is, the
‘social wage’, or the various social consumption goods and services, have
increased in relation to the wage. For example in 1940 the ‘social wage’
Increased from 23% of average take-home monthly cash wages, to 28% in
1950,34% in 1960,35% in 1970, and 38% in 1980.19 These figures
corresponded to an average annual rate of growth in the real value of the
per capita social wage of 4.9% over the 1940-50 period, 7.2% over the
1950-60 period, 6.1% over the 1960-70 period and 3.6% over the
1970-80 period.20 Jn 1980 the Soviets were spending an average of 438
roubles per capita on social consumption. This compares to 73 roubles per
capita in 1950, 128 in 1960 and 263 in 1970. Because there has been
virtually no inflation in the Soviet economy over this period the great bulk of
this increase corresponds to the real increase in socially consumed goods and
services in the Soviet economy.21 In the 1970s the Soviets spent 23% of their
net material product on social consumption, while social spending in the US
was 17% of its GNP. Because the concept of net material product excludes
much of what is included in GNP, the differential between the two countries
is actually considerably greater than what these two figures suggest.22
Various studies of the value of total public social consumption expendi­
tures show that the absolute amount received per family tends to vary little
regardless of the family earnings. Consequently, in relative terms, the social
wage adds considerably more to low than to high income families and, like
Soviet pricing policy, thereby acts to increase real income equality, that is,
living standards are significantly less disparate than the statistics on wage
differentials suggest.

Housing
Low cost housing is considered to be a basic right in the USSR. Most of the
urban population in the Soviet Union lives in apartment buildings owned
either by the industries where they work or by the local government. About
half of the apartments are build by industrial enterprises.23
The average rent in the USSR around 1970 was 2-3% of the average urban
family budget. This compares to an average of 20-25% before the Revo­
lution, and 25-30% in the USA in 1970. It has been estimated that in the
late )970s, rent plus utilities (including laundry and telephone) averaged
less than 8% of household income; rents have not been increased in the
USSR since 1928, as a result the cost of housing as a proportion of income

134
 is being continually reduced.25 Income from rents covers only about one-
third of the cost of operating and maintaining Soviet apartments. Thus,
by absorbing the entire costs of construction/new construction and two-
thirds of the costs of upkeep, the state and the enterprises which own the
apartments are providing a substantial subsidy to tenants.26
Since the 1950s the Soviets have given high priority to apartment
construction. In the 1960s and 1970s investment in housing remained fairly
constant at about 5% o f national income (17% o f all investment). In the
latter half o f the 1970s the Soviets were constructing 2.1 million new housing
units a year (providing new housing for 10.5 million people). This means that
4.1% of the entire Soviet population was provided with new housing in each
year; this represented one o f the highest rates of housing construction in the
world.27
By 1977 the Soviets had increased the average housing space per dwelling
unit to 51.1 square metres (up from 46.8 in 1970). This compares with an
average o f 85 square metres for Western Europe, and 120 square metres for
the average dwelling unit in the USA in 1976.28 The size o f Soviet apart­
ments in 1977 averaged about the same as US government-constructed mass
housing produced during World War 11 for workers in war industries, that is,
working-class housing standards in the USSR are about a generation behind
those o f the US.
The rent paid for Soviet housing is a function o f the floor space, family
earnings, services provided, and the age o f the structure. In the Russian
Republic, apartment floor space (bedrooms and living rooms) o f up to 9
square metres per person, with full services, is paid for at a rate of 16.5
kopecks per metre per month for apartments constructed since 1924. For
additional space, however, the rate is three times higher.29
Housing is allocated on the basis of need (usually according to family
size) and time spent waiting to live in a certain area; for housing owned by
industries special considerations are given to the need to recruit particular
categories o f (mostly skilled) workers, as well as certain categories o f people
such as ‘heroes o f Socialist Labour’.30
An individual or family, once allocated housing, is assured of security o f
tenure. By law, tenants of state owned housing can be evicted without re­
housing only in such exceptional cases as lengthy absence or systematic
destruction of housing. Tenants in housing owned by enterprises can also
be evicted when they have voluntarily left the enterprise, committed a serious
crime, or been sacked for due cause (a rarity).31 In sharp contrast, tenants
in most of the US can normally be evicted at any time for almost any reason,
provided notice (usually 30 days) is given. In Soviet apartment buildings,
housing committees elected by the residents play an important role in the
management o f the buildings, including the reallocation of apartments among
tenants, and the allocation of additional space. Such committees supervise
affairs within the apartments, advise the state housing office, and act as a
mechanism for residents who wish to complain to higher administrative
offices.32

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Health Care
The Soviet Union has the highest ratio o f doctors to population of any
country in the world. In 1977 there were 34.6 doctors per 10,000, compared
with 17.6 in the US and 15.3 in the UK. It also has one of the highest ratios
of hospital beds to people of any country, ln 1977 the USSR had 121.3
beds per 10,000 compared to 63.0 in the USA and 89.4 in the UK.33
The Soviet Union has one o f the best health services in the world in terms of
accessibility and universality o f service, as well as in basic quality o f primary
health care. The very high ratio of doctors to population has encouraged the
expansion of medical services to include comprehensive industrial health
care, widespread preventative examinations, especially of those most at risk,
and frequently, home visits, which encompass some social work functions.34
In the 1969-78 period the USSR increased the share o f GNP spent on
health, as well as its spending per capita. In 1969 2.3% of its GNP was spent
on health (and 13.6% on the military activities); in 1978 2.4% was spent
on health (and 12.2% on military activities). This corresponded to a 59%
increase in absolute resources allocated to health. Over the same period the
Soviet population grew by 8%; thus, health spending per capita increased by
47% between 1969 and 1978. In 1978, the US spent 3.7% o f its GNP on
health.35
Drugs supplied in hospitals or prescribed for chronic illness (about 70% of
all drugs) are provided free. Private practice is legally permitted, but it is
heavily taxed and not widely available. Health care is provided both in
neighbourhood polyclinics and at work places.36
The success of Soviet health (and nutrition) policy is revealed by a look
at statistics on Soviet life expectancy, which, in the generation after the
Revolution, radically increased. In 1900, in the Czarist Empire it was about
30 years, and about 47 years in the US.37 The most rapid increase in life
expectancy occurred between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s. Nick
Eberstadt, a harsh critic both of the Soviet system and of Stalin, said, "Stalin
managed to raise life expectancy in the Soviet Union from about 44 when
he assumed total power, to about 62 when he died’.38 During that period the
Soviet system was able to improve health and nutrition, both in its European
and Central Asian regions, to a standard roughly comparable to that in
Western Europe and, by the 1960s, life expectancy in the USSR had reached
approximately the same level as in the USA. In the post-1960 period there
was minimal increase: between 1960 and 1975 it increased by only 2.0 years,
compared to 3.1 for the USA. In the 1970s life expectancy in the USSR
stabilized.
In 1960, in the USSR, life expectancy was 68.4 years, in 1970 70.0
years and in 1975 70.4 years. In 1975, life expectancy in the US for the
white population was approximately 71.0 years (8 months longer than in the
USSR in the same year), and 67.9 years for the non-white population. In the
major advanced capitalist countries in 1975 the figure was slightly higher than
in the USSR: United Kingdom, 72.4 years, Japan 72.9, West Germany 71.3
years. In the Latin American countries in 1975, however, it was considerably

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 Economic Rights

lower than in the Soviet Union: Mexico 64.7 years, Chile 62.6, Brazil 61.4
and Argentina 68.2 years. In Finland, which prior to 1917 was part of the
Russian Empire and is now more industrialized, with a high living standard
and which still continues to have close relations with the USSR, life expec­
tancy in 1975 was 70.1 years.*

Education
In common with primary and secondary education, all higher education is
free, and students in higher education who maintain a (B’ average also receive
a stipend. Such stipends vary according to the year o f study, the subject
studied, the type of school and the student’s progress; no stipend is paid for
a year that must be repeated.34 In the mid-1970s university students received
40-60 roubles a month and technical school students 30-45 roubles.40
Admission to higher education is by examinations for specific institutions;
there are no IQ tests or general aptitude tests in the USSR. Students who fail
one institution’s entrance exam can reapply in future years or apply to other
institutions.41 Advantages are given to higher education applicants with
work experience, for example, quotas, extra points on examinations, special
tutorial programmes. In 1967, 30% of admissions to higher education were of
people who had been working full time.42 In general, Soviets are actively
encouraged to continue with formal education throughout their lives. Indeed,
the Soviets have one of the highest rates of attendance at institutions of
higher education in the world.

Job Rights
The Soviet Constitution promises everyone a job. The extreme shortage of
labour throughout the economy ensures the reality of this constitutional
guarantee; there is no unemployment problem in the USSR. In contrast,
unemployment is a serious problem in capitalist countries where a large
Reserve army9o f unemployed is a necessary condition of profitability.
Further, workers in the USSR have a right to their job - it is very difficult
to dismiss a worker, and this rarely occurs. But one consequence of the
structural labour shortage resulting from economic planning for rapid
economic growth results in a rather high turnover of staff - higher, in fact,
than in the USA.43
Except in experimental enterprises (see below) the legally permissible
reasons for dismissing a worker are : (1) liquidation of the enterprise; (2) a
worker’s unfitness fot the job ; (3) a worker refusing a transfer within the

* For a full discussion of trends in Soviet medical care and life expectancy (with
empnasis on infant mortality) see A. Szymanski, ’On the Uses of Disinformation to
Legitimize Revival of the Cold War: Health and the USSR’, in Science and S o ciety ,
XLV:4 (Winter) 1981.

137
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

enterprise; (4) the systematic nonfulfilment of duties; (5) excessive

absenteeism; (6) restoration of a predecessor to a job ; (7) long term disability,
and (8) criminal acts. Simple lack of work is not generally considered
sufficient reason to lay off a worker. With few exceptions, workers may be
dismissed for any of the above stated reasons only with the concurrence of
the local and factory trade union committees. If the union concurs with the
management on a dismissal, the worker can appeal to the courts for rein­
statement. Studies have shown that about 50% of workers who appeal against
dismissal are reinstated by these courts. Appeals on the grounds that dismissal
had been effected without the prior approval of the trade union are almost
always successful, even if the court finds that sufficient cause had existed for
the dismissal of a worker.44
Beginning in the late 1960s some Soviet enterprises have adopted ‘the
Shckekino Plan* whereby workers can be declared redundant, that is,
workers can be dismissed simply because there is no work for them, while
the enterprise retains the funds assigned for the dismissed worker’s wage. This
plan was adopted on an experimental basis to determine whether or not it
would free badly needed labour in the expanding sectors of the economy. In
1979 about 10,000 Soviet enterprises were using either the Shchekino or a
similar method.45 In selecting workers to be made redundant the enterprises
are required to make their judgments in terms o f seniority and family
circumstances, such as number of dependants, pregnancy, single parenthood.
The enterprise is also responsible for finding another, comparable job for the
dismissed worker, or, if this is not possible, to pay the full costs of retraining
the worker for another job of equivalent skill and providing a stipend for
living expenses during the retraining process.46
In fact enterprises (experimental or otherwise) rarely discharge workers
or declare them redundant. There is a strong tradition and moral feeling
shared both by workers and managers that workers are entitled to their
job - a tradition reinforced by the economics of the job market. The
structural labour shortage, together with the assignment of wage funds to
enterprises by the state, motivates them to hoard labour, even if not all their
workers are efficiently employed. The difficulty in finding workers means
that in order to be able to fulfil future demands of the economic plan,
enterprises prefer not to risk reducing their present labour force.
Republic-wide commissions exist for placing workers with enterprises that
need labour. In addition to serving as labour exchanges, where workers and
enterprises can systematically explore openings and available workers, they
organize recruitment of wage labour, develop proposals for the employment
of persons not currently employed (for example, housewives, older people)
and participate in decisions for the location of new industries.47 In the early
1970s about half o f new labour came through the use o f these exchanges, the
remainder was directly negotiated between individual workers and enter­
prises, through media advertising, posted openings and word of mouth. The
average time between jobs in the Russian Republic o f the USSR in the early
1970s was about 12-15 days; and less in most other Republics where the

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 Economic Rights

labour shortage was even more severe. About 60% of dismissed workers were
able to find new employment within ten days of their dismissal.48
Since unemployment is not seen as a problem unemployment benefits are
limited to two weeks termination pay, given regardless of reason for
termination, and, as already noted, free retraining, with a stipend to cover
living expenses during any necessary retraining period and for workers
declared redundant. In the US, those workers made redundant are entitled
to up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, conditional upon actively
seeking work; at times of, and in areas o f high unemployment, this period
may be extended to 39 weeks. About 80% of workers in the US are eligible
for these unemployment benefits. In 1977, weekly payment averaged 37% of
the former weekly wage.49 Workers who leave voluntarily, dismissed for
‘misconduct* or ‘refusal to obey orders*, or who are engaged in a ‘labour
dispute* are either excluded from any benefits, or eligible for limited pay­
ments only. Benefits, eligibility requirements and duration of payments,
etc. vary among the various States. In contrast to the USSR, where there is
a shortage of labour, the consistently high unemployment rate in the USA,
the low level and short duration of unemployment benefits, and conditions
for eligibility, together with the right of an enterprise to dismiss a worker for
almost any reason at any time, clearly indicates that job security in the USSR
is much higher than in the USA.
Not only is a job considered to be a worker’s right, but also working is
considered to be a social duty. Soviet law stipulates that no one can live
from rents, speculation, profits or black marketing, as such activities are
considered to be living off the labour of another —social parasitism. living
off savings or being supported by parents, friends or spouses is, however, not
illegal. There is no law requiring everyone to work, but social pressure is
applied against people who live for lengthy periods without themselves
working.50
With few exceptions, workers are free to leave their jobs at any time, only
during the War emergency and reconstruction from 1940 to 1950 was this
right suspended. The constraints on the workers* total freedom to determine
where they will work are that for three years graduates of institutions of
higher education must work at a job determined by the state, to be selected
by the new graduate from a list of vacant positions. In fact, however, this
requirement is not strictly enforced, and it is not uncommon for graduates
to refuse or to leave such assignments without incurring any penalty. The
second exception has been the use o f compulsory job assignments in lieu
of gaol, especially for minor criminals; this is in accordance with official
ideology that productive labour is a good cure for anti-social behaviour and
attitudes, and is more effective than confinement. These two forms of com­
pulsory labour assignment account for only a very small portion of total
Soviet jobs.
The eight hour day and the five day working week have been standard
since the late 1960s. The 1977 Soviet Constitution sets the maximum work
week at 41 hours. Overtime work is restricted, and generally is not

139
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

permitted except under exceptional circumstances such as: work 'necessary

for the defence of the Republic* or for 'averting public disasters or dangers*;
'socially essential* work (for example, transport, water supply, electric
power); 'repair and maintenance work where its interruption would put a
significant number o f workers out of work*; and, 'on the necessary
completion of work begun which if not finished during a continuous working
period would result in damage to machinery or materials*.51 Enterprise
managers have, however, been known to ignore such regulations and to
pressure workers to work overtime —they have also been publicly criticized
and penalized for such behaviour.52 In the USA, overtime is normally
compulsory, at the discretion of the employer, although by law it must
usually be reimbursed at 1.5 times the normal wage rate; in the USA
compulsory overtime at peak production times is common.
Three weeks paid annual vacation is the statutory standard throughout
the Soviet Union, also workers may take additional, unpaid leave. In 1968
the national average number o f holidays was 20.9 days per year. Some
categories of workers receive additional paid leave, including certain workers
in research, education and cultural institutions and those in especially
dangerous and difficult occupations.53 There are no legal requirements for
paid holidays in the USA although union contracts, which cover about one
in four workers, typically stipulate them, and some other non-union
employers grant them voluntarily —usually as a reward for length o f service.
The only related stipulation in US law is that, under some conditions, extra
wages must be paid to workers required to work on public holidays.
In the USSR those employed on night work normally work a seven,
instead o f a full eight-hour shift, but receive full shift pay. In certain
occupations a six or seven-hour shift only is worked, at full shift pay, because
o f the dangerous conditions o f labour (for example, coal mining) or for
Other special circumstances (for example, in medical practice).54 Workers
in potentially harmful occupations or in those involving exposure to abnor­
mal temperatures, dirt, humidity, etc., are entitled to the provision of special
protective clothing and equipment.55 Soviet workers are also entitled to a
miscellany o f other benefits, including free or subsidized vacations, special
diets, education, and job retraining, and sanatorium passes, for which there is
no statutory equivalent in the USA, except in cases when the stronger unions
have been able to secure some of these privileges for their members.

Rights of Participation in the Management of Enterprises

Article 8 o f the 1977 Soviet Constitution stipulates the right of workers
to participate in the decision making processes of their 'work collectives*.
It reads:

Work collectives take part in discussing and deciding state and public
affairs, in planning production and social development, in training and

140
 placing personnel, and in discussing and deciding matters pertaining to
the management of enterprises and institutions, the improvement of
working and living conditions and the use of funds allocated both for
developing production and for social and cultural purposes and
financial incentives.

The goal of Soviet industrial policy is Increasingly to ‘draw the workers

into participation in the work of management’. This is both a realization of
the Soviet notion of socialism as workers’ power, and in order to encourage
increases in production both through utilizing the ideas of workers developed
through their practical experience, and boosting morale and productivity
by giving workers a strong sense of identity with the activities of their enter­
prise. According to a prominent US business analyst \ . . there is little doubt
that worker participation goes considerably beyond that found in American
firms’.56 Studies of socio-political involvement in Soviet factories find that
about 45-50% of workers report that they participate actively and regularly
in some organization in the factory and that the time spent, and the propor­
tion of workers actively involved within the factory, have increased
considerably over time.57
Workers participate in running enterprises through three major mechan­
isms: (1) general meetings of workers to discuss the affairs of the enterprise,
and the elected representative body of all plant workers (the Permanent
Production Conferences); (2) the enterprise branches of the unions; and
—perhaps the most important —(3) the enterprise branch(es) of the
Communist Party organization, of which workers normally compose the over­
whelming majority of members. Workers’ power and influence within the
enterprises is also facilitated by : (1) various organizations of 'innovators’
and experienced workers meeting regularly with the engineers and managers
to improve production methods; (2) the organization of young workers
(the Young Communist League); and (3) the fact that the rate o f upward
mobility between the production workers and the administration is quite
high —consequently there is little difference in background, experience,
life style and attitudes between the production workers and most adminis­
trators, in comparison with the West.58

General Enterprise Meetings and the Permanent Production

Conferences

At the general meetings of an enterprise the administrative personnel must

report to the workers on their performance vis-à-vis the goals of the economic
plan, as well as meet the needs and serve the interests of the workers.
Managers can be and are criticized at these meetings if they fail to perform
adequately. At least one pro-capitalist Western analyst of Soviet industrial
relations concluded that the general production meetings were at times quite
meaningful, and often quite an ordeal for the managers. Granick reports a

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

conversation with one industrial manager who, when asked whether workers
would dare to criticize management replied:4Any director who suppressed
criticism would be severely punished. He would not only be removed, he
would be tried’. 59 But usually, general meetings are not regarded by
Western observers as very effective channels of worker involvement in
decision making. Soviet leaders themselves have often expressed disappoint­
ment with the inadequate level of worker participation. A critique of the
effectiveness of general meetings of workers as mechanisms ot worker
participation produced in the USSR in 1957 concluded:

At many enterprises the role of production conferences is played down,

they are hurriedly convened without the necessary preparation and are
held chiefly in brigades and sectors. Factory and workshop meetings
are rarely held, which restricts the opportunities of workers and
employees [to take part] in solving questions concerning the activity of
the workshop and factory as a whole.61

As a correction 'Permanent Production Conferences’ were established;

these are representative bodies elected at general meetings o f all workers in
enterprises with 100 or more workers, and on the whole are regarded as more
effective than general meetings. The Permanent Production Conference
comprises representatives of workers and management, representatives from
the Trade Union Factory Committee, the Party branch, the Young Commu­
nist League brandi and representatives of the local Scientific and Technical
and Inventors and Rationalizers Societies. The Conferences in turn elect a
Presidium o f from five to 15 members including a chairperson and a secretary.
Permanent Production Conferences participate in: drafting and discussing
both current one year and long term economic plans; examining questions
of organization o f production, labour and wages; improving the quality and
decreasing the costs o f output ; securing the successful working of the enter­
prise and the fulfilment (or over-fulfilment) of the production plan; increas­
ing labour skills and productivity; redudng waste, idle-standing and
ineffident use o f machinery; and the allocation of capital investment funds,
etc.62 Normally, each Permanent Production Conference must meet at least
once monthly, and report back to general meetings of all workers at least
once every six months. Although these Conferences have led to increased
worker participation, they are secondary in authority to enterprise
management.

The Role of the Enterprise Branches of the Unions

The enterprise union branch is an important mechanism of workers’ partici­
pation in the management of their enterprises. The union branches are
involved with the administrators in working out output norms, the overall
production and financial plans of the enterprise, the distribution o f the

142
enterprise funds, especially the ‘socio-cultural*, ‘housing* and ‘material
incentive* funds, and the details of the work incentive plan.63 Further, the
unions, participate in the allocation of funds to improve working conditions
as well as supervise the work of the technical and safety inspectors.64
Apparently the unions do, in fact, defend worker’s interests, to quote Jerry
Hough and Merle Fainsod:

. . . the causes trade union ofñcials espouse in policy debates in the

press are generally those that one would anticipate from trade union
officials - better working conditions, stricter observance of labour
legislation, less managerial arbitrariness, more labour safety, and so
forth. In the major conflict on the degree of wage egalitarianism, the
trade unions have been a strong proponent of egalitarianism.65

Local union branches hold a general meeting of all members at least once
a month to discuss union business and accomplishments and problems.
Local branches annually elect a leadership body - the Trade Union Factory
Committee - which carries out the daily affairs of the union and reports
back to the membership. Union members participate in the implementation
of various union projects, such as managing social insurance funds. Local
enterprise union branches also elect representatives to the city, regional,
republic and union wide bodies.
The union factory branch annually negotiates a collective bargaining
contract with the enterprise administrators. These contracts are, however,
not concerned with wages, since wage policies are set by the central plan and
established through a national agreement between the Central Council of
Trade Unions and the appropriate ministries and state committees. Soviet
reasoning is that wage policy must be set for the country as a whole at one
time, and co-ordinated with the establishment of output priorities in order
both to realize the intentions of social justice (distribution of consumer
goods) and to allocate resources rationally between individual and social
consumption. Decentralized wage negotiations could result in inequities
between workers* wages and disparities between wages and consumer goods
available, with the consequence of either inflation or shortages of goods.
The local collective bargaining agreements focus on the conditions of
labour including: work norms, productivity guidelines, retraining, allocation
and classification of workers, fixing workers* grades, promotional policies
within the enterprise, the specifics of plan fulfilment and bonus policies.and
safety conditions.
If an enterprise director refuses to correct safety abuses, the unions
have the right to stop production until such time he/she complies; as union
inspectors may close any work place found unsafe.66 Unions are responsible
for increased production, and workers earn bonuses for fulfilling the planned
quotas, therefore counter pressures exist on unions and workers to disregard
standards of safety and hygiene. The Western press has reported a number
o f grievances expressed by workers against such conditions when unions

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 Human Rights in the Soviet Union

have failed to act,67 as well as instances of work stoppages because of unsafe

conditions.
Labour Dispute Commissions, composed equally of enterprise adminis­
trators and members of the Trade Union Factory Committee, are charged
with dealing with most disputes and grievances arising between workers and
administrators. These include such matters as: work transfers, payments for
inadequate work, the application of output norms and rates; and payments:
for time absent from work, overtime, bonuses, unused leave discharge grants;
special clothing and food, wage deductions for material damages, and so on.
Workers dissatisfied with the resolution of a grievance by the Labour
Disputes Commission may, as in the case of dismissals, appeal to the Trade
Union Factory Committee and, if they are still dissatisfied, to the regular
People’s Courts.66 Enterprise managers may lodge an appeal against decisions
of the Labour Dispute Commission or the Union Factory Committee only
to the People’s Courts, and only on a point of law: if it is considered that
the decision runs counter to labour legislation.69 Numerous labour disputes
are, in fact, submitted to the courts. Western analysts have found that in
about 50% of such cases the courts rule in favour of workers, against
management.70
Soviet unions are not permitted to strike; the rationale for this is similar
to that operating in respect to centralization of wage agreements. If workers
in individual enterprises struck for higher wages or special conditions goods
and privileges would accrue to those in the most strategic industries and
undermine the ability of society to realize the overall economic plan. It is
claimed by the Soviets that the economic plan is essentially democratically
determined and operates in the interests of the working class, both as a whole,
and in the long term interests of all its major segments, and thus the no strike
rule is essential. On the assumption that the plan truly serves the interests
of the workers, rather than of the intelligentsia, or some kind of new ruling
stratum antagonistic to the working class, then clearly this principle does
not operate to oppress the working class.
Western obseivers agree that the role and power of Soviet unions have
grown since the mid-1950s, and that collective agreements have become more
important as mechanisms of establishing rules and determining allocations
within enterprises. Grievance machinery has become more effective. Unions
have taken on increased power to plan work quotas, to check on adminis­
trators and generally to participate in enterprise management.™
The philosophy, and largely the practice of Soviet unionism is very
different from either the class conscious or the militant business unionism
of Western capitalist countries. The underlying philosophy is that there is an
essential unity in the workers’ interests in increasing production (upon which
their living standards depend) and in protecting the workers’ interests on the
job. Thus, although concrete antagonisms arise, the fundamental interests of
the enterprise directors, eg. to increase production is not in conflict with the
fundamental interests of the workers. The trade unions operate to increase
production, fulfil the plan, guarantee workers’ participation, safety, job

144
 Economic Rights

security, fair treatment, and other rights. In fact, Western analysts generally
report that the atmosphere in Soviet factories tends to differ from that in
capitalist factories, in so far as a feeiing of coiiectivity and a strong sense of
identification with one’s piace of work are evident. (See the various sources
cited in this section.)

The Role of the Enterprise Branch of the Communist Party

The iocal enterprise branch of the Communist Party, composed primarily
of production workers, but also including employees and directors, piays a
major roie as a mechanism of workers’ participation in enterprise manage­
ment. In industrial enterprises, not only does the substantial majority consist
o f Party members who are industrial workers, but roughly 20-25% of
industrial workers in major enterprises are likeiy to be Party members;
members are recruited into the Party after consultation with the other
workers in the enterprise. It should be noted that, in the 1970-80 period,
58% of all new Party members were workers and the percentage was
substantially higher in industrial areas.71
The Party has fundamental responsibility for general political guidance
on all ieveis of enterprise activity, as opposed to concrete administration.
Probably, in practice, the power of the factory Party organizations is com­
parable to that o f the enterprise directors, although focused in a different
area.
The general meetings o f the enterprise Party branches as well as the Party
executive committees they elect, play a central roie in guiding the operation
of the enterprises.72 General branch meetings of the Party hear reports on all
aspects of the enterprises’ performance as well as suggestions and criticism
of non-party workers. The Party organization has access to all enterprise
documents to aid it in its supervisory work.73 Local Party branches also exert
considerable influence through their various specialized commissions in the
factories. Such commissions include those on such matters as new technology,
quality control and fulfilment of the pian.74
The Party piays a central roie in the selection and evaluation o f the enter*
prise directors. Typically, the appointment of all administrative personnel
has to be ratified by the enterprise Party committee (this is the practice
known as nomenklatura). The norm is that before there can be any appoint­
ments or promotion of people in authority there must be a prior discussion
with the work force as a whole or with their representative bodies, usually
under the guidance of the Party’s enterprise committee.75 In the i970s
there was a significant debate in the Soviet Union about whether or not the
work force as a whole should have the right actually to elect their
enterprise’s administrators, rather than simply be consulted as part of the
selection process.
Further, the iocal Party, together with the Young Communist League and
representatives o f the trade unions, form an ‘Attestation Committee’ which

145
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

monitors the administrators’ performance. This Committee is empowered to*

remove directors from their positions if their performance is unsatisfactory
as well as to have them transferred or rewarded.76

Job Rights in the USA

Workers in the USA have considerably fewer rights than workers in the
USSR. Generally the rights of US workers are limited to: (1) organizing
into a union and bargaining collectively with their employers (written into
law in 1935 with the passage of the Wagner Act, a right exercised by less
than 25% o f the US labour force in 1980), (2) a safe work place (largely
guaranteed since 1970 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administra­
tion); (3) not to be subjected to discrimination on the basis o f race, colour,
religion, sex or national origin.(guaranteed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964);
and (4) certain rights to wages (minimum wage, overtime, as well as some
protection for money put into pension funds), mostly guaranteed by the
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Outside these four areas workers have
almost no rights, and can be dismissed, demoted, or otherwise reassigned or
punished by employers at will, except when a collective bargaining agree­
ment exists, signed with a union by an employer restricting the employer’s
rights.
Workers in the USA are neither guaranteed employment, nor, once
employed, do they acquire any rights in their particular job. An essential
aspect of private capitalism is that the owners and managers of enterprises
maintain fundamental control over assignment, hiring and dismissal of
workers, in order to allocate their resources to maximize their profits. Even
strong unions make few inroads into the basic management prerogatives,
except in the areas o f seniority and procedures for promotion or dismissal.
Seniority establishes priority in layoffs, and often in promotions too. In
unionized industries seniority is the nearest equivalent to the Soviet statutory
provision o f guaranteed employment and vested rights in a job.
US workers have no statutory rights to participate in management, and
only rarely do collective bargaining agreements significantly infringe on
management prerogatives in running enterprises. Workers are considered
the ‘agents’ of owners and managers, and thus, as the means whereby to
make profits for capital.
Except in exercising the four types o f job rights guaranteed to US workers
by law, there are no formal freedoms guaranteed to workers (as there is
in the USSR). Workers can be dismissed or otherwise punished for their
statements or other activities, on or off the job, if these should displease
their employer. The only protected activities for workers in the private
sector are those in pursuit o f unionization or union activity, or in securing
rights under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, Civil Rights Act or
Fair Labor Standards Act. Workers in the state sector, however, do have
rights of speech and association, even if these displease their employer: state

146
 Economic Rights

workers cannot be dismissed for reasons of their beliefs, nor statements and
political activities. In 1974 the US Supreme Court extended the legally
guaranteed right o f free speech to those companies "deeply involved’ in work
for the federal government.77
Generally, US workers may not refuse an employer’s orders even if to
carry through such orders is considered by an employee to be immoral,
improper or even illegal, with the exception of engaging in sexual relations -
sexual harassment —against which protection does exist. The employer
maintains his right to dismiss any worker who refuses to obey such orders;
even if an employer commits a crime, workers dismissed for refusing to
participate in it will not necessarily be reinstated.*
Employers are entitled to examine the contents of an employee’s locker,
desk, files, or other personal effects whether or not he or she is present and
with or without their permission.79
The National Labor Relations Board in the US guarantees workers in most
industries the right to have a union with which management must "bargain
in good faith’, provided that a majority of workers in the appropriate
"bargaining unit’ vote for a union to represent them.80 In the US the state
places restrictions upon what can be included in a collective bargaining agree­
ment. The law prohibits the inclusion in such a contract such matters as:
an agreement to hire members of a union only (the closed shop); in about
40% of the States of the US, the requirement that after a certain period of
time, all employees must join a union (the union shop); an agreement that
an employer must discharge an employee (for any reason other than non­
payment of dues in a union shop where such is legai); agreements to select
the employer’s collective bargaining representatives; agreements not to handle
the products of a third party (i.e. so called "hot-cargo’ agreements which
prohibit the employers from handling the goods of firms considered "unfair’
by the union). The state also prohibits many forms of labour activity, such as
sympathy strikes, secondary boycotts, picketing and mass picketing, even
when there is no imminent threat o f violence. The US government prohibits
strikes over matters relating to jurisdiction, strikes by federal employees,
and, for up to 80 days, strikes in sectors deemed by the President to be
crucial for the economy.
The US government stipulates matters that collective bargaining may
concern itself with if either party wants it discussed —so called "mandatory
items’. These include wages, safety, benefits, discharge, shift differentials,
vacations, holidays, hours, strikes, etc. There is no requirement that any
particular outcome has to be reached on such items, only that they must be
discussed and that it is legal to strike over them. There are items which are
considered neither "mandatory’ or illegai. These so called "voluntary’ items
may be included in a collective bargaining agreement but only when accept­
able to both parties. If management refuses to discuss such items the union
is prohibited by law from striking over them. Such items excluded by law
from inclusion in agreements, unless management agrees to them without
coercion, cover, for example, agreements for the union to ratify promotions

147
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

or demotions in the supervisory ranks; requirements that the company con-

tribute to industry-wide funds, or strike insurance funds; the prices a
company charges for food in its cafeteria.61
Once a US labour agreement is signed it has the force o f law (unlike
many European countries, such as the UK) and is enforcible in the courts.
Generally the union abandons the right to strike during the duration of the
contract and, as well, commits its members to specified conditions of labour.
Strikes in violation o f the contract are thus illegal, and participants as well
as the union itself are subject to legal penalties.62
In the area o f occupational health and safety, US workers, since 1970,
have greater protection than their Soviet counterparts. The Occupational
Health and Safety Act o f 1970 requires that every employer ‘shall’ provide
their employees with a place in which they can work free from ‘known
perils’. Employers must by law furnish a work environment free from recog­
nized hazards that cause, or are likely to cause, death or serious physical
damage. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) set
up by the Act has developed detailed criteria to safeguard employees
covering virtually all aspects of the work environment. These criteria deal
with a wide range o f practices, means, methods, operations and processes,
both those applying to highly diversified employments (‘horizontal
standards’) and those applicable only to specific employments (‘vertical
standards’). OSHA’s rules are both specific (mandating specific safe prac­
tices) and result oriented (leaving it to the employer to devise the specific
means whereby an acceptable level of safety or toxicity is obtained). The
tendency over time has been for result oriented programmes to grow at the
expense o f those that impose specific practices on employers. The two most
important aspects o f safety rights under the OSHA law are those dealing with
toxic substances and hazardous physical agents, and the requirement of
protective guards for machines.63
The Soviet Constitution, as well as legislation, specifies that a safe work­
ing environment should be provided, but although the unions have the power
to implement this legal right (including the power to refuse to work in unsafe
conditions), most observers report that the general safety and toxicity stand­
ards in Soviet enterprises is less rigorous than in the US.

Conclusion
Generally, the Soviet system of economic rights is considerably more ad­
vanced than that either in the USA or Western capitalist countries at a similar
level of economic development, although the social welfare systems of many
Northern European capitalist countries, with considerably wealthier
economies, are comparable in many respects. The Soviet system is especially
advanced in the area o f job rights ; tremendous advances over their own
past have been made in providing basic economic security and
adequate standard o f living for their working people.

148
 Economic Rights

The Soviet system’s accomplishments in the provision of economic and

social benefits is generally conceded even by most dissidents and émigrés.
Once they have settled in the West, émigrés frequently express stronger
support for the Soviet system of health, education and social security than
they did upon emigration. The writings of dissidents demonstrate that their
criticisms are not of the welfare services and job rights, but of the political
system. To quote from a study of emigré attitudes:

It is evident from both the quantitative data and the qualitative im­
pressions gathered from the personal interviews, that the refugees
most favour those aspects of the Soviet system which cater to their
desire for welfare benefits. Such institutions form the corner-stone of
the type of society they would like to live in.M

References
1. See Carrigan et al., 1981, p. 57; McAuley, 1979, p. 390; Scherer, 1982,
p. 292 and previously.
2. Szymanski, 1979, pp. 64-6; Alex Nove, ’Income Distribution in the
USSR’, Soviet Studies, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2, April 1982, pp. 286-8.
3. Corrigan et al., 1981.
4. Goldich, 1979, p. 133.
5. US Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract 1980, 1981, pp. 725,
728.
6. Diamond and Davis, 1979, p. 49.
7. Ibid., p. 48.
8. Carey and Havelka, 1979, p. 67.
9. Scherer, 1982, p. 235.
10. Diamond and Davis, 1979, p. 24.
11. Ibid., p. 27.
12. See McAuley, 1982, p. 155.
13. Barclay, 1979, p.479.
14. Ibid., pp. 465-8.
15. Desai, 1979, p. 410.
16. Barclay, 1979, p. 408-10,466-8.
17. Brainard, 1979, p. 106,
18. Hricson and Miller, 1979; World Bank, World Development Report
1980, Table 15.
19. Scherer, 1982, p. 303.
20. McAuley, 1982, p. 153.
21. Idib., p. 152.
22. George and Manning, 1980, p. 32.
23. Ibid., p. 154.
24. Ibid.,p. 138;McAuley, 1979,p. 289;Sherman, 1969,p. 20.
25. Corrigan et al., 1981, p. 57.
26. McAuley, 1979, p.289.
27. George and Manning, 1980, p. 154; The USSR in Figures, 1978, p. 198.
28. Feshbach and Davis, 1980, pp. 14-15.

149
 Human Rights in the Soviet Union

29. McAuley, 1979, p. 289.

30. Ibid; George and Manning, 1980, p. 157.
31. George and Manning, 1980, pp. 152-3.
32. Ibid., p. 152; Voinovich, 1976.
33. Sivard, 1980, p. 25.
34. George and Manning, 1980, p. 114.
35. US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expendi­
tures and Arms Transfer, 1969-78, 1979, Table 1.
36. George and Manning, 1980, p. 124.
37. Eberstadt, 1981, p. 23.
38. Ibid., p. 28.
39. George and Manning, 1980, p. 87.
40. McAuley, 1979, p. 281.
41. George and Manning, 1980, p. 80.
42. Ibid.
43. Gregory and Stuart, 1974, pp. 193-211.
44. Lane and O’Dell, 1978, p. 37; Conquest, 1967, p. 182.
45. Scherer, 1982, p. 145.
46. Brown, 1974, p. 192.
47. Feshbach, 1974, p. 29.
48. Brown, 1974.
49. US Department of Commerce, 1980A, p. 348.
50. Osbom, 1969, p. 141.
51. Conquest, 1967, p. 129.
52. Ibid, p. 131.
53. Ibid., p. 128; McAuley, 1979, p. 280.
54. Conquest, 1967, p. 132.
55. Ibid., p. 133.
56. Granick, 1961, p. 200.
57. Lane and O’Dell, 1978, p. 35.
58. Mandel, 1975, p. 126.
59. Granick, 1961, p. 199.
60. Ibid., p. 202.
61. Cited in Conquest, 1967, p. 183.
62. Conquest, 1967, pp. 183-4.
63. Wilczynski, 1970, p. 101.
64. Conquest, 1967, pp. 168-73.
65. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, p. 405.
66. Lane and O’Dell, 1978, pp. 29-31.
67. Ibid., p. 32.
68. Granick, 1961, p. 195.
69. Ibid; Conquest, 1967, p. 182.
70. Sherman, 1969, p. 163; Conquest, 1967, pp. 158-9.
71. Scherer, 1982, pp. 23, 27, 29.
72. Lane and O’Dell, 1978, p. 26.
73. Ibid., p. 24.
74. George, 1978, pp. 108-9; Dodge, 1968, pp. 68-73.
75. Lane and O’Dell, 1978, p. 26.
76. Ibid., pp. 24-5.
77. Ewing, 1977, pp. 6-11, 30, 100-5.

150
78. Ewing, 1977, p. 8.
79. Ibid., p. 9.
80. Davis, 1972, pp. 27-8.
81. Taylor-Witney, 1971, p. 349.
82. Ibid., pp. 322, 328, 333, 349, 413, 417,447, 479; Richardson, 1977,
pp. 99, 101, 114-5, 117; Davcy, 1972, p. 77.
83. Commerce Gearing House Guidebook, 1977, pp. 8, 9, 36, 57, 74-5;
Anton, 1979, pp. 90-110, 126.
84. Gted in George and Manning, 1980, p. 170.
6. The Land of the Free

The remainder of this book is devoted primarily to an examination of the

most central (for Westerners) and controversial aspect of human rights: the
question of civil liberties. This chapter examines the history of formal civil
liberties in the US, and in the following chapter the history of civil liberties
(tolerance and repression) in the USSR from the Bolshevik Revolution to
the mid-1950s is examined. The penultimate chapter deals with the level of
tolerance and repression and the situation of the dissident movement in the
USSR in the last generation. In the final chapter an attempt is made to
generalize from the experience of the US and the USSR since their respective
revolutions to the present, in order to develop a general theory of the
variation (comparatively and over time) in the degree of tolerance/repression
or civil liberties in any society.
This present chapter attempts to show that, in fact, there has been no
qualitative difference between the civil liberties granted to those who attack
the fundamental institutions of US society and the civil liberties granted to
those who attack the fundamental institutions of any other society. When­
ever dissidence has threatened to promote mass-based assaults on the
prevailing property and state system, or the ability of the state to mobilize
for external war or intervention, it has been repressed in the US as surely
and thoroughly as it has been in the Soviet Union (see the following two
chapters). Such is the nature o f any state.

The American Revolution and Gvil liberties

During the American War of Independence from Great Britain (1775-83)
there were few civil liberties for Loyalists in areas controlled by the rebels.
In this respect, as well as others, the birth of the American Republic was no
different from any other revolutionary war.
There was considerable Loyalist sympathy among the colonists.
Approximately one-third of white adults sympathized with the crown and
supported British rule against the Americans. It has been estimated that
between 30,000 and 50,000 Americans served with the British army against
the revolutionaries. In 1780 there were perhaps 8,000 Loyalists in the British

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 The Land o f the Free

regular army while Washington’s army numbered only 9,00o.1 Loyalists

were active In all aspects of mobilization and support of the British cause, as
well as in direct military actions against the independence forces. Because
the exercise o f speaking, writing, and of other civil liberties in support of
the King endangered the rebel cause, these "human rights’ were suppressed.
Everywhere there was unlimited freedom to support the rebel cause, but
support of the King, or even criticism of the rebels, brought tar and feathers,
if not gaol. "Liberty of speech belonged solely to those who spoke the speech
of liberty.’2
Repression of loyalist sentiments began in the mid- 1760s with the form­
ation of the Sons of Liberty, who engaged in "patriotic’ violence and
intimidation against Tory publishers and other vocal supporters of the King.
Boycotts, riotous demonstrations, and mob violence became the fate of
authors of articles, pamphlets and newspapers that reflected support of
Britain.3
Beginning in 1775, states started passing legislation making it a seditious
act to libel or defame Congress or the state assemblies; by 1778 all states
had such legislation. Eight states formally banished prominent Tories.4 In
1776, the Congress urged all the states to enact laws to prevent people from
being ‘deceived and drawn into erroneous opinion’.5 Loyalty tests and oaths
became common. Those who refused to swear that "the war of the Colonies
was just and necessary’ and "renounce all allegiance and obedience to George
111 and promise fair and true allegiance’ to his State were subject to political,
legal and civil punishments, including disenfranchisement, loss of legal rights,
confiscation of property, banishment, disarming, special taxes, loss of jobs
and imprisonment. To practice a profession one had to secure a certificate of
loyalty. In all states, Tories were deprived of the right to vote and prohibited
from holding any office. Basic civil rights, such as the right to buy or sell
land, travel, or serve on a jury, were denied to Tories in most states.6
Denunciation of the patriot cause or utterance of remarks deemed to
undermine it were severely punished. Legislation was common which im­
posed penalties from heavy fines or gaol sentences to death and forfeiture
o f property for utterance of opinions denying the independent authority of
the new states and asserting the sovereignty of the King.7 Loyalists were
banned from the teaching profession.8 They were forcibly moved en mass
from lesser to greater secure areas, especially when an area was under threat
from the British. For example, Rhode Island forcibly relocated some of its
Loyalists to the northern part of the state, and New York and New Jersey’s
Loyalists were shifted to Connecticut.9 In 1777 the Continental Congress
advised the states to confiscate Loyalist estates. All the states levied special
taxes on, or confiscated, considerable numbers of Loyalist properties,
including the large Loyalist landed properties in the Hudson River valley.10
As the crisis between Britain and the colonies deepened after 1765,
newspapers and printers came under increasing pressure to ban Loyalist or
even neutralist material. By 1774, only Boston and New York had a Loyalist
Press, and in 1775 only New York. Violence and boycott had done its work

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even before the Declaration of Independence.11 During the revolution,

Committees of Censorship were set up. The Newport Committee of Inspec­
tion justified its suppression of Loyalist printed material by arguing that
freedom of the press meant freedom to print liberal sentiments’, but not
‘wrong sentiments respecting the measures now carrying on for the recovery
and establishment o f our rights’.12
Editors who dared to publish articles critical o f the rebels had their
presses destroyed and were banished and imprisoned. In early 1776 the
printer of a Loyalist tract in New York City had his press broken into and the
plates and copies destroyed. Every printer in New York immediately received
a copy of the following communique:

Sir, if you print, or suffer to be printed in your press anything against

the rights and liberties of America, or in favor of our inveterate foes,
the King, Ministry, and Parliament of Great Britain, death and
destruction, ruin and perdition, shall be your portion. Signed, by order
of the Committee of tarring and feathering Legion.

After this, there were no more Loyalist publications printed in New York
City.13
The American revolutionaries systematically employed revolutionary
tenor to intimidate Loyalists and inspire revolutionary sentiments. General
Nathanael Greene, commander of the American Southern Continental Army
from 1780 to 1783, instructed his commanders that the American partisans
were ‘to strike terror into our enemies and give spirit to our friends’. Greene
described a partisan raid against Loyalist supporters as follows. ‘They made a
dreadful carnage of them, upward on one hundred were killed and most of
the rest cut to pieces. It has had a very happy effect on those disaffected
persons of which there are too many in this country.’14 Greene’s scientific
understanding of the role o f terror in a revolutionary situation in intimidat­
ing counter-revolutionaries, while inspiring the morale of the revolutionaries,
has been understood by other revolutionaries before and since.
Not until after the War of 1812 did the various laws discriminating against
Tories finally disappear from the statute books.15 The conclusion of peace
with Great Britain did not mean the end of persecution of the Loyalists, in
fact in some areas persecution increased. Loyalists who had fled or been
banished, and tried to return to their homes, often met violence, public
humiliation, imprisonment, deportation and even death. Loyalists who were
allowed to settle peacefully in their old home areas were often fined and
denied political rights.16
A great many Loyalists fled (or were forced out of) rebel areas. There
was a total of between 80,000 and 100,000 Loyalist refugees who left the 13
colonies during the Revolution, about 4% of the white population (com­
pared to one-half of 1% who left France during the French Revolution).17
Thousands fled New York City in panic when the British withdrew; New
York had been a haven of Loyalist refugees from Revolutionary persecution

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and terror throughout the Revolutionary War. In one month alone, 170
ships overcrowded with Tory ‘boat people’ fled the impending occupation
of the city by the Revolutionaries ‘on their top-heavy decks were huddled
a wretched throng of soldiers and refugees’.18 Some Loyalists returned to
Great Britain, some other nationals returned to their original homelands,
some settled in the Caribbean, but about half ended up in Canada: about
35,000 in Nova Scotia and 7,000 in what was to become Ontario. Until
1798, Loyalists continued to migrate to Canada, especially upper Canada. By
1812 about 80% of all white inhabitants of upper Canada had been born in
the US (80% of these having left the US since 1783). Loyalist ideology,
formed by the experience of persecution and refugee status, long remained a
potent force in Canadian nationalism.19 The Loyalist flight out of revolution­
ary America was comparable to that of the flow of anti-revolutionaries after
many other revolutions since that time, for example, China, Russia, Vietnam,
Eastern Europe. But it should be noted that of 20th Century revolutions
only the Cuban (as a matter of deliberate policy) has produced, relatively,
a significantly higher number of permanent refugees than did the American
Revolution. The percentage of refugees from China or Russia was lower than
that reached after the American Revolution. There were, for example, about
2.5 million refugees from the Russian Revolution - almost 1.5% of that
country’s population .Ä

Federalists vs Jeffersonians: 1798-1808

In this period of American history there was sharp conflict between the
forces that sponsored the US Constitution - with its centralization of
powers, aristocratic orientation, hostility to the interests of small farmers
and favour towards the slave owners and wealthy merchants who were the
backbone of the ruling Federalist Party, which was hostile to the democratic
influences of the French Revolution - and the Jeffersonian Republicans
supported by the small farmers who had resisted the implementation of the
Constitution, favouring instead greater popular democracy. The Jeffersonians
were generally sympathetic to developments in France. In the face of rising
public support for the Jeffersonians and growing disenchantment with
Federalist principles, the Federalist administration of John Adams attempted
to repress criticism through the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.21 The
sedition act punished ‘false, scandalous and malicious writings’ against the
government. The text of its most relevant section follows:

Section 2 . . . That if any person shall write, print, utter or publish,

or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published,
or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, etc. . . . any
false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government of the
United States, or either House of the Congress . . . or the President,
with intent to bring them into contempt or disrepute or to excite

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against th em . . . the hatred of the good people of the United States, or

to stir up sedition in the United States, or to excite any unlawful
combination therein for opposing or resisting any law — or any act
of the President of the United States done in pursuance of any such
law, or of the powers vested in him by the Constitution. . . or to resist,
oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage, or abet any
hostile designs of any foreign nation, against the United States, their
people, or government, then such person, being thereof convicted
before any court in the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall
be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by
imprisonment not exceeding two years.22

President Adams eagerly urged its enforcement. An associate Justice o f

the US Supreme Court who presided over some of the Sedition Act trials,
argued ‘that falsehoods and scandals against the government should be
punished with becoming rigour’.23
The Alien and Sedition Acts were used by the Federalists against news-
paper editors and other prominent personalities who were enemies of their
party. Twenty-five persons were arrested between 1798 and 1801 under the
sedition law, eleven cases came to trial and ten persons were convicted. The
most important o f the prosecutions were against the leading Republican
newspapers in the country: The Aurora (Philadelphia), The Examiner
(Richmond). The Argus (New York) and The Independent Chronicle
(Boston).34 The trials against the leading Republican newspaper editors
were heavily biased against the defendants with prejudiced Federalist judges
closely guiding the proceeding and juries selected on account of their
Federalist sympathies.25
The greatest punishment enacted under the Sedition Act, however, was
not against a newspaper publisher, but against a labour radical, David Brown,
who, in October 1798, erected a liberty pole in Dedham, Massachusetts, with
the words: ‘No Stamp Act, no Sedition Act, no alien bills, no land tax,
downfall to the tyrants o f America, peace and retirement to the President,
long live the Vice-President and the minority; may moral virtue be the basis
of civil government.’ As a result he was arrested and sentenced to 18 months
in gaol.2*
When the Jeffersonians displaced the Federalists in 1801, all those who
were in prison under the Sedition Act were pardoned and all fines were
eventually repaid (some not until 1850) by Congress. Once in power, how­
ever, the Jeffersonians began to repress the Federalist editors, just as
previously they themselves had been repressed, but not by means o f the
Sedition Act, which expired in 1801. In 1804, a Federalist printer in New
York, Croswell, was indicted for ‘scandalizing, traducing and vilifying’ the
President and for ‘alienating from him the obedience, fidelity and allegiance
o f the citizens o f New York* by printing a ‘malicious libel’ in his paper. In
Connecticut, in 1806, a federal grand jury returned indictments of seditious
libel against a Superior Court judge and the editors o f the Federalist

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Connecticut Courant - a total of six people.27

Sedition laws did not die with the resolution of the conflict between the
Federalists and Jeffersonians. A number of state governments themselves
passed sedition acts. For example, Tennessee, in 1817, passed the following
act:

Whoever shall be guilty of uttering seditious words or speeches, spread­

ing abroad false news, writing or dispersing scurrilous libels against the
state or general government, disturbing or obstructing any lawful
officer in executing his office, or of instigating others to cabal and
meet together, to contrive, invent, suggest, or incite rebellious
conspiracies, riots, or any manner of unlawful feud or differences,
thereby to stir the people up maliciously to contrive the ruin and
destruction of the peace, safety, and order of the Government, or shall
knowlingly conceal such evil practices, shall be punished by fine and
imprisonment at the discretion of the court and jury trying the case,
and may be compelled to give good and sufficient security for his or
her good behavior during the courts' pleasure, and shall be incapable
of bearing any office of honor, trust, or profit in the State government
for the space of three years. It shall be the duty of the judge to give
this section in charge to the grand jury, and no prosecutor shall be
required to an indictment under this section.28

The Conflict over Slavery and Civil Liberties: 1830-77

The denial of basic civil liberties during this period was extensive. The most
blatant repression of the ‘human rights' of speech, assembly, publication,
movement, etc., was the denial of even a semblance of civil liberties to the
slaves in the plantation system, in both the seceding and non-seceding states.
There were fundamental restrictions on the formal liberties both o f white
abolitionists and anti-secessionist forces in the South, and pro-Southem
forces in the North, as well as on the liberties of anti-Reconstruction forces
in the South after 1865.

The Abolitionists
Until 1828, agitation against slavery in the South was tolerated. But after
1828 the various Southern states initiated laws prohibiting speaking or pub­
lishing against slavery, and mob violence against abolitionists (informally
sanctioned by the Southern states) became prevalent. A typical Southern
law read: ‘If a person by speaking or writing maintains that owners have no
right o f property in their ¿aves, he shall be confmed in gaol not more than
one year and fined not exceeding $500.' Virginia, in the 1850s, passed
legislation banning publications which tended to incite insurrections, under
penalty of death. In the 1830s, a teacher of botany, Dr Reuben Crandall
was gaoled in Washington, DC, for eight months for possession and lending

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o f anti-slavery papers. From 1828 to 1860, there were numerous examples

o f abolitionists being beaten and run out of town* their meetings being
broken up, their presses smashed, and halls burned down both in the South
and the North.29
Anti-slavery literature was banned from the federal mails in the South
through the actions of local postmasters. In 1836, Virginia passed a law
authorizing postmasters to exclude 4incendiary publications’ and empowering
justices of the peace to 4bum publicly’ such condemned matter, and to gaol
anyone knowingly subscribing to or receiving abolitionist literature. The
postmaster of Lynchburg, Virginia sent the following letter to Horace
Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune:

Sir: 1 inform you that 1 shall not, in future, deliver from this office the
copies of the ‘Tribune’ which come here, because 1 believe them to be
of that incendiary character which are forbidden circulation by the
laws of the land, and a proper regard for the safety of society. You
will, therefore, discontinue them.
Respectfully,
R.H. Glass, Postmaster.30

Threats to property, in this case in human beings, was not tolerated, and the
‘human rights’ o f critics o f slavery were systematically repressed. As in all
civil wars, there were no civil liberties for opponents in the American civil war.

War Measures
Southern sympathizers, and even neutrals, were systematically repressed in
the North. Habeas corpus was suspended by President Lincoln in April 1861
in the region between Washington and Philadelphia, and in July the suspen­
sion was extended to New York. In September 1862 there was a general
suspension of the writ o f habeas corpus because, according to Lincoln,
‘disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary process of
law’. Lincoln’s writ (ratified by Congress in March 1863), read:

During the existing insurrection . . . all rebels and insurgents, their

aiders and abetters, within the United States and all persons discourag­
ing voluntary enlistments, resisting military drafts, or guilty of any
disloyal practices . . . shall be subject to martial law and liable to trials
and punishments by courts-martial or military commission:
Second, that the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to
all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion
shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other
place of confinement, by any military authority, or by the sentence of
any court-martial or military commission.31

Thus the bill of rights was suspended for the duration o f the war for
Confederate sympathizers and neutralists. Lincoln, towards the end o f the

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war, justified suspension o f civil liberties by arguing that it was necessary to

protect the Constitution:

My oath to preserve the Constitution imposed on me the duty of

preserving by every indispensable means that government, that nation,
of which the Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose
the nation, and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and
limb must be protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save
a life, but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. 1 felt that measures
otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming indis­
pensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preser­
vation of the nation. Right or wrong 1 assumed this ground and 1 now
avow it. 1 could not feel that to the best of my ability I had even
tried to save the Constitution, if to save slavery, or any minor matter,
1 should permit the wreck of the government, country, and Constitu­
tion, together.32

The commanders o f the various military departments used their authority

to suppress Confederate sympathizers by taking local measures, the most
famous o f which was General Order 38 of General Burnside, commander of
the Department o f the Ohio, which read in part ‘. .. all persons found within
our lines who shall commit acts for the benefit of the enemies o f our country
will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death.. . . The
habit o f declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this
department’.33
Newspapers with Confederate sympathies were suppressed throughout the
North, through imprisonment of editors and denial of the mails, as well as
executive orders and the military forcibly suppressing papers or forbidding
their circulation in certain areas. Henry Reeves o f the Greenport, L.I.
Republican was sent to military prison for the treasonable character o f his
paper. James McMaster, editor of the New York Freeman's Appeal, was
arrested in September 1861 and charged with editing a disloyal newspaper.
F.D. and J.R. Flanders o f the New York Franklin Gazette were imprisoned
without trial. James Wall, a contributor to The New York Daily News
(which was suppressed by banning from the US mails) was arrested and
placed in military prison because of the pro-Southern articles he had written
for that paper.34 Denial of the use o f the mails (any class) became a tool to
suppress insufficiently patriotic papers. In addition to The New York Daily
News excluded papers included The South and The Exchange (both from
Baltimore), The New York Day Book, The Brooklyn Eagle, The New York
Journal o f Commerce and The Freeman's Journal** The Postmaster General
of the US argued in defence of the banning of pro-Confederate or neutralist
papers from the mails, as follows:

The freedom of the press is secured by high constitutional sanction.

But it is freedom and not license. . . . It cannot aim blows at the

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Government and the Constitution . . . and at the same time claim its
protection. While, therefore, this department neither enjoyed nor
claimed the power to suppress such treasonable publications, but left
them free to publish what they pleased, it could not be called upon to
give them circulation. The mails established by the United States could
not upon any known principle of law or public right, be used for its
destruction.. . . I would not, except in time of war, have adopted the
arguments of my predecessors.. . . These citations show that a course
of precedents has existed for twenty-five years —known to Congress,
not annulled or restrained by act of Congress —in accordance with
which newspapers and other printed matter decided by the postal
authorities to be insurrectionary or treasonable, or in any degree
exciting to treason or insurrection, have been excluded from the mails
. . . solely by authority of the executive administration. This under the
rules as settled by the supreme co u rt. . . as applicable to the executive
construction of laws with whose execution the departments are
specially charged, would establish my action as within the legal con­
struction of the postal acts.. . . 36

The Army of the Republic directly suppressed pro-Confederate papers. In

St. Louis The Missouri State Journal, The Herald and The Evening News
were suspended. All newspapers in Missouri, except those in St. Louis, had
to furnish advance copy of each Issue to the army for inspection before they
could go to press. The Chicago Times was suppressed in June 1863 by order
of the Department of the Ohio. In May 1864 The Baltimore Evening
Transcript was suppressed and The Cincinnati Enquirer was forbidden to
circulate in Kentucky, by order of the military.37
From February 1862 to the end of the war approximately 13,500 civilians
were arrested and confined in military prisons for activities in support of the
Confederacy. In addition there were many imprisonments in state and
Federal prisons. The total number of Northern political prisoners o f all
categories was approximated 38,00o.36

Reconstructing the South

Between March and July 1867 the US Congress passed legislation putting
the South under military rule (The Reconstruction Acts). The rebel states
were divided into five military districts with all civil and judicial power
invested in the army, either to be exercised directly or indirectly through
supervising civilian administrations. Under army supervision a general regis­
tration of voters took place, with only those able to prove that they did not
participate in the rebellion eligible to register. The anti-rebel electorate so
created was authorized to elect delegates to constitutional conventions in
each state to write new constitutions (generally far more democratic than
previous state constitutions) and elect a legislature. Once such reconstructed
states satisfied the army and Washington, they were readmitted into the
Union. Until Congress had admitted those elected as representatives the

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state governments remained provisional.39 The electorate that came into

being as a result of the Reconstruction Acts consisted o f a total of 700,000
Blacks and 660,000 whites. It is estimated that a total of almost 200,000
active Confederates were disenfranchised.40 Those who participated in the
Confederacy were also barred from holding office, both in the new, recon­
structed states, and as their representatives to Washington.
In 1872 an amnesty act reduced the number o f disqualified Confederates
(who were denied political rights) from between 150,000 and 200,000 to
between 300 and 400. In general, however, leading Confederates, although
deprived o f political rights, were treated leniently, certainly compared to the
working-class and peasant rebels who were repressed in other civil wars
(e.g. the Paris Commune of 1871). Only one Confederate Captain Henry
Wirz, the commander of the Confederate prisoner o f war camp at Anderson-
ville, Georgia —was executed. Many leading confederates were gaoled for
relatively short periods. But even the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson
Davis, served only two years in gaol. General Lee was not imprisoned at all,
although his citizenship was not restored until the mid 1970s 41
During the reconstruction period the military government of the South
limited freedom o f the press. In many states newspapers were suppressed and
pressured not to oppose reconstruction policy.43
In response to the organized violence and intimidation of the Ku Klux
Klan during the reconstruction period, the military intervened to suppress
the organization. In 1871, President Grant declared martial law in nine
counties o f South Carolina suspending habeus corpus and arresting between
500 and 600 persons. Between 1870 and 1876 there were 1,200 convictions
for interfering with the political and civil rights of citizens 43
As in all civil wars, there were refugees. Many secessionist leaders and
confederate officials, fearing harsh treatment, fled the country, along with
numerous slave owners who migrated to the slave holding areas of Latin
America (mostly Cuba and Brazil).46
In 1878 and 1879, with the withdrawal of the Army from the South and
the overthrow o f the Reconstruction governments and the consequent
reduction of the Black population to semi-slave status, many Blacks
attempted to flee the South. A systematic effort was made by plantation
owners and local government officials to prevent this emigration. River
crossings were blocked and Blacks attempting to leave the South were
forcibly returned to the areas they had left, this in order to guarantee the
plantation labour force. Needless to say, there were few effective civil
liberties or political rights for Black people in the South from the end of
Reconstruction until the 1860s; especially after the 1890s when Blacks
were almost completely disenfranchised.

The Repression of the Working-Class Movement: 1886-1914

With the rapid growth of the industrial working class, and the spread of

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anarchist and socialist ideas and organizations, as well as militant trade

unionism in this class, repression (including the denial of basic civil liberties)
exercised by the powers that controlled the US state as a mechanism to
contain the growing danger to their hegemony grew in importance. In the US
state militias had been used against strikes as early as 1828; but the first
massive use of federal troops was to suppress the spontaneous strikes and
large scale rioting that occurred in working-class districts throughout
Northern cities in the summer of 1877.
In America, the first (red scare’ and general repression o f the working-
class left occurred in 1886 and 1887 in the aftermath of a general strike in
Chicago for the eight hour working day. The strike, which began on 1 May
1886, together with the repression that followed, became such a cause
celebre in the world-wide socialist and union movement, that it became an
annual one day event throughout most of the world. Today its official
commemoration is as a public holiday in all the socialist countries, as well
as in many others. At a rally in Chicago on 4 May 1886, called to protest at
the killing o f strikers by the Chicago police, a still unidentified person threw a
dynamite bomb into the ranks of the police killing a number of them. In the
anti-radical hysteria that followed, the leadership of the anarchist working-
class movement in Chicago was arrested and charged with murder, not on the
basis o f actually having any involvement in the incident, but for preaching
anarchist ideology which, allegedly, inspired whoever did the deed. Two o f
those who were tried, Albert Parsons and George Engel, were not even at the
rally when the bomb was thrown. However, these two anarchist leaders, along
with two others, were hung, having been convicted at various times in the
past of having littered and printed incendiary and seditious language,
practically advising the killing of policemen, etc___ *4S
The arrest o f the Chicago anarchists was followed by police raids on
radical homes, headquarters, and presses all over the city. Chicago’s gaols
were packed, the presses of foreign language newspapers were smashed and
the offices o f trade unions and other working class organizations were
ransacked. Police in other cities soon followed suit as a national ‘red scare’
hysteria spread. The entire executive board of the Knights of Labor in
Milwaukee was arrested and charged with 'rioting and conspiracy’, four
officers of the Knights o f Labor in Pittsburgh were arrested and charged with
conspiracy, and the executive board of District 75 of the Knights o f Labor
in New York, which was engaged in a strike against the Third Avenue
Elevated, was also arrested..The Knights of Labor suffered grieviously from
the suppression and hostile publicity generated by this first national red
scare, and soon after folded as an effective labour organization.
States began to use martial law to suppress strikes in 1892. Declarations
of martial law allowed the imprisonment of humdreds of strikers without
charges, and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. In order to suppress
strikes martial law was declared in Colorado on ten separate occasions. At
Cripple Creek, Colorado in 1903-04, 1,000 troops were sent into the town.
The militia immediately rounded up 600 slrikers and held them for weeks

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without charge or trial, denying writs of habeas corpus. During the 1903-04
strike a total o f 1,345 people were arrested and held. General Sherman Bell,
commander o f the militia, was made famous by his response to lawyers’
writs when he said, ’Habeas corpus, hell. We’ll give ’em post mortems’, and
his equally famous ’To hell with the Constitutibn! We’re not following the
Constitution!’46
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in 1892 saw a similar event. Martial law was
declared by the government during a miners’ strike and the militia arrested
500 strikers. Seventy-five (almost none of whom were charged with any
crime) were held for months before being released. Again, in a second massive
Coeur d’Alene strike in 1899, the militia went even further; this time over
1,000 miners were confined by the military.47
The Federal Industrial Relations Committee, in its 1915 report, argued
that strikers were regularly arrested without having violated laws, ’charged
with fictitious crimes, held under excessive bail, and treated frequently
with unexampled brutality for the purpose of injuring strikers or breaking
the strike’. In summarizing the arrest of 2,238 persons charged with unlawful
assembly or disorderly conduct during a strike in Paterson, New Jersey, the
report found that the right of bail was generally denied, and when granted
was set at the prohibitive level of $500 to $5,000, and that men were arrested
for ’ridiculous reasons, as for example, standing on the opposite side of the
street and beckoning men in the mills to come out.’48 In the Lawrence textile
strike o f 1912 there were 900 arrests with detainees denied bail.49
Denial of freedom to speak in public or to distribute literature in public
was frequently used by authorities to suppress radical activities. In response
to being banned on the public streets of many Western towns and cities, the
Industrial Workers of the World, from 1909 to 1912, engaged in a number
o f ’Free Speech Fights’ in which their tactic was for one person after another
to mount a speaker’s platform and be arrested, until the gaols were over­
flowing with ‘Wobblies*. Nationwide calls would go out to 1WW members
from all around the country to ‘hop a freight’ to the city where the fight
was going on. The most famous of such ’free speech fights’ were at Spokane,
Fresno and San Diego.60
Socialist papers were suppressed during and in the aftermath of strikes.
In 1888, the Chicago Alarm was suspended from 8 April to 14 July because
o f its alleged anarchistic tendencies. On 5 September 1912 the socialist paper
of Butte, Montana was published with three blank columns indicating a
censored piece. Copies o f The Weekly Issue o f Passaic, New Jersey, were
confiscated by the police during a strike and its editor was arrested and
charged with ‘aiding and abetting hostility to the government’. In West
Virginia during the strike of 1912-13 the military arrested and held incom­
municado the editor of The Labor Argus. During the Coeur d’Alene strike, a
local newspaper editor was arrested and detained because of material pub­
lished in his paper criticizing the martial law decree on the grounds of
violating the Constitution. During the Cripple Creek strike, the editor of The
Victor Record, along with his staff and printers, who criticized the actions of

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the militia were arrested and put into the "bullpen9with the strikers.51
Johann Most, a leading anarchist, was arrested in September 1901 for re­
printing in his weekly Freiheit, an article allegedly defending political
assassinations. Most was convicted of a misdemeanour based on "breach
of the peace9 and ‘abuse of free speech9.52
Denial of civil liberties to socialists, anarchists, militant trade unionists
and their supporters became so common in this period that in 1914, the
American Sociological Society devoted its entire annual meeting to "Free­
dom of Communication9. The prominent, early American sociologist, Edward
A. Ross (who, In 1900, had been forced to resign from Stanford University
for political reasons) said:

During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage,
free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating
under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old
story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and
socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free
communication, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within
its pow er.. . . It is inexpressibly surprising that the rights of free
communication, established so long ago at such cost of patriot blood,
time-tested rights which in thousands of instances have vindicated
their value for moral and social progress, accepted rights which in the
minds of disinterested men are as settled as many principles of human
conduct can be, should with increasing frequency be flaunted by strong
employers and set at naught by local authorities.53

A number of professors besides Ross were forced out of university

positions at this time because of their pro-socialist or pro-union attitudes.
These included George Herron (Iowa College, 1893); E.W. Bemis (University
of Chicago, 1895); E.M. Banks (University of Florida, 1911); Scott Nearing
(University of Pennsylvania, 1914); and Joseph Hart (University of Washing­
ton, 1914).54

Repression of the Left: 1917-24

Mobilization for US participation in World War 1, the neutrality of the
American Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World, followed
by Socialist Revolution in Russia, a sympathetic response in certain
immigrant worker’s circles, and a wave of strikes in 1919, produced a
repression as ruthless as any in US history. The American left was system­
atically denied basic civil liberties in this period.
In May 1918 the US government passed a sedition act which made it a
crime to utter, print, write or publish any

disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language, or language intended

 The Land o f the Free

to cause contempt, scorn, contumely or disrepute as regards the form

of government of the United States, or the Constitution, or the flag,
or the uniform of the Army or Navy, or any language intended to
incite resistence to the United States or promote the cause of its
enemies, urging any curtailment of production of any things necessary
to the prosecution of the war with intent to hinder its prosecution or
to advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of these acts, ’and
words or acts supporting or favoring the cause of any country at war
with us, or opposing the cause of the United States therein.’ The maxi­
mum penalty set was $10,000 fine, 20 years imprisonment or both.55

By 1920, the majority of the states had also enacted peacetime sedition
or criminal syndicalism acts directed against working-class radical activity.
The model of the state peacetime sedition acts was that passed by New York
State in 1902 as a result of President McKinley’s assassination. This act
remained a dead letter until the first prosecution under it of a leader of the
New York State Socialist Party (Benjamin Gillow) in 1919. The New York
Criminal Syndicalism law made it a felony to advocate by speech or writing,
or to join any society or attend any meeting that taught or advocated ’the
doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force or
violence, or by assassination . . . , or by any unlawful means.’56 In 1919 and
1920 there was a wave of hastily passed state laws based on the New York
model. West Virginia made criminal any teaching in sympathy with or favour­
able to ’ideals hostile to those now or henceforth existing under the
constitution and laws of this state’. Montana made it a crime to use ’any
language calculated to incite or inflame resistance to any duly constituted
state authority’. Arizona made it a criminal offence to advocate the
violation of ’the constitutional or statutory rights of another as a means of
accomplishing industrial or political ends’. The California criminal syndical­
ism law passed in 1919 defines criminal syndicalism as:

Any doctrine or precept advocating, teaching or aiding and abetting

the commission of crime, sabotage (which word is hereby defined as
meaning wilful and malicious physical damage or injury to physical
property), or unlawful acts of force and violence or unlawful methods
of terrorism as a means of accomplishing a change in industrial owner­
ship or control, or effecting any political change.57

Imprisonment of from one to fourteen years became the penalty for

anyone who:

advocates, teaches, aids or abets criminal syndicalism, who wilfully

attempts to justify it; who publishes or circulates any written or printed
matter advocating or advising it; who organizes, assists in organizing,
or knowingly becomes a member of any group organized to advocate it
(without necessarily urging this doctrine himself);or who commits any

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act advocated by this doctrine with intent to effect a change in

industrial ownership or any political change.58

Between 1919 and 1924, 504 persons in California were arrested and held
for bail of $15,000 each under this statute, and 264 cases were tried.59
In the 1917-23 period, 33 states and a number of cities passed laws which
forbade the display of a red flag. In most states the penalty for displaying
the ‘symbol of Communism’ was a maximum of six months in gaol and/or a
fine of $500. Approximately 1,400 persons were arrested under these laws
and about 300 were convicted and imprisoned.60 The New York state statute
made it a misdemeanour to display the red banner: ‘in any public assembly or
parade as a symbol or emblem of any organization or association, or in
furtherance of any political, social, or economic principle, doctrine or
propaganda.’ Other states went further and forbade the display of the red
flag anywhere, including private homes. Some outlawed the wearing of red
neckties or buttons or the use of any emblem of any hue if it is ‘distinctive
of bolshevism, anarchism, or radical socialism’, or indicates ‘sympathy or
support of ideals, institutions, or forms of government, hostile, inimical, or
antagonistic to the form or spirit of the constitution, laws, ideals, and
institutions of this state or of the United States.61
There were approximately 2,000 prosecutions under the federal sedition
act. Diring World War 1 and the immediate post-war period, people were
tried for advocating heavier taxation instead of bond issues, for stating that
conscription was unconstitutional, that the sinking of merchant vessels was
legal, for urging that a referendum should have preceded the declaration of
war, for saying that the war was contrary to the teachings of Christ, and for
criticizing the Red Cross and the YMCA.62 A Mrs Stokes was convicted for
saying to a group of women ‘I am for the people and the government is for
the profiteers.’ According to the judge of this case what is said to mothers,
sisters and sweethearts may diminish their enthusiasm for the war, and ‘our
armies in the field and our navies upon the seas can operate and succeed only
so far as they are supported and maintained by the folks at home’.63 Mrs
Stokes was sentenced to ten years in prison on the grounds that such a state­
ment was ‘. .. false . .. known to be false and intended and calculated to
interfere with the success of our military and naval forces, that it was an
attempt to cause insubordination in those forces, and it obstructed
recruiting’.64
In Connecticut in 1920 a salesman was sentenced to six months in gaol
for remarking to a customer that Lenin was ‘the brainiest’ or ‘one of the
brainiest’ political leaders of the world. The state of Washington prohibited
school teachers from answering students’ questions concerning Bolshevism
or ‘any other heresies’.65 Twenty-seven South Dakota farmers were sentenced
to more than a year in prison each for petitioning various state officers for
a referendum on the war. The Attorney-General declared that the convictions
in this case were ‘one of the greatest deterrents against the spread of hostile
propaganda, and particularly that class of propaganda which advanced and

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 The Land o f the Free

played upon the theme that this was a capitalists’ w a r/66

On 4 July 1919 in Oakland, California, known radicals were rounded up
and gaoled because of suspicions that there would be an organized disruption
on that date; for the same reason the mayor of New York suspended all
meetings for the same day.67 Yetta Stromberg was convicted in California
under its Red Flag statute and sentenced to up to five years for displaying a
flag at a socialist youth camp that symbolized opposition to government.68
The US government attempted to suppress the newly formed Communist
Party. Anita Whitney was convicted under the California criminal syndicalism
act in January 1920 for membership in the Communist Labor Party and
attendance at its state convention in Oakland ; she was sentenced to between
one to 14 years.68 Angelo Herndon, a. Black Communist, was arrested in
Atlanta, Georgia and sentenced to between 18 and 20 years in prison for
being in possession of communist literature, including membership blanks,
and a booklet called The Communist Position on the Negro Question, which
argued for Black self-determination in the black belt counties of the South.70
Benjamin Gitlow, one of the founders of the American Communist Party, was
convicted in New York in January 1920 and sentenced to between five and
ten years hard labour (of which he served three) for printing the founding
manifesto of the Communist Party in the publication of which he was
business manager —Revolutionary Age.11
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), an important revolutionary
union with significant influence in certain areas of industry in the period
1905-17, was systematically destroyed by state repression in the 1917-24
period.
In April 1918,113 IWW leaders were charged in Chicago with a long list
of seditious acts (an average of over 100 per defendant, or a total of over
10,000 charges). After four months of testimony, largely consisting of
quotations and citations from IWW newspapers and pamphlets, the jury, after
debating for about one hour, returned verdicts of guilty for all defendants on
all counts. Thirty-five o f the Chicago defendants were sentenced to five
years in prison, 33 to ten years, and 15, including their most prominent
leaders, Haywood and St. John, to 20 years. Total fines levied exceeded
$2,000,000. The majority served substantial terms at Leavenworth (although
a few, including Big Bill Hayworth, skipped bail and fled the country -
Haywood died in the Soviet Union, a refugee from American repression).72
The Chicago indictments were followed by mass arrests of IWW leaders in
other parts of the country. Sixty-two IWW members were convicted in
January 1919 in California and sentenced to between one and ten years
(these defendants, along with other ‘Wobblies’ not tried, had been imprisoned
for between ten and twelve months while awaiting trial)?3 Twenty-six IWW
members received prison terms of between one to nine years in Wichita,
Kansas in late 1918. Sixty-four 'Wobblies’ were arrested in Omaha, Nebraska
in November 1917, and held for a year and a half, before charges against
them were dropped.74
In addition to mass arrests and imprisonment of leaden, the IWW was

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subjected to numerous other forms of repression, including the banning of

its publications from the US mails (not only from second class status). s
Sixty-four IWW offices around the country were systematically raided by
the federal government on 5 September 1917, who seized tons o f official
and personal correspondence, organization minutes and financial records,
sticken, buttons, cards, membership lists, leaflets, pamphlets, circulan, books
and office equipment, much of which was introduced as evidence in the
various IWW trials. The US army directly suppressed the IWW in the Pacific
Northwest. In Montana, troops raided the Flathead County IWW head­
quarters and held local members in confinement for several weeks without
filing charges against them. In Washington state, the army raided IWW halls,
closed the Spokane headquarters, broke up IWW meetings, searched freight
trains for ‘Wobbly* worken, arrested organizen and gaoled dozens of ‘
‘Wobblies*., releasing only those ‘willing to work without agitating strikes’
and who the army felt would not be ‘a menace to the best interests of
industry’.76 De facto martial law was implemented in the Northwest during
World War I, with the courts denying writs of habeas corpus for confined
IWW members.77
In September 1917 one o f the leading socialist papers in the country. The
Milwaukee Leader, was deprived of its second class mailing rights and all
first class mail addressed to The Leader was returned to the sender. The
District Court o f Appeals that upheld the postmaster’s decision in this case
argued:

No one can read them without becoming convinced that they were
printed in a spirit of hostility to our own government and in a spirit
of sympathy for the Central Powers; that through them, appellants
sought to hinder and embarrass the government in the prosecution
of the war.78

The other leading socialist paper. The New York Call, received the same
treatment.79 The post office ban on these two newspapers lasted until
December 1919 (13 months after the end o f the War). The socialist
Seattle Union Record received worse treatment. In late 1919 the Attorney
General closed its office because it urged worken to ‘kick the governing class
into the discard at the next election’.81 In January 1920, three men were
arrested in Syracuse for distributing leaflets describing ill-treatment of politi­
cal prisoners and calling for an amnesty meeting. They were sentenced to
18 months in gaol for: ‘disloyal language about our form o f government and
the military forces, language designed to bring them and the Constitution
into contempt, inciting resistance to the United States, and obstruction
o f recruiting’.82
Numerous other left-wing publications were suppressed by the post office
including the Nation o f 14 September 1918, The Public (for an article
suggesting higher taxes and fewer bonds); The Freeman's Journal and
Catholic Register (for reprinting an article by Jefferson arguing that Ireland

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 The Land o f the Free

should be a republic); The Gaelic American (for suggesting that the Irish were
not enthusiastic about ñghting for Britain); The Irish World (for stating that
the trend of French life and ideals had, for a century, been toward material­
ism); and The Masses. After suppressing the August number of The Masses,
the Postmaster refused to admit any future issues to the second class mailing
privilege on the ground that the magazine had skipped a number. Books
such as Thorstein Veblen’s Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution,
Latzko’s Men in War, and Lenin’s Soviets at Work, were also banned from the
mails.83
Films, too, were subjected to suppression. In 1917 the government confis­
cated and destroyed the prints o f The Spirit o f 976 (a film which had been
completed before the US entered the World War) and arrested and convicted
its producer, Robert Goldstein, under the sedition act. The Spirit o f 976
celebrated the American War of Independence and, as such, not surprisingly,
was critical of Great Britain (a US ally during World War I). The verdict of
the judge in this case was as follows:

Great Britain is an ally of the United States.. . . this is no time . . . for

the exploitation of those things that may have the tendency. . . of
creating animosity or want of confidence between us and our allies,
because so to do weakens our efforts, weakens the chance of our
success, impairs our solidarity-----And it is not at all necessary that it
should be shown to have such effect [of inciting hatred of England] ;
it is enough if it is calculated reasonably so to excite or inflame the
passions of our people or some of them, as that they will be deterred
from giving that full measure of co-operation, sympathy, assistance, and
sacrifice which is due to Great Britain, simply because . . . Great Britain
. . . is working with us to fight the battle which we think strikes at our
very existence as a nation.84

Goldstein was sentenced to ten years, commuted to three.

Leftist teachers were banned from the schools. The New York Superin­
tendent o f Schools forbade the employment of teachers who belonged to
the left wing of the Socialist Party. Some were fired for their beliefs. Not
only Bolshevism, but also the League of Nations were banned as legitimate
subjects for classroom discussion.
On 2 January 1920, federal agents rounded up more than 4,000 radicals
and alleged radicals in co-ordinated raids in 33 cities in 23 states, holding the
them for deportation or charging them with seditious acts. Almost every
known communist organization was raided, and virtually every known
national and local communist leader was arrested. The purpose of the ‘Palmef
raids was to destroy the newly formed communist parties in the US, primarily
through seizing and deporting their alien members (who were a substantial
proportion o f their membership). Deportation was an especially efficient
process, because deportation proceedings did not require the due process
safeguards of criminal proceedings (no indictments, no judge, no jury, no

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lawyers). Deportation was a purely administrative matter handled by the

Department of Labor.86
Attorney General Palmer’s instructions to his Secret Service men through­
out the country began:

INSTRUCTIONS
Our activities will be directed against the radical organizations, known
as the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party
of America, also known as Communists.
The strike will be made promptly and simultaneously at 8.30 pm in
all districts. The meeting places of the Communists in your territory,
and the names and addresses of the officers and heads that you are to
arrest, are on the attached lists.
You will also arrest all active members where found.
Particular efforts should be made to apprehend all the officers,
irrespective of where they may be, and with respect to such officers,
their residence should be searched and in every instance all literature,
membership cards, records and correspondence are to be taken.87

Many of the arrests were made without warrants, and of those detained
many were held incommunicado and denied the right to counsel; many were
not even radicals. Of the 800 incarcerated in Detroit, 300 were released after
six days when it became clear that they had no connection whatsoever with
radical causes.88
The Palmer raid of 2 January 1920 was by no means the only one directed
against seizing and deporting non-citizen radicals. For example, on 7
November 1919, the government conducted raids in 12 cities against the
pro-Communist Union o f Russian Workers, arresting a total o f 250 people
and confiscating truckloads of literature. State and local officials followed the
federal example.89 From 1917 to 1921, a total of 900 leftists were
deported.90
The most famous persecution under the federal sedition act was that of
Eugene Debs, leader of the Socialist Party and five times its candidate for
President (he received 6% of the national Presidential vote in 1912) On 16
June 1918 Debs made a public speech in Canton, Ohio which included the
words 4The master class has always declared the war; the subject class has
always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to
lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose -
especially their lives.. . . ’ On 20 June, Debs was indicted and charged with
ten separate violations of the sedition act for ten different statements in
his speech, including this one. On 14 September 1918 he was sentenced to
ten years in prison, of which he served three before receiving a Presidential
pardon. While in prison Debs was the Presidential candidate of the Socialist
Party in the 1920 elections, receiving over one million votes.
The Socialist Party was systematically repressed ; its leading papers were
banned from the mails; its elected representatives were denied seats in state

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 The Land o f the Free

and federal legislatures. The entire national committee of the Socialist Party
was indicted under the sedition act. Scores of leading socialists were imprison­
ed, including Charles Ruthenberg, Alfred Wagenkneckt, Kate Richards
O’Hare, J.O. Bentall, Scott Nearing and Rose Pastor Stokes.91
Socialists were denied their seats both in the US House of Representatives
and in the New York State Assembly. Victor Berger, a leading socialist,
was indicted under the sedition act in 1918 on the grounds of five anti-war
editorials in The Milwaukee Leader of which he was editor. In November
1918, before his trial began, he was elected to Congress from Milwaukee.
In December 1918 he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
Berger was released on bail while waiting an appeal. (His conviction was
overturned in January 1921.) In the spring of 1919 at the opening of the new
Congress he was declared ineligible for seating and, after a committee report,
his seat was declared vacant in November 1919. In a special election in
December, Berger received 25,802 votes against the combined Democratic-
Republican candidate’s 19,800. But for the second time the House of
Representatives refused to seat him, even though the war had been over for
more than a year. Only six Representatives voted in favour of his seating.92
In January 1920, five elected members of the New York State Assembly
were denied their seats on the grounds that they were members of an
organization that had been convicted of a violation of the sedition act. The
speaker of the Assembly addressed them arguing ‘You are seeking seats in
this body, you who have been elected on a platform that is absolutely
inimical to the best interests of the State of New York and of the United
States’.93 The day after their expulsion The New York Times commented
Tt was an American vote altogether, a patriotic and conservative vote. An
immense majority of the American people will approve and sanction the
Assembly’s action.’ In September, all five Socialists were re-elected, but were
again denied their seats. In April, the Assembly went further, passing legis­
lation which made the Socialist Party an illegal organization and barred its
candidates from the ballot.94
Governmental complicity with organized violence and intimidation of
radicals was also an important repressive force in this period. For example,
in 1919, a citizen o f Indiana, in a fit of rage, shot and killed a man who had
yelled ’to hell with the United States’. The jury deliberated for two minutes
before acquitting the killer. A man was mobbed in the Waldorf Astoria hotel
for shouting ’to hell with the flag’.
Highly effective repression of the left was effected by organized groups,
especially the American Legion and the Ku Klux Klan. The American Legion,
founded in May 1919 (by December 1919 it had over one million members)
was founded as a patriotic paramilitary organization of veterans committed
to suppressing manifestations of ’un-Americanism’. The Legion’s first
commander ordered his men to be ’ready for action at any time . . . against
the extremists who are seeking to overturn a government for which thousands
of brave young Americans laid down their lives’. Legionnaires in some areas
ran suspected radicals out of town, tarred and feathered aliens suspected of

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

left sentiments, and beat up Socialists. In Detroit, a local post prided itself
on being called ’one thousand Bolshevik bouncers’. In Denver, legionnaires
had a pact that they would: ’reply with their fists to any malcontent who
talked of revolution or anarchy’. Anti-socialists throughout the country took
up the slogan ’Leave the Reds to the Legion’.95
The Ku Klux Klan was revived in the Northern industrial states in areas
with high concentrations of European immigrant workers, and were centres
o f working-class unionism and radical agitation. In 1924, its membership
peaked at 4,500,000. The ’second klan’ was committed to ‘100% American­
ism’. It was against unions, which it considered a manifestation of
communism; Roman Catholicism, the religion of the majority of the new
immigrant workers; and Jews, whom it saw as behind the Bolshevik
conspiracy. Temporarily, the Klan dominated politics In Indiana, Ohio and
Oregon. Like the early Legion, the Klan was a paramilitary organization
designed to terrorize, intimidate and suppress all manifestations of working-
class radicalism. And like the Legion’s early vigilante activities, the
authorities - In many states Klan supporters - turned a blind eye to most
Klan activity directed against the left.96
Systematic repression against the left had a devastating effect. Member­
ship of the Communist Party(ies) decreased from about 70,000 at their
founding to about 12,000 in 1922. Membership in the Socialist Party, which
was decimated both by defections to the Communists and government
repression, fell from 110,000 in 1919, to 12,000 in 1922. The IWW was
virtually totally destroyed; its membership o f more than 100,000 in 1917
was reduced to less than 10,000 by the mid 1920s - a mere shell of its
former self. The union movement was likewise decimated with a sharp
decline in membership and influence between 1919 and 1923.97 Systematic
government repression succeeded in isolating, greatly reducing the influence
of, and demoralizing the American left, through the denial of basic civil
liberties to its organizations, publications and leaders.

Depression, War and Civil Liberty: 1930-45

Social instability, the consequent rise of militant movements challenging the

system, war, and the consequent need to mobilize the people, of necessity,
produce restrictions on civil liberties. Such was the case in the US during the
depression of the 1930s, and World War II, exactly as has been the case in
other countries and at other times.
After 1923 the repression of socialists and communists relaxed since:
(1) conditions of economic prosperity returned and (2) the left movement
had been fairly effectively destroyed through governmental repression.
(The Communist Party, the Socialist Party and the IWW had all been
reduced to ghosts of what they had been in the 1917-19 period.) The US
was neither involved in, nor preparing itself for, any major overseas adven­
tures, and clearly there was no significant threat, or even the potentiality of

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 The Land o f the Free

a threat, from domestic working-class movements. But with the economic

collapse of 1929 conditions for the growth o f an opposition working-class
movement once again returned. With the outbreak of another European war
and US involvement increasingly likely, after 1937, the need to mobilize
support for US overseas activities grew. Thus, although the restrictions
on civil liberties in the 1930-47 period were relatively mild (except for the
Japanese Americans), compared to what happened before and after, they
were nevertheless considerable.
Throughout the 1930s there were examples of the continued application
of state criminal syndicalism laws against members o f the Communist Party,
as well as prosecutions o f communists under other legislation, both state and
federal. For example, in Oregon in 1930 Ben Boloff, a construction labourer
who had migrated from Russia in 1910 (and could speak no English) was
arrested in Portland for vagrancy and then rearrested and charged with
violating the criminal syndicalism act when a Communist Party card was
found in his pocket. Boloff was convicted and sentenced to ten years in
prison, a conviction which was upheld in the Oregon Supreme Court (he was,
nevertheless, released). At his trial evidence was offered that showed he
attended local Communist Party meetings where the Red Flag was displayed
and literature was available which showed men bearing arms and engaging in
violence.98
In 1934 another prosecution was brought under the criminal syndicalism
act, against a leader of the Oregon Communist Party, DeJonge. DeJonge was
charged with speaking at a public meeting in Portland, called to protest
against the shooting o f striking longshoremen and raids o f workers’ halls
and homes during the West Coast Longshore strike of that year. Although the
meeting was entirely peaceful and non-incendiary it was raided by police,
with DeJonge being indicted on the grounds that he:

did then and there .. . conduct and assist in conducting an assemblage

of persons, organization, society and group, to wit: the Communist
P arty,. .. which said assemblage of persons, organizations, society
and group did then and there . . . teach and advocate the doctrine of
criminal syndicalism and sabotage . . . ’

Communist Party literature was offered as the sole proof of the advocacy
o f ‘criminal syndicalism’. DeJonge was sentenced to seven years in prison,
his conviction being sustained by the Oregon Supreme Court, but overturned
by the US Supreme Court.99
In the late 1930s, New Jersey in general, and Patterson and Jersey City
in particular, put considerable restrictions on the civil liberties of those
supporting unions in local strikes. Patterson prohibited labour meetings, as
well as meetings to protest against the prohibition of labour meetings. Roger
Baldwin, the director o f the American Civil Liberties Union, was arrested in
Patterson as he started to read the Declaration o f Independence in front of
the city hall. Jersey City virtually prohibited any but approved speakers from

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finding a platform of any kind in the city. Owners of public halls were deter­
red from renting them out; permits for the distribution of handbills were
refused; prospective speakers who went to Jersey City were deported back
to New York. Speakers permits were not only denied to such prominent
socialists as Norman Thomas, but also to several US Congressmen, including
Senator Borah, on the grounds that allowing them to speak would incite
riots, disturbances or disorder.100
With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the American
Communist Party took a neutralist position, identical to that taken by the
Socialist and Communist Parties, and the IWW during World War I, identify­
ing the war as one between capitalist countries, in which the workers had no
interest. Consequently, in October and November 1939, Earl Browder,
general secretary of the Communist Party, and Harry Cannes, foreign editor
of The Daily Worker (along with another CP leader) were arrested under the
passport laws. Browder was sentenced, in March 1941, to a four year sen­
tence o f which he served a year before being pardoned by Roosevelt (after
the Soviet Union and the US had become allies). There were a number of
other prosecutions of communists in the 1939-41 period reminiscent of
the suppression of the anit-war left in the 1917-19 period, including revo­
cations of citizenship of naturalized citizens, contempt citations by
Congressional Committees for refusing to turn over membership lists, and
convictions for collecting signatures on Party election partitions during the
1940 election. In Oklahoma, 18 Communist Party members were tried under
the Oklahoma criminal syndicalism law and held under $100,000 bail each.
Two were sentenced to ten years each, but were shortly released.101
In June 1940, the US passed another federal sedition act, the Smith Act,
directed against those who were opposing growing US involvement in the
European war. This Act provided for heavy penalties for 'teaching and ad­
vocating the overthrow of the United States government by force and
violence*, prohibited the advocacy of insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny,
or refusal of duty in the military forces of the US, and required the
registration and finger-printing of all non-US citizens.103 The Smith Act was
first used to prosecute the Socialist Workers* Party (Trotskyist) because it
refused to support the US involvement in the war, on the grounds that it was
an inter-capitalist war. With the changed line of the US Communist Party
after Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the restrictions on the
civil liberties of communists ceased, not to be resumed until after the war.
Inevitably, sympathizers with the national enemy during the war and, in
the case of the Japanese, those defined by ethnicity as potential sympathizers
o f Germany and Japan, were systematically denied civil liberties in the
1938-45 period. It should be pointed out, however, that, apparently for
racist reasons, restrictions on Japanese Americans were considerably greater
than those on sympathizers with the Nazis.
In 1938, both the federal government and the City of New York began
a campaign to destroy the German-American Bund, the leading pro-Nazi
organization in the US. The City of New York employed tax laws effectively

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 The Land o f the Free

against the Bund, claiming that the Nazis had violated the tax laws by not
reporting income on the street sale of pamphlets and regalia. A detailed
study of the Bund’s financial records revealed irregularities that were used
to convict Bund leaders of embezzlement. Bund funds were frozen during the
investigation, making it impossible for it to pay its debts. Bund Führer
Kuhn went into hiding after the entry of the US into the war; he escaped to
Mexico, where he was arrested and deported back to the US. He was
convicted on several counts, including espionage, and sentenced to 15 yean
in prison. Between July 1942 and January 1944 a total of 42 individuals,
46 organizations, and 46 publications were indicted by federal Grand Juries
for sedition under the Smith Act for being supportive of fascist causes. Nazi
leader Kuhn, and 19 other prominent Bundists, were indicted under the
naturalization acts for retaining allegiance to a foreign power at the time of
their naturalization.103 In general, however, Nazi leaden and sym pathizer
while effectively repressed, fared reasonably well during the war yean.
One of the most massive repressions of civil liberties in American history
occurred during the war in respect of those of Japanese descent. All Japanese
living West of the Mississippi, regardless of the degree of Japanese blood,
whether or not they were citizens, or how many yean they, or their a n c esto r
had been in the US, were forcibly removed to isolated relocation camps, The
85% of Japanese Americans who lived West of the Mississippi, a total of
112,000 penons, were given between 48 houn and two weeks to prepare for
evacuation to camps in the barren areas of the West. They were allowed to
take with them only what they could carry, thus being forced to dispose
of their houses, cars, appliances and other possessions —typically to
unscrupulous buyen who offered extremely low prices for Japanese poss­
essions, knowing that they had to sell immediately. The Japanese Americans
lost hundreds of millions of dollars in this period.
The West Coast Japanese were put under the authority of the US army.
Relocation (concentration) camps were opened in the most desolate areas of
California, Arizona, Colarado, Utah and Arkansas. Until the relocation camps
were ready, the Japanese were put into 15 temporary assembly centres,
usually race tracks or fairgrounds. The camps were enclosed by barbed wire,
with military sentinels stationed in towers to prevent escape. Families were
crowded into single rooms. Employment was offered at the rate of $16.00
a month (which often, although promised, failed to materialize). Strikes
against labour conditions in the camp were systematically repressed by the
army, which confined strike leaden, isolating them from the rest of the camp
population, for the duration of the war. The celebration of Japanese culture
and the use of the Japanese language were strongly discouraged, and Japanese
schools were forbidden.104

Repression of the American Communist Party and Civil liberties:

1947-56
The Smith Act, which had been passed in 1940, was used against the

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Communist Party for the first time in July 1948, when indictments were
brought against 12 of the 13 members of the national board o f the Party,
including William Z. Foster (Chairman), Eugene Denis (General Secretary),
Robert Thompson (Labour Secretary), Benjamin Davis (New York City
Councilman), Henry Winston, John Gates (editor of TheDaiiy Worker),
Gilbert Green and Gus Hall. The 12 were charged as follows:

. . . the defendants herein, unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly, did

conspire with each other, and with divers other persons. . . to organize
as the Communist Party of the United States of America, a society,
group, and assembly of persons who teach and advocate the over­
throw and destruction of the Government of the United States by force
and violence, and knowingly and wilfully to advocate and teach the
duty and necessity of overthrowing and destroying the Government
of the United States by force and violence . . .

It should be noted that the indictment charged neither that the defendants
actually attempted to overthrow the government, nor that they had actually
taught the techniques o f such an overthrow, merely that they taught the
theory that a violent overthrow was justified.105 The government’s case in
this and other Smith Act trials, was largely based on reading and discussing
extracts from The Communist Manifesto, The State and Revolution, Prob­
lems o f Leninism and other Marxist classics endorsed by the CPUSA in order
to prove its advocacy of violent revolution. All 12 defendants were convicted,
eleven being given the maximum five years sentence phis a $5,000 fine. In
July 1951, eight of the twelve began serving their sentences, their appeals
to the Supreme Court having been denied on the grounds that the Soviet
and Communist threat was o f such a magnitude that there was a probable
(though not immediate) danger of revolution in view of inflammable world
conditions. Four of those convicted, Thompson, Hall, Winston and Green,
went Underground’ rather than surrender themselves for imprisonment.
Hall, however, was soon captured and given an additional three years in gaol,
the others were never caught, but turned themselves in voluntarily four
years later.106 The eight spent the full five years in prison, Hall spent seven
years.
The conviction of the Party leadership was followed by the arrest and
trial o f local communist leaders around the country. In California, in July
1951,12 state leaders including Oleta O’Connor Yates (State Secretary of
the Party), A1 Richmond (editor o f The People's World) and Dorothy Healy
were arrested. All 12 were convicted and given the maximum five years in
prison plus a $10,000 fine.107 Six leaders o f the Michigan Party were tried
in October 1953, including Saul Wellman, the Michigan Party leader and
co-ordinator for the automobile industry. The six were fined $10,000 each
and given sentences of from four to five years. In Philadelphia, nine leading
communists from Oregon and Washington went on trial. This case was unique
in that it was the first Smith Act trial in which any of the accused was

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acquitted (Kitty Larson, who couid prove he ieft the Party in i946). The
others were sentenced to the standard five years.109 Similar events occurred
throughout the US - in Utah, Colorado, Connecticut, Ohio, Hawaii, Missouri,
Cleveland, Baltimore, New York City and Pittsburgh.
Leaders of the Communist Party weré also charged under the Smith Act
with Communist Party membership, a crime which carried a maximum
sentence of ten years. Eight membership prosecutions were brought. The
first was against Gaude Light food, Secretary of the Illinois CP. His sentence
o f five years in prison and a $5,000 fine was upheld by the US Supreme
Court in January 1956. Junius Scales, Secretary of the North and South
Carolina CP in 1955, was sentenced to six years in prison, the heaviest single
sentence in any Smith Act case (except for Gus Hall).110
The Smith Act trials all followed much the same pattern, with the
prosecution’s cases being built around the combined testimony of ex-party
members (much the same handful of witnesses appeared in trial after trial)
and the introduction of Party-endorsed literature, both largely focusing on
what the Communist Party in fact taught and advocated, and relatively little
on what the specific defendants actually did. The prosecution would
inevitably quote such phrases from Lenin as, ’The proletarian revolution is
impossible without the forcible destruction of the bourgeois state machine’,
and Stalin ’.. . the law of violent proletarian revolution, the law of the
smashing of the bourgeois state machine as a preliminary condition for such
a revolution, is an inevitable law of the revolutionary movement of the
imperialist countries’.111 Witnesses brought by the prosecution testified to
the content of books read, discussed and taught by the defendants.113
Specific charges alleged such offences under the Smith Act as having
attended and participated in various CP conventions, having attended classes
on the ’History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’, having written
and caused to be published an article entitled ’Concentration and Trade
Union Work’, ’did attend and participate’, ’did cause to be used .... a safe-
deposit box’, ’to conceal his true identity . . . did use the false name . . ’,
’did attend a rally . . . a conference . . . an affair . . . a forum’, ’did prepare a
press release’, ’. .. circulated copies of a letter’, etc. During some of the
trials, library hand trucks were wheeled into the courtroom to facilitate
citations by both sides from a wide range of Marxist literature.113
When Communist leaders took the stand in their own defence, in order
to explain communist teachings, it was standard practice to ask them to
talk about the activities of other communists - which they always refused to
do. This refusal was frequently interpreted as contempt of court and
punished by 30 day sentences for each violation, in the California trial,
after the head of the California Party, Mrs Yates, had given eloquent and
lengthy testimony about the beliefs of the Communist Party, she was cited
for eleven separate contempt charges for refusing to talk about other indivi­
duals in the Party, and sentenced to a year in gaol. This technique became
a major inhibition to taking the stand in one’s own defence and consequently
leaving a bad impression on juries. It also served as an Immediate sanction

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

against communist leaders which short-circuited the judicial machinery.

Legal defence became a problem. Left lawyers were sometimes cited for
contempt and sentenced. In order to present a more respectable defence the
Party at one point attempted to secure "respectable* lawyers who were not
sympathetic to communism, but found this virtually impossible. The 17
defendants in the Flynn case, in New York in 1952, submitted an affidavit
showing that they had approached 28 law firms asking for an interview, had
received no reply from 12, and had been refused by 16. Non-communist
lawyers did not want to jeopardize their careers by defending Communists.114
By the end o f 1956, 108 Communist Party leaders had been convicted under
the Smith Act. Of the remaining 37 indictments originally brought by Federal
grand juries, there had been five severances, ten acquittals and 22 cases still
pending in the courts. It should be noted, however, that as of 1 June 1958,
only 28 o f the leaders actually spent time in prison after their conviction.115
Between 1949 and 1952 most of the states passed legislation making
it a criminal offence to advocate violent governmental change, or to join an
organization so advocating. By 1953, 39 states had such legislation. In
Maryland, leaders of organizations which advocated violent governmental
change became subject to a maximum of 20 years in prison, while mere
membership was punishable by five years in gaol. Maryland also made it a
crime to advocate the setting up of a US government under foreign domin­
ation, even if violent methods were not advocated.116
Connecticut made it a crime to print "scurrilous or abusive matter, con­
cerning the form of government in the United States, its military forces,
flag or uniform s. . . ’, or to advocate before ten or more persons any measure
"intended to injuriously affect the government of the United States or the
State of Connecticut*. In Michigan in 1950, writing or speaking subversive
words could incur a life sentence; Tennessee introduced the death penalty
for unlawful advocacy; Indiana made "unlawful advocacy* punishable by three
years in prison. In Massachusetts, to be a member of the Party or to know­
ingly allow a meeting place to be used by the CP could incur a three year
sentence. In Texas, membership o f the Communist Party became punishable
by 20 years in prison. Towns and cities also passed anti-Communist legis­
lation. Los Angeles County required registration of Communist Party
members, and tried Henry Steinberg, a local leader, for refusing to register.
Similar registration laws were enacted in a number of local areas. The most
severe sentence for refusing to register as a subversive was given in Alabama,
when, in August 1954, Matthew Know, a janitor, was sentenced to two years
in prison on the basis of communist literature in his room (he did not admit
to being a Communist Party member).117
Communists and other sympathetic leftists were prosecuted and gaoled for
contempt o f Congress. Congressional committees, especially the House
Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), would subpoena prominent
leftists in cities all over the US and require them to answer questions under
pain of a prison sentence for contempt of the Committee. From January
1945 to April 1971 there were 174 contempt citations issued by the HCUA

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 The Land o f the Free

and its successor, the House Internal Security Committee. Between 1950
and 1952 Congress cited 117 people for contempt (compared with a total
o f only 113 contempt citations in the entire period 1857-1949). Congress
endorsed all the 226 contempt citations voted by its committees in the
period 1945-57. Contempt citations stemmed from such things as refusing
to reveal names of contributors or organizational records, or to name
individuals involved in Communist Party activities. It should be noted, how­
ever, that the majority o f contempt citations were eventually overturned in
the courts.118
Communists were also gaoled for contempt for invoking the Fifth Amend­
ment right not to incriminate oneself before a grand jury. By July 1949, 16
California communists were thus convicted, with many being gaoled. In
September 1950, Eugene Brunner was sentenced to six months in prison in
California for invoking the Fifth Amendment in regard to past Party
membership. Supreme Court rulings in 1950 and 1952, however, established
the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment, thus invalidating these con­
victions.119
The Communist Party was banned as an electoral organization. It was
prohibited from entering candidates in elections. New York State banned
the Communist Party from the ballot in 1938 (Communists thereafter ran as
candidates o f the American Labor Party). California followed suit in 1940
with legislation which prohibited from the ballot any party which 'uses . . .
as a part o f its party designation the word “communist” or any derivative’;
and any party which is 'directly or indirectly affiliated, by any means
whatsoever’, with the Communist Party, the Third International, or any
other foreign organization, government, etc., or which advocated the over­
throw of the government by violence.130 Indiana, in 1945, passed legislation
requiring that each candidate’s party must insert a plank in its programme
proclaiming that it did not advocate any subversive doctrines. Local electoral
boards were given the authority to 'determine the character and nature o f the
political doctrines’ of the candidates. Every candidate for office in Pennsyl­
vania had to file an affidavit that he or she was not 'a subversive person’.
By the end o f 1952 approximately one-half o f the states had barred as can­
didates individuals and organizations advocating the violent overthrow of
the government, sedition, or a foreign dominated government in the US.
The state o f Washington required that all elected officials swear under oath
that they were not members of any organization listed by the US Attorney
General as subversive.131 In 1954 the federal government effectively banned
the Communist Party from participation in federal elections. The Communist
Control Act o f 1954 (‘An Act to Outlaw the Communist Party’) stripped the
Communist Party of 'all rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon
legal bodies’.122
The right o f assembly was severely abridged for the Communist Party and
its sympathizers. As already seen, the state of Massachusetts made it a felony
to knowingly allow the use of premises for Communist Party meetings.
Beginning in 1947, public meeting rooms and halls were more and more

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

frequently denied to the Communist Party, Henry Wallace supporters and

other progressives« In August 1950, Madison Square Garden refused to hire
Its hall to the Council on African Affairs, an organization included In the
Attorney General’s list. San francisco denied the use o f Its City Auditorium
for public meetings organized by the Committee to Save the Rosenbergs.
The New York Board o f Education barred left-wing organizations from
school buildings. The town supervisors o f Hempstead and Oyster Bay New
York in 1956 refused to let W.E.B. Du Bois speak in Levitt own Hall, because
of his "reputed Communist front affiliations’.
The mayor of New York ruled that organizations listed on the Attorney
General’s List were barred from soliciting funds in the streets. In 1953, the
annual May Day parade on Eighth Avenue in New York was banned because,
as the Police Commissioner put It, the marchers were "puppets o f the Soviet
government’. In August 1950, a proposed Communist Party-sponsored
protest demonstration against US involvement in the Korean war was banned.
When the rally was held without police authorization, 1,000 police broke it
up arresting 14 people and beating many more.133
The Communist press was restricted both through the arrest and imprison­
ment of the editors o f the major Communist papers, and also through the
seizure of The Daily Worker in 1956. In March 1956 the federal Bureau of
Internal Revenue raided and seized the offices of The Daily Worker, on the
grounds that the Party owed back taxes.134
There was considerable repression in the cultural field, especially in the
film industry, television and radio. Ten leading progressive motion picture
writers and directors were indicted in 1947 and sentenced to gaol for refusing
to tell the House Committee on Un-American Activities their political beliefs
and affiliations.125 They and about 250 others were "blacklisted’, including
some o f the most talented directors, writers and actors in Hollywood.136
Other leading playwrights and authors were similarly treated. In 1956,
Arthur Miller, whose works had long been blacklisted by the film, television
and radio industry, was subpoenaed by the HCUA and convicted of contempt
for refusing to talk about the activities of other people. Leftists were banned
from appearances on radio and television. Leading artists, such as Paul
Robeson, were denied access to both the mass media and public concert
halls.137
In 1947, President Truman issued an executive order imposing a loyalty
oath on federal employees as a condition o f employment. The Attorney
General compiled a list o f "subversive organizations’ and any members of such
organizations were excluded from federal jobs. In 1953 President Eisenhower,
through another executive order, changed the standard of eligibility for
federal employment from loyalty oaths to security clearance through investi­
gation. During the Truman administration 1,210 people were dismissed and
about 6,000 others resigned as a result of the loyalty programme (this
compares with only about 100 dismissals during the World War II years).
From 1953 to 1956 there were approximately a further 1,500 dismissals and
6,000 more resignations as a result o f security investigations. Thus, during the

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 The Land o f the Free

1947-56 period, there were about 2,700 civilian dismissals and 12,000
resignations as a result o f the loyalty and security programmes.12*
States and local government also barred ’subversives’ from employment.
By the end of 1950,32 states had implemented bans against Communists
and ’other subversives’ in public employment. The most common, actual
grounds for dismissal were Fifth Amendment discharges - refusal to answer
questions posed by legislative committees.129 In October 1950, California
legally transformed all public employees into ’civil defence workers’ and gave
them 30 days to swear that they had not, within the last five years, advocated
the violent overthrow o f the government nor belonged to any organization
that did so. Beginning in 1953, California state employees were
also automatically dismissed for refusal to answer any questions put to them
by governmental agencies and committees.130 The County o f Los Angeles
required its employees to swear that they did not belong to any o f 142
"subversive’ organizations. As a result of the county, and a similar city
ordinance, 45 employees were immediately discharged.131 New York City’s
loyalty programme resulted in the dismissal of over 250 city employees
between 1943 and 1956. Excluding teachers, it has been estimated that a
total o f about 500 state, municipal and local government employees were
dismissed for political reasons from 1948 to 1956.132
The federal government imposed security clearances as a condition o f
work in many occupations in industry and transport. Gearance became a
condition o f work for maritime workers. By the end of 1956,3,783 workers
(around 2,500 merchant seamen and 1,300 waterfront men) were denied
clearance, and hence their jobs. The security programme decimated leftist
strength in maritime unions.133 Under the federal Industrial Personnel
Security Program, approximately four million private employees were
screened for access to confidential, secret or top secret information from
1947 to 1956. Besides the maritime workers another 1,529 were denied
clearance, and the majority of them also their jobs. A woman worker In an
electrical plant was fired because her sister had signed a communist-sponsored
petition and she had refused to stop seeing her. A navy yard employee,
temporarily living with his grandmother who was a friend of Mother Ella
Bloor, a veteran Communist, was fired.134
HCUA systematically acted to ensure that radicals lost their jobs.
Frequently witnesses were fired as soon as they were subpoenaed. It was a
standard practice to sack anyone who refused to testify before a Congressional
committee by taking the Fifth Amendment. In June 1954, Roy Cohn,
Senator McCarthy’s chief aide, stated:

The way to get results, sir, is to hold our hearings, get these people in
public session, have them claim the Fifth Amendment, have the
witnesses name them as Communists, have them fired from the defense
plants___ The employers have adopted an arrangement that they will
not act against these people unless and until we hold these
hearings. . .13s

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Many leading corporations were subject to political pressure to discharge

any employee who invoked the Fifth Amendment. Some employers even
fired those who had merely been mentioned unfavourably before Congress­
ional committees. Bethlehem Steel fired a half dozen workers in 1954. In
1957, 15 of 22 witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment in Baltimore
before the HCUA lost their jobs, including seven at Bethlehem Steel (the
United Steel Workers refused to support them). A number of workers at the
Buick plant in Flint, Michigan were fired after the HCUA exposed them as
'college trained militants’. General Electric announced that it would dis­
charge all employees who refused to testify. A number of workers lost their
jobs in Seattle after the HCUA arrived in town, including a 19-year-old
dishwasher whose husband and father had been named before HCUA. A
member of the Molder’s Union who was ‘identified’ by HCUA was dismissed
after a womaiy>honed his company every day for several weeks demanding
his dismissal. A captain in the Seattle fire department lost his job just a
few days before he was due to retire, thus losing his pension rights.137
Employers often fired workers on their own initiative, without waiting
for prompting from the HCUA or government pressure. A worker was fired
by Firestone for expressing provocative comparisons of the US and the USSR
during company time; a worker was discharged for signing the Stockholm
Peace petition. In 1946 Lockheed fired 18 workers on the grounds that it
lacked sufficient proof of their loyalty. In 1947 Curtiss-Wright fired a worker
for distributing communist pamphlets. A witness for the defence in the first
Communist Smith Act trial lost her job as soon as she testified.138
In 1955, the Supreme Court of California ruled that membership in the
Communist Party was in and of itself sufficient grounds for dismissal, as
well as for the termination of any collective bargaining contract. The
California Court’s ruling was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1956.135
Those dismissed found it very difficult to find alternative employment in any
but low paying jobs. For example, the vice-president of an electronics firm
who was denied security clearance had his salary reduced from $18,000 to
$4,000 a year. There were suicides, and emigration to Mexico, Canada and
Europe in search of work.
In 1947, the Taft Hartly Act effectively prohibited communists from
holding office in trade unions. All union officials had to swear that they were
not members of, or affiliated to, the Communist Party. Unions that refused
to file such oaths for their officers were excluded from the government
guarantees of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a considerable
detriment. In 1954, the Communist Control Act declared that any union
which was found to be ‘Communist infiltrated’ was denied the services of
the NLRE, and the right to sue in federal courts to enforce collective
bargaining agreements, as well as the right to complain about unfair labour
practices.
In 1949, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expelled nine
unions, representing about 900,000 workers, including the influential West
Coast Longshoremen (1LWU) and the United Electrical Workers, for being

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communist infiltrated. The CIO then proceeded to set up competing unions

and encourage its existing unions to raid those unions that were expelled. As
a result of the combined assault of the federal government and the CIO,
the left-wing unions, except for the ILWU, were decimated.
Communists and other leftists were banned from office by most unions
and many were expelled altogether. By 1954 about 60% o f all unions had
amended their Constitutions to bar communists from office. Forty percent
also banned communists from membership, a serious liability in plants with
union shops. Many unions also refused to defend those fired for being
‘subversives’ or for refusing to testify before Congressional committees.140
Not only were communists and their sympathizers denied employment,
they were also denied the benefits of government social security programmes.
In 1955, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare ruled that CP
members were ineligible for retirement benefits. Not only-did it stop social
security payments to known communists, but in some cases it demanded the
return of previous payments. William Z. Foster and other leading communists
were cut off the security rolls. In June 1956, however, this policy was
terminated. In 1954, the Veterans Administration (VA) ruled that no further
disability payments would be given to those convicted under the Smith Act.
Party leaders Robert Thompson and Saul Wellman were thus cut off from the
benefits they had been receiving as a result of their World War II injuries.
The VA further demanded that Wellman pay back the $10,000 he had
already received; not until 1958 was this policy overturned. Unemployment
benefits were often denied to people who were fired for having taken the
Fifth Amendment. In 1952, the US Congress passed legislation stipulating
that no federally financed housing could be occupied by members of
organizations listed as subversive by the Attorney General. Local housing
authorities were instructed to demand that all tenants sign a certificate of
non-membership of any subversive organization.141
Numerous universities and school districts dismissed professors and
teachers for leftist organization membership and sympathies. In 1948, three
tenured members of the University of Washington faculty: Herbert Phillips
(philosophy), Joseph Butterworth (English) and Ralph Bundlach (psychology)
were fired without severance pay, on the grounds that being members of the
Communist Party implied ‘neglect of duty’. Three other faculty members
were put on probation conditional upon them formally renouncing all
connection or sympathy with the Communist Party. None of the three
dismissed, tenured faculty members were ever able to find another
university position.142 Faculty members were also dismissed for communist
ties at other schools, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),
Harvard and New York University (NYU). Many tenured and untenured
faculty members were dismissed simply for taking the Fifth Amendment
before a Congressional Committee (e.g. for refusing to reveal names and
activities of others). Such occurred at the University of Kansas City (associate-
professor H.B. Davis); Ohio State (professor Byron Darling); the University of
Bermond (Dr Alex Novikoff); Temple University (professor Barrows

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Dunham), and the University of Michigan (three faculty members). In 1949,

Oregon State fired two faculty members, one tenured. One o f those,
associate-professor of chemistry Ralph Spitzer, was fired because he wrote
an article in The Chemiealand Engineering News that supported the theories
of Lysenko, this being decisive evidence, according to the OSU President,
that 4he goes right down the party line without any noticeable deviation'.143
The University o f Wyoming inspected the textbooks used by the faculty
for ‘un-American material'. Courses on the Soviet Union were likely to be
closely examined by administrations and modified or cancelled as a result.
Faculty members grew fearful of recommending radical readings or appearing
to be sympathetic to radical ideas in their lectures. The entire US teaching
profession was intimidated. The Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism
said, ‘Today the vast majority of teachers. . . have learned that promotion
and security depend upon conformity to the prevailing . .. concept of
devotion to the public welfare'.144
At the University of California in 1949, a loyalty oath was required of
all faculty members, who were required to swear that they were ‘not a
member o f the Communist Party or any other organization which advocates
the overthrow of the Government'. Six faculty members were immediately
dismissed for refusal to sign, or to coroperate with a special committee on
tenure. Another 39 who refused to sign, but who told the committee that
they were not communists, were also fired.145 In June 1952, 28 California
public and private schools including Stanford and the University of California
system decided to collaborate with the state's Un-American Activities
Committee and employ on each campus a representative of the Committee
(all of whom were former employees of the FBI or military intelligence)
whose job it would be to investigate the loyalty o f both current and
prospective faculty. Within a year this system had resulted in over 100
dismissals and resignations, and in the prevention o f approximately 200
appointments. Professors were also dismissed for refusal to sign disclaimers
about Communist Party membership at San Francisco State (seven were
fired) and San Diego State College.146 In New York State alone, 58 college
and university teachers lost their jobs.147
In June 1949, the HCUA demanded from 81 colleges and high schools
lists of the books used in social science, political science, history, govern­
ment, economics, literature and geography. The Defense Department
demanded the right to examine the curricula of approximately 200 colleges
and universities engaged in classified work under military contract.148
Colleges and universities systematically banned Marxist and other contro­
versial speakers. In 1955, the University of Washington prohibited J. Robert
Oppenheimer from speaking. Leftists who did speak were intimidated by
Congressional Committees. Paul Sweezy was subpoenaed by the HCUA to
talk about his speech at the University of New Hampshire. His refusal to
answer some questions resulted in a contempt citation.149
The dismissal and intimidation of public school teachefs became common
in this period. Most states imposed disclaimer oaths as a condition of

184
 The Land o f the Free

employment. Kansas had a typical oath requirement:

I ___ , swear that I do not advocate, nor am 1 a member of any political

party or organization that advocates the overthrow of the government
of the United States or of the State by force or violence___ 150

Thirteen states required disclaimers of membership in any organization on

the Attorney General's List. Six specifically barred membership in the
Communist Party.151
By the summer of 1953 it was estimated that more than 100 school
teachers had been suspended or fired for non-cooperation with Congressional
committees. In February 1954,32 teachers were suspended in Philadelphia,
the majority of whom were soon fired; in New York City about 320 school
teachers were fired. A total of at least 600 dismissals or forced resignations
of school teachers for political reasons can be documented during this
period.152
Communists, sympathizers and other leftists (including those hostile to
the Communist Party) were systematically prohibited from travelling over­
seas (even to Canada) after 1947. Members o f the Communist Party were
unable to obtain passports after 1947, except for accredited members of the
press. Periodically, Daily Worker correspondents were denied the right to
travel abroad; the passport of The Daily Worker’s European editor, Joseph
Starobin, was revoked in 1953. The Internal Security Act o f 1950 made it
a crime for members o f organizations designated as 'Communist-action
groups' even to apply for a passport. The US Secretary of State, Dean
Acheson, stated, in May 1952, that it was government policy to withhold
passports from all those whom there was 'reason to believe' were in the CP
or whose 'conduct abroad is likely to be contrary to the best interests of the
United States' and from anyone who might reasonably be believed to be
'going abroad to engage in activities which will advance the Communist
movement'.153 Passports were revoked or denied to Dr Walter Bergman, a
prominent member o f the Norman Thomas Socialist Party; Howard Fast
(the novelist); William O. Douglas (the Supreme Court Justice, for travel to
China); Edward G. Robinson, Arthur Miller, Carl Foreman, Rockwell Kent
and Max Schactman (leader of the militantly anti-Communist Independent
Socialist League); Paul Robeson, the prominent Black entertainer, was not
only denied a passport, but was prevented from entering Canada. For the
benefit o f thousands o f Canadians, Robeson gave annual concerts at the
Peace Arch Park on the Canadian border with the aid of loudspeakers, from
time to time from 1952 to I955.154
Foreign communists, and others whose potential visits to the US were
considered to be not in the best interest of the United States, were pro­
hibited entry into the country. The Subversive Activities Control Act of
1950 barred from entry into the US all those who advocated 'the economic,
international and governmental doctrines of world communism or . . . of any
other form o f totalitarianism'. Past or present membership in the Communist

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Party was deemed sufficient to prohibit entry. Moreover, for purposes of this
Act past membership in Nazi or fascist parties were not considered to be
included under the definition of 'totalitarian*. Prominent leftists were sys­
tematically denied entry into the US, even to attend conferences. Those
excluded included leading British Communists: Harry Pollitt and R. Palme
Dutt, professor J.D. Bernal, Pablo Picasso, the Dean of Canterbury,
Salvador Ocampo (the secretary of the Latin-American Federation of Labor),
Oscar~Niemeyer (the leading Brazilian architect). Ernst Mandel (a leading
European Trotskyist), and Andre Gunder Frank. The state department’s
policy o f banning entry to those considered hostile to US interests was not
waived until 1978, in the middle of Carter’s Human Rights campaign
(because of its obvious hypocrisy);155 Reagan reviewed the practice.
Deportation o f non-citizens for affiliation or sympathy with the Commu­
nist Party was another technique used by the government to repress
oppositional sentiment. In 1940, the Immigration Act of 1918 was amended
to allow deportation on the basis both of present and past membership in any
organization advocating violent overthrow of the government. In 1950 the
Internal Security Act permitted the deportation of anyone who, at the time
of their entry, had been an anarchist, communist or a member of any group
required to register as a subversive organization. From 1947 to 1953 approx­
imately 300 'political* non-citizens were arrested and held for deportation.
In California alone 190 'subversive aliens’ were arrested for deportation
between 1948 and 1956. Between 1945 and 1954, 163 people were actually
deported for political reasons. A principal deterrent to the deportation of
non-citizens accused of subversive associations was that all the socialist
countries refused to accept as deportees persons who had been born in those
countries, thus requiring the US to allow them to stay in the US indefinitely.
Non-citizen communists who had been bom in Western Europe, Latin
America or Canada were more likely to be deported than were those bom in
Eastern Europe, as their countries of origin refused to accept them. The
majority of those subject to deportation orders were thoroughly integrated
into American society, many having left Europe as small children, and even
being unable to speak the language of the countries to which they were de­
ported. A 1956 study showed that 60% of the deportees had lived in
America for more than 40 years, and 81 % for more than 30 years, while
more than half had children who were American citizens. Twenty percent
could neither read nor write the language of their country of birth.156
Communists and sympathizers were targetted for forcible removal to
'relocation’ camps maintained under the authority of the McCarren Act,
which permitted the government to detain persons considered dangerous
during a national crisis. In 1951 the FBI’s ‘Security Index* of persons
considered potentially dangerous, and thus detainable during a crisis,
contained 13,901 names. By 1954 the Index consisted o f approximately
26,000 names. In addition to the Security Index of Communist Party
militants, the FBI, from 1948 to 1960, also maintained a ‘Reserve Index’
which consisted of people considered sympathetic to the Communist Party.

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 The Land o f the Free

This list also included members of other non-Communist led organizations.157

The 1960s and Political Repression

The last half of the 1960s saw a significant increase in domestic opposition
both among Blacks and among white students in the US. The American
state’s response to this revitalized opposition movement was repression —as
it had been so many times before. Repression in this period took the form of
arrests of radicals - often on fabricated charges - systematic harassment of
leftist and Black nationalist organizations, systematic disruption of radical
organizations, and even assassinations and the driving of Black leaders into
exile.
In the post-1965 period, there was a tremendous increase in police sur­
veillance o f radicals. By the beginning of 1972 more than 500 municipalities
were reported to have political police, so called ’Red Squads’. It was
estimated that in the US as a whole almost 5,000 agents were assigned to such
work. In 1970 the Los Angeles police department’s political division had
167 agents; in 1972, New York City’s 361. In Chicago, in 1969, it was
reported that over 1,000 agents were working on political matters (for local,
state and federal agencies). The Superintendent of the Illinois State police
was quoted at the time as saying, ’I’ve never seen anything like the intensity
of the current investigations in all my years in law enforcement’.158 New
York City’s political police held files on 1.2 million persons (reduced, in
1973, to 240,000).
During the late 1960s and early 1970s ’active surveillance’ was maintained
on more than 250,000 Americans. A 1976 report of the Senate Intelligence
Committee concluded that such ’active surveillance’ had infringed on a
broad scale’ the freedom and privacy of those under surveillance.160 Although
the FBI’s Security Index was formally abolished by an act of Congress in
1971, the FBI continued to maintain the list o f ’subversives’, merely
renaming the old list ’the Administrative Index’. The criteria for inclusion in
the renamed index became an individual being ’in a position to influence
others to engage in acts inimical to the national defence, or furnish financial
aid or Other assistance to revolutionary elements because of their sympathy,
associations, or ideology’. The new index had 15,259 names. These indivi­
duals were marked either for immediate arrest in a national emergency or
for ’priority investigation’ after those with arrest priority had been
confined.161
In 1970, the FBI instructed its local branches to report on ’every Black
Student Union and similar group, regardless of their past or present involve­
ment in disorders’ together with ’all individuals’ belonging to ’militant New
Left campus organizations’. In the same year the FBI initiated a ’Key Black
Extremist’ programme, designed to locate and monitor 'Black extremists
who are either key leaders or activists and are particularly extreme, agitative,
anti-government and vocal in their calls for terrorism and violence’. Such

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

individuals were to be put in the top priority for arrest category in the
FB rs Security Index/Administrative Index. In 1971, the FBI initiated an
investigation of the New University Conference (an organization of college
teachers and graduate students) and the Vietnam Veterans Against the
War.1®
In 1968, the FBI’s Security Index of those marked for detention in case
of a national emergency was expanded to include the categories o f ’Black
Nationalists’ and ’Anarchists’ (Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
and other new leftists). A 1968 FBI memo to field offices instructed field
agents to investigate, with a view to inclusion on the Security Index,
individuals in the New Left movement whose ’potential dangerousness’ to
’internal security’ was ’clearly demonstrated by their statements, conduct
and actions’ even if ’no membership in a basic revolutionary organization
could be established’. The memo specified that individuals with ’anarchistic
tendencies’ should be included in the Security Index on the basis of
statements and actions that ’establish his rejection of law and order and
reveal him to be a potential threat to the security of the United States’.163
The FBI’s anti-radical activities went far beyond mere surveillance and the
maintenance of lists of those to be arrested in a national emergency. The
FBI was actively engaged in disrupting left organizations and discrediting
left leaders. One FBI tactic used against both Marxist and Black Nationalist
organizations was to plant information that a certain leader was an FBI
agent, in order to discredit him or her. In 1964 a New York Communist
Party official was expelled from the Party, accused of being an agent, because
of such a planted story.164 The FBI report on the furore around the expul­
sion stated that it ’crippled the activities of the New York State Communist
organization, and the turmoil within the party continues to this date’. Iden­
tical things happened to Black organizations in the late 1960s. For example,
a Black organization received a letter purporting to be from a ’soul brother’
in a junior position in the FBI which pointed to one of their leaders as an
FBI agent. In 1969 an FBI informant originated a story that a local draft
counsellor was an FBI agent. This led to the ostracization o f the coun­
sellor.165
In May 1968 the FBI launched a systematic campaign to, in their words,
’expose, disrupt, and otherwise neutralize the activities o f the various New
Left organizations, theirJeadership and adherents’. It became FBI policy to
plant FBI provocateurs in SDS chapters to instigate violence, to disrupt
New Left organizations by discrediting leaders, causing splits and aggravating
sectarianism among organizations, and to engineer the firing of radical
university faculty members.
FBI policy was to provoke ’personal conflicts or animosities’ among New
Left leaders by creating or supporting factions, generating stories discrediting
leaders and disrupting their personal life, as well as aggravating hostilities
among different left organizations. FBI agents were frequently instructed to
initiate violent acts including attacking the police, bombing, and disrupting
meetings and demonstrations. In Seattle, FBI infiltrators engaged in a series

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 The Land o f the Free

o f acts o f bombing and burning university and civic buildings.166 The FBI
also sent letters (anonymous or otherwise) to sponsors of anti-war coalition
demonstrations, pointing out that members of Subversive’ or Communist’
organizations were involved or ‘behind’ such activities. Such letters were
sent to owners o f meeting places in order that the use of such facilities would
be denied to anti-war meetings, or to liberal participants in such activities
(to cause them to drop out by ‘Red Baiting’) and to the press (to give them
material to run exposés about ‘Communist infiltration’ of the anti-war
movement).167
The tactic of turning competing groups against each other (i.e. originating
or exaggerating sectarianism) was also an FBI ploy, exercised both with the
Marxist left and within the Black movement. In 1966 the FBI’s ‘operation
hoodwink’ was initiated to set the Communist Party and organized crime
against each other by sending forged threatening letters to both. Later, in
California, a similar technique was used to provoke violence between the
Black Panthers and non-Marxist Black nationalists.168 In 1968 the FBI
stirred up factionalism in the Los Angeles SDS by having an informant
accuse two leaders of embezzling funds. According to the FBI report on this
Incident these accusations culminated in ‘fist fights and acts of name calling
at several of the recent SDS meetings’.169
Documents obtained from the FBI through court action by the Socialist
Workers’ Party (SWP) revealed infiltration of the strong Bloomington, Indiana
SWP youth group chapter in order to ‘bring about a split in philosophy’.
These documents also revealed that, by means of provocative anonymous
letters, the FBI intervened in Atlanta in January 1970 in order to reopen
a split between the SWP and its allies and the Revolutionary Youth
Movement.170 Such actions reflect a central tactic of the FBI campaign of
systematic disruption : sowing sectarianism in order to weaken and divide the
left. This tactic worked extremely well, and although the evidence is not
decisive, it undoubtedly played an important role in the destruction of the
SDS and its disintegration into many small, Ineffective and mutually
antagonistic factions in the 1969-73 period.
The FBI was especially concerned about the ‘threat’ from Black
organizations and directed much o f its energy into both disrupting and
discrediting them and sowing dissention between Black and predominantly
white organizations —as well as animosities among Blacks and white members
of the same leftist organizations. In March 1968 the FBI put into operation
its ‘Cointelpro’ strategy against what J. Edgar Hoover labelled, ’Black hate
groups’. Hoover’s March 1968 memo, which outlined the objectives of this
programme, included the following points:

(1) prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups. In unity

there is strength.. . . An effective coalition of black nationalist groups
might be the first step toward a real ‘Mau Mau’ in America, the begin­
ning of a true black revolution.
(2) Prevent the rise of a ‘messiah* who could unify, and electrify the

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

militant black nationalist movement.

(3) Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining
respectability, by discrediting them to three separate segments of the
community. [The 'responsible Black community', the white com­
munity and 'Negro radicals'. ]
(4) .. . prevent the long range growth of militant black nationalist
organizations, especially among youth.171

In addition to the FBI efforts to sow discord between Black Marxist and
non-Marxist nationalists, the FBI emphasized preventing unity between
Black and white radicals. It was deeply concerned, in 1964 and 1965, when
the followers of Malcolm X were becoming close to the Socialist Workers'
Party.172Documents obtained through court action by the SWP revealed that
the FBI made concerted efforts to stir up racial antagonisms within that
organization by anonymous letters (often racist letters sent to Blacks alleg­
edly from white comrades, and arguments about 'racial imbalance* in favour
of whites in leading bodies). One such letter sent to Black SWP leader Paul
Boutelle stated:

Some of us within the Party are fed up with the subversive effect you
are having on the Party, but since a few see your presence as an asset
(because of your color only) not much can be said openly.. . . Why
don't you and the rest of your fellow Party monkeys hook up with
the Panthers where you'd feel at home?173

Another anonymous FBI letter, attempting to disrupt the New Mobil­

ization Committee to End the War in Vietnam by stirring up racial
antagonisms and race-baiting argued:

Over the past several years the Trotskyites have literally taken control
of the body proper and have repeatedly resisted efforts to recruit
black brothers into NMC leadership. . . . I have been sickened - on
more than one occasion - by the promises made to the Black United
Front, promises not kept, promises made with the mouth and not the
heart In the main, NMC leadership has been no better than the racist
politicians and phony liberals who give lip service to the black
community and turn their backs on any positive action. The NMC
leadership has demonstrated an appalling lack of sensitivity towards
the largest minority in the country . . . the situation must be rectified
immediately.

This letter ended ‘Just for the record - I am not Black'.1711

This two-pronged effort by the FBI to drive Blacks out of multinational
Marxist organizations by the use of racism, and to disrupt and discredit
predominantly white organizations through false claims of white racism (es­
pecially by not having a high proportion o f Black leaders) also appears to have

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 The Land o f the Free

been very successful. It was developed to undermine the Communist Party

in the late 1940s and early 1950s and, according to leading participants,
probably played an important role in the Party’s notoriously disruptive
‘anti-white-chauvinism campaign’ in which much of the CP’s energy was
directed into divisive attacks on itself.175 The continuing use of both of these
devices to divide and demoralize predominantly white organizations, and to
hinder the recruitment of minorities by multi-national organizations through­
out the 1970s, strongly suggests a continued FBI employment of this tactic
throughout this decade. The extremely effective use of both ‘racism’ and
‘race-baiting’, ‘guilt tripping’, because of their appeal to racially sensitive
minorities and guilt-ridden young radicals, certainly did not discourage
the FBI and other police organizations from promoting or adding to such
disruptive activities.
The FBI also attempted to disrupt the personal lives of leading leftists by
writing letters to spouses of activists, claiming that their partners were
engaged in extra-marital affairs. Martin Luther King was the subject of such
harassment by the FBI. Other ‘Cointelpro’ operations included attempting
to get radical teachers fired from their jobs by writing anonymous letters to
employers, mailing abusive anonymous letters to radicals, circulating false
information about events, cancelling reservations for meeting places made by
leftist groups, distributing phony right-wing campus newspapers attacking
local leftists, actual physical assaults on dissidents, burning or disabling of
cars owned by radicals, stealing mail, kidnapping of militants, and widespread
use of illegal ‘b u p ’.176
The FBI was instrumental in the dismissal of assistant professor Monis
Starsky from the University of Arizona in the late 1960s, because:

It is apparent that New Left organizations and activities in the Phoenix

metropolitan area have received their inspiration and leadership almost
exclusively from the members of the faculty in the Department of
Philosophy at Arizona State University (ASU) chiefly Assistant
Professor Morris Starsky.

FBI tactics used against Starsky included sending anonymous and slanderous
letters to those members of the Faculty Committee who heard the charges
against him.177
From May 1968 through to the spring of 1971 the New Left was the
target of about 290 separate disruptive actions by the FBI. More than half of
the 73 individuals who were on the FBI’s ‘Key Activist’ list of New Leftists
between 1968 and 1971 were subject to ‘some type of prosecutive action’
by local or federal officials. Approximately 40% of ‘Cointelpro’ activity
directed against the New Left was devoted to keeping left leaders from
speaking, teaching, writing or publishing.1™
State repression of the New Left and the Black nationalist movement went
considerably beyond disruptive tactics and spreading discord. After the first
of the major 1960s Black riots, Bill Epton (a Black organizer for the

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Progressive Labor Party) was arrested and convicted under the New York
State ‘criminal anarchy* statute (the first time such a charge had been
brought in this state in 40 years).179 There were a number of major trials
for ‘conspiracy’ to commit felonies against leaders or participants in various
political actions. The most famous o f these was the so-called ‘Chicago Eight’
trial against a number of national anti-war leaders who were involved in
organizing demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
They were charged with conspiracy to cross inter-state lines with the intent
to incite a riot.180 Other major conspiracy trials took place in Seattle. Eight
leaders of the Seattle Liberation Front (SLF) were charged with conspiracy
to damage federal property, and rioting. These charges were based on a
February 1970 SLF demonstration that ended with paint spraying and
window breaking at the Seattle federal courthouse. Although the demon­
stration was organized only ten days in advance, the indictment charged four
of the defendants with crossing state-lines the previous December with
intent to incite a riot.181
In September 1969 a leader of a Detroit demonstration was arrested under
an old Red Flag law. Many political radicals were arrested and convicted and
some sentenced to severe prison terms for possession of marijuana. John
Sinclair (the leader of the White Panther Party), was sentenced to nine and
a half years for smoking a marijuana cigarette with two undercover agents.
Lee Johnson (a Black anti-war organizer) was sentenced to 30 years for
giving marijuana to an undercover agent After lengthy appeals both of these
convictions were eventually overturned.182 There were over 100 documented
cases of people being prosecuted under ‘flag protection' statutes for such
actions as displaying a flag with a peace symbol replacing the stars.183 Anti­
war activists who ran coffee houses near military bases were systematically
harassed. Three operators of such a coffee house in Columbia South
Carolina were sentenced to six years in prison (eventually reduced to a year
of probation and a suspended sentence) and their coffee house padlocked,
on a charge of ‘keeping and maintaining a public nuisance’. Organizers of
another coffee house, near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, were sentenced to six months
by a federal judge for trespassing on government property, because, in the
words of the federal judge, ‘acts of lowering the morale of the troops at
Fort Sill are a serious matter’.184
A number of student activists were killed by the police and national
guard. The most well known example was the shooting to death of four Kent
State University students in May 1970. Most of the dead and wounded
students were shot in the back or side after a student threw a stone at the
soldiers. While the local grand jury absolved the National Guard, they
indicted 25 students, faculty members and ex-students on felony charges
stemming from the incident.185 A less publicized but equally significant
event occurred at the same time at Black Jackson State College in
Mississippi. In July 1970 a student activist was killed by police in Madison,
Wisconsin, as were two students in Lawrence, Kansas. Two students were
also killed by the police at Southern University in Louisiana. The local grand

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 The Land o f the Free

jury investigation concluded that there was 4no justification for the
shootings4.186
The Grand Jury system during 1970-73 was employed as an instrument
for intimidating and harassing leftists. Co-ordinated by the internal Security
Division of the Justice Department« Grand Juries went on what came to be
called ‘fishing expeditions4, in the 1970-73 period over i 4000 people were
subpoenaed before over 100 Grand Juries to testify about their own and
other peopie4s radical activities. Those subpoenaed were required to testify
in secret« without legal counsel, under threat of gaoi for contempt. In 1970
a new federal iaw was passed that denied the right of those subpoenaed to
refuse to testify on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment right not to
incriminate oneself. The new concept of 4use immunity4meant that the
Fifth Amendment precluded only the use of one's own testimony against
oneself« but that all questions had to be answered« even if statements were
seif incriminating.187
As in ali repressive periods, leftists were dismissed from teaching positions.
At San Francisco State three professors were dismissed and two others
denied tenure. Staughton Lynd« a leading radical historian« was refused a
position at Northern Illinois University, as well as at the University of Illinois
at Chicago Circle, by the Chancellor of the State College system (who over­
ruled the Presidents o f the Colleges) because he had travelled to North
Vietnam. Angela Davis was dismissed from the University of California
because she was a member of the Communist Party. A political science pro­
fessor at the University of Vermont (Michael Parenti). an economics
professor at San Diego State (Peter Bohmer) and a philosophy professor at
Arizona State (Morris Starsky) were all fired for their anti-war activities.
Other dismissals occurred at the University of Connecticut, the City Uni­
versity of New York. Oklahoma State University and the University of
Wisconsin at Milwaukee.188
Again« as in other periods, the state censored literature and other media it
considered subversive of the existing order. In May 1967« the Postmaster
General banned ajournai published in China from the US mails on the
grounds that it encouraged Black soldiers to ‘sabotage operations4in Viet­
nam. Films produced in socialist countries (namely Cuba and Vietnam)
were prohibited from entry into the country« and were seized by the US
government at scheduled showings when copies were obtained in spite of the
federal ban.189
The most systematic and effective repressive US government campaign
was that against the Black Panther Party. Unlike the white student New Left,
the Panthers, an explicitly revolutionary Marxist-Leninist organization,
were, in the iate 1960s, in the process of acquiring a mass base among
working- and iower-ciass groups within the Black community. The FBI
reported that in the spring of 1970« 25% of Blacks and 43% of Blacks under
2 i. had ‘great respect4 for the Black Panther Party. The FBI. in a special top
secret report to the President« in June of 1970« described the Party as ‘the
most active and dangerous black extremist group in the United States*.190

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

A systematic national campaign organized by the US federal government

in co-ordination with state and local police and intelligence units in order to
destroy the party, included sowing dissidence, mass arrests, political trials
for conspiracy, and assassinations of Panther leaders. Such techniques
succeeded in suppressing the Panthers everywhere except in its original home
—the Oakland area.
In 1968 and 1969 Black Panther offices were raided 18 times by the
police, three Panthers were deported from the US, and 21 cases of police
harassment of individuals were documented. During this period 768 members
of the Black Panthers were arrested on a total of 1,003 charges, including
178 charges of possession of weapons, 96 of disorderly conduct and
disturbing the peace, 92 of attempted murder, or conspiracy to murder, 38
of conspiracy to bomb, 16 of rioting or conspiring to riot, 36 of illegally
selling newspapers, 11 of unlawful assembly and one charge of setting
up an unlawful table. A high proportion of the charges were eventually
dropped, which suggests that many arrests were for purposes of harassment.
In those cases where data exists, there was a conviction rate of 88%.191
Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton was charged with the murder of a
policeman and spent 22 months in gaol before being released. The other most
prominent Panther, Bobby Seale, was tried as one of the 'Chicago Eight’,
for conspiracy to cross state-lines with the intent to riot (although he had
participated in the events only at the 1968 Democratic convention as a
substitute speaker at a rally). Seale was also arrested and gaoled for alleged
involvement in the murder of a New Haven Black Panther. Twenty-one
leading New York City Panthers were arrested in 1969 for 'conspiracy to
bomb department stores and murder policemen’ and were held in gaol for
over two years before being acquitted. The climax of the nationally co­
ordinated police suppression of the Panthers occurred in December 1969
when Chicago police raided the apartment of Fred Hampten, head of the
Panthers’ Chicago section, and killed him in his bed. A Grand Jury investi­
gation of this incident found that 83 to 99 shots were fired, all but one of
which were from police weapons.192
In summary, the US state in the late 1960s responded as it had in any
comparable period when there was a growing threat to the dominant system
of property and privilege. Repressive measures grew in harshness parallel
with the growth in numbers and the radicalism of the left. Repressive
measures were focused on what was seen as the most important danger
threatening the Black movement and the possibility of Black Nationalist-
white Marxist unity. Repressive measures were cancelled and even publicly
repudiated in the mid-1970s after both the Black nationalist and New Left
movements had been decimated.
Between 1974 and 1980, there was no challenge of any consequence to
the dominant system of property and privilege and no effective movement
opposed to US foreign policy, and thus it was one of the most tolerant and
least politically repressive periods in US history. When there is no need for
repression, there is no repression. In the early 1980s, at the beginning of the

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 The Land o f the Free

Reagan administration and with the imminent probability of a revival of US

imperial intervention overseas, cutbacks in social programmes at home, and
the consequent probability of a rebirth of the anti-war, student, and national
minority movements, it can be expected that the state will once again resort
to the appropriate measures to ensure ‘law and order* (privilege and property).

United States Support of Repressive Regimes Overseas in the

1960s and 1970s
in the i 965-80 period there was a systematic déniai of basic civil liberties in
most US supported ciient states of the Far East and Latin America. Suppres­
sion in these countries was qualitatively greater than anything experienced
in the Soviet Union or in other socialist countries (Kampuchea aside) in the
same period. The most brutal suppression of civil liberties at this time was
probably in Uruguay, Guatemala and Indonesia, where political opponents
were systematically killed on a massive scale, without benefit of even a formal
triai.
Amnesty international, in September 1979, announced that since 1966
more than 20,000 Guatemalans had been killed for political reasons by the
military government and its supporting ‘death squads’ (mostly off duty police­
men), 2,000 between mid- i 978 and the end of 1979. There have been no
convictions for any of these 20,000 murders, it reported that all those
arrested for political reasons have been killed, only one of whom was allowed
to make contact with friends, relatives or lawyers. Amnesty International
does not adopt prisoners of conscience in Guatemala because prisoners of
conscience are ‘murdered within a short time of their detention’.1*3
About one in 500 persons in Uruguay in the late 1970s was in gaoi or
concentration camps for political reasons. Political incarceration at an
equivalent rate for the Soviet Union at the same time would mean over
500.000 prisoners, compared to the actual total of between 100 and 500,
i.e. the rate of incarceration for political reasons in Uruguay was more than
1.000 times higher than in the Soviet Union (see Chapter 8). It has been
estimated that between 1973 and 1978 a total o f 40,000 people were gaoled
for political reasons, about 1.4% of the population. The comparable number
of political prisoners in the Soviet Union would be approximately 3.5 million,
i.e. the overall rate of political incarceration in the 1973-78 period was
about 10,000 times higher in Uruguay than in the Soviet Union.194
Since the military coup in Argentina in March 1976 through to the end of
1978, 15,000 political opponents ‘went missing’ without a trace and have
been officially declared dead by the government. A year after the coup there
were between 5,000 and 10,000 political prisoners, as well as tens of
thousands forced Into exile.193
Similar data can be reported for other Latin American countries, especially
Chile, Brazil, El Salvador and Paraguay, where political opponents

195
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

systematically 'disappear’, many murdered by 'death squads’, (consisting

mainly of off-duty police and military personnel) unofficially sanctioned
and protected by the state. Amnesty International’s Annual Report for
1975-76 notes that more than 80% of the urgent appeals and actions for
victims of torture are from Latin America.196
American client states in the Far East have also been especially brutal
in their suppression of civil liberties. Estimates of the number of leftists
killed after the 1965 military coup in Indonesia run from between 500,000
and more than a million (disproportionately people o f Chinese descent).
Official government figures report another 750,000 people arrested for
political reasons. Amnesty International estimated that in 1977 there were
still between 55,000 and 100,000 political prisoners. Indonesia’s heavy-
handed approach to civil liberties was again demonstrated after the December
1975 Indonesian invasion o f East Timor. Estimates of the number of East
Timoreans killed by the Indonesian Army run to one-sixth o f the population.
A report of the Australian Parliament found that the Indonesian Army
engaged in 'indiscriminate killing on a scale unprecedented in post-World
War 11 history’.197 South Korea and the Philippines are also notorious for
suppression of civil liberties. By the end of 1977, more than 60,000 persons
had been arrested by the Marcos regime. In 1981, 15,000 were imprisoned
without trial in South Korea for their writings, speeches, union activity, or
for demonstrating.198
Suppression o f basic civil liberties is also virtually universal in the various
right-wing dictatorships and racist regimes of Southern Africa and the Middle
East. Political prisoners in Iran between 1973 and 1976 are estimated at
25,000 to 100,000, and 300 officially acknowledged executions.199 The
Republic of South Africa systematically detains opponents without trial and
restricts their freedom of movement, expression and association, as well as
tries and convicts opponents o f apartheid. Israel engages in similar practices
against Palestinians. According to Amnesty International Israel employs 'the
use o f administrative measures to physically restrict individuals without due
process of law, including detaining them without trial’.200
The US state systematically supports the repressive regimes in Asia, Africa
and Latin America and their use of the repression o f civil liberties as a
mechanism to secure their rule, and thus consolidate existing property and
power arrangements. Table 8.1 shows the relation between increased political
repression and denial of civil liberties, and both increased benefits to US
transnational corporations and increased economic and military support
from the US.
Over 200,000 Latin American military personnel were trained in the US
between 1949 and 1980. The US not only trains foreign military personnel
in about 150 different bases and schools but also sends military advisory
missions to a great many less developed countries. Most of the arrests,
confinements, executions and torture of political prisoners in right-wing
regimes are carried out by the military police, who are largely trained and
often advised by the US, or the Brazilian, military, itself trained by the US.

196
 The Land o f the Free

Table 8.1
US Aid, Investment Climate and Human Rights in Ten Countries

'o' *
*4 T 8a §^ gï
¿i
Sir 18
a I £ it H 88 il
I^ Ig it 8
.S
1^.K8**5 ►5g ’sci J

(~~) means an Iru

political prisoner

A id (US and Mu
Total Economie
I a-a •8 à
§1 §3 S5
£ +c

(% change)
I* 1?
1 I£ ii la
Si 81 il
Country:
1 ^a ¿3G So
Brazil 1964 — — — + + + 112
Chile 1973 — NA + + + 770
Dominican
Republic 1965 — — NA + + + 133
Guatemala 1954 — — NA + + + 5,300
Indonesia 1965 — — — + NA + 62
Iran 1953 — — — + + + 900
Philippines 1972 — — — + + + 161
South Korea 1972 — — — + + + 9
Uruguay 1973 - - - + + + 21

Sources:
1. Information on torture and political prisoners mostly from the Amnesty
International Report on Torture, 1975 and The Amnesty International
Report, 1975-76, 1976. Supplemented with data from newspaper articles,
journals, and books on the specific countries. Data on investment climate
largely from articles, journals, and books on the specific countries.
2. Data on aid taken from US Overseas Loans and Grants and Assistance from
International Organizations, AID, 1972 and 1976 editions, for years 1962-
1975. Data previous to 1962 taken from Historical Statistics of the United
States, Bicentennial Edition, Department of Commerce, 1975.
Adapted from Chomsky and Herman, 1979, p. 43.

SAVAK, The Shah of Iran’s secret police, was set up by the CIA in 1957
and its leading officers were trained by the US. Many SAVAK agents received
instruction under US police training programmes financed by the Agency for
International Development (AID). The US military and intelligence agencies
provide training in torture techniques to the police and military as well as

197
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

providing torture technology.

The rationale for US support for repression of civil liberties in the right-
wing, less developed countries is that repression is essential in order to fulfil
the overriding demand for the ‘security* necessary to obtain stability for
economic development and the consequent prosperity that will render
conservative parliamentary capitalist forms viable. Both the US and the
various military regimes justify their use of wholesale confinement, torture
and execution of opponents as necessary to eliminate the ‘terrorist’ i.e.
revolutionary forces threatening their societies. It is of interest to point out
that the tens of thousands o f leftists killed in Latin America, from 1973 to
1976, as part of the campaign to stamp out ‘terrorism’ contrasts with the
worldwide total of 292 deaths reported by the State Department’s Office
for Combating Terrorism in the same period as allegedly caused by ‘terrorists’,
i.e. leftist revolutionaries.201 In spite of the very large disparity between
deaths caused by leftist ‘terrorists’ and by military regimes, it should never­
theless be pointed out that the massive repression of political opponents has
been far from irrational or gratuitous. To preserve and consolidate the system
of property which both encompasses base disparities of wealth and income,
and freedom for US and other transnational corporations to invest,
communist and other anti-capitalist movements have had to be destroyed or
prevented from achieving enough strength to make a revolution.

Conclusion
This chapter has attempted to demonstrate that the level of civil liberties,
tolerance and repression over the course of US history, from its revolution
of 1776 to the 1970s has been a product of the threat to the dominant
institutions of that society and the need to mobilize for foreign or domestic
war. The next two chapters on the Soviet Union over the comparable period
in its history from its revolution of 1917 to the 1980s, attempt to
demonstrate that most o f the variation over time in the level of tolerance and
repression in that society, as well as the comparative differences between it
and the US, are due primarily to the variations and differences in the degree
of internal threat to its prevailing institutions and the need to mobilize for
external and internal war. In other words, it will be shown that there is no
qualitative difference in this respect between the two countries.

References
1. Brown, 1969, pp. 97, 227.
2. Levy, 1960, p. 176.
3. Whipple, 1927, p. 2.
4. Ibid., p. 6.
5. Levy, 1960, p. 181.

198
 The Land o f the Free

6. Whipple, 1927, ch. 1 ¡Brown, 1969, ch. 5.

7. Levy, 1960, ch. 5.
8. Brown, 1969, p. 127¡Whipple, 1927, p. 5.
9. Brown, 1969, p. 127.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 91.
12. Levy, 1960, p. 177.
13. Ibid., p.179.
14. Cited in Chomsky and Herman, 1979b, p. 43.
15. Whipple, 1927, p. 7.
16. Brown, 1969, pp. 174-8.
17. Ibid., p. 192.
18. Chomsky and Herman, 1979b, p. 45.
19. Brown, 1969, pp. 192-7.
20. Isaacs, 1947, p. 40.
21. Chaffee, 1941, p. 27¡Levy, 1960, p. 198¡Whipple, 1927, pp. 21-31.
22. Whipple, 1927, p. 22.
23. Levy, 1960, p. 198.
24. Whipple, 1927, p. 25.
25. Ibid., p. 26.
26. Ibid., p. 27.
27. Ibid., p. 36; Levy 1969, pp. 302-3.
28. Ibid., pp. 31-2.
29. Ibid., pp. 89, 90.
30. Ibid., p. 112.
31. Ibid., pp. 131-2.
32. lbid.,p. 129.
33. Ibid., pp. 136-7.
34. Ibid., pp. 151-4.
35. Ibid., p. 150.
36. Ibid., pp. 151-2.
37. Ibid., pp. 155-8.
38. Ibid., pp. 133-4.
39. Craven, 1969, pp. 205-6.
40. Allen, 1937, p. 106.
41. Camejo, 1976, p. 59.
42. Whipple, 1927, p. 158.
43. Allen, 1937, p. 188; Patrick, 1967, pp. 156-7.
44. New York Times, 19 August 1979, p. 55; Patrick, 1967, p. 27.
45. Whipple, 1927, pp. 255-8; Boyer and Moráis, 1955, pp. 91-104.
46. Boyer and Moráis, 1955, pp. 152-3.
47. Ibid., p. 142¡Whipple, 1927, pp. 238-40.
48. Whipple, 1927, pp. 227-8.
49. Ibid., p.228.
50. Ibid., pp. 224-5; Preston, 1939, pp. 44-51.
51. Boyer and Moráis, 1955, p. 155;Whipple, 1927, pp. 297-300.
52. Whipple, 1927, p. 306.
53. Ibid., p.274.
54. Ibid., pp. 319-21.
55. Chaffee, 1941, pp. 40-1.
Human Rightt in the Soviet Union

56. Ibid., p.163.

57. Ibid., p.326.
58. Ibid., pp. 326-7.
59. Ibid., p.327.
60. Ibid., p. 159; Levin, 1971, p. 64.
61. Chaffee, 1941, pp. 159-60.
62. Ibid., p. 51.
63. Ibid., p. 52.
64. Ibid., p. 53.
65. Levin, 1971, p. 28.
66. Chaffee, 1941, pp. 58-9.
67. Levin, 1971, p. 35.
68. Chaffee, 1941, pp. 364-5.
69. Ibid., pp. 344-5.
70. Ibid., pp. 388-401,
71. Ibid., pp, 319-20,
72. Dubovsky, 1969, pp. 434-7.
73. Preston, 1963, p. 135.
74. Ibid., pp. 135-6; Dubovsky, 1969, pp. 438-44.
75. Preston, 1963, pp. 144-5.
76. Ibid., pp. 106-7.
77. Ibid., p. 106.
78. Chaffee, 1941, p. 248.
79. Ibid., p. 104.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., pp. 98-9.
84. Ibid., p.487.
85. Caute, 1978, p. 431.
86. Boyer and Moráis, 1955, p. 212; Levin, 1971, p. 57,
87. Chaffee, 1941, pp. 209-10.
88. Levin, 1971, p. 58.
89. Ibid., p. 55.
90. Caute, 1978, p. 229.
91. Boyer and Moráis, 1955, pp. 198-201.
92. Chaffee, 1941, pp. 250-1.
93. Ibid., p.270.
94. Levin, 1971, pp. 64-5.
95. Ibid., pp. 65-6.
96. Boyer and Moráis, 1955, p. 221.
97. Levin, 1971, p. 87;GIazer, 1961, p. 39; Weinstein, 1967, pp. 239, 332.
98. Chaffee, 1941, pp. 478-9,
99. Ibid., pp. 384-5.
100. Ibid., pp. 410-1.
101. Foster, 1952, p. 392.
102. Ibid., p. 392; 510; Chaffee, 1941, p. 441.
103. Hoke, 1946, pp. 14-15; Diamond, 1974, pp. 307, 328, 344, 346-7.
104. Jacobs and Landau, 1971, pp. 189-203.
105. Caute, 1978, p. 187; Foster, 1952, p. 509.

200
 The Land o f the Free

106. Caute, 1978, pp. 193-5.

107. Ibid., pp. 200-1.
108. Ibid., pp. 202-4.
109. Ibid., p.202.
110. Ibid., pp. 206-7.
111. Ibid.,pp. 195-6.
112. Ginger, 1973, p. 118.
113. Caute, 1978, pp. 106, 201, 203.
114. Ibid., pp. 196-7.
115. Ibid., p. 208. .
116. Ibid., pp. 70-1.
117. Ibid., pp. 71-3.
118. Ibid., pp, 96-7
119. Ibid., p.152.
120. Ibid., 74-5 ; Chaffee, 1941, p. 490.
121. Caute, 1978, pp. 50, 75.
122. Ibid., pp. 50, 75.
123. Ibid., pp. 161-2.
124. Ibid., p.206.
125. Ibid., pp. 489-92.
126. Ibid., pp. 504,515.
127. Ibid., p.537.
128. Ibid., pp. 268-75.
129. Ibid., p.339.
130. Ibid., p.341.
131. Ibid.
132. Ibid., pp. 343-5.
133. Ibid., pp. 398-9.
134. Ibid., p.365.
135. Ibid., p.260.
136. Ibid., pp. 359-62, 383.
137. Ibid., p. 102.
138. Ibid., pp. 367-8,373.
139. Ibid., p.373.
140. Ibid., pp. 35 2 -8 ;Ginger, 1973, p. 175.
141. Caute, 1978, pp. 180-4.
142. Ibid., pp. 408-10.
143. Ibid., p.407.
144. Ibid., p.429.
145. Ibid., pp. 422-3.
146. Ibid., pp. 424-5.
147. Ibid., p.445.
148. Ibid., p.404.
149. Ibid., pp. 76,405.
150. Ibid.,p.404.
151. Ibid.
152. Ibid., pp. 406,418-9,445.
153. Ibid., p.245.
154. Ibid., pp. 246-50.
155. Ibid., pp. 251-3.

201
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

156. Ibid., pp. 228-30.

157. Center for Research on Criminal Justice, 1977, pp. 108-9.
158. Goldstein, 1978, p. 504.
159. Ibid.
160. Ibid., p. 463.
161. Ibid., p.469.
162. Ibid., p.466.
163. Ibid., p.453.
164. Ibid.; Blackstock, 1975, p. 152.
165. Goldstein, 1978, pp. 448, 471.
166. Chomsky, in Blackstock, 1975, pp. 14-15.
167. Blackstock, 1975, pp. 44-5, 139.
168. Goldstein, 1978, p. 448.
169. Ibid., p.471.
170. Blackstock, 1975, pp. 126, 132, 219.
171. Ibid., pp. 30-2.
172. Ibid., pp. 104-5.
173. Ibid., p. 34.
174. Ibid., p.168.
175. Haywood, 1978, ch. 21.
176. Goldstein, 1978, pp. 471-2.
177. Chomsky and Herman, 1979, p. 12; Blackstock, 1975, pp. 175-6.
183-6.
178. Goldstein, 1978, pp. 452, 472.
179. Ibid., p.434.
180. Ibid., p.487.
181. Ibid., p.492.
182. Ibid., p.514.
183. Ibid., p.514.
184. Ibid., p.517.
185. Ibid., p.512.
186. Ibid., p.513.
187. Ibid., p.493.
188. Ibid., p. 522-3.
189. Ibid., pp. 435r 438.
190. Chomsky, in Blackstock, 1973, p. 14.
191. Wolfe, 1973, pp. 48-50.
192. Goldstein, 1978, pp. 528-9.
193. Amnesty International, 1978, p. 123;New York Times, 6 December
1979, p. A9.
194. Amnesty International, 1978, pp. 140-1 ; Chomsky and Herman, 1979,
pp. 270, 272.
195. Amnesty International, July 1979, p. 4; Chomsky and Herman, 1979,
pp. 26-7.
196. Chomsky and Herman, 1979, p. 9.
197. Chomsky and Herman, 1979, pp. 130, 208-9; Amnesty International,
1978, pp. 162-6.
198. Amnesty International, 1978, pp. 170-2, 183-5; Chomsky and Herman,
1979, p. 234 \N ew York Times, 20 September 1981, p. 5.
199. Chomsky and Herman, 1979, p. 13.

202
 The Land o f the Free

200. New York Times, 11 December 1981, p. 2.

201. Chomsky and Herman, 1979, pp. 4 -5 ,4 6 -9 ,9 4 .
7. Toleration and Repression
in the USSR: 1918-54

This chapter and the following one examine the level of tolerance/repression
o f ideas contrary to the values of the Soviet system, as well as the variations
in the level o f due process guarantees for political opponents, over the course
of Soviet history. This chapter focuses on the period of Civil War (1918-20),
the New Economic Policy (1922-27), the Cultural Revolution and
Collectivization (1928-31), the so-called ’Great Purge’ (1936-38), and the
post-War (1948-55) periods. Chapter 8 explores the contemporary (1965-82)
period. Chapter 9 interprets the results of Chapters 6, 7 and 8 in an
attempt to develop a general theory o f the level of tolerance of public
advocacy that can account for variations in ’political repression’ in any state
society —capitalist or socialist.
This attempt to develop an analytical framework within which to explain
the somewhat radical fluctuations in tolerance and repression over the course
of Soviet history should, in no sense, be taken as a justification for the
unjust and erroneous action taken against either many innocent, middle and
rich peasants in the 1930-31 period of rapid collectivization, or the many
innocent leaders and officials of the CPSU and other Soviet institutions who
were ’purged’ and, in all too many cases, executed, in the 1936-38 period.
Those who want both to understand such events, so that they may not
happen again, to understand the real liberating potential o f socialism and
capitalism are perhaps compelled more than others to seek an understanding
of the causes of such phenomena. It is insufficient, and scientifically inaccu­
rate, to lightly dismiss actions against innocent people as a result o f the
personality o f a few ’bad’ leaders or of merely ’mistaken’ policies. If the left
is: (1) successfully to avoid such serious errors in the future, and (2) to give
a scientific account o f these past events to those who today are justly con­
cerned about human rights in socialist societies - and who, because of such
legitimate concerns, keep their distance from the left - then it is essential
that a careful and non-emotionally charged analysis be developed. The last
chapters of this book are an attempt at such an analysis.
It should be stressed that official contemporary CPSU accounts o f the
developments of the collectivization and ’Great Purge’ periods are not used
as evidence here, and that heavy reliance has been accorded to Western,
carefully documented sources, as well as the reports of leading opponents of

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 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

the CPSU leadership during this period, for example, Deutscher, Medvedev,
Brzezenski. Unquestionably, (1) many innocent peasants were wrongfully
considered to be class enemies and treated accordingly during the height of
the campaign for collectivization; and (2) such Soviet leaders as Bukharin,
Kamenev, Trotsky, Tukhachevsky, and Zinoviev were neither guilty of any
collaboration with Western intelligence agencies, nor guilty of the charges
of conspiring to overthrow Soviet Power - as was falsely claimed in the three
Moscow trials of 1936-38.
This chapter attempts to show that the considerable variations in the level
of tolerance/repression during the 1918-54 period o f Soviet history were
essentially a result of the considerable variations in the level of domestic
conflict and threat of external invasion. In general, the greater the level of
domestic crisis and the perceived probability of external invasions, then the
lower the level of tolerance of public advocacy of anti-Bolshevik or.anti-
leadership ideas. The more secure the international situation, and the higher
the level o f domestic legitimacy, the greater the tolerance of alternative per­
spectives —as well as the more secure are due process guarantees, such as that
of a fair trial. The variations in tolerance/repression over Soviet history are
accounted for without reference to personalities, megalomania, or inherent
tendencies to bureaucratization, that is, repression is analysed in materialist
terms.

Gvil War, Invasion, and Relaxation (1918-27)

In any revolutionary civil war, both sides act against opponents behind their
lines, just as they take direct action opposing organized armed groups. Such
was the case in the Russian Revolution and Civil War, as it has been in the
American, English, French, Cuban, Vietnamese, Angolan, or any other
revolutions.
Out of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Soviets which
organized the seizure o f power in October 1917 grew a special security
branch, mandated to seek out counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs —the
Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage
(the CHEKA). Organized under the leadership of the Polish revolutionary
Dzerzinski, the early CHEKA was described by John Reed as ‘self-restrained
and gentle*,1 an evaluation with which most authorities, including Roy
Medvedev and Isaac Deutscher, concur.2 During the first six months of
CHEKA activity (throughout the spring of 1918) only 22 people were
executed for sabotage or counter-revolutionary activities. During the second
half o f 1918, however, as the Civil War intensified, 4a wave of conspiracies
and terrorist acts swept over the young Soviet Republic and the Party was
obliged to respond with the Red Terror’.3
The bulk o f CHEKA activities took place near the military fronts and were
directed against those who were playing an active role in aiding the white
armies. According to Roy Medvedev, CHEKA activities:

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

. . . were thought of not as juridical or investigative agencies. They were

military-administrative punitive agencies. Just as a soldier at the front
kills his opponent simply because he sees him with a weapon in his
hand, so the Cheka’s mission was to seek out and destroy counter­
revolutionaries and saboteurs, the internal enemy. A civil war is a
special kind of conflict; the front passes through every city, every
village, every house.4

During the last six months o f 1918, approximately 6,000 people were shot
for counter-revolutionary activities and sabotage, and during the next two
and a half years of civil war another 7,000; many more people were confined.
Given the ferocity of the war, as well as the historical standards of ‘white
terror’ (including that engaged in by the Russian Whites at the time) or other
revolutionaries terrors (for example, that of the French Revolution) this
‘Red Terror’ was mild. According to Bolsheviks at the time, ‘if the CHEKA
can be accused of anything, it is not excessive zeal in shooting, but insuffic­
ient application of the supreme penalty’.5 According to Medvedev the Red
Tenor of 1918-21 was a ‘question of saving the Soviet state from certain
downfall’.6 Deutscher, comparing the Red Terror of 1918-21 with that of
the French Jacobins in 1793 and 1794 emphasized the Revolution’s gentle
treatment of its enemies:

The Bolshevik regime was nearing the close of its second decade
without showing signs of Jacobin-like insanity. To be sure there was no
lack of terror in the years of the civil war, from 1918 to 1921. But
that terror was still a measure of war against an armed and militant
counter-revolution. Its methods and objectives were defined by the
nature of that war. Unlike the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks did not execute
their Girondists. The most eminent spokesmen of Menshevism, Martov,
Dan, Abramovich, were either allowed to leave or were exiled from
Russia after their party had been banned. A handful of those who
stayed behind were imprisoned, but most Mensheviks, reconciling
themselves to defeat, loyally served in the Soviet administration and
even on the staffs of the leading Bolsheviks.7

During these early years, not only did other revolutionaries (Mensheviks,
Social Revolutionaries, etc.) receive liberal treatment, but workers and
peasants were treated with considerably greater leniency than those of other
class backgrounds - especially landlords and capitalists.8
Once the tide turned in the Civil War, the extraordinary measures that had
been necessary to secure victory in the 1918-19 period were greatly limited.
After the Red Army defeated Denikin in January 1920 Lenin instructed
Dzerzinski to cease using the death penalty and other extraordinary measures.
In his report to the All-Union Central Executive Committee on 2 February,
1920, Lenin argued:

206
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

We were forced to use terror because of the terror practised by the

Entente, when strong world powers threw their hordes against us, not
avoiding any type of combat. We would not have lasted two days had
we not answered these attempts of officers and White Guardists in a
merciless fashion; this meant the use of terror, but this was forced upon
us by the terrorist methods of the Entente.
But as soon as we attained a decisive victory, even before the end of
the war, immediately after taking Rostov, we gave up the use of the
death penalty and thus proved that we intend to execute our own
programme in the manner that we promised. We say that the applica­
tion of violence flows out of the decision to smother the exploiters,
the big landowners and the capitalists; as soon as this was accomplished
we gave up the use of all extraordinary methods. We have proved this
in practice.9

The regime of political prisoners during the Civil War, throughout the
1920s and in many respects until 1937, was both lenient and oriented to
rehabilitation. To quote Roy Medvedev:

They received extra food, were exempt from forced labour, and were
not subject to humiliating inspections. In political gaols self-govern­
ment was allowed; the politicals elected elders, who dealt with the
prison administration. They kept their clothes, books, writing materials
and pocket knives; they could subscribe to newspapers and magazines.

Torture was prohibited until 1937. A CHEKA special order issued in

December 1929 reads:

Information received by the Cheka establishes that members of various

anti-Soviet parties arrested in political cases are being kept in very bad
conditions... . The Cheka points out that the above listed categories
of people must not be regarded as undergoing punishment, but as
temporarily isolated from society in the interests of the Revolution.
The conditions of their detention must not have a punitive character.10

The year between the time when it was clear that the Bolsheviks had won
the civil war and the Tenth Party Congress was a period of intense public
debate among different factions of the Communist Party about how the
institutions o f socialism ought to be shaped, and what policies of socialist
transition ought to be implemented. Perhaps the most controversial debate
occurred around the role of unions. Different factions and individuals put
forth a wide range of proposals. For example, Trotsky argued there was no
need for them; the so-called ‘Workers Opposition* that they should directly
run the enterprises; Lenin for a middle position.
Just six days before the Tenth Party Congress was to convene, the
Kronstadt mutiny broke out, convulsing both the country and the Party. In

207
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

addition to developing and adopting the New Economic Policy - involving

major economic concessions to the peasants —as a way of dealing with the
crisis the Party also tightened its internal discipline. It was considered that
the extent of public disagreement during the previous year, especially around
the question of the role of trade unions (which centred on the recurrent
debate among socialists regarding whether workers’ councils or a central
plan should be primary) reduced both the Party’s public and internal effec-
tiveness, and incited the demands of the Kronstadt sailors (who adopted a
programme of workers’ self-management very similar to that of the ‘Workers
Opposition’ within the Party). In response, the Party Congress passed a reso­
lution which, for the first time, banned organized factions in the Party. The
resolution called for the dissolution of all Party groups with separate plat­
forms and provided for expulsion from the party for continued factionalism.
The resolution criticized F^rty groups ‘with separate platforms and with the
determination to a certain extent to become self-contained and to create
their own group discipline’ as being incompatible with the Party’s social role.
It went on to insist that: ‘Everyone who criticizes in public must keep in
mind the situation of the Party in the midst of the enemies by which it is
surrounded----- ’ 11
At the end of the Civil War, and once the New Economic Policy had
defused the discontent manifested in the Kronstadt rising, there was a
regularization of the judicial and police system. In 1922 a new system of
civil and criminal courts was created to replace the revolutionary tribunals,
while socialist law codes were promulgated for the first time. The CHEKA
was abolished in February 1922. The Bolsheviks, however, realizing that
there was a continuing need to investigate, and for limited actions against,
both domestic opponents and foreign agents, created the GPU (the State
Political Directorate of the Commissariat of the Interior) to carry on such
work. The criminal code adopted in 1922, sensitive to the needs of both
justice and self-preservation, read:

Propaganda, or agitation, or participation in an organization, or co­

operation with organizations, have the effect (i.e. the propaganda or
agitation) of helping in the slightest way that part of the international
bourgeoisie . . . which is endeavouring to overthrow [the Soviet
system] by force, whether by intervention, or blockade, or by espion­
age, or by financing of the press, or by other means - is punishable
by death or imprisonment. 2

The courts were also given power to punish any ‘socially dangerous act’,
which was defined as any act that menaced the stability of the dictatorship
of the proletariat, was an obstacle to the development of socialism, or
disorganized social relations.13 Thus, like any other state, the consolidated
socialist regime organized its repressive apparatus to defend itself both against
external enemies, and domestic opponents who actively opposed the system
of property relations it was designed to protect As a state it could not act

208
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

otherwise and survive.

During the first four years of Soviet power, non-Bolshevik working-class
parties continued to operate legally in the Soviet Union. The Left Social
Revolutionaries were co-partners with the Bolsheviks on the ruling Council
o f People’s Commissars (occupying seven o f the 18 seats) until July 1918.
When, in July 1918, the Left Social Revolutionaries declared themselves in
opposition to the Bolshevik leadership of the Civil War, and actually
organized an armed insurrection, they were temporarily banned from partici­
pation in the Soviets. Although they had not supported the seizure of power,
the Right Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were active in the Soviets
until they were banned from participation, also in June 1918, they were
temporarily excluded owing to their failure to support the Reds in the Civil
War. But even after their expulsion the three parties continued to operate
as legal and active political organizations. The decrees banning Menshevik
and Social Revolutionary participation in the Soviets were rescinded in the
winter of 1918-19 after these organizations declared themselves opposed to
foreign intervention and to collaboration with the bourgeoisie (i.e. had
declared their support of the Reds in the Civil War). The Right Social Revo­
lutionaries were allowed to resume publication o f their newspaper in 1919,
and both groups legally held congresses during 1919. In 1920 the Mensheviks
were still electing substantial numbers of representatives to the Soviets in a
number of cities, including Moscow. In 1920, the Left Social Revolutionaries
decided to merge into the Bolshevik Party - as did the left wing of the
Jewish Bund in 1921.14
The Right Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were banned only in 1921
during the deep crisis in Soviet society caused by the strains of war. Commu­
nism and massive peasant —and to a lesser degree worker —discontent was
brought to a head by the naval mutiny at Kronstadt. In March 1921 the Kron­
stadt. sailors’ mutiny issued a national call to overthrow the Bolshevik leader­
ship of the Revolution. The mutiny’s main demands included: the release of
all political prisoners; the abolition of the special leading position of the Com­
munist Party; the rights of the peasants to do with their land whatever they
wanted; the immediate re-election of the Soviets by Tree and secret ballot’;
and the elimination of all restrictions on freedom of speech and the press.15
In the summer of 1922 a number of leaders of the Right Social Revolution­
aries were put on trial for involvement in counter-revolutionary activities. The
Right Social Revolutionaries had led a number of uprisings of peasants in 1920
and, in the same year, formed an alliance with the Left Cadets (a middle-class
based liberal party) against the Bolsheviks; additionally, at its 1920 Congress
there were appeals for the use of violence against Bolsheviks.
Roy Medvedev, who argues that the contemporary Soviet Union should
establish a multiparty system, nevertheless argues:

Although the Bolsheviks’treatrnent of the other democratic parties was

not beyond reproach, it should be pointed out that the Communist
Party’s monopoly of political activity was a product of history ; in a

209
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

certain period it was an important condition for the realization of the

dictatorship of the proletariat.16

The reason the Bolsheviks gave for the creation of a single party state in
1921 is that a single cadre party is necessary in order to unify and mobilize
the people for the difficult tasks of socialist construction and national
defence. It is argued that if separate parties exist, even separate socialist
parties based in the working class, artificial divisions and antagonisms will
result, largely generated by the needs of organizations and candidates to find
and magnify issues with which to provoke and aggravate discontent in order
to attempt to win. A single cadre party, it is argued, can, after hearing all
sides, aggregate popular sentiments, articulate them through the language of
Marxist theory, and test the validity of their explicit formulation, bringing
them back to the masses in the form of meaningful slogans, programmes and
policies - the process referred to by Mao Tse-Tung as ‘the mass line’ - in
such a manner as to avoid creating dissension and exacerbating discontent,
and instead, generating the enthusiasm and solidarity essential for the effec­
tive realization of the socialist project.
It is further argued that it is possible for a single party to be authentically
democratic provided it maintains firm roots among the most respected mem­
bers of the working class and peasantry, who transmit the sentiments and
interests of average working people, through the Party’s apparatus, to its
leading bodies and hence to all social institutions. This conception of
democracy reverts to the original usage of the term as rule by the people,
rejecting the contemporary notion, predominant in Western parliamentary
democracies, that popular rule is possible only by the more or less open
competition of different political parties in periodic elections. The Marxist
analysis of such multiparty parliamentary forms is that they can be easily
manipulated, through a wide range of instrumental and structural mechan­
isms, to serve the propertied class and their economic system, while
single party working-class based systems are much more responsive to the
needs of working-class people, that is, are authentically democratic in the
original sense o f the term.
Thus, in 1921, the Soviets institutionalized both a one-party system and
a monolithic Communist Party without organized internal factions; both
institutions remain in the Soviet Union until the present day. The model o f
the Communist Party established in 1921 has become the model for
communist parties almost everywhere, while the pre-1921 multifactioned
form of Bolshevik organization, which actually led the Bolshevik seizure of
state power in 1917, is largely ignored by those interested in ‘building’ a
party of the Leninist type.*

* The Soviet model of a single party society, however, has been adopted by only
minority of Socialist societies (e.g. Yugoslavia, Cuba). Many others (e.g. Poland, The
German Democratic Republic, China, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia) have

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 Toleration and Repression In the USSR (1918-54)

The bans on other political parties remained but, during the period of the
New Economic Policy (1921-28) there was a relatively high level of
tolerance for diverse perspectives in Soviet society. Restrictions on the press
were relaxed and scores of private printing houses and non-party journals
were founded.
In the 1924-25 period nomination rules were relaxed in order to make it
easy for candidates not approved by the Communist Party to win election to
the local Soviets. In new electoral instructions issued in early 1925, Party
organizations were told to cease to ’impose their list at election meetings’
and no longer to insist that voters ‘be excluded merely because they have
been critical of local Soviet authorities’.17 As a result the majority of those
elected to the village Soviets in the rural areas of the Ukraine and Russian
Republic were non-Piarty. After tjie 1927 elections about 90% of delegates
and 75% o f local Soviet chairmen in both Republics were non-Party.
The ban on organized factions in the Party was not rescinded, but a vital
internal party life, as well as toleration of widely diverse viewpoints within
the Party, continued throughout the period of the New Economic Policy.
During the 1920s there was active competition among different leaders and
groups within the Party on the resolution of the problems facing Soviet
society; the followers o f Bukharin, Zinoviev, Trotsky, Tomsky and Stalin
contended on questions o f agricultural policy, industrialization, and foreign
policy. While the centre-right alliance of those around Stalin and Bukharin
had the upper hand in the period after Lenin’s death (they were united on
the continuation of the New Economic Policy and a fairly moderate inter­
national line), their left opponents continued to occupy leading positions.
In April 1926 the ‘United Opposition’, comprising followers of Trotsky,
Zinoviev and Kamenev, as well as the remnants of the Workers’ Opposition
and other leftists, formed to oppose the alliance of Bukharin’s and Stalin’s
followers. They opposed the moderate industrial and agricultural policies that
the leftists thought were undermining the socialist transition, as well as what
was perceived as the leading group’s failure to support revolutionary actions
in other countries, for example, China.19
For organizing this loosely knit organization in violation of the 1921
Party statutes, its leaders were expelled from the Central Committee, but not
from the Party. On the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, the

institutionalized a multiparty system in which the minor non-Communist Parties are

allied to the dominant Communist Party in some type of a national unity front which pro­
vides a common list of candidates in elections. The amount of autonomy and influence
possessed by the minor parties in such systems varies from country to country and, over
time, but in all cases they are subordinate to the Communist Party. The two mqjor non-
Communist Parties in Poland, for example, The United Peasants Party and the Demo­
cratic Party, played a somewhat independent roie in the 1956-81 period, especially in
the year and a half after the summer of 1980 (mostly in lobbying for the special interests
of their constituencies, the peasantry and middle-class intelligentsia respectively).

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United Opposition organized street demonstrations in Moscow and Leningrad,

with a result that Zinoviev and Trotsky, the two most prominent leaders of
the left, were expelled from the Party. The 15th Congress held in December
1927 declared Adherence to the opposition, and propaganda of its views, to
be incompatible with membership in the Party.’2® Trotsky, unyielding, was
forced to go into (comfortable) exile in Central Asia, and finally, at the
beginning of 1929, was expelled from the country; he was allowed to take all
his personal effects and papers with him. Throughout the mid- 1930s, internal
opposition within the Party, even of the most aggressive type, such as that of
Trotsky, was treated with relative benevolence.
The relatively high level of tolerance of the New Economic Policy period
in Soviet history was brought to an end by a deteriorating international
and agricultural situation. In May 1926 there was a military coup in Poland,
led by anti-Communist General Pilsudski, ’hero’ of the 1920 Polish invasion
o f the Ukraine. In 1927, the Communist Party of China, which had begun
to play a strong and growing role in that country, was repressed and thousands
of its members massacred. In 1927 Britain broke off diplomatic relations,
while relations with France became strained. Soviet leaders began to predict
an imminent economic crisis of capitalism, and hence the outbreak of a new
inter-imperialist war. Further, the food supply from the countryside to the
cities decreased radically over the 1926-28 period, precipitating a growing
crisis in the Party’s relationship to the peasantry. In the 1926-28 period, as
the agricultural crisis heightened, the independent journals and printing
houses were either closed down or co-ordinated with Party policy, to prevent
them from becoming alternative centres for the mobilization of public
opinion.21 Party discipline was again tightened and the role o f the Party in
the nomination processes, especially in the rural areas, considerably
enhanced.

How History Judges: I Famine and Collectivization (1928-34)

1928 witnessed a radical shift in the general approach of the CPSU both to
international and domestic questions. At the Sixth Congress of the
Communist International held that year, it was predicted that the world
capitalist economy would soon collapse into depression and that the resul­
tant shortage of markets would provoke another period o f inter-imperialist
warfare. Given such conditions, it was expected both that the revolutionary
class struggle would revive and that renewed attacks on the Soviet Union
could be expected. Such an analysis dictated that the USSR quickly
modernize its economy and acquire a modem defensive military establishment
in order to protect itself from the expected foreign onslaught. This primary
inspiration of the 1928-31 period was sharply articulated in a speech o f the
Party’s general secretary in February 1931 :

Sometimes people ask whether it is not possible to slow the pace

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somewhat, to hold back the movement. No, comrades, that is imposs­

ible! It is impossible to reduce the pace. On the contrary, it should be
increased as much as is within our power. . . . To reduce the pace means
to lag. And the laggards are beaten. But we do not want to be beaten.
No, we do not want it! The history of old Russia consisted, among
other things, of being beaten continuously for her backwardness. The
Mongol khans beat her. The Turkish boys beat her. The Swedish
feudal lords beat her. The Polish-Lithuanian landlords beat her. The
Anglo-French capitalists beat her. The Japanese barons beat her. All
beat her because of her backwardness - because of military backward­
ness, of cultural backwardness, of governmental backwardness, of
industrial backwardness, of agricultural backwardness. They beat her
because it was profitable and could be done without punishment.
. . . Do you want for our socialist fatherland to be beaten and lose its
independence. If you don’t want this, you should in the shortest time
liquidate its backwardness. . . . We lag behind the advanced countries
by 50 to 100 years. We must make up this distance in 10 years. Either
we do this or they crush us.23

A central part of the radical shift in the CPSU’s general policies in 1928
was the initiation of a ’cultural revolution’ which affected all aspects of
educational, artistic, literary, academic, urban as well as industrial and agricul­
tural policy. The cultural revolution’s central focus was rapid modernization
through central planning, speedy industrialization and modernization of agri­
culture, while promoting and celebrating working-class and proletarian culture.
Social engineering (planning), rank and file attacks on bureaucrats, dissemi­
nation of the idea that science, planning and dedication together could
produce a great leap forward, rapid promotion of those from working-class
backgrounds, insistence that the arts and social sciences adopt a Marxist
content, class war against the remnants of the bourgeoisie (especially in the
intelligentsia) and the active encouragement of futurist projects, were all
major aspects of this first cultural revolution (the Chinese 'Proletarian Cul­
tural Revolution’ 35 years later had largely similar aims). To quote
Fitzpatrick:

Cultural revolution had many facets. It was a worker-promotion move­

ment linked to a political campaign to discredit the 'Right Opposition’
within the Party. It was an iconoclastic youth movement directed
against 'bureaucratic’ authority. It was a process whereby militant
Communist groups in the professions established local dictatorships and
attempted to revolutionize their disciplines. It was finally, a heyday for
revolutionary theorists and 'hare-brained schemas’ whose blueprints for
the new society not only attracted disciplines among the communist
cultural militants but also in many cases gained solid institutional
support.23

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Cultural revolution also involved a response on the part of the leader­

ship to pressures within the Communist movement and the society as
a whole. The class-war concept of confrontation between proletariat
and bourgeoisie reflected real social tensions between the materially
disadvantaged and the privileged. The anti-bureaucratic drive of cultural
revolution - often verging on an attack on established authority per
se - reflected real grievances of the younger generation. Within the
professions, Communists and non-Communists tended to gather in
potentially antagonistic camps; the appeal for 'proletarian hegemony’ in
scholarship and the arts did not originally come from the Party leader­
ship, but from groups within the professions and scholarly institu­
tions.24

In the words o f Hough and Fainsod:

The cultural revolution in the Soviet Union had, on a somewhat lesser

scale, much the same spirit as its Chinese counterpart four decades
later. Individual specialists often were harassed by local forces; purges
were conducted within the bureaucracy and the universities; culture
became politicized as the radical figures in the various cultural realms
were unleashed to launch frontal attacks upon the established cultural
authorities (the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment, which super­
vised education and the arts, as well as the non-Communist intelligent­
sia); and many Utopians took advantage of the situation to push
forward their pet projects.25

According to Hough and Fainsod:

the plan opened up an exhilarating period of struggle and combat, a

leap forward into the New Jerusalem.. . . The air was electric with
positions to be stormed, class enemies to be destroyed, and fortresses
to be b u ilt.. . . The last remnants of private capitalism and the old
'bourgeois cultural’ appeared to be headed for extinction.26

Cultural struggle was waged in the universities to establish 'proletarian

hegemony’ in the various academic disciplines. Socialist realism was actively
promoted as the only truly proletarian art and literature. The pre-1928
policies of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment were attacked by
young Communists as too eclectic in their toleration of different art forms,
including even the most traditional, and for advancing traditional educational
institutions. Anti-Marxist professors were purged from the social science
faculties of universities, and Party activists now came to dominate the uni­
versity governing boards, and insisted that universities both actively recruit
students o f proletarian background and teach proletarian values. The
intelligentsia vigorously debated its role in the new society; students
challenged their professors, making them undergo examination and

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 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

‘re-election’ to their positions. Younger, more militant scholars, with

programmes for focusing their research and writing on problems of practical
relevance to society and the economy overthrew the dominance of the older
more traditional authorities in discipline after discipline. Bureaucratic
administrative forms were attacked and innovative methods experimented
with. Writers enthusiastically read their works before factory audiences and
worked with workers on collective histories o f industrial enterprises.
Much o f the thrust of the Soviet Cultural Revolution was in education,
both in order to quickly create a new generation of Red and expert working
class technicians and intellectuals to staff the professional and administrative
positions in the rapidly industrializing economy, and to develop a new
proletarian culture appropriate to a society which was consolidating prole­
tarian socialist institutions, especially the creation o f the ‘New Soviet Man’.27
Both the first Five Year Plan (for rapid industrialization), and the cam­
paign for the modernization of agriculture through the creation of large
scale units utilizing modem industrial technology, were central aspects o f the
storming the heavens philosophy o f which the Soviet Cultural Revolution
of 1928-31 was the ideological manifestation. The campaign for the collec­
tivization of agriculture, which was launched in 1928 and radically acceler­
ated in the winter of 1929-30, can be understood only as an integral part
of this ‘general line’.
Russian agriculture was extremely backward. Not only had modem
agricultural methods not yet made an impact, but one-fourth of the peasants
did not even own a horse (less than half had a team of oxen or horses). Many
poor dwarf peasants had to pull their homemade and inefficient wooden
ploughs themselves. Further, small holdings in many areas were split by
inheritance into tiny plots separated by significant distances both from the
peasant’s dwellings and from each other, as well as serving as a further ob­
stacle to eventual mechanization. While about 25-30% of the peasants were
dwarf-holders using wooden ploughs without beasts of burden (i.e.
peasants), and about 6% were kulaks (rich peasants) who employed the land­
less rural proletariat and dwarf peasants (part-time) to produce a significant
surplus for themselves. The bulk o f the peasantry in the 1920s were ‘middle
peasants* - those who had more or less enough land as well as a minimum of
equipment and beasts to maintain their families through their own labour.28
In the 1927-28 period Soviet society experienced an increasingly serious
food crisis. Because the peasants were themselves consuming a much higher
percentage o f their output than they had done before the Revolution, the
quantity they sold to the towns from 1923 to 1928 averaged only 50% of
that they had provided between 1909 and 1913; in the years 1927 and 1928
the percentage was significantly lower than in the 1923-28 period. In 1927
it was estimated that the grain provided to the cities was only about two-
thirds o f that required; in 1928 grain deliveries declined to 70% of the 1927
level. Richer peasants’ attempts to drive the price of grain up by withholding
it from the market coincided with the state’s attempt to subsidize the con­
sumption o f the working class, while also generating funds for investment

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

in industry.29 This action by the rich peasants also radically affected the
ability of the Soviet state to import Western technology to facilitate
industrialization. Before the War, Russia, as one of the world’s leading grain
exporters, had exported 12 million tons of grain annually, and in 1926-27,
2 million tons; in 1928 the USSR had to import a quarter of a million
tons.20 By withholding grain the richer peasants had produced a serious
crisis for the socialist regime.
The Party and government’s immediate response was to take ’extra­
ordinary measures’ including sending detachments of workers to the country­
side to confíscate the hoarded grain. Class struggle was encouraged in the
countryside. Poor and landless peasants were mobilized to struggle against the
kulaks, e.g. 25% of confiscated grain was to be distributed to the rural poor.
The Party’s popular mobilization of workers and the rural poor against the
kulaks often led to crude and excessive actions; further, the policy of forced
requisitions produced only a short-run increase in food deliveries. The kulaks
response was to decrease production, thus reducing their confiscatable
stores.31 The Party denounced the kulaks for 'disrupting the Soviet economic
policy’ and, in July 1928, directed its cadre 'to strike hard at the kulaks’
(a radical reversal of the new economic policy of 'alliance with the
peasantry’ - support which the Party now felt the kulaks had abused).32
At the same time, however, the Party renounced the continuation of extra­
ordinary measures.
As incentives for the peasants to increase production new directives were
issued to raise grain prices by 15 to 20% and to increase the availability of
manufactured goods in the countryside. Throughout the second half of
1928, the Party press repeatedly asserted that there would be no more
searches and forced seizures of grain.33 But in the winter of 1928-29, the
rich peasants’ failure to respond by increasing grain deliveries led to further
search and seizure operations (less grain, in fact, was delivered than during
the previous year; grain rationing now had to be introduced in the cities).
Two winters of forced requisitioning interspersed by a period of failed
attempts at reconciliation was invoking great antagonism between the Party
(with its urban worker and poor peasant backers) and the kulaks, while, in
Roy Medvedev’s words, ‘The country was threatened with the complete
disorganization of the whole national economy, and with famine imminent,
something had to be done at once.. . .,34 Collectivization, advocated for
many years by the Party’s left (e.g. Trotsky, Zinoviev) became increasingly
necessary.
That the progressive nature of the New Economic Policy, which
encouraged agricultural production by allowing the peasants to enrich them­
selves, had largely run its course was becoming obvious by 1927 and 1928.
Modernization, and the country’s ability to successfully defend itself in the
event of a further series of foreign interventions such as had occurred in the
1918-21 period, made the modernization of agriculture essential. Conse­
quently, the decision was taken at the 15th Party Congress to encourage
collectivization. The First Five Year Plan, approved at the end of 1928,

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 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

envisaged 20% of the peasants in collective farms by the end of 1933.35

A gradual process of persuasion, combined with economic incentives was
planned, as the development of large scale units was more or less to keep
pace with the growth in output of modem agricultural machinery. The
peasants were promised mechanized equipment and state credit if they joined
the collectives that were to be set up, ’everything will be supplied - join the
collective farms*.36 In autumn 1928, however, in the face of the increased
food shortage, the pace o f collectivization was radically accelerated.
The Party had extremely high hopes for the efficacy of collectivization. In
1929 the majority saw it as the mechanism whereby a highly efficient
modem agriculture^ on which to base rapid industrialization could be con­
structed, as Well as Hooding the cities with food. The Soviets interpreted the
rapid modernization of agriculture in the US as a proof o f how agriculture
could be rapidly transformed *to the level of an extractive industry*. It was
also seen as a mechanism to develop socialist consciousness in the peasantry.
To quote Davies:

During the autumn of 1929, plans for mechanization were greatly

expanded . . . enthusiasm for American achievements in agricultural
technology mounted, and the Soviet leaders became confident that
Soviet socialist agriculture could soon outstrip that of the capitalist
West. A Pravda editorial proclaimed that the example of the United
States had ’compelled bourgeois economists to admit that in 10-15
years agriculture will have reached the level of an extractive industry.37

Although the policy of immediate collectivization was a hasty impro­

visation in face of a serious crisis, it was not seen by the leaders or their
supporters as a desperate remedy for a mortal sickness. On the contrary,
this was for them a time of great hope. The substantial industrial
progress of the past three years and the burgeoning capital construction
industry in the summer of 1929 provided a basis for believing that the
vast programmes of the revised five-year plans might be achieved.
The successful development of industry would in turn make possible
within a very few years the supply of agricultural machinery and
fertilizers which would transform agricultural production.38

The ’Second Revolution* was begun. In the words of Isaac Deutscher:

In its scope and immediate impact upon the life of some 160 million
people the second revolution was even more sweeping and radical than
the first. It resulted in Russia’s rapid industrialization; it compelled
more than a hundred million peasants to abandon their small, primitive
holdings and to set up collective farms; it ruthlessly tore the primeval
wooden plough from the hands of the muzhik and forced him to grasp
the wheel of a modem tractor; it drove tens of millions of illiterate
people to school and made them learn to read and write; and spiritually

217
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

it detached European Russia from Europe and brought Asiatic Russia

nearer to Europe. The rewards of that revolution were astounding;
but so was its co st.. . . It takes a great effort of the imagination to
gauge the enormousness and the complexity of that upheaval for which
hardly any historical precedent can be found.39

Deutscher went on to argue that the collectivization and industrialization

policies begun in 1928 were responsible for the defeat of the nazis:

The truth was that the war could not have been won without the in­
tensive industrialization of Russia, and of her eastern provinces in
particular. Nor could it have been won without the collectivization of
large numbers of farms. The muzhik of 1930, who had never handled
a tractor or any other machine, would have been of little use in modem
war. Collectivized farming, with its machine-tractor stations scattered
all over the country, had been the peasant’s preparatory school for
mechanized warfare. The rapid raising of the average standard of edu­
cation had also enabled the Red Army to draw on a considerable
reserve of intelligent officers and men. ‘We are fifty or a hundred years
behind the advanced countries. We must make good this lag in ten
years. Either we do it, or they crush us’ - so Stalin had spoken exactly
ten years before Hitler set out to conquer Russia. His words, when they
were recalled now, could not but impress people as a prophecy
brilliantly fulfilled, as a most timely call to action. And, indeed, a few
year’s delay in the modernization of Russia might have made all the
difference between victory and defeat40

In October 1928, a total of 200,000, or only 14.5% of Party members

were peasants or agricultural workers. There was only one peasant Party
member for every 125 peasant households, compared to one in ten for urban
workers, and only one Party cell for every four village Soviets (the typical
village Soviet included several rural settlements). There were, however,
substantially more (about one million) members of the Young Communist
League (the Komsomol) in the countryside. It was estimated that each rural
settlement averaged around two people who were either full or candidate
members of the Party, or members of the Komsomol;41 many of whom were
veterans of the Red Army. Thus, the density of active Party cadre in the
countryside was clearly inadequate to mobilize the poor and middle peasants
for the collectivization movement.
In order to generate enthusiasm for the collectivization campaign and to
lead the organization of collectives the Party transferred large numbers of
urban workers and Party cadre to the countryside. The November 1929
Plenum o f the Central Committee decided to send 25,000 politically
experienced industrial workers to the countryside permanently. Over 70,000
workers volunteered and about 27,000 of these were sent, and were later
followed by many more politically conscious workers. It was intended that

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 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

these workers would win over the peasants to large-scale socialist production,
and teach them the necessary technical and organization skills to make the
collectives work.43 In the Ukraine alone 23,000 urban workers went to the
countryside to supplement 23,500 administrators in helping organize the
collectives.43 Altogether about a quarter of a million industrial workers and
cadres were eventually sent to the countryside to supplement the cadre
already there.44
Those sent to the countryside organized educational programmes for the
peasants. In the Ukraine alone in the early weeks of 1930 almost 300,000
peasants received short courses in the operation of collectives, many of these
courses were arranged by individual trade unions and factories which were
sponsoring the new collective farms. The Red Army also played an active
role by releasing 30,000 soldiers specially trained for agricultural work to
the collectives in autumn 1929, and began training 100,000 more recruits
for the same purpose. The Red Army played amespecially important role in
training tractor drivers and mechanics as well as large numbers of lower and
middle level agricultural specialists.43
In autumn 1929, the Flirty decided that an acceleration in the pace of
collectivization was essential in order to speed the process of agricultural
modernization and increase food deliveries to the cities. By 1 July 1929
more than twice as many peasants had joined the new collectives as the
original plan had called for, but this still represented only 4% of all peasants.
By the end o f 1929, 7.6% of peasant households had joined. That collectives
encompassed only 3.6% of the cultivated land (less than half of the percent­
age of peasants in them) indicates that it was mostly poor peasants who were
joining. Relatively few middle, and almost no rich, peasants responded to
the collectivization campaign.44
At the November 1929 Plenum of the Central Committee a harsh line was
taken towards the kulaks who, it was now decided, must be largely Isolated
rather than won over. The experience of the previous year with both grain
collections to feed the cities and the initial steps towards collectivization had
convinced the majority of the Party leadership that this stratum was essen­
tially hostile to collectivization:

We cannot re-educate the kulak9 and moreover no educational tasks

at all in relation to the kulak - apart from educating* him by methods
of undeviating and decisive class struggle with him - can be the subject
of our solicitude and experimentation. Economic isolation and, if it is
needed in a particular case, the use also of administrative measures
against the kulak - this is the line along which we will be able to find
the specific forms of the most suitable solution to the problem of the
kulak in a given place and conditions.47

Rich peasants were now under official and unofficial pressure to abandon
voluntarily and without compensation, farm buildings and draft animals,
and share their common product with poor, landless and middle peasants,

219
Human Righto in the Soviet Union

and perform the bulk of their labour co-operatively.

On 5 January 1930 the Party’s Central Committee decided that stricter
measures were necessary; local Party branches were instructed to give the
highest priority to persuading the peasants to join. State tractor stations were
organized mainly if not exclusively to service the collective farms. The dwarf
peasants and landless labourers were mobilized to spearhead the collective
movement. These peasants, comprising about 25-30% of the total rural
population, were promised a significant improvement in their living standards
in the new collectives, which would be endowed with some of the rich
peasants’ agricultural implements and chattels, as well as with machinery
provided by the state. Many, with and without the zealous leadership of local
Party officials, applied intimidation, the threat of force, and occasionally
actual force to produce the ’spectacular results’ of the winter of 1930.48
The Party adopted a policy of 'dekulakization’ which meant the expro­
priation of the excess property of the kulaks and their forced reduction to
the economic status o f middle peasants. The Party’s General Secretary
declared: 'This means that we have gone over from a policy of limiting the
exploiting tendencies of the kulak to a policy of eliminating the kulak as a
class.49 Instructions to rural Party units read:

Kulaks shall not be admitted to Kolkhozy; kulak means of production

shall be confiscated and transferred to the Indivisible Funds of Kolk­
hozy in districts of comprehensive collectivisation in accordance
with the decisions of poor and middle peasants combining together in
Kolkhozy, and of local Soviets; kulaks shall be allocated distant land
and the worst land; malicious kulak elements shall be exiled from the
districts.50

Open class warfare broke out in the countryside. On 5 February 1930 a

decree was issued which, after public hearings, empowered the assemblies of
poor and landless peasants to order the deportation of non-cooperative rich
peasants, as well as to expropriate all their property except a subsistence
minimum of equipment and personal property. The decree, however, also
provided that deportation orders would not be final until the local
authorities affirmed the decisions and appropriate arrangements had been
made for resettlement —usually on virgin land in the East.51
In the winter of 1930 the mechanisms used to pressure those classified as
middle peasants to join the collectives included assigning to those who
resisted the worst, most remote land; the old Russian Mir tradition of re­
allocation of the village land was assumed by the local Soviets. In some
districts where over-enthusiastic officials declared that 'collectivization was
100% complete’, peasants who elected to remain outside the collectives, in
spite of official declarations, received no arable land. High and increasing
taxes were imposed on middle peasants who did not join collectives;
collective farmers not only received the best land but were taxed at a low
level. In many cases actual physical abuse of reluctant middle peasants

220
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

occurred.52
That property expropriated from kulaks was assigned to the new collectives
together with the over-zealousness of many Party cadre led poor peasants to
take aggressive action against the rich peasants, and treat many recalcitrant
middle peasants as kulaks; in some areas 15-20% of peasants were treated as
if they were kulaks, contrary both to Party policy and common sense.53
In Roy Medvedev’s words,

In some places groups of peasants explicitly decreed the expropriation

of middle peasants, ordering the confiscation of such luxuries as sewing
machines, minors, and beds. In one raion investigations revealed that
only three of 34 households subjected to dekulakization were actual
kulak. There were thousands and thousands of such cases. As a result
of such actions (greatly magnified by rumours and paranoia) large
numbers of middle peasants ceased equivocating about the new collect*
ivization policy, and whether or not they were successfully pressured to
join, came to resist (or at best became hostile to the project).54

Within two months approximately half of all peasants were pressured into
joining the collectives. The result of the intense pressure and rural class
struggle o f January and February 1930 was disarray in the countryside, along
with insurmountable organizational problems for the new collectives, flooded
with largely unenthusiastic peasants lacking sufficient equipment or materials
to begin the 1930 crop. Panic and terror swept the countryside. In Deutscher’s
words, many peasants,

. . . decided to bring in as little as possible of their property to the

collective farms which they imagined to be state owned factories, in
which they themselves would become mere factory hands. In desper­
ation they slaughtered their cattle, smashed implements, and burned
crops. This was the muzhik’s great Luddite-like rebellion.55

Some rich peasants slaughtered their animals rather than contribute them to
the collectives, more because the fodder to keep them alive was appropriated
to feed the cities. Between spring 1929 and spring 1930 the number of farm
animals in the USSR fell by 25%.56 To have continued the hectic measures
of January and February would have resulted in famine and possibly collapse
o f the regime.
On 2 March 1930, summing up those measures, the Central Committee
of the Party issued a statement criticizing its local cadre and poor peasant
supporters for becoming <dizzy with success’, ignoring the basic rule that
peasants must join the collectives voluntarily, and alienating the majority of
middle peasants who, until the winter o f 1930, had been undecided about
whether or not to join (thus pushing them into the arms o f the kulaks).
The Party also emphasized that the collective form socialized only the land,
draft animals and larger machinery, leaving cows, sheep, chickens, pigs and

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

other personal property in the hands of the individual peasants. The decree
read in part:

The Koikhoz must not be imposed by force. That would be stupid and
reactionary. The Kolkhoz movement must be based on the active
support of the main mass of the peasantry . . .
What can these distortions lead to? To the strengthening of our
enemies and the complete discrediting of the idea of the Kolkhoz
movement. . .
Success often intoxicates people, they begin to get dizzy with
success, lose the ability to understand reality; a tendency appears to
overestimate one's own strength and to underestimate the strength of
one's opponent, and adventurist attempts are made to solve all the
• problems of socialist construction ‘in two ticks'.57

As a result o f the March 1930 decree, the errors o f the previous two
months were largely corrected and pressure on the rich, and especially the
middle, peasants considerably relaxed. More than half the peasants who, in
January and February, had been induced to join the collectives, ieft them
within a few weeks. By September i930, the percentage o f peasants in collec­
tives had dropped to 2 i% of the total (from a peak of about 58% in early
March).58
Subsequently subtler incentive structures (and a balance between collec­
tive and individual interests) were employed to induce the middie peasants
to join the collectives. Private plots, from which peasants could sell their
produce on an individual basis, were institutionalized; profit sharing, rather
than set wage payments, became the norm. Most state farms were disbanned
and their land and resources given free to the collectives.59 This more
moderate approach after 1930 resulted in a fairly rapid pace o f collectivi­
zation. By 1933 about 60%, by 1934 about 75%, and by 1940, 97% o f
peasants were organized in collective or state farms.60 This increased pace
was, however, not matched by the ability to successfully organize and equip
the new, large scale agricultural units.
The slaughter of farm animals by rich and middle peasants in the winter of
1930 together with the continuingly serious problems o f organization of
the collectives and motivation of the peasants meant, in Isaac Deutschers*
words, that "Rapid mechanization o f agriculture now became a matter o f life
and death'. The food crisis continued unabated. In 1929 the average Soviet
urban dwellers' annual consumption o f meat, poultry and fat was 48 pounds,
in 1930 it was 33, falling to 27 in 193 i, and less than 17 in the famine year
o f 1932.61
The efficient organization o f the collectives was impeded by the continued
attempt to generate resources for rapid industrialization o f the agricultural
sector, as well as by the failure o f industry to provide mechanized farm
equipment with the promptness planned. To quote Davies:

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. . . the unrelenting drive for industrial expansion carried with it a

determined effort to squeeze agriculture still further. In the autumn of
1930» the state collections were much larger and covered a much wider
range of products; and simultaneously taxes and other payments were
substantially increased in the cases of both the Kolkhoz and the indi­
vidual peasants. Investment in agriculture was limited» both because
state credits were restricted and because all kinds of building materials»
diverted to the major industrial projects» disappeared from the country­
side. All these measures further weakened economic incentives to
agricultural production. Secondly» the lag in achieving industrial plans
affected the planned expansion of the tractor» lorry and agricultural
engineering industries; tractors were not provided in sufficient
quantities in the early 1930s to compensate for the reduction in the
number of horses.62

The rich» and many abused (as well as paranoid) middle peasants in the
winter of 1930 responded by fighting against the organized poor peasants
and Party cadre; many Communists and poor peasant leaders were assas­
sinated. In the words o f a leading anti-Soviet historian of the CPSU: 'There
was open war in the villages and the desperate peasants did not hesitate to
kill any Communists» regarding them as natural enemies'.63 Other acts of
violence were committed against government and Party buildings and per­
sonnel; and some riots and small scale insurrections had to be suppressed by
the Army. In response to the massive economic sabotage which occurred
over the course of a couple of years» as well as violence against the Party and
its supporters in the countryside» the Party again adopted extraordinary
measures —measures not seen since the Civil War period o f 1918-20.
Rich peasants were classified into three categories: (1) 'active counter­
revolutionaries' who were subject to criminal proceedings» which sometimes
resulted in execution; (2) 'counter-revolutionary elements' who were exiled
and resettled after the confiscation of most of their productive property;
and (3) 'those who had to be drawn into socially useful labour and who were
given the opportunity for re-education through socially useful production'»
a category which covered most of the rich peasants.64 The total percentage of
those classified as kulaks was not to exceed 3-5% in grain areas and 2-3%
in non-grain areas. About 20% of kulaks were to be classified in categories
(1) and (2). Party instructions exempted from expropriation or exile rich
peasants who either had sons in the army or offspring who were teachers.
In the civil war atmosphere which» exacerbated by the growing food
crisis» at time erupted in the countryside» the formal procedures and legal
guarantees for the rich peasants were sometimes disregarded. In some regions»
particularly in the Kuban» Don and Ukraine» there were grain strikes by both
individual and collective farm peasants» who cut back their acreage and
refused to deliver grain to the state; in many areas thefts from the collective
granaries became a serious problem.65 Economic sabotage by the rich
peasants continued. As a result of these serious problems the great promise of

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collectivization - the development of a modern efficient agriculture with a

rapidly expanding output - remained unfulfilled. By 1932 "vast tracts of land
were left untilled. Famine stalked the towns and the black steppe of the
Ukraine9.66 In 1933 agricultural production was actually lower than in 1928.
In response the collectivization policy was further reformed. In January
1933 agricultural procurement was reorganized. Each collective was given a
fixed delivery quota in advance of the harvest; that remaining could either be
sold in the free market where prices were considerably higher than those
paid by the government, or retained for the use o f its members. This new
system provided considerable incentives for the peasants to exceed their
planned targets.67
Although neither the measures taken by the Party cadre and poor
peasants, nor the level of resistance of those peasants who opposed collect­
ivization ever again reached the level of the winter of 1930, in order to deal
with the continually deteriorating food supplies, increased pressure was once
more appiied to facilitate collectivization. In response, the ievei of resistance
- mostly passive —lack o f effort, and individual but widespread acts of
theft (usually o f grain) increased. Consequently the measures taken against
peasant opposition were again intensified. Collective farms that failed to fulfil
their grain procurement quotas were largely denied manufactured goods from
the towns which they requested. A decree, issued in i932, made stealing
collective property punishable by death or ten years forced labour, according
to the circumstances.68 Although never reaching the 1930-3 i ievei, depor­
tations of those that actively opposed collectivization continued into i932
and i933.
Both the first and ‘second’ revolutions, because they both were
accompanied by (virtually) civil war, necessarily produced the response of
any state measures to secure the predominant property relations, as well
as its own authority. The extreme desperation and extent both of the civil
war emergencies and the great collectivization upheavals was manifested in
that both periods (192 i and 1922-3) ended with famine. In addition to
invoking ‘extraordinary measures’ against active opposition, it must be
stressed that the result was also a significant moderation of state and party
policy in order to provide peasants with sufficient positive incentives to
increase food deliveries to the cities.
The standard penalty for peasants accused of counter-revolutionary
activity was confiscation of property and resettiement. Between 300,000
and 380,000 peasant families ( i , 200,000-i,500,000 individuals) were
exiled to distant locations during the 1930-33 collectivization drive (mostly
in i930 and i9 3 i). At the beginning o f i935 there were approximately
1,100,000 exiles, about 650,000 in special settlements attached to industrial,
construction or transportation projects and about 450,000 in special
collective farms.69 The majority o f displaced peasants were deprived o f their
voting rights and sentenced to exile without confinement and allowed to
keep an essential minimum of agricultural instruments to begin life anew as
poor/middie peasants. The most active opponents, however, were sentenced

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to exile with forced labour; most o f these served sentences of five years,
after which their voting rights were restored. Special settlements were organ­
ized for the resettled rich peasants in the virgin lands of the east (in
Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Urals). Given the extreme conditions consequent
upon food shortages and the virtual civil war atmosphere, conditions during
the forced transport o f the rich peasants, and during the first years of their
resettlement, were rarely generous; thousands died o f disease, starvation and
exposure during these years.70 Some left the virgin lands after their period of
forced exile was over, but the bulk of them were not allowed to return to
their native regions. In late 1941 there were still approximately 930,000
former kulaks settled where they had been relocated in the early 1930s.71
That the number of kulaks still in their places of exile both in 1935 and
1941 was approximately the same as the number forcibly relocated in the
1930-33 period, indicates that most of them survived the often harsh con­
ditions of transit and beginning a new life.
In the famine of 1932-33 hundreds of thousands o f peasants (especially
infants) of all classes in the countryside died of starvation and illnesses
aggravated by malnutrition. The Great Famine of 1932-33 primarily affected
the Southern part o f the Ukraine and to a lesser degree the northern Caucasus,
the Volga region, and Kazakhstan, as well as other parts o f Central Asia.
The number o f peasants who died in these periods (including those who
died during and immediately after their forced exile, and those executed for
counter-revolutionary activity) has been wildly exaggerated. Based on rumour
and unjustified assumptions about demographic trends, estimates have ranged
as high as the tens of millions. Medvedev, discrediting such wild guesses,
states, ’Western publications frequently give exaggerated figures for the
number o f people who died during the Stalin terror or the years o f war.’
Referring to the gross exaggerations given credibility by Solzhenitsyn,
Medvedev argues, (The simplest demographic calculation shows this to be
implausible. For if these figures were regarded as accurate, it would have to
be the case that from 1918 to 1953 not one person died a natural death in
the Soviet Union.’72
But Medvedev himself lends credence to the less wild estimates by citing
an estimate, made on the basis of gaps in the age structure and demographic
projections, of as many as three million infant deaths owing to the 1932-33
famine.73 This estimate assumes: (a) that even in conditions of extreme
famine, instability, and virtual civil war, peasants would conceive and give
birth at the same rate as in less precarious periods; (2) that abortion or
infanticide (intentional or not) did not significantly increase; and (3) that
there were as many women of maximum reproductive age in 1932-33 as
before or after. All of these assumptions are erroneous. All peasants have
traditional techniques o f birth control and are thus able to limit their repro­
duction to a significant degree; it is the economic benefit attendant upon
having large families which is operative - a factor not applicable during
famines - not ignorance o f birth control. Legal abortion was so widely
practised in this period that, in 1936, the state banned it as part of the

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campaign to increase the population. Lastly, to quote Wheatcroft:

As is well known, the First World War, Civil War and early years of the
1920s caused a great gap in births in these years. The age cohort bom in
1914 would have been 16 in 1930 and so would have just been entering
the period of major reproduction. Consequently, Lorimer and other
scholars have concluded that the age structure of the population would
have led to a decline in births throughout the early 1930s and until
the missing populations born into the 1914-22 age cohorts had passed
on well into the future.74

Other exaggerated estimates o f the number who died during these periods
are based on apparent discrepancies between the 1926 and 1939 (or 1959)
census figures, and the number of people who should have been in these
census categories assuming earlier rates of population growth or, alternatively,
the actual rate of growth o f other populations at the same time. Such esti­
mates assume that a decline in the reported population, or its failure to grow
at its ‘normal’ rate, is largely a reflection of deaths from famine, abuse or
execution. Not only are fewer live births to be expected during times of
famine and trouble - as well as disproportionately high infant mortality —
many people emigrate from areas of famine in search o f food, work, or
refuge. In the Soviet Union in the 1930-33 period millions o f destitute
peasants migrated to the cities to take up jobs in the industrializing urban
economy, others left the regions of greatest destitution to settle elsewhere;
some left the Soviet Union altogether especially, it seems, some nomadic
peoples of Central Asia, who had largely been required to settle during the
collectivization period.
In 1928 the policies of rapid industrialization, along with collectivization,
resulted in increased levels of urban opposition, especially among engineers
and other segments of the technical intelligentsia, and consequently a fair
degree o f political repression. In 1928 the first public trial o f members of the
technical intelligentsia was held: Shakhty and a number of other Soviet and
foreign engineers were tried for industrial sabotage in collaboration with
foreign opponents of the USSR. In autumn 1930, eight technical specialists
were arrested and publicly tried for ‘wrecking and counter-revolutionary
activities’ (as members of the so-called Industrial Party). Their death
sentences were, however, commuted, and within a few years they were
restored to their jobs.75 In September 1930 48 food distribution officials
were tried for sabotaging food supplies; all 48 were shot.76 In March 1931
a number o f ex-Menshevik leaders were publicly tried and sentenced to prison
for ‘wrecking’ and being counter-revolutionaries.77 By mid-1931, however,
the degree of non-cooperation and active sabotage by the technical
intelligentsia had lessened considerably, and, in response, the state’s attitude
was relaxed, in so far as the number of those arrested and tried for such
activities decreased after spring 1931, while those convicted now received
more lenient sentences.

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An element o f paranoia may have actuated some of these arrests and

trials. But without question the world’s first socialist society’s enemies,
both outside and inside the USSR, did engage in actions designed to weaken
it, and popular mobilization against saboteurs did reduce the level of both
active sabotage and passive resistance to socialist construction. (Similar
phenomena occurred after the Chinese, Cuban, Angolan and Nicaraguan
revolutions.)
In 1931-32 a general liberalization trend began; the cultural revolution
was over. The ‘proletarian’ guidelines in the social sciences and the arts were
relaxed and writers who had been suppressed in 1929 as too bourgeois were
allowed to return to their jobs. Educational policies reverted to more
traditional practices. Egalitarian wage policies came under increasing attack;
deportation o f rich peasants for actively resisting collectivization stopped in
May 1933. The liberal trend peaked in 1934. In this year the security police
(the State Political Directorate of the Commissariat of the Interior), the GPU,
was abolished and its functions restructured as part of a reorganized People’s
Commissariat of Internal Affairs, which reflected a curtailed role for the
security police. In July, the Ministry of Justice ordered a halt in the campaign
o f seeking out and prosecuting engineers and enterprise directors for
‘wrecking and sabotage’. In the spring a partial amnesty was offered to
rebellious kulaks, and in November the size of the private plots for collective
farm peasants was increased. Leaders o f oppositional tendencies in the Party
were once again allowed to address public meetings. Work began on drafting
a new liberal constitution which, in fact, culminated in 1936.78
This relative relaxation between 1929-31 and 1932-34 was a result of an
improvement in both the industrial and the international situation of the
Soviet Union. The technical intelligentsias’ resistance to the new rapid
industrialization policies decreased as: (1) the new policies proved to be
effective in producing rapid rates of industrialization; and (2) a rapidly
rising proportion o f the technical intelligentsia were recruited from the
children of workers and peasants, and trained in socialist institutions (most
o f the technical intelligentsia of the 1920s were from middle-class back­
grounds, were trained in Czarist institutions, and had little sympathy for
the revolution). A further factor securing the increased loyalty of the tech­
nical intelligentsia was the abolition o f the extreme egalitarianism of pay
which prevailed in the 1920s. A system of wage differentials provided the
highly trained experts considerable positive motivation both to perform and
upgrade their skills. In fact, in order to motivate this stratum, as well as the
children of the working class and peasantry to obtain technical education
quickly, the Party launched a public campaign against the ‘egalitarian’ errors
o f the previous period.
There was a significant relaxation in the international situation too.
In the 1930-31 period the USSR feared invasion by the Japanese who were in
the process o f conquering Manchuria, and thus about to acquire a long border
with Siberia. Additionally, there were fears that other Western powers,
taking advantage of the disorganization in the countryside, would again

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intervene in an attempt to overthrow the revolutionary regime (as in 1918-

20). Japan did not invade Siberia and the rural situation became sufficiently
stable to ensure that such countries as Poland, Britain or France were no
longer tempted to intervene. In 1932 France and the USSR signed a non­
aggression pact which pledged the two parties to assist each other in the case
of an attack by a third power. In 1933, the new Roosevelt administration in
the US recognized the USSR, and in 1934 the Soviet Union successfully
applied for membership in the League o f Nations, shortly after Nazi Germany
had resigned. Generally, in the 1933-34 period, it seemed that the Soviet
Union was no longer subject to strong international pressure; the Soviets
did not yet consider the Hitler regime to be significantly different from that
of the previous German government.
Soviet criminological theory, as well as their Marxist analysis of dealing
with their opponents according to their class position, led to the adoption of
a progressive position, in focusing on the structural causes o f crime and
opposition to socialist construction, rather than on punishment of indivi­
duals. The famous slogan: "liquidate the kulaks as a class’, in spite o f anti-
Soviet portrayals in the Western press at the time, meant just that: the
expropriation o f the means of production that allowed the rich peasants to
live by the exploitation o f the labour power of rural proletarians and their
re-education through physical labour accompanied by socialist education.
Likewise, throughout 1936, except in extraordinary conditions (such as
the Civil War of 1918-1920, and the rural conflict o f 1930-31) very few
opponents were executed. The standard remedy for active opponents of the
regime (as it was for common criminals) was socialist re-education, in good
part through productive labour. This represented a humane and largely
effective strategy, adopted by most other socialist countries, including
China (for example, the 7 May Cadre Schools) and Vietnam (its treatment of
the cadre o f the old regime after 1975). Until 1937, the conditions applying
to those actually confined for active opposition to the regime were con­
siderably better than those for ordinary criminals; until 1937 torture was
officially prohibited in the USSR (and, in fact, was rare). It was standard
practice for those sentenced to a term in labour re-education camps in the
remote region o f the country to return to their old positions (as engineers,
party leaders, etc.) after a relatively short time; the operation of these camps
was very similar to the Chinese system operated for wayward bureaucrats
and intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution.
Throughout 1937, ex-Party leaders who had been demoted, expelled, or
sent into exile, were routinely brought back into leadership positions. Once
they criticized their past practices they were released from banishment (for
example, many of Trotsky’s supporters, including numerous former
supporters o f the United Opposition o f 1926-27, were released in 1928,
after they had endorsed the new rapid industrialization line of the Party) and
restored to high level positions in the Party and state.79 For example,
Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Tomsky, leaders of the various
oppositional factions in the Party in the 1924-29 period, were restored to

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leadership positions - although never to the powerful positions they once

held. Bukharin, for example, lost his important posts in 1929 including
membership on the Politburo, the editorship of Pravda and the chairmanship
of the Comintern for actively opposing the collectivization and rapid indus­
trialization campaign. In the relatively tolerant climate during 1932-34,
however, he was first made director of the research department of heavy
industry and then given the responsible post of editor of Izvestia, which he
held from 1934 to 1937. Tomsky, although he lost his position as leader of
the trade unions and his seat on the Politburo (for the same reasons that
Bukharin lost his position), remained on the Central Committee of the
Party, and was re-elected at the 16th Party Congress in 1930. At the 17th
Party Contress in 1934 both Tomsky and Bukharin were elected as candidate
members o f the Central Committee, as were other prominent, past opponents
of the prevailing Party policies (for example, Rykov), and one of them,
Piatakov, was elected as a full member.80 Zinoviev and Kamenev who,
together with Stalin, had represented the maximal leadership of the Party in
1924-26, were removed from the Politburo and other leading positions,
and in 1927 they were expelled from the Party for active opposition,
including organizing street demonstrations to oppose the Party’s continuing
endorsement of the moderate New Economic Policy. In 1928, when most of
their earlier critique was finally incorporated into the Party’s new programme
o f rapid industrialization and collectivization, they were both re-admitted
and assigned relatively minor official posts. In 1932, they were once again
expelled (and arrested) for oppositional activities, but again in the tolerant
atmosphere prior to the Kirov assassination were re-admitted and again
assigned Party work.

How History Judges II: The Growing Threat of Invasion and

‘The Great Purge’ (1935-39)
What is generally known in the West as ’the Great Purge’, a term wrought
with connotations o f intensive terror, massive arrests, show trials, and wide­
spread executions, was actually a convergence of three very different
phenomena: (1) a period of general membership screening in the Party;
(2) an anti-bureaucracy campaign; and (3) a paranoia about spies, traitors
and ’wreckers’ attempting to overthrow the regime.
In Soviet Party history a ’purge’ refers to a membership screening
designed to rid the Party of lackadaisical, theoretically backward, ill dis­
ciplined, passive, opportunist, and so on, members. Purges were implemented
either by a process of systematic expulsions organized by special ’purge’
commissions, or by local Party leaders, in which charges were brought against
unreliable members, or by a process of validation or exchange of Party card
in which members had to prove themselves. Such purges’ had been a regular
part of Party life since 1919. Interestingly, the Party purges of 1935 and
1937 resulted in significantly fewer expulsions than the previous four purges

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that had taken place in 1919, 1921, 1929 and 1933.81 All the purges mainly
affected rank and file Party members.
Nineteen thirty-seven saw a partial return to the radicalism of the 1928-
31 Cultural Revolution, especially to the campaigns against bureaucracy,
which focused on encouraging the rank and file to attack the middle and
local level Party leadership’s bureaucratic methods, and on re-invigorating
rank and file participation in Party life. The so-called "democracy campaign’
of 1937 resulted in the displacement of about half of the Party’s middle and
lower level leadership from their positions —but not generally "purged’,
that is, not expelled from the Party, or accused o f treason, spying or sabotage
largely as a result o f rank and file activities.
The 1936-38 period witnessed the arrests (and, in the case of the most
prominent persons, public trials), and in many cases executions, o f the
majority of those in top leadership positions in Soviet society, especially in
the military. Central Committee and economy. Additionally, a fair number o f
other, older political activists, falsely accused of treason, (that is, involvement
in a conspiracy, with both the exiled Trotskyist opposition and the Japanese
and German intelligence services, to overthrow the Soviet state) were
similarly treated. Although significantly fewer people were affected than in
the "purge’ and the "democracy campaign’, the prominence of those affected
rendered these events the most dramatic of the three. The three spectacular
Moscow trials of 1936,1937 and 1938 invoked intense controversy, con­
tinuing even to this day. The "purges’, ’democracy campaign’ and the attacks
on the top leadership must each be understood as separate phenomenon.
Communist Party membership involved both special obligations and access
to special benefits such as jobs (reserved for politically reliable people), as
well as a certain prestige. As a result many people secured and maintained
membership in the Party for other reasons than agreement with the Party’s
goals and political activism; many people even secured Party cards illegally.
Until the mid-1930s the Party was, in practice, a fairly loose organization
which exerted relatively little real control over its membership (there were
many passive or irresponsible members) who were not held to account. The
periodic purges (1919, 1921, 1929, 1933, 1935, 1937) were all designed to
deal with this problem and, in the words of Party instructions, were directed
to ensure "iron proletarian discipline in the Party and to cleanse the Party’s
ranks o f all unreliable, unstable and hanger-on elements’.82 In the 1919
‘re-registration’ 10-15% of the Party’s total membership lost their Party
cards; in 1921 Party purge 25%; in the 1929 purge, 11% (25% of whom were
reinstated after appeals); in the 1933 chistka 17% were expelled; in the 1935
proverka 9%; and in the famous 1937 Ezhovschina again about 9% (the
1935 and 1937 purges were the smallest in terms of numbers affected).83
The decree setting up the rules of the 1933 validation o f Party members
specified that all Party members must present themselves before open pro­
ceedings (attended by both Party and non-Party members), give an account of
the facts of their lives, explain how they fulfilled Party tasks, and discuss the
efforts made to raise their "ideological and theoretical level’. Each member

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 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (Í918-54)

was then questioned by the validation commissioners and by rank and file
Party and non-Party members.84
The laxness o f Party members before the mid-1930s is indicated by such
facts as: before the 1933 purge, between 32% and 60% (depending on the
organization surveyed) o f Party members did not even read the Party press;
that the names o f 50,000 dead, fictitious, or missing persons were on the
active Party rolls at the beginning of 1934 (in some districts over 10% o f the
membership); and that Party units had lost contact with over 10% of
members listed on their rolls .85 The problem of inactive and irresponsible
Party members, as well as the loose system of controls over membership,
was largely as a result o f the emphasis, during the 1920s, on the recruitment
o f large numbers o f working-class members, with little attention given to
criteria other than class background.
In the membership screening of 1929, 22% were expelled for ‘defects in
personal conduct’, 17% for passivity, 12% for criminal offences (mostly
involvement in petty crimes), 10% for violations of Party discipline (which
includes those accused o f factional activity) and 17% for being ‘alien
elements’ or having lied about class background. Similarly in the 1933 chistka,
in which 15% were expelled for personal degeneracy, 14% for violating Party
discipline, 16% for political reasons, including concealing class background,
and 18% for abuse o f position.86 According to Rigby’s analysis o f the 1933
membership screening,

. . . political considerations play a relatively small part in this sample of

expulsions, however, and the great majority were removed either
because they made unscrupulous use of their Party membership to
secure personal benefits, were immoral or undisciplined in their
personal lives or at their job, or simply failed to participate in party
activities.87

Data for the 1935 purge (which occurred immediately after the Kirov
assassination) reveals that the reasons for expulsions were similar to those in
the pre-1934 membership screenings; more than 20% were expelled for petty
crimes or ‘moral turpitude’, and most o f the remainder for political passivity,
‘degeneracy’ or abuse of position.88

The information on the incidence of the proverka suggests that it was

not a hysterical, political witchhunt, in which helpless rank and file
Party members fell in droves for the slightest infraction. Rather, it
seems that the proverka of 1935 was more careful, and less political, in
that there is evidence of investigation and of a policy in which a con­
sistent pattern of problems or violations was necessary for expulsion.89

Results for one city in the Smolensk region showed that only 18% of the
members against whom charges had been brought were actually expelled, and
less than one-third o f those formally criticized at meetings received any form

231
o f disciplinary treatment at all*90 The records o f the Smolensk City Party
committee reveal that 7% were expelled for passivity, 21% for being petty
criminals or degenerates, or corrupt; 28% for untrustworthiness, 22% for
being ’class alien persons’ who had hidden their class origins, and only 8% for
political unreliability.91 Undoubtedly there was a higher percentage of ex­
pulsions for political reasons in the 1937 purge owing to the hysteria
engendered by the spy and ’wrecker’ mania current at the time. Nevertheless,
given the results of previous purges, especially that o f 1935, there Is no
doubt that the reasons for the majority of purges were not political.
In 1937 the Party again instituted a systematic "purging’ process in order
to improve the quality of its cadre. It appears that the bulk of the members
who left the Party for any reason in the 1937-38 period were separated on
the basis o f the screening process involved in validating Party membership
and were separated for reasons other than suspected political opposition. As
in previous purges all Party members were required to prove that they were
conducting themselves as good Communists, and to submit to the criticism
of other Party members. Those who failed to meet the test were denied new
Party cards and as a result defa cto expelled from the Party.
In short, the vast majority o f those whose Party cards were withdrawn
both in the pre and post 1934 membership screenings were expelled not for
association with any political opposition, but rather for being "careerists’,
"opportunists’, ill-disciplined, ’degenerates’, politically passive, ’politically
illiterate’, ’weak willed’, and so on.92
In the years between the ending o f the Cultural Revolution and 1937 a
rather ossified and non-responsive bureaucratic tone had taken possession
of the CPSU. It seems that in the early years of collectivization and planning,
considerable authority to ’get things done’ had to be given to local Party
leaders. Further, given the shortage of politically loyal administrators,
engineers and technicians, detailed economic and administrative decision­
making had to be handled - or at least closely supervised - by local Party
leaders. The incredibly rapid expansion of economic activities for which the
Party was responsible in the early years of planning, as well as the immense
problems inherent in collectivization, led to the hasty and often haphazard
construction o f a massive decision-making apparatus. On a day-to-day basis
bureaucracy was largely unresponsive towards both the centre and the rank
and file.93 The tremendous increase in the Party’s economic responsibilities,
the massive shifts in population, the class warfare with the rich peasants, and
the obsession with fulfilling the new economic plans all resulted in the
Party’s political role beginning to atrophy. Political education, mass political
campaigns, and ideology in general, were increasingly neglected as economic
administration became progressively important. With the Party leaders’
metamorphosis into economic administrators, local Party administration
often tended to manifest inertia, incompetence, clumsiness and sometimes
arrogance. Whatever may have been the case after 1937, during the first
decade o f planning, the Party apparatus was far from a well-oiled, efficient^
co-ordinated machine closely controlled and directed from the top.

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In response to the dual problem of an ossifying bureaucracy the so-called

‘democracy/anti-bureaucracy campaign' was launched by the Central
Committee in February 1937. This campaign marked a partial return to the
anti-bureaucratic mass radicalism of the Cultural Revolution of 1928-31.94
Its goal was to mobilize the Party's rank and file against bureaucracy in order
both to reduce the autonomy of local and middle leadership and make them
more responsible to the day-to-day concerns o f the rank and file, and the
directives of the centre. Combined with this thrust was the attempt to reduce
Party leaders' role in the details o f economic and political administration and
to tum such matters over to the newly educated working-class intelligentsia,
and to restore the political leadership role to Party leaders, that is, leading
mass campaigns, organizing, political education.95 At this time, too, questions
of expertise and competence provoked tensions between the older, non-
technically educated Party leaders (who had achieved their positions on the
basis o f politics) and the young, 'red intelligentsia', mostly from working-
class and peasant backgrounds who had recently completed their technical
education.96
The 'democracy/anti-bureaucracy' campaign of February 1937 had many
parallels with the 'Bombard the Headquarters' campaign initiated in China by
Mao Tse-tung during 1966-67. Quite probably, together with the 1928-31
Soviet Cultural Revolution, this campaign was the precedent upon which the
Chinese Party based itself (the events which took place in the Soviet Union
in the 1930s had a profound influence on young Communists throughout the
world at the time). That both the Chinese 'Bombard the Headquarters'
campaign of 1966-67, which took place 17 years after the seizure of power
and 11 years after the revolution entered its explicitly socialist phase, and the
'democracy/anti-bureaucracy campaign' of the Bolshevik Revolution, which
took place 20 years after the seizure of power and nine years after the begin­
ning of the second phase of the Revolution, occurred at the same point in
the development of the two revolutions, provides strong evidence that both
were in response to similar situations and were thus qualitatively similar
phenomena. The results in both cases were the reduction in the autonomy of
local regional officials and an increased responsiveness to day-to-day concerns
o f the people by the local Party.
The notion o f ‘Putting Politics in Command' was central to both
campaigns. A large percentage o f the Party's local officials —from above and
below —were removed and many were rehabilitated in both campaigns. In
the words of G. Arch Getty speaking of ‘the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution':

While this movement was not as violent (and fatal) as the events in the
USSR in the 1930s, the parallels are very strong. In both cases, the
centre unleashed the rank and file against the established bureaucracy
in the name of political purity, democracy and the rights of the Party
rank and file.97

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Getty himself, concluding his carefully documented and closely argued study,
goes even further, arguing that the primary aspect of the totality of the events
of the 1937-38 period was the undermining of the bureaucracy:

The Ezhovshchina. . . was not the result of a petrified bureaucracy

stamping out dissent and annihilating the old radical revolutionaries.
In fact, it may have been just the opposite. It is not inconsistent with
the evidence to argue that the Ezhovshchina was rather a radical, even
hysterical reaction to bureaucracy. The entrenched bureaucracy was
destroyed from above and below in a wave of voluntarism, chaos, and
even a kind of perverse revolutionary Puritanism.98

The February 1937 plenum of the Central Committee, as part of the

Party’s anti-bureaucracy campaign, announced that there were to be secret
ballot elections in the local Party organizations. There was considerable
opposition both in the Central Committee and, not surprising, among local
Party leaders, to such a departure from the traditional Party practice of open
selection o f leaders.99 These elections were held in the spring o f 1937,
before the fabricated letters implicating the Soviet military leaders in a con­
spiracy to overthrow the government had been received, (see below) and
before the ‘spies’ and ‘wreckers’ hysteria among the top leadership of the
Party had peaked. As a result of these secret ballot elections about 50% o f
Party unit and regional first secretaries, as well as leadership committees, lost
their positions; they were adjudged by the rank and file to be ‘unsatisfactory’
in their work. These secret ballots usually took plaee after long criticism
meetings, at which the local leaders often suffered insulting criticism.100
Not until June-July did the ‘democracy/anti-bureaucracy’ campaign, as
well as the process of ‘purging’ the Party, converge with the rising ‘spy’
and ‘wrecker’ fears, which began immediately after the Soviets received
forged documents from the Nazi Gestapo, via the Czech secret police, impli­
cating the Soviet military general staff in an alleged conspiracy to carry out
a coup d 'etat. In the hysterical atmosphere that followed, in the summer of
1937, not only were the majority of the top military leaders tried and
executed, but many other former oppositional figures, and those
associated with them, were also arrested. Also at this time, the security
police were, for the first time, given the authority to arrest Party members.
Those moderates in Party leadership who had been resisting the anti-bureau­
cracy campaign, by stressing the importance of economic leadership, and
complaining that the campaign was causing disruption, came under the sus­
picion of involvement in the alleged conspiracy to overthrow the government
—especially by ‘wrecking’.
Many of these moderates were or had been close to Bukharin and shared
his scepticism about the mass campaigns and the Stakonovites, as well as
towards the need for the purges and arrests of key economic administrators.
They favoured, instead, more gradual and established paths towards indus­
trialization. In the latter half of 1937 the purges and arrests — heavily

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concentrated among the top leadership, but also occurring within the Party’s
middle and lower level leadership - were extended to those on the right of
the Party, including former associates of right-opposition factions.101 In the
summer of 1937 the moderate leaning majority in the Central Committee
was broken by large scale expulsion, arrests and executions, covered by
sensationalist announcements o f implication in plots with Trotsky and
German and Japanese intelligence to overthrow the government, allegedly
through spying, conspiring and above a ll‘wrecking’.

Traitor Mania and the Moscow Trials of 1936-38

The period o f increasing tolerance in Soviet history ended abruptly on 1
December 1934 when S.M. Kirov, the head of the Leningrad Party
organization, and probably the second most influential Party leader in the
country, was assassinated at the Leningrad Party headquarters by a
discontented young Party member. The assassin, Nikolayev, had belonged to
a circle of young left-wing Communists who had been studying the literature
o f revolutionary terrorism. Unhappy with the course of events in the Soviet
Union, this left opposition circle looked for inspiration to Zinoviev, the
former head o f the Leningrad Party organization, and for many years a
prominent spokesman for the left in the Party - although they had neither
any direct nor indirect contact with Zinoviev.102 The top Party leadership,
including Stalin, Molotov, Voroshiklov and Kagonovich, personally directed
and participated in the interrogation of Nikolayev, since it was suspected
that his organization was part o f a much wider conspiracy.
Nikolayev, along with a number of his political associates, was tried and
sentenced to death. Zinoviev, together with his long term close associate,
Kamenev, was arrested and charged with ‘moral complicity’ in the
assassination. In the hysterical atmosphere that was beginning to develop
Zinoviev was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and Kamenev to five.109
Other extraordinary measures were immediately undertaken to guard
against further assassinations (there was an attempt on Molotov) and other
acts of violent disruption. Cases of counter-revolutionary crimes were trans­
ferred to military courts. The death sentence for terrorist acts was to be
liberally utilized and immediately put into effect, as a deterrent to further
such actions. Appeals against sentences for counter-revolutionary offences
were no longer permitted.104 In summer 1936, the Central Committee voted
the political police (the NKVD) extraordinary powers for one year, to enable
them to more effectively contain ‘the enemies of the people’. This, in effect,
suspended all judicial rights for those suspected of counter-revolutionary
activities. The NKVD now had authorization to arrest and sentence, without
trial or right of appeal, all non-Party members suspected of such activities.
In the following year, the June Plenum of the Central Committee extended
these extraordinary powers indefinitely.105
Until 1937, the regime in the labour re-education camps was, usually,

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relatively liberal and humane. Political prisoners had a privileged status with
many special rights denied to ordinary criminals. The work day during the
winter was from four to six hours, and in summer ten. Generous pay was
provided which allowed prisoners to send money to their families and to
return home with money. Food and clothing was adequate and serious
attempts were made to re-educate the prisoners.
In 1937 this privileged status ended. For the next few years the regime for
political prisoners was harsher than that for common criminals. The correc­
tive labour camps were transformed into hard labour camps, with the primary
function of punishing suspected counter-revolutionaries while forcing them to
aid the socialist transition by physical construction work, with little or no
serious attempt at rehabilitation. Labour camp inmates were now treated
as hardened ‘enemies of the people’ who deserved little mercy. Hard labour
for ten, and sometime more, hours a day became the rule. Inadequate food,
shelter and clothing, and often tyrannical authority, now became common;
death from causes associated with overwork, exposure, malnourishment,
disease, etc. now became a factor.106
For the first 20 years of the Revolution, in the words of Anna Louise
Strong: ‘the Soviet people had prided themselves on the absence in the gaols,
not only of the torture used by the Nazis, but of even the third-degree as
practised in the United States.’107 The year 1937 also saw the introduction
of torture as a permissible police technique. An instruction from the Party’s
General Secretary issued in January 1939 read:

The General Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshe­

viks) explains that the application of methods of physical pressure in
NKVD practice is permissible from 1937 on in accordance with
permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist
Party (Bolsheviks). . . . It is known that all bourgeois intelligence
services use methods of physical influence against the representatives
of the socialist proletariat and that they use them in their most scan­
dalous form. The question arises as to why the socialist intelligence
service should be more humanitarian against the mad agents of the
bourgeoisie, against the deadly enemies of the working class and the
Kolkhoz workers. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist
Party (Bolsheviks) considers that physical pressure should still be used
obligatorily, as an exception applicable to known and obstinate enemies
of the people, as a method both justifiable and appropriate.108

Accelerating slowly over the latter half of 1936 and the first half of
1937, largely because of the increasingly tense international situation, the spy
scare became hysterical and uncontrolled in June and July 1937, following
the arrest and execution of the top military staff who had been implicated
in the Gestapo’s forged documents.109 In Getty’s words: ’The increased
tension of the spy scare/war scare/vigilance campaign was in vivid contrast
to the preceding events, which constituted a lull of nearly two years since the

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death of Kirov.’110 Concerning the period 1935-36 Getty argues that it

would be: ’ridiculous to regard this period as one o f rising hysteria or vigi­
lance. With the exchange o f Party documents, in fact, the vigilance theme had
receded into the background.'
In late 1937 and early 1938, thç NKVD acquired the power to arrest Party
members who had not been subject to action by their Party units, that is,
had not been expelled or denied their Party cards. Before this. Party members
were immune from the summary actions o f the NKVD. To quote Brzezinski:

The secret police (known then as the NKVD) had overreached itself,
and was endangering the hitherto undisputed supremacy of the Party.
The purge of the Party organizations, until then a function of the Party
purging commissions and the control commissions, had passed into the
hands of the police, which alone decided, frequently on the basis of
sources of doubtful reliability, the scope and the timing of the arrests.

The arrests of local Party leaders by the secret police, without prior
expulsion from the Party, became commonplace. Release of arrested
relatives or friends through the intercession of the Party organization
became more and more difficult----- 111

This situation lasted only a few months, however, as there was a strong
reaction from the rank and file of the Party.112 This soon resulted in the
reassertion of the Party’s exclusive control over its own members, and a
significant reduction in the authority of the security police.

Intimidation reached sucht* point that effective power was slipping

from the hands of the Party officials into the hands of the police . . .
. . . the Party, including the top leadership became seriously concerned
about the situation, and by early 1938 was determined to apply
remedial measures of no mean consequence.
. . . by early 1938 some efforts to tone down the purge could be
discerned. Trials and accusations began to fade into the background,
as did efforts to glorify the secret police and Yezhov.113
. . . in 1938 the combined forces of the Party, relying on public resent- '
ment against the secret police, thwarted any disruptive developments
emanating from the latter. Indeed, eyewitnesses tell of numerous arrests
among the NKVD personnel.114

It appears that the numbers of those arrested by the NKVD who had not
been expelled from the Party did not represent a large proportion of those
separated from the Party. Expulsions remained commonplace even while the
overall scope o f the purge diminished. To quote Brzezinski:

Published statistics on expulsions and changes in leadership showed

that, while the tempo of the purge diminished, it still took its toll

237
Human Righti in the Soviet Union

among the Party cadres. A good many of the expulsions, however,

took place during the latter half of 1937 and early months of 1938.115

The most detailed and direct evidence, the records of the Smolensk
Party organization which were seized by the invading Nazi armies in 1941
and captured from them by the US at the end of the War, indicates that the
standard procedure was to formally expel forty members accused o f counter-
revolutionary activities. There is little support for the thesis that any signi­
ficant number of Party members were executed who had not been
expelled.116
The ‘extraordinary’ measures of the 1936-38 period primarily affected
Party and ex-Party members, especially leading Party figures, as well as
former leading figures in other political organizations. In the words of
Brzezinski: ‘The major effort of the purge was directed at the Communist
Party itself.’117 That the ‘extraordinary’ measures mainly affected the higher
levels o f the Party is confirmed by the analysis of T.H. Rigby:

. . . while the chistka of 1933-34 struck mostly at the rank and file,
leaving the apparatus virtually untouched, and the ‘verification’ and
exchange of party documents in 1935 affected particularly the lower
functionaries, the Ezhovshchina was aimed primarily at the directing
cadres and the intelligentsia, with the rank-and-file figuring now much
more as accusers and informers than as victims.118

While the traitor mania began against the traditional ‘leftist’ factions in
the Party/including the tendency with which Nikolayev’s group was
associated), in 1937 it came to include both the traditional right and the
moderate economic leadership.
The arrests and executions —most of which occurred without public
trials or even public announcements —of mostly expelled leading Party
members focused mainly on older members who, at one point or another in
their lives, had been associated with oppositional factions in the forty;
former activists in the now defunct Menshevik, Social Revolutionary,
Bundist, anarchist and Cadet organizations; as well as those in leadership
positions who had been advanced in their careers by the various leading
Bolsheviks tried in the three ‘Great Purge Trials’. Refugee Communists from
Germany, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere in the capitalist world, who at
some point had ties to these figures, were also swept up in the process (many
foreign Communists, of course, were linked at one point or another with
Zinoviev or Bukharin, both of whom had been chairmen of the Communist
International).119
Throughout 1936, thousands of Communists who had at one time or
another been associated with various left factions in the forty, were expelled
and arrested. Former activists of other parties were also arrested on suspicion
of supporting counter-revolutionary activities. The wave of ‘spy’ and
‘wrecker’ mania that swept the country had millions enthusiastically

238
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participating in the search for counter-revolutionaries and supporting their

trials. In 1937, especially the eight months from May, saw the greatest
intensity o f arrests and executions. About ten times more people (almost
all o f whom were innocent) were arrested in 1937 than there had been in
1936 no
The events of these years were focused on three well publicized trials,
known collectively in the West as the ’Moscow Trials’ or the ’Great Purge
Trials’. The first, held in August 1936, was the trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev
and 14 others (the principle leaders o f the old left oppositionjwho were
falsely charged with planning and instigating the Kirov assassination (no
longer with ju st moral complicity), and with planning the assassination of
other Bolshevik leaders including Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov
and Zhdanov, in collaboration, it was alleged, with Leon Trotsky, then
exiled in Mexico. The second, in January 1937, involved Radek. Piatokov
and 15 others (’second level’ leaders of the old left opposition) who were
publicly tried for ’wrecking’ and economic sabotage in collaboration, it was
alleged, with the German and Japanese intelligence agencies; again Trotsky
was implicated and charges made that these ex-Bolshevik leaders were also
involved in the conspiracy to assassinate the current leadership.
In spring and summer 1937, the false charges o f counter-revolutionary
activities and treason were extended beyond those who had long been asso­
ciated with the left-opposition (for example, associates of Trotsky, Zinoviev,
Kamenev, Radek, et al.) to those formerly associated with the right
opposition. Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky and many of their former followers
and associates were now arrested, and in March 1938, Bukharin, Rykov and
19 others along with Henryk Yagoda, the former head o f the NKVD (who
had prepared the evidence for the first purge trial) figured in the third of
these well publicized trials. Yagoda was charged with collaboration with
German and Japanese intelligence agencies, and, in conspiracy with the others,
of falsely accusing many honest revolutionaries o f counter-revolutionary
activities and thus being responsible for their wrongful execution. In addition
to being charged with complicity in the same general conspiracy as the
defendants o f the two previous trials, Bukharin, Rykov et al. were also
falsely accused o f being involved in planning a coup d'etat (also allegedly
co-ordinated with German intelligence) with Marshal Tukhachevsky, the
leading Soviet general who had been tried and shot in June 1937. Almost all
o f those tried in these three public trials were executed.121
In January 1938, the Central Committee criticized local Party organ­
izations for exaggerated vigilance and excessive expulsions. The intensity of
the purge then diminished. After the last o f the ‘Great Purge Trials’,
expulsions and arrests markedly decreased. Abuses were, in part, attributed to
‘careerists trying to gain merit by throwing people out of the Party, trying to
gain security for themselves through mass repressions against the rank and
file members.’122
In December 1938, the campaign came to a complete halt. Most pending
investigations for counter-revolutionary activities were dropped and the

239
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

suspects released. Yezhov was dismissed as the head of the NKVD and
replaced by L.P. Beria. A number of leading NKVD officers were arrested
and some executed for having extracted false confessions. Most regional heads
of the security police were purged, and many were subject to criminal actions.
Past abuses were widely criticized. Both Yagoda and Yezhov were denounced
as enemies of the people. Numerous cases were reinvestigated and quite a few
of the sentenced released; conditions in the labour camps were ameliorated.133
At the 18th Party Congress in March 1939, the events of the previous
three years were criticized by Stalin, Molotov and Zhdanov as having been
accompanied by ‘grave mistakes’ and pathological suspicion that had most
adversely affected the Party’s work. Zhdanov, who gave one of the main
political reports at the Congress, reprimanded the local Party organizations
for ‘stupid excess o f zeal’, citing instance after instance o f faked evidence
and presumption of guilt by association. The resolution voted by the
Congress summed up the purges as both unjust and ineffective. Party rules
adopted at this Congress made new provisions for members’ rights o f appeal
against expulsion, as well as banning the practice o f mass purges of
membership.134 A new rule passed at the 18th Congress read:

When the question of the expulsion of a Party member or the

reinstatement of an expelled member is discussed, the maximum
caution and comradely consideration must be exercised and the
grounds for the accusations brought against the Party member
thoroughly investigated.125

There was much talk at the Congress of rehabilitating the unjustly con­
demned. Indeed, thousands were rehabilitated in 1939 and 1940, including
many military commanders; many future military heroes of World War II
were restored to their positions during these two years. To quote Brzezinski:

The Party organizations were exhorted to remember that admission of

past mistakes ‘does not diminish authority but, on the contrary,
actually raises it’, and were urged to give full and prompt consideration
to appeals of expelled Party members.. . .
The reaction was indeed prompt, even if not entirely satisfactory.
Reports from various Party organizations began again to pour in,
giving detailed accounts of the process of readmission into the Party,
and incidentally, again bearing witness to the scale of the purge. In
Georgia, for instance, 485 or 840 appeals had already been considered,
but some 1700 still remained on the books; in Kazakhstan 524
members were taken back out of 1,021 appealing; but 3,724 were yet
to be processed, the Kiev region had 2,452 appeals still pending.. . .
One of the major preoccupations of the Party conferences held that
year was discussion of what measures would expedite the processing
of the thousands of appeals from gradually more emboldened ex-
Party workers. The Politburo, through the Central Committee, was

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 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

forced repeatedly to urge the Party organizations to accelerate the

handling of appeals; and charges of inefficiency and laggardness became
frequent.126

The Numbers of Those Affected

Between December 1935 and December 1938, and November 1936 and
March 1939, including 1937, when the 'Great Purge' was at its most intense,
roughly 160,000 to 180,000 people left the CPSU (for any reason). This
represented about 8% of total Party members, far fewer than those who
were expelled in the purge of 1933.127
To quote T.H. Rigby, the leading Western expert on the membership of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union:

During 1937 when the bulk of the arrests appear to have occurred,
the party membership declined by only 60,000. Since new recruits
totalled less than 40,000, the number of current party members who
were 'purged' during 1937 must have been under 100,000. Taking the
whole period between the renewal of recruitment in November 1936
and the Eighteenth Congress in March 1939, the growth in total Party
membership fell short of the number of candidates admitted by only
about 180,000, and this appears to be the maximum number who
could have been 'purged* during this period, not allowing for deaths
of members from natural causes.. . .m

In 1937, at the height of the Great Purge in Moscow, 33,000 (13.4% of

the total Moscow Oblast Pärty organization) left the Party; this compares
with 133,000 in 1933 and 45,500 in 1935. These data are especially signifi­
cant indicators of the effect of the Great Purge since the 1936-38 purge
primarily affected older Bolsheviks and higher level cadres who were dis­
proportionately located in the Moscow region.129 In general, the higher the
position in the Party organization, and the greater the seniority in the Party,
the more likely one was to be expelled, arrested or executed.130 For example,
between 1937 and 1940 there was a 25% decline in the membership of the
Leningrad Party organization of those who had joined the Party before the
Revolution, but only an 11% decline in those who had joined between
1917 and 1932.131
The Great Purge reached ferocious proportions at the very top levels of
Soviet society. With the exception of Stalin, all of Lenin's Politburo were
executed, including Trotsky who was assassinated in Mexico in 1940. By the
beginning of 1939, 110 o f the 139 members and candidate members of the
Central Committee of the Party elected at the 1934 Congress had been
arrested, and 98 of them shot, and of the 1,966 delegates to the 1934 Party
Congress, 1,108 had been arrested.132
The officer corps, especially top military leaders, were also hard hit by

241
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

the purges, arrests and executions. In June 1937, the top military commander.
General Tukhachevsky and other leading military officials were tried
secretly for allegedly plotting a coup d'etat against the Party leadership,
in collaboration with the other oppositional figures, Trotsky and the Germans.
These innocent generals, in common with almost all the leading civilian
oppositional figures, were shot. About 90% of all generals, including three of
the five marshals, 80% of all colonels, 136 of the 199 division commanders,
and all eight first rank admirals were arrested. Between 25% and 50% of all
officers were arrested and several thousands were shot.133
The standard sentence for most of those arrested for counter-revolutionary
activities in the 1936-38 period, however, was five to ten years hard labour.134
On the basis o f information about their relatives provided by 2,725 defectors
who left the Soviet Union during World War 11, Brzezinski analysed the
sentences received by those arrested for political reasons throughout the
1930s. He found that death sentences represented about 10% of all
sentences in both the 1930-35 and the 1936-40 period:

The rate of death sentences, in so far as the sample was concerned,

remained approximately constant between the years 1930 and 1940:
the first five years resulted in 47 death sentences out of 445 arrests;
while in the second half-decade 52 were said to have been sentenced to
death out of 471 arrests.135

Eyewitnesses to the events of 1937 tended to confirm Brzezinski’s analysis.

For example. Beck and Goden reported:

When the Yezhov period was at its height, sentences of less than five
years forced labour were very rare. Normally they were for eight to
ten years forced labour, but sentences of twenty-five years’ forced
labour or imprisonment were not uncommon. Death sentences were
said to be frequent, but our impression is that they did not exceed ten
per cent.136

Even if it is assumed that all those who ceased to be Party members

between the end o f 1935 and the end o f 1938 were arrested for counter­
revolutionary activities (a most unreasonable assumption given the wide
range o f motives for leaving the Party) 10% gives a maximum of about
18,000 for purged Party members who could have been executed in this
period. It is clear, however, that of those who left the Party for any reason in
the 1936-38 period not all were arrested. Taking into account natural
attrition, resignations, (in 1933-34 one-third o f the separations from the
Party were resignations), expulsions for irresponsibility (the bulk of pre-
1936 expulsions were for this reason) and expulsions on minor political
charges, most probably less than half of the 180,000 were ever arrested.
Thus, an approximate estimate of 10,000 (or less) executions of Party
members for counter-revolutionary activities is almost certainly nearer the

242
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

truth than 18,000. If we assume that the number of non-Party members

(including those expelled before November 1936, former cadres of other
left parties such as the SRs, anarchists and Mensheviks, and prominent
refugees from other countries) arrested for counter-revolutionary activities
was roughly equal to those Party members expelled and/or arrested after
November 1936, then the figure for those executed in the 1936-38 period
would be about 20,000.
That a significant proportion of non-Party people were not killed during
the Great Purge period is bom witness to by a published analysis of all those
born in 1906 which showed that the 1937 and 1938 Soviet death rate was
not significantly higher than that for 1934 or 1935.137
It is reasonable to assume that Party members accused of counter­
revolutionary activities were more likely to be sentenced to death than
others, in so far as they would probably be considered as traitors. However,
after January 1938, as the (Great Purge’ wound down and rehabilitation of
Party members began, the fact that the number of those who applied for
readmission was o f the same order as those expelled over the 1936-38 period
indicates that few Party members had been shot. As the figures reported by
Brzezinski make clear (2,500 appeals from Georgia, about 3,000 from Kiev,
4,800 from Kazakhstan) the total number of appeals during 1939-40
approximate to the number expelled from November 1936 to March 1939
(Georgia had about 2% o f the population of the country, Kazakhstan about
3%). Thus, those who had been shot or who had died in labour camps, could
be only a small fraction of the total expelled.138 * Apparently it was the very
top leaders of the Party and Army who were executed, and, relatively rarely,
the rank and file.
The true number o f those falsely accused of counter-revolutionary
activities who were executed in the 1936-38 period, is probably between
20,000 and 100,000. t Both George Kenn an and Jerry Hought39 concur

* It should also be noted that the substantial majority of those expelled from the Party
who applied for readmission, were readmitted. For example, in the year 1938, 85% of
those in Moscow who appealed against their expulsion were reinstated, 57% of those in
Kiev, and 60% of those in Belorussin140

f The most commonly cited figures in the unsympathetic scholarly literature for those
separated from the Party (with or without formal expulsion hearings) daring the Great
Purge of 1936-38 is about 850,000.,4> Those who cite this estimate usually go on to
guess that about half were executed.143 Thus the figure of about half a million killed
during the Great Purge of the late 1930s has gained considerable credibility even in the
more scholarly and somewhat less hysterical Western circles. A careful examination of
Party membership figures, as well as statistics on the probability of different penalties
for those sentenced for counter-revolutionary activities in the 1936-38 period, however,
reveals a very different picture. Both Rigby’s and Unger’s143 more careful analysis
reveals that the number of separations during the Great Purge was only a fraction of the
850,00(1 figure claimed by Brzezinski To quote Unger:
The estimate of approximately 850,000 purged Party members given by

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that the likely number of executions was closer to the former rather than
the latter figure. During the French Revolution about 17,000 people were
executed for counter-revolutionary activity in the 1793-94 period of
Jacobin Terror,147 representing about .065% of the French population at
the time. If the figure of 20,000 for the 1936-38 Red Terror is accurate,
this represents .01% o f the Soviet population; if the 100,000 figure is correct,
this represents .05%. Any reasonable estimate of executions in the 1936-38
period of the Great Purge indicates that, in relative terms, at most they did
not exceed those of the Jacobin Terror, and were probably fewer. Clearly,
the popular conception of the bloodiness of the Great Purge is a gross ex­
aggeration cultivated by those concerned to discredit developments in the
Soviet Union in the 1930s and since, as well as the contemporary revolu­
tionary process in other countries.
The proportion of the population killed in these two ‘Red Terrors’, the
Jacobin and the Great Purge of the Bolsheviks, pales in comparison with
the ‘White Terrors’ perpetrated by the propertied class either to prevent

t continued/
Brzezinski for the three years 1936-38 is based on an inaccurate reading of the
Party membership figures.. . . the membership figures cited by Brzezinski as
relating to the end o f 1935 (2,358,714) and the end of 1938 (1,920,000) relate
in fact to the beginning of 1935 and 1938 respectively, and are therefore
irrelevant to an estimate of the Great Purge. The true figures at the end o f 1935
and 1938 were respectively 2,076,842 and 2,306,973, showing not a loss, but an
increase of 230,131 members. Thus if Brzezinski*s estimate o f 410,000
admissions - from the resumption o f recruitment at the end o f 1936 until the
end of 1938 - is correct, the total of purged party members in the three years
1936-38 would be not approximately 850,000 but 410,000 less 230,131, or
approximately 180,000 members, expulsions during the two years 1937-38
could not have exceeded 85,000.144
Even if the 850,000 figure were valid, applying the 10% execution-to-arrest ratio to
the half or so of those separated from the Party for any reason, gives a figure of about
50,000 executions, one-tenth of the figure suggested by many sources.
Rigby suggests that many of those purged in the early 1930s were perhaps victims of
the extraordinary measures of the 1936-38 period (although there is no evidence that
this was the case): *Of course, vast numbers of people who were not members of the
Party also fell victim to the Ezhovshchina, inciuding a large (but unknown) proportion
o f the million and a half communists who had been expelled from the Party before the
mass arrests began.. . .* That it is unlikely that very many of the ex-Party members were
executed for counter-revolutionary activities (or even that very many were even investi­
gated or arrested) is strongly suggested by Rigby himself when he cites the reasons for
the expulsions of the early 1930s. (These earlier expulsions were mostly of newly re­
cruited young workers and peasants who turned out to be non-activists, irresponsible,
drunkards, etc., large numbers of whom were carelessly recruited principally on the basis
o f their dass position.) To quote Rigby * ... most of the victims in 1933-34 were simply
apolitical men and women accused of exploiting their party membership for personal
ends.. . .’145 ’The chistka [of 1933-34] took its main toll among workers and peasants
who entered the party during the mass recruitment drive of the collectivization and
first Five Year Plan era and scarcely touched those older Party members from which
most o f the Party’s cadres were drawn.’144

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social revolutions or to take vengeance on those who tried and failed (for
example, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Germany, Argentina).
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s numerous people were arrested and sent
to the labour re-education camps which, after their transformation in 1937,
became penal colonies, functioning to aid the construction of the virgin
regions. The number o f people so confined has been subject to wild specu­
lation in the extensive anti-Soviet literature that developed with the onset
of the cold war. Estimates in these sources for those interned in 1938 range
from 2 to 12 million; many such estimates are based on the self-interested
speculation and rumours of those once assigned to the camps. Others are
based on such factors as alleged discrepancies in Soviet census data, where It
is assumed that apparent discrepancies between different grand totals are
equal to the number o f people in (or on the pay-roll of) the labour camps,
discrepancies between projections o f populations assuming a particular
'normal’ birth and death rate and the number of people actually reported in
a census; the number of newspaper subscriptions (multiplied by the alleged
number of people who read a paper) etc. These highly speculative estimates
have been subject to a careful review and criticism by British Soviet expert,
S.G. Wheatcroft (1981). After examining the statistical discrepancies, popu­
lation projections, etc. on which many estimates in the Western literature are
based, Wheatcroft argues as follows about the logical maximum of the
number that could have been in the labour camps in 1939:

The employment and census data have indicated the impossibility of

fitting more than three or four million forced concentration camp
labourers into the labour force without a large number of them being
included in other registered categories. But it has generally been
accepted that only a small number of forced labourers could be
included within the standard registered categories because the inform­
ation available about employment within these categories would not
allow a large number to be fitted in. This points to the conclusion that
some four to five million is the maximum number of concentration
camp labourers who could have existed in 1939. This order of magni­
tude is quite compatible with data on disenfranchised populations.
. . . It is however considerably lower than the order of magnitude
proposed by most former camp inmates and many former officials
who must be assumed to be offering exaggerated figures. The one
former camp inmate who has access to local archival data also appears
to indicate a relatively low figure. The available quantitative data on
Party membership turnover and the turnover amongst senior state
officials also indicate that the quantitative significance of the 1937-38
purge has also generally been exaggerated.148

Wheatcroft affords most credibility to estimated numbers in the labour

camps during 1937-39 based on the number of those disenfranchised for
counter-revolutionary activities, as well as the number of camp administrations

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(a public statistic) multiplied by the average number of those confined in a

single cump. In 1938 one o f the 38 labour cump clusters, Vorkuta, was
known to have 15,000 people under detention. To quote Wheatcroft, ‘
‘Vorkuta was certainly one of the better known cumps, and there is no
indication that it was smaller than average’. Assuming the Vorkuta population
to be typical gives an estimate of less than 600,000 for the total o f those
confined in 1938.149
Estimates of those confined in 1937-38 based on the number of people
officially disenfranchised for counter-revolutionary activities usually assume
(unreasonably) that most of these were sent to labour cumps and often that
some who were sent to labour cumps did not receive the formality of dis­
enfranchisement (not such a reasonable assumption).150 This latter assump­
tion allows them to augment the number of expulsions to guess the number
in labour cumps. Wheatcroft, however, points out (p. 289) that checking
voting registers against the number of people who actually voted reveals too
minimal a discrepancy to account for any great number having been assigned
to labour cumps without disenfranchisement. In 1937 there were about 3.3
million disenfranchised persons in the Soviet Union.
Throughout most of their history the Soviets have practised a wide range
o f measures against opponents - from public criticism, disenfranchisement,
and compulsory labour at ones normal workplace supervised by fellow
workers, together with required study; to exile without confinement,
assignment to labour re-education centres, imprisonment, and execution.
According to Wheatcoft:

The category of forced labour without confinement had existed from

the i920s. By the mid-i 930s about half of all those sentenced to forced
labour served this sentence without confinement, generally at their
normal place of work. These sentences were normally for periods of
up to six months or in some cases a year. Up to 25% of the normal pay
was deducted from wages.151

Exile without confinement was a standard sentence for peasants arrested in

connection with the collectivization cumpaigns. They were also disenfran­
chised for the duration of their exile; thus, It can be assumed that they
account for many of those disenfranchised in the latter half o f the 1930s.152
Therefore, assuming that a significant number of the disenfranchised were
neither subject to forced labour nor exile indicates the maximum proportion
o f those disenfranchised that could have been in labour camps in 1937-38 is
probably around 25%, or less than a million. The coincidence o f the figures
based on known information about the Vorkuta administration and the
number of camp administrations, together with a reasonable ratio applied to
the disenfranchisement data gives great credibility to an estimate of roughly
one million people working in the labour camps in 1937-38, or about .5%
of the Soviet population.
For a sense o f the significance of this figure it can be pointed out that in

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1978, out of a total US Black population of 23 million, about 200,000

(roughly 1%) were incarcerated.
Brzezinski’s analysis of thé sample of the 2,725 Soviet émigrés’ relatives
who were sentenced to labour camps over the course of the 1930s revealed
that about 25%of them died in the labour camps. Assuming an average
sentence o f about eight years in the latter 1930s, this suggests an annual
mortality rate of 3%.1S3 In order to comprehend the significance of this latter
figure it must be compared with the mortality rate in US prisons. In fact, 3%
was approximately the mortality rate in Southern State penitentiaries in the
US, at least throughout the early 1970s. One o f the most thorough studies of
health and mortality in a US Southern prison found that, in 1972, the death
rate in the Tennessee State Penitentiary was 2.0 per 100, and in the Fiscal
Year 1972-73, 2.2 per 100.154
The mortality rate of 3 per 100 in the Soviet labour camps of the late
1930s and throughout the 1940s should also be compared to the mortality
rate for the Soviet population as a whole. Leaving aside the high mortality
rate for Soviet soldiers during the 1941-45 period, it is noted that the death
rate in the labour camps was the same as the mortality rate in the Czarist
empire before World War I. While in 1913 the Russian mortality rate was
2.9 per 100, in 1940 it was 1.8 per 100, and in 1950 1.0 per 100.155 Thus,
while conditions either in US penitentiaries, in the Czarist empire or
Siberian labour camps were comfortable, it must be concluded that the 3%
mortality rate in Soviet labour camps amounted to far less than a death
sentence (as is often assumed by anti-Communists in the West.)
Discussions in the West of the events of the 1930s in the USSR are very
much a product of the Cold War. Even though dealing with events of a half
century ago, they serve to discredit future possibilities of socialist revolution
in other countries, which is why the issue continues to receive such attention.
If (millions died as a result of brutal Bolshevik methods’ in the 1930s, then
however exceptional the conditions o f that decade, or that no executions for
political reasons have occurred for a generation in the USSR, or that in many
other socialist revolutions far fewer people died, it is still considered justi­
fiable to oppose socialist revolution, and instead to support military dictator-
ships that systematically massacre their own people in, for example,
Indonesia, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala or Uruguay.
Not only wild exaggeration, but failure to apply a materialist analysis is
characteristic of the NATO intellectuals, who are rewarded with grants,
publications, high positions and personal support in proportion to the
outrageousness of the figures they generate. It is true that the rural civil war
and famine in the USSR in the early 1930s caused much misery, and that
thousands of innocent people were executed or otherwise abused in the
1936-38 period. But Western analysis of these events is rarely presented
in other than self-serving anti-Communist terms o f 'Stalin’s power hunger’,
th e impossibility of the socialist project’ or even simple sadism. Such
standards o f scholarship would not be acceptable for the study of the history
of repression in the US, where the need to win the Revolutionary or Civil

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War is argued and the consequent suspension o f the Bill of Rights, and the
forcible relocation of Loyalists excused if not justified; similarly, the need to
mobilize during World Wars 1 and 11 is seen as a mitigating factor in 4over-
reactions’, such as the internment of the Japanese. The dual standards of
scholarship conveniently ignore the serious world crisis within which the
Soviet leadership was acting in the 1930s, together with the threat of
domestic, rural upheavals, and the absolute imperative of industrializing and
feeding the people, aside from the fact that they were attempting to pursue
an historically unprecedented course.

The Politics of the Executions: 1936-38

A study of 109 prominent 'Old Bolsheviks’ (that is, who had joined the Party
before 1917) found that 50% (38) of the 76 alive in the mid-1930s were
executed for counter-revolutionary activities, in the 1936-38 period.156
In 1939 about 5,000 members who had joined the Party before 1917 (when
there were about 20,000*25,000 members) still remained. Such Old Bolshe­
viks, in fact, represented 20% o f the delegates to the 1939 Party Congress,
and about 30% of the Central Committee elected in 1939 were Old
Bolsheviks.157 Eighty-one percent o f the 1934 Central Committee who were
executed for treason were Old Bolsheviks, 85% o f all members of the 1934
Central Committee were executed.158 In summary, although the executions
took a heavy toll of Old Bolsheviks during the traitor mania period between
May 1937 and March 1938, this group by no means was totally decimated,
neither did the decimation o f top leadership ranks fall upon them dis­
proportionately ; so many Old Bolsheviks were executed because so many of
them comprised the top leadership.
The study of the 76 prominent Old Bolsheviks found no significant
correlation between age, sex, time in the Party, social origin, pre-Bolshevik
Party membership, nationality, and education and the probability of exe­
cution for treason in 1937-38. Apart from being slightly younger (by two
years) and a little better educated, the 38 who were executed closely
resembled the 38 who survived in all these characteristics There were,
however, strong correlations between career patterns associated with leading
opposition figures and the probability of execution for treason. Of the 76
Old Bolsheviks still living in 1936, 21 had been leaders of various past
factions (the Left Communists of 1918, the Democratic Centralists o f 1921,
the Workers’ Opposition o f 1921, the Trotskyists of 1923-27, or the United
Opposition o f 1926-27) and 19 o f these (50% of the total 38) were
executed.160 Ten per cent o f the victims (4) had a personal connection with
Trotsky in the 1920s while 71%(27) had personally associated with Bukharin,
Rykov or Tomsky in the 1930s. Only 18% of the 38 Old Bolsheviks who
survived the 1937-38 period had either personal connections with any of
these four persons, or any connection with the opposition factions o f the
1918-1927 period.161 It might also be noted that Soviet ambassadors to

248
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fascist and fascist associated countries ran a high risk, o f execution, while
those to other countries very often survived: Soviet ambassadors to Germany,
Latvia, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Romania were executed for
treason; while ambassadors to France, the UK, the US, Sweden and
Czechoslovakia were not.163 These strong statistical associations, combined
with the lack o f significant correlations for other background factors,
substantially support the notion that executions for treason were, in fact,
executed on false charges163 of economic sabotage (‘wrecking’), as were
that is, those whose past or present aroused suspicion tended to be falsely
accused of treason.
Involvement in the military or economic administration was another major
factor for potential arrest and execution for treason in 1936-38. Of the 76
Old Bolsheviks studied, it was found that all of those whose occupations
were primarily connected with economics were executed for treason, while
most o f the educators, lawyers, doctors, scientists and other non-economic
professionals survived. Officials in the Commissariat of Heavy Industry,
Gosplan and the State Bank especially, were likely to be arrested and
executed on false charges163 of economic sabotage ("wrecking’), as were
the moderate Central Committee majority. Their arrests seemed to be the
outcome o f their opposition to (or lack of enthusiasm for) the fairly leftist
economic policies being implemented, as well as to the anti-bureaucratic/
democracy campaign. The Ezhovshchim, or Red Terror, o f 1937, in fact,
eliminated most of those who had been the targets of radical activists over
the previous decade.
It seems that the broadening of the charges of treason away from the
traditional Trotsky-Zinoviev left opposition (totally discredited and removed
from any position o f influence since 1928) towards the right opposition
(Bukharin, et al.) which, until 1937, retained some influence, with a position
close to a very substantial section of Party leaders, manifested a defeat of the
moderates and a victory for the left. As the statistics on Old Bolshevik
victims show, the vast m qority of those executed were associated with
Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, et al., rather than with Trotsky or Zinoviev.164
In support of the thesis that, however brutal and paranoid the executions of
the 1937-38 period, they manifested a victory of the left over the right, is
the fact that all the 1934 Central Committee members re-elected to the
1939 Central Committee were from the left of the Party, and none were
from the right. It should, however, be noted that a number of prominent
radicals and former activists in the 1928-31 Cultural Revolution campaign
also perished in the hysteria o f 1937-38.165
The September 1936 replacement of Yagoda by Yezhov (a career Party
apparatus man associated with the more radical Party activists sympathetic
to the policies o f the Cultural Revolution o f 1928-31) as head of state
security indicated a definite move to the left in Party policy in the second
half o f 1936. In autumn 1936, the leadership of the state security police had
been thoroughly puiged o f moderate career security apparatus personnel and
replaced by more radical career Party apparatus people. The new Yezhov

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leadership of the security police proceeded to actively investigate the Party's

moderate leaders (for example, Bukharin, Rykov) who had been vindicated
of any involvement in plots against the Party's leadership in the summer of
1936, and the top leadership (mostly moderates) of the economic ministries
and planning agencies. In January 1937, Yezhov successfully brought
Piatakov, the Commissar for Heavy Industry, to trial for 'wrecking' and
sabotage, as well as having Bukharin and Rykov relieved of their posts and
arrested on charges of treason. While the first ‘Great Purge Trial’, of August
1936, focused on attempts on the life of Soviet leaders, the two trials held
when Yezhov was head of the security police stressed ‘wrecking’ and sabotage
in a refocused attack on the moderate economic leadership and the Party's
right wing. Among other things, Yagoda himself was charged with the
equivalent of ‘wrecking' for having sabotaged investigations of the Party's
economic leadership and the right wing in the name of stability and
moderation; in fact, the policy of the moderate majority of the Central
Committee.

Causes and Effects

The 1936-38 arrests, imprisonments and executions of Party, military and
other leaders of Soviet society, in contrast to the purge and the demo­
lition of leaders, appear to have been a manifestation of collective paranoia,
reinforced by opportunists and agents provocateurs, and with little
or no basis in any real conspiracies, sabotage or collaboration with foreign
agents. The cadres expelled, imprisoned and shot during this period were
mostly good Communists, essentially loyal to Soviet institutions.
During 1955-56, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union conducted an investigation of the actions taken against Party
leaders in the late 1930s. To quote the Secretary General of the CPSU’s
report to the 20th Party Congress:

The Commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of

materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents and has
established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against
Communists, to false accusations, to glaring abuses of socialist legality
- which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent
that many Party, Soviet and economic activists who were branded in
1937-38 as ‘enemies’ were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers,
etc., but were always honest Communists; they were only so stigmat­
ized, and often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged
themselves (at the order of the investigative judges - falsifiers) with
all kinds of grave and unlikely crim es.. . .
Stalin put the Party and the NKVD up to the use of mass terror when
the exploiting classes had been liquidated in our country and when

250
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

there were no serious reasons for the use of extraordinary mass terror.
This terror was actually directed not at the remnants of the defeated
exploiting classes but against the honest workers of the Party and of
the Soviet state; against them were made lying, slanderous and absurd
accusations concerning ’two-facedness\ ’espionage’, ’sabotage’, prepar­
ation of fictitious ’plots’, etc.166
The charges against those purged and executed in the late 1930s were
largely without foundation, nevertheless, the events of this period are
eminently understandable in terms of the social forces operating on Soviet
socialism at the time. The imminent threat of a co-ordinated Nazi-Japanese
invasion of the USSR (which was without allies, either socialist or reliable
capitalist) in the 1937-38 period was determinant. This overwhelming factor,
given the assassination and attempted assassination of Soviet leaders, the over­
seas activities of émigrés (including members of the left opposition of the
Bolsheviks themselves, such as Trotsky), the recent strains of collectivization,
famine, rapid industrialization, and the provocative role of German and
Japanese intelligence, together produced the paranoia of the late 1930$.
In January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of Germany (this did not at
first alarm the Soviets, as they then regarded him simply as a transparent
instrument of capital, who would facilitate the imminent German revolution).
In May 1933 the new Nazi government dissolved the powerful German trade
unions and working-class political parties without resistance (outside the
USSR the German Communist Party was the biggest in the world). In August
1934, after the death of von Hindenberg, Hitler assumed the office of
President, and the armed services were now sworn to a personal oath of
loyalty to him. In 1934 a non-aggression p a c t, signed between Poland and
Germany, was followed by a general reconciliation between the two countries,
manifested in a number of cultural and economic agreements. In 1935,
Poland refused to join in a mutual defence treaty with Czechoslovakia,
France and the USSR against potential German aggression. After 1935 the
Polish military dictatorship became increasingly fascist oriented and vehe­
mently anti-Communist, a policy rewarded by the Germans who granted
Poland a piece of Czechoslovakia after they had conquered it in October
1938. In March 1935 Germany introduced general military conscription. The
reassertion of German military might, the German left's failure to resist
Hitler, and Germany's strident anti-Communism and anti-Slavic racism now
aroused considerable concern in the USSR. In 1935 the 7th Congress of
the Communist International radically modified its analysis and strategy to
target fascism as the greatest danger in the world.
In March 1936, the German Army occupied the Rhineland, which the
Versailles Treaty in 1919 had declared as a demilitarized zone. In May 1936,
the Italians completed their conquest of Ethiopia (an aggressive action that,
in spite o f much public condemnation, evoked no effective response from the
Western powers). In July 1936 the Spanish Army, in collaboration with the
local fascists, rebelled against the centre-left Republican government and was

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

recognized by Italy and Germany, who soon sent troops, in addition to

military supplies, to aid Franco, Also in summer 1936 the NKVD was granted
extraordinary powers. The first ’Purge Trial’ was held in August. Although
the Soviets went to aid the embattled Spanish Republic (the Western capi­
talist powers declared their neutrality) after a bitter three-year civil war the
Communist-aided Spanish Republic was destroyed. In November 1936 the
Anti-Comintern Pact, signed by Nazi Germany and Japan, pledged the two
countries (which flanked the Western and Eastern borders of the USSR) to
co-operate against their mutual opponent. This raised the imminent threat of
a co-ordinated attack on the USSR by the world’s two most aggressive
powers. The Pact was joined by Italy in January 1937 and by Spain in 1939.
In July 1937 Japanese troops invaded the northern provinces of China
(adjacent to the Soviet protectorate of Mongolia) and continued to expand
the territory under their control until 1945. In 1939, massive border battles
were, in fact, fought between the Japanese and Soviet armies along the
Manchurian border.
In November 1937 (the month of the second 'Purge Trial') the Nazis
declared their intention to conquer additional living space’ for German
settlement (Lebenstraum) beyond that already occupied by German
speaking peoples. Clearly, that Lebenstraum was to be found in the East
(Poland and the USSR). In March 1938 (the month that saw the last of the
three 'Purge Trials’) Austria was annexed to the Reich. In April 1938, after
months of instability, the French Popular Front government collapsed, to
be replaced by a rightist government. By early 1938 it was clear that the
Spanish Republic was losing the Civil War. In September 1938 the French
and English signed a non-aggression pact (the notorious 'Munich Pact*)
with Germany, that recognized the Nazi’s right to annex much o f Czecho­
slovakia. In October 1938 Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Germans. On
22 June 1941 the German Army invaded the Soviet Union and was in the
suburbs of Moscow by November 1941.
It should be remembered that the charges against top Party leaders and
Soviet generals who were tried and executed in the August 1936-March 1938
period were linked by the (false) accusation of involvement with Japanese
and German intelligence services in order to secure the destruction of the
Socialist system in the USSR by preparing the ground for a co-ordinated
Japanese-German invasion. Given the USSR’s 1918-20 experience of
foreign invasions (including those of Germany and Japan), the seriously
threatening anti-Commintern Pact between Japan and Germany in 1936,
and the increased collusion of Britain, Poland and France in the aggressive
policies of Germany and Italy and in the 1935-38 period, not surprisingly an
atmosphere of paranoia, focusing on spy and sabotage mania, was generated
m the USSR during 1936-38.
Exacerbating the ’Great Paranoia', as well as targeting many specific
victims, were the disruptive actions o f German and Japanese intelligence
services who planted false stories that leading Soviets were working for them
(much as the CIA did later in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary in the

252
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

1948-53 period).167 The most notorious instance of the operation of German

intelligence was their clever forgery and ‘leaking4of documents allegedly
indicating that General Tukhachevski (the top Soviet military commander«
shot in June 1937 accused of plotting a military coup in collaboration with
Germany) was working for them. Hitler himself wrote a note on the
forged Tukhachevski letter and it was arranged for it to be stolen by Czech
intelligence agents during a fire (deliberately set for the purpose) and then
passed on to the Soviets. Czech leaders passed on stories to the Soviets that
had been planted by Germany« alleging negotiations between Hitler and a
number of Soviet leaders (including Rykov and Tukhachevski) to set up a
pro-German government in the USSR. This fabrication had a degree of cred­
ibility« since many top German and Soviet generals knew each other
personally from the 1920s when the Soviets allowed the German Army to
train secretly in the USSR in return for German industrial and military
goods.168 These disruptive actions« as had been intended« succeeded in
devastating the top levels of the Soviet officer corps.
One major effect of the events of the 1936-38 period was the loss of many
good« and creative« cadres. Thus« in the short term« weakening Soviet society
(manifested« for example« in the embarrassment of the Finnish War in winter
1940) and the rapid promotion of a new generation of ‘red4Intelligentsia«
largely drawn from the working class« to the leading positions of Soviet
society.
To quote the report to the 20th Party Congress of the General Secretary
of the CPSU: ‘There Is« however« no doubt that our march forward towards
socialism and towards the preparation of the country‘s defence would have
been much more successful were it not for the tremendous loss of cadre
suffered as a result o f the baseless and false mass repressions in 1937-38.4169
But« as Roy Medvedev has argued:

Hundreds of thousands of officials had to be pushed up from below.

Tens of thousands of Stakhanovite workers became factory directors.
Ordinary soldiers became platoon and company commanders, company
commanders were placed in charge of battalions and regiments«
battalion and regimental commanders rose to command divisions and
entire armies. Many rank and file scientists took over laboratories and
big institutes.168

The records of the Smolensk Party organization captured by the German

Army and then seized by the US Army at the end of the Second World War
illustrate this phenomena in the Smolensk region.170 *

* In winter 1937 the Party’s General Secretary argued that the Party needed more
’simple people*, and fewer people who had ’mastered Marxism-Leninism*. Arguing
against those that maintained that the Party should recruit only people with a high levei

253
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

To quote Isaac Deutscher:

In the five years from 1933 to 1938 about a million administrators,

technicians, economists, and men of other professions had graduated
from the high schools, an enormous number for a country whose
educated classes had previously formed a very thin layer of society.
This was the new intelligentsia whose ranks filled the purged and
emptied offices. Its members. . . were either hostile to the men of the
old guard or indifferent to their fate. They threw themselves into their
work with a zeal and enthusiasm undimmed by recent events.174

The purging of innocent Soviet leaders, and the execution of so many

greatly weakened Soviet leadership, nevertheless, some observers, such as
Roy Medvedev, have pointed out that the paranoid hysteria of these years
had the inadvertent consequence of facilitating the development of a high
level of national solidarity, a solidarity, Medvedev argues, symbolized in the
‘cult o f personality’ around Stalin.

In the thirties, Stalin’s cult was strongest among workers, especially

in the Party stratum of the working class, and also among the new
young intelligentsia, particularly those of worker and peasant origin.
It was also strong in the Party and state apparat, especially in the
apparat that took shape after the repression of 1936-38.175

Throughout the period of his one man rule (Stalin] was popular. The
longer this tyrant ruled the USSR . . .the greater seems to have been
the dedication to him, even the love, of the majority of people. These
sentiments reached their peak in the last years of his life. When he
died in March, 1953, the grief of hundreds of millions, both in the
Soviet Union and around the world, was quite sincere.176

of theoretical understanding he stated, ’Were we to take this road, we would leave in

the Party only intellectuals and learned people. Who needs such a Party?’171 To quote
Schapiro:
’Since the puiges of the ’30s made such considerable inroads upon the older Bolsheviks,
among whom the greater proportion of members of middle class origin were to be found,
it may safely be asserted the predominance among the elite of those who came from
the working class, or to a lesser extent the peasants, continued to grow after 1938.’171
’The victory of Stalin over his opponents in the party leadership had resulted in the
elimination of almost all those of middle-class origin who had once formed the great
majority of party leaders. All the ’’Old Stalinists” , with the exception of Molotov,
were of working class or peasant origin. This humble origin was less evident among the
’’Neo-Stalinists” : both Malenkov and Zhdanov, for example, were of middle-class back­
ground, and so probably was Beria. But if the top leadership o f the party alone be
looked at, it was true to say that Stalin’s victory had been ensured by men of those
»ci&l classes in the name of which the Revolution had been made.’173

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 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

Just as periods of repression in other societies and at other times have

radically increased national unity and generated national enthusiasm, so,
apparently, this was the case in the USSR in the i 936-38 period, in US
history, the measures against Loyalists during the Revolutionary War,
Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War, and Socialists and Anarchists
during and immediately after World War i, the internment of the Japanese
Americans, the suppression of American Nazis during World War ii and of
the Communist Party in the iate i 940s and eariy i 950s, were each accom­
panied by a unifying of the national will and the generation of popular en­
thusiasm behind the country’s leadership. The projection of hostility against
internal enemies, real or illusory, commonly has the effect of unifying a
people. The paranoid campaign waged in the Soviet Union against spies and
saboteurs appears to have generated a higher level of enthusiasm and support
for the Party’s leadership than had existed previously.
it must be noted that the strength of the "cult of personality’ by no means
indicated that no major differences of opinion existed at the centre of Soviet
society, or that Staiin had absolute personal power. The "cult of personality’
served the vital social function of symbolizing the unity and solidarity of
Soviet society, a unity and solidarity essential in the i 930s and 1940s, and
that could best be quickly created by personalizing it in the form of the
celebration of a single individual "father figure’ who was portrayed in a
Christ-iike fashion as omniscient and benevolent. The cult of Stalin, in fact,
took on many of the characteristics of the Russian Orthodox religion, that
was the easiest route for the Party to follow in order to secure legitimacy
among peasants and ex-peasants. Beneath the facade of monolithic unity
and wisdom, however, major debates and factional disputes continued.
Whichever idea or faction won was then presented to the people as the
personal decision of the 4ali-wise’ Stalin, in order more effectively to mobilize
the people behind it. To quote Getty:

The "cult of personality’ which developed around Stalin after 1929

(and around Mao in the i 960s) had many purposes.. . . It served as a
kind of rallying point for much of a population which was used to a
system in which one man mied for iife. More importantly, however,
the tendency to attribute all things to the "wise leadership of Comrade
Stalin’ served to hide inner-Party disputes from the public eye. The
oppositional struggles of 1921-1929 had been public disagreements
which had nearly tom the Party apart several times. That was not to be
allowed in the 1930s. Even though radicals hated moderates and there
were serious disagreements about everything from MTS political
departments to economic planning, Stalin’s cult of personality managed
to hide, but not resolve, the splits until 1937.177

Policy disputes and disagreements were hidden behind the iron unity
facade of Stalin’s leadership. All policy initiatives were customarily
attributed to the "great teacher*___ It would be naive to assume, as

255
 many have done, that Stalin controlled and initiated everything and
that his lieutenants simply mechanically carried out his directives on
everything from hog breeding to transport. . . . Left and right were still
there (and, of course, always would be), but were simply not to be
allowed to divide the Party as they did in the 1920s.1™

To paraphrase a wise philosopher, if Stalin had not existed, he would

have had to be invented. The Stalin cult of personality was invented to fulfil
the need for an apparently monolithic leadership and charismatic inspiration
in a period of crisis and rapid transformation of institutions and values. A
similar process is common to all societies under similar conditions. The more
acute the crisis, the more rapid the transformation, the more intense is the
cult of the leader, for example, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Churchill, Cromwell,
Napoleon, Castro, Mao Tse-tung, Khoumieni, Attaturk, Hitler, Mussolini,
and so on. The personality cults that developed around these top leaders
never meant that the struggles of different interests and the conflicting social
forces operating behind the scenes were suspended in favour of the arbitrary
will of an omnipotent individual.
A number of highly critical Marxists have summed up the overall results
of the politically repressive 1928-39 period of Soviet history as positive. To
quote Isaac Deutscher:

The nation has, nevertheless, advanced far in most fields of its

existence. Its material apparatus of production, which in about 1930
was still inferior to that of any medium-sized European nation, has so
greatly and so rapidly expanded that Russia is now the first industrial
power in Europe and the second in the world. Within little more than
one decade the number of her cities and towns doubled; and her urban
population grew by thirty millions. The number of schools of all
grades has very impressively multiplied. The whole nation has been
sent to school. Its mind has been so awakened that it can hardly be put
back to sleep again. Its avidity for knowledge, for the sciences and the
arts, has been stimulated by Stalin’s government to the point where it
has become insatiable and embarrassing. It should be remarked that,
although Stalin has kept Russia isolated from the contemporary in­
fluences of the west, he has encouraged and fostered every interest in
what he calls the Cultural heritage’ of the west. Perhaps in no country
have the young been imbued with so great a respect and love for the
classical literature and art of other nations as in Russia. This is one of
the important differences between the educational methods of nazism
and Stalinism. Another is that Stalin has not, like Hitler, forbidden the
new generation to read and study the classics of their own literature
whose ideological outlook does not accord with his. While tyrannizing
the living poets, novelists, historians, painters, and even composers,
he has displayed, on the whole, a strange pietism for the dead
ones.. . .

256
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

The whole structure of Russian society has undergone a change so

profound and so many sided that it cannot really be reversed. It is
possible to imagine a violent reaction of the Russian people itself
against the state of siege in which it has been living so long. It is even
possible to imagine something like a political restoration. But it is
certain that even such a restoration would touch merely the surface
of Russian society and that it would demonstrate its impotence vis-a-vis
the work done by the revolution even more thoroughly than the
Stuart and the Bourbon restorations had done. For of Stalinist Russia
it is even truer than of any other revolutionary nation that 'twenty
years have done the work of twenty generations.. . .
The better part of Stalin's work is as certain to outlast Stalin himself
as the better parts of the work of Cromwell and Napoleon have out­
lasted them.179

According to Medvedev, it is these accomplishments that must, in good

part, account for the high level of popularity of the Party's General
Secretary, especially among the working people of the USSR.180 Medvedev
concludes:

It was known that Party and state leaders were being arrested as
‘enemies of the people', but at the same time new schools, factories,
and palaces of culture were rising everywhere. Military leaders were
being arrested as spies, but the Party was building a strong, modem
army. Scientists were being arrested as wreckers, but Soviet science had
developed rapidly with the Party's support. Writers were being arrested
as Trotskyites and counter-revolutionaries, but some literary works
appeared that were real masterpieces. Leaders in the union republics
were arrested as nationalists, but the formerly oppressed nationalities
were improving their lot, and friendship among the peoples of the
USSR was growing. And this obvious progress filled Soviet hearts with
pride, engendering confidence in the Party that was organizing it and
in the man who stood at the head of the Party.181

Invasion, Reconstruction and the Renewed Threat of Invasion:

1941-54
The period of World War II was relatively liberal in Soviet history —at least
for all those that supported the ‘Great Patriotic War*. Nationalism and
religion alike were given considerably wider currency than at any time since
the Revolution, while positive attitudes to the West and the possibilities of
co-operation with capitalist powers had never been so acceptable, either
before or since. Harsh measures were, however, taken against those who
collaborated or were falsely suspected of collaborating, and some who were
thought to be potential collaborators with the Nazi invaders. The Volga

257
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Germans, whose position was similar to that of the Japanese Americans,

became suspect owing to their particular language and culture, and were
largely relocated to non-strategic areas but, unlike Japanese-Americans,
without confinement. At the end o f World War II a number of small,
mostly traditionally Islamic nationalities, including the Crimean Tartars,
were relocated in Central Asia, because of alleged mass collaboration with the
Nazis. In the mid-1950s, however, all accusations of mass collaboration were
withdrawn, and almost all the people were allowed to return en masse to
their previous areas, and in general allowed to reconstitute themselves as
autonomous units. The prominent exception has been the Crimean Tartars,
and although some individuals have returned to the Crimea, their return en
masse has been officially discouraged and they have not been allowed to
re-establish an autonomous political unit (as far as can be determined on the
grounds o f the strategic location of the Crimea). The other important group
allowed to return to its old areas in the mid-1950s, but not recon­
stituted as an autonomous political entity, was the Volga Germans.
The immediate post-War period in the Soviet Union for the most part
continued to be one o f relative tolerance. In Roy Medvedev’s words:

. .. right after the War the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet decreed
an end to the death penalty, even for the most serious crimes. The spy
mania and universal suspicion that prevailed before the War tended to
disappear, especially in view of the drastic change in the international
situation. The Soviet Union was no longer isolated.182

With the onset o f the Cold War in 1947-48, another wave of paranoia
swept the Party, largely centring on the possible effect of millions o f Soviet
citizens (including many former prisoners-of-war) who had spent the War
years in the 'cosmopolitan’ West, and as a result had, perhaps, been recruited
by foreign intelligence agencies; this paranoia was carefully cultivated by US
intelligence agencies.183 A national campaign against Western imperialist
influences (the ‘anti-Cosmopolitan’ campaign) was launched and, in the
1948-50 period, resulted in the arrests o f numerous intellectuals, of whom
many were sent to the labour camps for re-education. During this campaign
intellectuals were accused o f ‘praising American technology’, ‘praising
American democracy’, ‘worshipping the West’, etc.184 Possibly a few
thousand Party officials were arrested and sentenced to labour camps on
suspicion of disloyalty; a few were executed. The most famous case at this
time was the so-called ‘Leningrad Affair’ in which many leaders of the local
Party organization were accused of ‘cosmopolitanism*, ‘Titoism’ and
conspiring with, or at least serving. Western imperialism by attempting to
destroy the unity o f the Socialist camp.185
Some o f those released from labour camps at the end o f the war were
again detained, as were some ex-prisoners-of-war, often without concrete
charges, but simply on the grounds of ‘preventive confinement’. A number of
former émigrés, who had returned to the USSR in the liberal 1945-46 period.

258
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

were also arrested in 1949-50 on charges of ‘espionage4 or ‘anti-Soviet

activity abroad4.186
According to Brzezinski:

It would seem that the immediate post-war years were ones of re­
integration and consolidation« of gradual reassertion of the controls
which had grown lax during the war. It was the period of increasing
emphasis on political and ideological uniformity and of a return to the
orthodox Party line. It was marked by the growing stiffness of the
Soviet Union in the international arena« and by increasing application
of its coercive powers at hom e.. . .
Initially under Zhdanov‘s leadership« this period« frequently referred
to as the Zhdanovshchina« became characterized by a general tightening*
up not only in the areas discussed previously but also in the arts« letters«
and sciences. Conformity« uniformity« orthodoxy - these were
demanded.187

But as Brzezinski went on:

But none of this could compare either in intensity« scope« or nature of

consequences with the pre-war holocaust of the Yezhov era. The purge
was comparatively restrained« and conducted with greater caution. The
consequences of dismissal or expulsion were not necessarily arrest and
forced labour but more frequently transfer or demotion or both. The
charges against those purged« which previously emphasized socio­
economic origins (especially during the years 1930-35) or political
subversion (1935-40)«
1M
changed to accusations of inefficiency or
corruption.. . .

Gearly the reason for the tightening of control in Soviet society at this
time was primarily the tense international situation. In 1947« for the first
time in history« the US instituted a peace-time draft. The Communist Parties
were expelled from the governments of France and Italy« and the British«
French and Americans decided to unite their zones of occupation in
Germany. The implementation of the economic integration of the three
Western Zones in June 1948 led to the Soviet attempt to obtain the return
of the western part of Berlin to their administration (the Berlin Blockade
and Airlift). This marked the beginning of all-out Cold War. In September
1948« the Parliamentary Council for Western Germany was convened and the
anti-Marxist Konrad Adenhauer became President; and the Federal Republic
of Germany was proclaimed in May 1949. Western Germany was then
gradually rearmed and« against the strong protest of the Soviets« phased into
the Western alliance system. In 1949 the Western European powers and the
US established the NATO alliance against fufther socialist revolutions in
Europe. The Korean Civil War broke out in June 1950« after two years of
growing hostility between the two regimes - both o f which claimed to be

259
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

the legitimate government of the entire country. In September 1950, the US

intervened and within two months had driven the Communist forces to the
Chinese and Soviet borders, and threatened to carry their offensive into
Manchuria as part o f a world wide strategy of "rolling back Communism’.
The US monopoly o f the atomic bomb throughout 1949, the devastated
state o f the Soviet economy (reconstruction from war damage was not
completed until 1950) and the strident anti-Communist polemics of the
Americans and British, greatly intensified Soviet fears in the 1948-50
period.
After reaching its peak in 1949 the anti-Western and anti-Titoist campaigns
began to subside, and by the end of 1950 arrests of Party leaders and
"cosmopolitan intellectuals’ had virtually ended. The level o f diversity per­
mitted and encouraged in the media now expanded. The Soviets too, now had
the atomic bomb; the reconstruction of the country from Nazi devastation
was completed; the Chinese Revolution had triumphed and consolidated
itself; the extreme crisis, manifested in the Berlin crisis of 1948-49 and the
split with Tito in 1948, had subsided.
The 1951-52 period, however, again saw a reversal of the liberalization
policies as the international situation became threatening. In spring 1951,
General Douglas Mac Arthur called for an all-out war against Communism,
including the atom bombing of Manchuria; in September 1951 the Western
powers announced the formation of a unified military command in Western
Europe, that would include a rearmed Germany. In May 1952, the Federal
Republic o f Germany formally signed a military treaty with the European
Defence Community. Negotiations for a truce in the Korean War broke down
in November 1952. The mood in the US became increasingly ugly as
McCarthyism intensified and feelings grew that Truman was being too "soft’
on international Communism. Two generals, MacArthur and Eisenhower,
were increasingly mentioned as Republican candidates for the Presidency in
the November 1952 elections. The rhetoric of ‘getting tough on Communism’
became ever more prevalent.
In November 1952 General Eisenhower was elected US President. Taking
office in January 1953 he appointed a number of hard line anti-Communist
officials to handle foreign policy. The Dulles brothers, who became
Secretary o f State and CIA Director respectively, threatened a ‘roll back o f
Communism’. They soon organized active interventions to overthrow regimes
insufficiently supportive o f US imperialist interests, for example, the CIA
restoration o f the Shah o f Iran in 1953 and the overthrow of the democratic
government o f Guatemala in 1954.
In response, the political atmosphere within the USSR heated up. In
January 1953, immediately after General Eisenhower took office, Pravda
revived the theory that "The more we progress, the more intense will be the
struggle o f enemies o f the people.’ Pravda went on:

Fragments of the shattered exploiting classes . . . masked epigones of

defeated anti-Soviet groups - Mensheviks, S-Rs, Trotskyites,

260
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (1918-54)

Bukharinites, bourgeois nationalists.. . . all sorts of degenerated

elements —people who kowtow to all things foreign, pilferers of
socialist property.. . .The Anglo-American imperialists are now placing
their bets on such people.189

There were a few arrests, specifically of a group of allegedly Zionist

doctors accused of attempting to assassinate Stalin, and a number of officials
and state security agents in Soviet Georgia, little came of this campaign. For
about a year after Stalin’s death in March 1953 a number of people, including
the head of state security Beria, were shot. But both the domestic and inter­
national situation soon stabilized, and as a result a level of tolerance unknown
in Soviet society since the late 1920s soon developed.
In July 1953, an armistice was finally signed in the Korean War. In 1954
the Geneva Agreements ending the War in Indochina were signed. In 1955,
the first summit meeting since 1945 was held between the top leaden of the
USSR and the Western powers, and the treaty permanently neutralizing
Austria and providing for the withdrawal of Western and Soviet troops was
signed. Peaceful co-existence was in the air and the pressure on the Soviet
Union was relaxed. No more under a state of external siege as intense as that
in the 1928-53 period, the level of political repression in Soviet society never
again approached the level of those years. Further, with socialist recon­
struction and collectivization complete, and a high level of legitimacy of the
Soviet system achieved, never again was there the extraordinary need for
domestic mobilization or for deliberate creation of unifying symbols such as
had existed over the previous 25 yean of almost permanent crisis.
In March 1954, the Security Police were divided into a Ministry of
Internal Affairs and a Committee of State Security, and their powers
considerably weakened. There was a purge of its leading officials and a
number of military men and Party officials were put in charge of ‘cleaning
house’. Labour camps were radically reduced in size and almost all political
prisoners released; conditions for political detainees in the few remaining
camps were largely restored to the pre-1937 norm of re-education through
work and study. The abuses of the 1936-38 period, as well as the deport­
ation of some minor nationalities for allegedly collaborating with the Nazis,
were denounced and rehabilitation instituted. Considerable intellectual
diversity was now permitted, for example, even Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s
One Day in the Life o f Ivan Denisovich was officially published.

In summary, the historical variations in the degree of tolerance of public

advocacy (as well as in due process guarantees) in the Soviet Union can be
fully explained as a result of the variance in the same kinds of forces that
operate on all states to produce similar results. Thus, just as is the case with
explaining the considerable historical variation among states and over time
in the right to emigrate from one’s country, there is no need for further
hypotheses.
As will be seen in the next chapter the rather high level of tolerance of

261
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

public advocacy and due process rights in the Soviet Union in the 1955-78
period (high by almost any historical standards) was a result of the high level
of legitimacy and domestic stability the regime had attained, as well as of the
now relatively relaxed international situation. The decrease in the level of
tolerance of dissident activities in the 1978-83 period, In turn, was a result
of the renewed Cold War atmosphere of these years.

Notes

1. R. Medvedev, 1971, p. 389.

2. Ibid., and Deutscher, 1960, p. 346.
3. Medvedev, 1971, p. 390.
4. Ibid., p. 388.
5. Ibid., p. 390.
6. R. Medvedev, 1979, ch. 9.
7. Deutscher, 1960, p. 346.
8. Sec Schapiro, 1960, p. 263.
9. Cited in Khruschev, 1956, p. 28.
10. Cited in Medvedev, 1971, p. 274.
11. Cited in Schapiro, 1960, p. 211.
12. Ibid., pp. 265-6.
13. See Ibid., p. 266.
14. Medvedev, 1971, p. 381, 382; Schapiro, 1971, p. 193.
15. See Shapiro, 1960, p. 203.
16. Medvedev, 1971, p. 384.
17. Sec Shapiro, 1960, pp. 321-2.
18. Ibid., p. 332.
19. Hingley, 1974, pp. 171,182-3.
20. See Deutscher, 1960, pp. 311-6.
21. Medvedev, 1979, p. 187.
22. Cited in Hough and Fainsod, 1979, pp. 163-4.
23. Fitzpatrick, 1979, p. 11.
24. Ibid., p. 18.
25. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, p. 149.
26. Ibid.
27. See Fitzpatrick, 1978; Hough, 1978; Lapidus, 1978; Starr, 1978; Hough
and Fainsod, 1979, p. 149.
28. Strong, 1957, ch. 3; Deutscher, 1960, p. 323.
29. Ulam, 1973, p. 296; Medvedev, 1971, p. 72; Deutscher, 1960, p. 313.
30. Ulam, 1973, p. 305.
31. Ibid., p.298.
32. Deutscher, 1960, p. 313.
33. Medvedev, 1970, p. 80.
34. Medvedev, 1971, p. 81.
35. Deutscher, 1960, p. 319.
36. Medvedev, 1971, p. 87.
37. Davies, 1980, p. 393.
38. Ibid., p. 172.

262
 Toleration and Repression in the USSR (2918-54)

39. Deutscher, 1960, pp. 294-5.

40. Ibid., p. 550.
41. Davies, 1980, pp. 51-2.
42. Ibid., p. 208; Schapiro, 1960, p. 394.
43. Davies, 1980, p. 204.
44. Ibid., pp. 204, 205.
45. Ibid., p.207.
46. Medvedev, 1971, p. 84.
47. Cited in Davies, 1980, pp. 182-3.
48. See Deutscher, 1960, p. 323; Fain sod, 1958, p. 142; Ulam, 1973,
pp. 326-9.
49. Cited in Davies, 1980, p. 187.
50. Ibid., p.200.
51. See Strong, 1957, ch. 7; Medvedev, 1971, p. 100; Fainsod, 1958,
pp. 183, 242-51.
52. See Davies, 1980, pp. 222-3.
53. Medvedev, 1971, p. 100; Ham, 1973, p. 322; Fainsod, 1958, pp.
183, 196-201.
54. Medvedev, 1971, p. 100.
55. Deutscher, 1960, pp. 412,420; Deutscher, 1960, p. 325; Ulam, 1973,
p. 332.
57. Cited in Davies, 1980, pp. 269-70.
58. Schapiro, 1960, p. 385; Ulam, 1973, p. 329.
59. See Deutscher, 1960, p. 331.
60. Schapiro, 1960, p. 385;Hickley, 1975, p. 205.
61. See Ulam, 1973, p. 342.
62. Davies, 1980, p. 373.
63. Schapiro, 1961, p. 389.
64. Cited in Ulam, 1973, p. 343 ; Fainsod, 1958, p. 243 ; Davies, 1980, pp. 235-6.
65. See Schapiro, 1960, p. 385; Medvedev, 1971, p. 92.
66. Deutscher, 1960, p. 325.
67. See Ulam, 1973, p. 350.
68. See Medvedev, 1971, pp. 92-3; Ulam, 1973, p. 345.
69. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, p. 152; Davies, 1980, p. 412.
70. See Medvedev, 1971, p. 100; Deutscher, 1960, p. 33.
71. Wheatcroft, 1981, p. 287.
72. Medvedev, 1979, p. 140.
73. See Ibid., pp. 74-5.
74. Wheatcroft, 1981, p. 285.
75. Medvedev, 1971, pp. 11-15; Ulam, 1973, p. 336.
76. See Davies, 1980, p. 374.
77. Medvedev, 1971, pp. 115-6.
78. See Deutscher, 1960, p. 254; Schapiro, 1960, pp. 399-400; Hough and
Fainsod, 1979, p. 164; Fitzpatrick, 1978, p. 11; Getty, 1979, pp.
157-8, 321.
79. Schapiro, i960, p. 380; Deutscher, 1960, p. 350.
80. Schapiro, 1960, p. 397.
81. See Getty, 1979, p. 270.
82. Cited in Rigby, 1968, p. 201.
83. See Getty, 1979, pp. 112, 270, 447.

263
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

84. See Fainsod, 1958, p. 222.

85. See Getty, 1979, pp. 84, 149.
86. See Rigby, 1968, p. 180; Getty, 1979, p. 129.
87. Rigby, 1968, p. 204.
88. Getty, 1979, pp. 83, 280.
89. Ibid., p.280.
90. See Getty, 1979, p. 241.
91. Ibid., p.272.
92. See Rigby, 1968, pp. 201-4; Fainsod, 1958, pp. 221-2.
93. See Getty, 1979, pp. 89, 202, 203, 286, 321, 398, 523, 554.
94. Getty, 1979, p.499.
95. Ibid., p.492.
96. Ibid., p.553.
97. Ibid., pp. 203-4.
98. Ibid., pp. 557-8.
99. Ibid., pp. 380,406,551.
100. Ibid., pp. 402-7, 553.
101. Ibid., pp. 426, 442, 550-1.
102. See Deutscher, 1960, pp. 354-6.
103. Ibid., p.356.
104. Ulam, 1973, p. 381 ; Medvedev, 1971, p. 162; Hingley, 1974, p. 247.
105. Medvedev, 1971, p.393.
106. See Ibid., p. 275; Ulam, 1973, p. 426; Deutscher, 1960, pp. 358-9.
107. Strong, 1957, p. 67.
108. Cited in Khrushchev, 1956, p. 41.
109. See Getty, 1979, p.327.
110. Getty, 1979, p.327.
111. Brzezinski, 1956, pp. 117-8.
112« See also Getty, 1979, p. 280.
113. Brzezinski, 1956, pp. 118-9.
114. Ibid., p. 127.
115. Ibid., p. 95.
116. See Fainsod, 1958, pp. 132-7, 190-1, 232-7, 423-28.
117. Brzezinski, 1956, p. 91 ; see also Medvedev, 1971, p. 234.
118. Rigby, 1968, p. 213.
119. See Deutscher, 1960, p. 380; Medvedev, 1971, p. 189.
120. See Khrushchev, 1956, p. 30.
121. See Tucker, 1971, p. 51; Ulam, 1973, pp. 383, 409, 422-3; Deutscher,
1960, p. 373; Medvedev, 1971, p. 172.
122. Cited in Ulam, 1973, p. 475.
123. Schapiro, 1960, p. 432; Ulam, 1973, p. 488; Brzezinski, 1956, pp.
122-7; Getty, 1979, p. 475.
124. Schapiro, 1960, p. 433; Brzezinski, 1956, p. 122.
125. Cited in Brzezinski, 1956, p. 129.
126. Brzezinski, 1956, p. 123.
127. See Unger, 1969, p. 327; Rigby, 1968, p. 212.
128. Rigby, 1968, p. 212.
129. See Wheatcroft 1981, p. 290.
130. Khrushchev, 1956, pp. 22-3 ; see also Ulam, 1976, p. 440; Strong,
1957, pp. 62, 66; Medvedev, 1956, pp. 182, 189, 192, 202.

264
 Toleration and Repretsion in the USSR (1918-54)

131. Wheatcroft, 1971, p. 290.

132. Khrushchev, 1956, pp. 22-3.
133. See Deutscher, 1960, pp. 379-81 ; Schapiro, 1960, p. 420; Medvedev,
1971, pp. 210, 213;Hingley, 1974, pp. 247-64.
134. See Brzezinski, 1956, p. 108.
135. Ibid., p.108.
136. Beck and Godin, 1951, p. 76.
137. See Hough and Fainsod, 1979, p. 176.
138. See Brzezinski, 1956, p. 123.
139. Kennan and Hough, 1979, p. 177.
140. See Getty, 1979, p.471.
141. See Brzezinski, 1956, pp. 9 8 -9 ;see also Medvedev, 1979, p. 234;
Ulam, 1973, pp. 440-1.
142. See for example, Medvedev, 1971, p. 239; Ulam, 1973, pp. 440-1.
143. Rigby, 1968, p. 212; Unger, 1969, p. 328.
144. See Unger, 1969, p. 238.
145. Rigby, 1968, p. 213.
146. Ibid., p.203.
147. Green, 1935.
148. Wheatcroft, 1981, p. 286.
149. See Ibid., p. 283.
150. Ibid., pp. 272, 289.
151. Ibid., p.286.
152. Ibid., p.287.
153. Brzezinski, 1956, p. 108.
154. Jones, 1976, pp. 149, 150.
155. See The USSR in Figures for 1978.
156. Getty, 1979, p. 502.
157. Ibid., p.503.
158. Ibid., p.516.
159. Ibid., pp. 503,511.
160. Ibid., p.504.
161. Ibid., pp. 504-5.
162. Ibid., p.451.
163. Ibid., pp. 199,450-3.
164. Ibid., p.457.
165. Ibid., p.457.
166. Khrushchev, 1956, pp. 22, 29.
167. See Steward, 1974.
168. See Medvedev, 1971, p. 300; also Schapiro, 1960, p. 425.
169. Cited in Tucker, 1971, p. 66.
170. See Fainsod, 1958, pp. 191-2.
171. Cited in Ulam, 1973, p. 440.
172. Schapiro, 1960, p. 440.
173. Ibid., p.443.
174. Deutscher, 1960, p. 384.
175. Medvedev, 1971, p. 430.
176. Ibid., p.362.
177. Getty, 1979, p. 557.
178. Ibid., p.169.

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

179. Deutscher, 1960, p. 568-70.

180. See Medvedev, 1971, pp. 362, 430.
181. Ibid., p. 372.
182. Ibid., p. 480.
183. See, for example, Steward, 1974.
184. Medvedev, 1971, p. 483; 1979, p. 146; Hingley, 1974, p. 411.
185. See Medvedev, 1971, pp. 480, 481 ; Hingley, 1974, p. 411.
186. See Medvedev, 1971, p. 485; 1979, p. 146.
187. Brzezinski, 1956, pp. 147-8.
188. Ibid., p. 148.
189. G ted in Medvedev, 1971, p. 558.
8. Tolerance and Repression
in the Soviet Union:
1965-82

The level of repression, and tolerance of public advocacy, in the Soviet Union
from 1965 to 1982 is systematically examined in this chapter. ‘Dissidence*
is defined, the role of the dissident movement explored, and the range of
permitted and prohibited debate elaborated. The actual number and class
nature of the dissidents are discussed, along with the degree of support for
them within the Soviet Union. The methods and strategy o f the dissident
movement are examined, as are government policies for dealing with them.
The wide range o f sanctions, from informational warnings to corrective
labour camps and categorization as mentally ill, are discussed along with the
trends over time in government policy towards them. The various political
currents among dissidents are discussed, showing that there are three
currents: the traditional authoritarian right; pro-Western liberals; and a
smaller, Marxist current, which tends to converge with the liberals.

Trends in Contemporary Soviet Policy and the Dissident

Movement
When, in 1964, Khrushchev was replaced as Party Secretary it at first seemed
that further liberalization was about to take place. But in 1965 the new
leadership began pressuring the dissident movement that, in the wake of
Khrushchev’s removal, was becoming vociferous.1 In response to the tighten­
ing o f government policy relating to dissidents in 1965, the oppositional
movement became more politicized.2 The period 1966-68 saw a high level
of overt political dissidence in the USSR largely focused against the govern­
ment restrictions on liberalization in general and around the trial of Andrei
Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel in particular.3 Scores of petitions and public
letters, self published journals and newsletters began to appear. Until 1968,
the Soviet government was relatively tolerant of this oppositional move­
ment.4 In March 1968, however, the government began to take a harder
line; numerous dissidents were interrogated and a few professional leaders
were dismissed from their privileged positions.
From 1971 to 1976 the Soviet government pursued a fairly moderate and
consistent policy towards the dissidents. Occasionally, a few o f the most

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

prominent and provocative were arrested and sentenced, from time to time a
particularly prominent activist was expelled, warnings, police questioning
and pressure were generally maintained, but neither especially harsh
penalties, mass arrests or deportations, or other forms of heavy crackdowns
on political dissidents were in evidence. The government’s policy seems to
have contained dissidence fairly effectively. It avoided creating martyrs and
kept Soviet society reasonably open for the expression of a wide range of
opinions, while deterring criticism of the underlying assumptions of Soviet
society and thus enhancing the legitimacy of its basic institutions. In these
years the state was relatively tolerant towards dissidents.5
In 1977, however, the state began to take a harder line. Prominent dissi­
dents such as Aleksander Ginzburg, Anatoly Shcharansky, and Yuri Orlov
were arrested and tried. During 1979-80, the breakdown of detente and
the revival of the Cold War resulted in harsher measures against pro-
Western voices whose public statements were picked up by and used by anti-
Soviet forces in the West. Through a combination of exile, confinement
and, increasingly, expulsion from the country, the post-1978 Soviet campaign
to contain pro-Western public dissidents has been effective in largely
suppressing such public opposition. Even Sakharov, who for so long was
immune from sanctions was exiled, but not confined.
The increase in arrests, combined with the policies of forcing many dissi­
dents to emigrate, and the lack of popular support for their ideas, depleted
the ranks of active dissidents virtually to nil. Roy Medvedev argued in 1980:

The weakening and decline of the dissident movement in recent years

is an undeniable fa c t. .. the pressure of the authorities, emigration
from the country, natural weariness, the lack of any clear-cut accom-
lishments, and gradual but by no means progressive shifts of public
mood - all this has largely shaped the dissident movement.. . .
Here we have only a few dozen dissidents left; today there are more of
them in Paris and New York than there are in Moscow. The leaders are
now all in prison, in internal exile, or abroad.. . . The outlook is very
dark indeed.
The petition in behalf of Sakharov was signed by barely twenty
persons.. . . For the trials of the ’60s there were thousands of
signatures. . .6

Roy Medvedev’s brother, Zhores, argued in 1981 :

The competition and the disputes between the USSR and the USA,
while sharpening political and diplomatic confrontation, weakening
detente and inducing some revival of the Cold War, has increased
repressive measures within the USSR against political dissidents with
a ’Western’ orientation and also intensified Western publicity for
these groups.7
 Toleration and Repression in the Soviet Union (1965-82)

Definition of Dissident Activity in the USSR

The Soviet Constitution and legal codes guarantee the right to express an
opinion publicly, through speaking, publishing and other peaceful means.
These legally guaranteed rights are, in fact, widely practised.
An extensive range of diverse opinion on a wide range of issues is manifest
in the mass media, as well as in specialized journals and conferences within
the Soviet Union; the press, too, is full of debates on a great variety of
important issues.8 There is virtual consensus among those in the West who
study the Soviet media that the extent of public debate in the USSR has
been growing, and that in recent years, essentially all proposals for gradual
change in the policy of the Soviet government or Communist Party have
been aired in the mass media. Even in the sensitive areas of foreign and
nationality policy, where advocacy of basic changes is permitted only in
veiled form, inferences emerge out of lively public debate of actual facts.9

In the post-Khrushchev era there have been few party policies and few
aspects of Soviet society that have been immune from attack if the
attack is carefully phrased. There has been almost no proposal for
incremental change in Party policy that has not been published in some
form or another. Even on foreign policy and nationalities policy, where
actual advocacy of policy change is permitted only in the most veiled
terms, scholars have been able to debate the facts of the situation and
thereby imply contrasting views of the policy that is required.10
Merely by reading a broad selection of Soviet materials, we can easily
see that the post-Stalin leadership has been willing to permit a wide-
ranging expression of views in a number of public forums - in general
newspapers, in magazines, in scholarly journals, in books, and, even
more, of course, in more restricted conferences and meetings. By the
mid- and late-1960s, the typical situation had become that found in a
survey of Soviet social policies: ‘Every policy discussed in this study
has been debated vigorously by specialists and middle-level adminis­
trators not only in professional journals, but in the daily press as
well.’11
Some specific issues around which considerable public debate has occurred
in recent years have included: Khrushchev’s attempt - from the late 1950s
to 1964 —to proletarianize higher education; the ongoing, sharp debates
about the greater access to higher education of children of the intelligentsia,
and the consequences of this for the creation of a privileged stratum; and,
between 1958 and 1962, the role of the Communist Party in the military.
Discussions continue on the role of writers and artists (the relative role of
artistic freedom and social responsibility to contribute to constructing
socialism); on centralization or decentralization of decision-making;
environmental protection issues, the most famous example being the debate
on the pollution of Lake Baikal; if the birthrate can best be increased by

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

paying mothers a wage to stay at home, or by improving daycare service;

and whether enterprise managers should be elected by workers in the
plants.13
Observers, otherwise quite hostile to the Soviet Union, claim that the
public debates, struggles and criticisms, become increasingly penetrating,
as policy making in the Soviet Union becomes more decentralized and the
number of participants constantly increases.13 Basic policies are increasingly
formulated, discussed and challenged in public forums and editorial state­
ments in periodicals;14 different Soviet papers and journals more or less
openly take sides on public issues. This is especially so with proposed new
welfare policies, each of which is vigorously debated, both by specialists and
ordinary citizens in professional journals and the popular press. Public debate
on proposed legislation has become a central political institution; a law is
proposed, a period of wide-ranging public debate follows, and a revised
version of the law is finally promulgated incorporating the results of the
public criticism.15
Generally, both in the West and within dissident circles, observers admit
that the range o f political tolerance has continually increased since the
mid-1950s. For example, Zhores Medvedev argues:

Political control has not disappeared but it has become more flexible
and provides more freedoms in private life . . . individual activity and
attempts to criticize internal and international Soviet policy from
clearly Marxist and socialist positions are more or less tolerated, which
is, 1 believe, a reflection of the new diversity of socialist and commu­
nist movements in the world, the appearance o f 4Eurocommunist’
ideology and its more active influence upon developments within the
USSR.“

Letters to the editor in the Soviet press, which often amount to guest
editorials or articles, serve as a major forum for the Soviet people to present
their opinions and participate directly in the confrontation of often sharply
conflicting ideas. Letters to government agencies, party organs, etc., also
play a significant role in initiating public discussion and influencing the
decision-making process.17 The press serves the function of ombudsman for
the Soviet people. In 1970, Ptavda received 360,000 letters and Izvestia
500,000. Obviously, all these letters cannot be published, but, by law, all
must be processed and referred to the agencies concerned, and, by law too,
a grievance must be responded to within 15 days.18
Legal reforms have been publicly debated in universities, legal research
institutes, jurist’s associations, factories, and the public press and journals
- for example, in 1961 around the reform of the Civil Law Code.
Professional intelligentsia, especially economists and jurists, in their special­
ized papers, journals, and at conferences, engage in especially wide debate,
and set out various public policy options, seeking to convince their colleagues
and the public through debates at meetings and their publications.19

270
 Toleration and Repression in the Soviet Union (1965-82)

The range of opinions that can be publicly expressed in the Soviet Union
does, however, have its limitations. While the Soviet Constitution of 1977
stipulates (in common with the previous Constitution) a wide and impressive
range o f freedoms, these are explicitly delimited by the obligation not to
employ them to undermine the basic institutions of the society.* Article 39
of the new Constitution states that citizens may not exercise their rights
‘to the detriment o f the interests of society or the state’, and Article 50,
which guarantees freedom of expression in various forms, is prefaced by the
statement that such rights are guaranteed ‘in accordance with the interests
o f the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system’.
The fundamental issues, which are considered as settled and as the basis
of the socialist institutions of Soviet society, and thus not matters to be
publicly challenged, since this would hinder the construction of socialism
are: (1) socialism as a system and communism as an ideal (although not
criticisms o f specific practices and policies); (2) challenges to the idea of the
leading role of the Communist Party in Soviet society or to its fundamental
integrity (but not criticisms of either concrete abuses by Party officials or
specific policies of the Party); (3) the existence of the military as necessary
to defend Soviet society (though not military strategy and the political role
of the military). In addition, public criticism o f the persons of the top leaders
is not permitted (but lower and intermediate leaders, and the policies and
programmes of the top leaders, may be criticized).30 With these exceptions
statements critical of every other aspect of'Soviet reality appear in the mass
media.

The Soviet press contains critical statements - often extremely critical

in nature - about almost every aspect of the Soviet political system,
society, and ideology, but the context in which they are raised, the
way in which they are phrased, is all-important... .31

The range of tolerated opinion varies according to the audience; the widest
range is found in the specialized press and informal situations, and the
narrowest in the mass press and, above all, in opinions expressed to foreign
enemies of the Soviet Union. The theory here is that when threatened by
foreign enemies a more or less monolithic image should be conveyed in order
to maximize the appearance of strength and thus minimize any external
dangers.

. . . the Soviet leadership exercises a kind of selective censorship by

restricting the more radical advocacy of policy change or the more
comprehensive criticisms of the status quo to specialized journals and

* This, of course, is merely a formal expression of the general rule operative in aU

societies, including (see chapter 6) the United States.

271
 papers. Debate on Soviet military strategy is, for example, limited
almost exclusively to the military press. Any Soviet citizen is perfectly
free to read specialized journals, but since, in practice, few besides the
relevant specialists do so, the transmission of some types.of inform- •
ation or policy ideas is basically limited to the particular group working
in the particular policy area. Thus, to say that vigorous policy debates
now take place in virtually every policy area in the Soviet Union and
that these debates have involved carefully phrased criticism of the
fundamentals of the system is not to say that policy debates are freely
conducted in all Soviet arenas.23
At one extreme, the greatest freedom of expression seems to be per­
mitted in more or less private gatherings —at a party, with a group of
colleagues at work, in a b a r... . Certainly it would be absolutely wrong
to think that the restrictions on publication of ideas also necessarily
apply to oral expression.. . .
. . . within certain limits discussions in scholarly sessions are rather
free-swinging —often, in fact, more impolite* and unrestrained on a
personal level than those in the West. The regime also does not usually
seem to impose severe punishment on the transmission of quite radical
views directly to the authorities, and it often has even been semi-
tolerant of highly 'illegitimate* communications that are confined to
the samizdat network with its individual reproductions of documents
either by hand or by typewriter.
At the other extreme, the type of activity that has provoked the
quickest and most repressive governmental action has been the attempt
to reach a larger audience in a more organized, more formal manner —
gathering signatures on a petition, distributing leaflets, making a speech
in a public square, staging a demonstration, transmitting documents to
the West.23
It should be stressed that somewhat basic criticisms are generally tolerated
even if technically illegal, unless such criticisms are transmitted to the West
and used there as propaganda against the Soviet Union or actual organ­
izations are formed which engage in subversive activities (Le. more, than
simply circulating critical documents within the Soviet Union through inter­
personal networks).24
Two articles in the Criminal Code o f the Russian Republic deal with the
violation o f the basic assumptions of Soviet society. Article 70, the more
serious, specifies as illegal activity carried out with the purpose o f sub­
verting or weakening Soviet authority :

Agitation or propaganda carried out with the purpose of subverting or

weakening Soviet authority or in order to commit particular,
especially dangerous, crimes against the state, or the oral dissemination
for the same purpose of deliberate fabrications which defame the
Soviet political and social system, or the dissemination or manufacture

272
 Toleration and Repression in the Soviet Union (1965-32)

or keeping for the same purpose, of literature of such content, shall be

punishable by deprivation of freedom for a period of from six months
to seven years, with or without additional exile for a term of two to
five years, or by exile for a term of two to five years.25

The less severe Articles 190-1 define as illegal activities which deliberately
spread ‘anti-Soviet falsehoods’:

The systematic dissemination in oral form of deliberate fabrications

which discredit the Soviet political and social system, or the manu­
facture or dissemination in written, printed or other form of works
of such content, shall be punished by deprivation of freedom for a
period of up to three years, or by corrective tasks for a period of up
to one year, or by a fine of up to 100 roubles.36

Dissidents are most frequently charged and tried under these two articles,
usually after the material they write or the activities they engage in have been
used in the West against the Soviet Union.
Much dissident activity is directed towards eliminating such Articles from
Soviet law, and to the defence of those who have clearly violated them.
These, together with their public challenges to the assumptions of Soviet
society (already noted) and their propensity to release information to the
West, in the full knowledge that it will be used to discredit the Soviet system,
defines that group of people to whom we will refer as political dissidents.
Political dissidents, then, are distinct from those with reservations about the
Soviet system or who make specific criticisms of Soviet socialism, but do not
publicly attack the system per sey and from national and religious groups such
as Ukrainian nationalists or Zionist Jews, who simply desire national inde­
pendence or emigration to the West.

The Extent of the Dissident Movement

Those engaged in any form of organized political dissidence in the USSR
have been an extremely small minority with little support from any sector
of the Soviet population. Estimates of the total number of activists inade by
people sympathetic to the dissident movement have ranged from a few
dozen to ten thousand. The definition of an active dissident is one who is
active in the production and distribution of the underground periodicals, the
writing and dissemination of political ‘samizdat’, or the signing and
circulation of petitions for formal civil liberties. Estimates of the aggregate
total number of signatures on petitions in the 1965-73 period vary between
1,000 and 2,000.37 Roy Medvedev, one of the most prominent of contem­
porary Soviet dissidents, estimates that the number of active dissidents

. . . varies from time to time: in 1967-68 a few thousand, at the

273
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

beginning of the ’60s a few hundred, now [the late 1970s] a few
dozen. Of course, if you include those in confinement, again they
would count in the hundreds or two to four thousand.28

The very small number of active dissidents against the Soviet system has
reflected their lack of support in the general population. All active dissidents
have generally acknowledged that their ideas and activities are unpopular
and elicit no responsive chords in the Soviet population. The Soviet system
has a high degree of legitimacy among almost all of its citizens, as is readily
admitted by virtually all of its critics both inside and outside the USSR. The
legitimacy of the regime was greatly enhanced by the trauma of World War
II and the heroic, and very bloody, victory over the Nazi invaders (which not
only generated great feelings of solidarity and sacrifice, but also confirmed
the national fear of foreign intervention which has lasted until today). The
Communist Party’s successful industrialization and modernization programme
has also generated massive support for the Soviet system, as has the high
rate of upward mobility and the considerable Soviet achievements in science,
education, public health and other welfare services.29 Western Sovietologists
(most of whom are not sympathizers of the Soviet system) essentially
concede that there is widespread support for Soviet institutions among the
Soviet people as a whole.30
The Medvedev brothers maintain that:

If we refer not to a well defined government but rather to socialism as

a social system, then certainly today it claims the consensus of prac­
tically the entire population. Therefore it’s no use hoping for a change;
that would be about as unrealistic as the idea of turning present-day
Europe back to the eighteenth century.........
. . . if by the term ’system’ we mean not socialism but domination by
the party, then I will say that beyond all doubt the vast majority of the
population endorses the Soviet Communist Party. . . . So you see, our
present form of government possesses such tremendous reserves that
neither external pressures nor dissident agitation could, by themselves,
bring about fundamental changes.31
The utopian dreams of some former dissidents, A. Amalrik for instance,
predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union by 1984, have proven
completely unfounded. Most of these dissidents now live abroad, and
the regime which they criticized is now more stable and confident than
ever.. . . 22
The absence of receptivity to dissidents’ ideas among the masses of the
Soviet people has been reflected both in the failure of attempts to recruit
supporters among them and in their général sense of the futility of such an
attempt. Leading dissidents frequently bemoan the lack of common values
between themselves and the working people —any attempts to reach out to
them often result in working people denouncing them to the police. Amalrik,

274
 Toleration and Repression in the Soviet Union (1965-82)

a leading dissident, claimed ‘To the majority o f the people, the very word
“freedom” is synonymous with disorder.. . . As for respecting the rights of
an individual as such, the idea simply arouses bewilderment/ Other
dissidents even reject the idea of popular support as a matter of principle,
one commented, ‘It is high time we were freed from the foolishness of
populism. The most important thing is the individual and his rights/ The
tiny protest demonstrations organized by dissidents from time to time are
harassed by passers-by. One dissident who took part in a protest outside the
courthouse during the trial o f Alexander Ginzburg noted that, although the
majority o f those harassing the demonstration were workers from a Moscow
auto plant who mobilized for the purpose, passers-by spontaneously joined
in denouncing the protestors. Witnesses to the 1968 demonstration against
the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia reported similar, spontaneous
activity.33
Another dissident reports:

An average Soviet man cannot understand that five people went out on
Red Square to protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. ‘What
are they, schizophrenics? Probably the West paid them a lot. They
wanted glory/ But the fact that these people simply could not refrain
from expressing themselves, this idea, for an average Soviet man, is a
crazy idea. He can’t believe in it, and to speak of democracy in such a
psychological climate is useless. That is why I think that if we are to
speak of changes in the Soviet Union we must choose a less effective
but more realistic road: gradually teaching the people to get accus­
tomed to these concepts. To accomplish this in Soviet circumstances
is extremely difficult and will be an extremely slow process.34

Roy Medvedev admits \ .. there are practically no links between the

dissidents and the masses/ 35
Unlike most popular movements in their early stages the dissident
movement has little support among students. The little student oppositional
activity there has been in recent years seems mostly to have taken the form of
a few, small local groups oriented to Maoism, neo-Marxism or ‘Che’ Guevara,
and to be short lived, engaging only in sporadic activity, which typically ends
on graduation.34 The general lack o f student interest in the ‘democratic’
movement suggests little potential mass appeal for the future. The distance
maintained from the political dissident movement by somewhat larger, right-
wing separatist, nationalist and Zionist immigration movements is further
evidence o f its unpopularity.37
Virtually all those involved in dissident activities are o f the intelligentsia.38
One study found that from 1967 and 1970, 80% and 90% of the signatories
of petitions and protest letters were members of the technical and cultural
intelligentsia.39 Another analysis of signatories to petitions found that only
6% were workers.40

275
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Strategy and Tactics of the Dissident Movement

In descending order of importance there have been three basic tactics em­
ployed by the dissident movement: (1) direct appeals to the Western press
and other Western institutions, governments and public opinion in the form
of press conferences, statements, books published in the West, participation
in foreign conferences, etc; (2) domestic circulation of ‘samizdat’ criticisms,
sometimes formally addressed to leaders and leading bodies in the Soviet
Union, periodicals (and sometimes lengthy manuscripts) circulated in type­
written or photographic form among dissident and sympathetic circles (a
great many of which reach the hands of Westerners, and are then published
in the West) and (3) public protests, such as on the old Soviet Constitution
Day 5 December or on specific occasions, such as after the Soviet interven­
tion in Czechoslovakia. Dissidents frequently engage in actions with the
expectation of being detained and perhaps sentenced in order to create
martyrs whom they know will be celebrated in the West - thus bringing
external pressure on the Soviet regime.
Periodically, dissidents engage in small demonstrations in public squares
on certain public holidays, or at key buildings such as foreign embassies
around Moscow. Such demonstrations typically consist of perhaps a half
dozen to a dozen and a half people, are peaceful, and often merely take the
form of standing in silence. While the right of public demonstration is con­
stitutionally guaranteed in the Soviet Union, this right like all others is
qualified as to be exercised ‘in the interest of the Soviet people’. Foreign
reporters, who normally are notified of such protests in advance, are their
primary audience. Consequently such minor protests are reported in the
Western press and the demands involved are broadcast back to the Soviet
Union. The West celebrates these occasions as signs of the lack of freedom
and the existence of domestic discontent - that is, of weaknesses in Soviet
socialism. As a result, such demonstrations are frequently stopped by the
police and the leaders often charged with disturbing the peace.
A Soviet tradition that differences should not be resolved publicly is
widely accepted by the Soviet people. Public demonstrations, however
small and peaceful, violate that norm, especially when, as is typically the case,
Western reporters are present. Again, the principle of presenting a monolithic
front to foreign enemies is operative. Thus, in so far as any direct influence
on the Soviet people or government is concerned, public demonstrations are
regarded as counter-productive. They reinforce in most Soviet citizens the
feeling that the‘Human Rights Movement’ is disloyal; it undermines the
image that the liberal wing of the dissident movement tries to create of itself
as a non-insurrectionary loyal movement.41
Samizdat are publications, either one time critical manuscripts (literary
or not) or somewhat irregular periodicals, generally reproduced on type­
writers with carbon copies (or sometimes by photography) and circulated
through a network of personal contacts; manuscripts and news items reach
the editor of a periodical through the distribution network in the reverse

276
 Toleration and Repression in the Soviet Union (1965-82)

direction. A person receiving a copy of a samizdat normally types up a few

copies and passes them on to sympathetic acquaintances. Usually each person
keeps one copy and returns the original to the person from whom it was
received. In this manner hundreds or sometimes thousands of copies of a
manuscript can be produced and circulated through the dissident network»
with some copies given to foreigners for publication in the West.42 Studies
o f the samizdat materials that reach the West (and are collected by Radio
Liberty in Munich» and available at several places in the US and Europe)
show that the vast majority are directly concerned with civil liberties» and the
remainder relate to such topics as Czechoslovakia or critiques or Marxism
or Leninism.43
A major form o f criticism circulated through the samizdat network has
been the public protest letter» normally addressed to a leading official or
government body, also, lengthier programmatic essays or briefs, which com­
bine the protest language of the letter with a more detailed and documented
argument.44 A number of somewhat irregular published dissident periodicals
that gather together material from a number of authors also circulate, but
typically, after relatively few issues they are suppressed or abandoned,
sometimes to reappear after a hiatus of a few years, perhaps under different
editorship. The best known of such journals have included Syntax (edited by
Ginzburg, 1958-60), Phoenix (edited by Galanskov, 1961-66) and Sphinxes
(edited by Tarsis, 1965). Generally, periodicals focus mainly on political
essays and poetry.45
The most important tactic of the Soviet dissident movement is to release
information to the West which, in various forms, is then broadcast back
to the Soviet Union by anti-Soviet radio stations such as Radio Liberty and
the Voice of America; thus, potentially, reaching a much wider audience than
they are able to reach directly and, more importantly, used by anti-Soviet
forces in the West to mobilize pressure against the Soviet Union. This tactic
includes holding press conferences for foreign journalists, giving television
interviews, releasing samizdat material to Western reporters, making direct
appeals to the UN, the US Congress (for example, Sakharov’s appeal to the
US Senate in support o f the Jackson amendment restricting US trade with the
USSR), or heads of Western governments, working with international
organizations such as Amnesty International, the World Council of Churches,
the International PEN and the Nobel Prize Committee, and participation in
international conferences such as the European Security Conference.46
Some dissidents probably overestimate the effect their statements to the
Western press have on the Soviet people, others know well that their primary
impact lies in providing ammunition to anti-Soviet forces in the West which
then lean all the harder on the Soviet Union. Roy Medvedev argues:

Without any doubt, foreign news reports provide an important source

of information for the Soviet peopie. Experts calculate that about one
fourth of the aduits in the cities iisten to them, but I think this estimate
is exaggerated: those who iisten regularly, not just from time to time,

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

arc many fewer.47

The lack of popularity and resonance among the Soviet people (especially
the workers) has, as we have seen, made dissidents aware of the impossibility
of mobilizing and recruiting the Soviet people to their cause; almost univer­
sally, dissidents are convinced of the futility of attempting to mobilize
the Soviet people in whom popular support of the regime is rooted. There­
fore, conscious of the considerable interest of the Western capitalist countries
in the Soviet Union —an interest based on hostility to its social, political and
economic organization and the threat that growing Soviet influence
represents to Western capitalism, especially in the less developed countries —
the dissidents attempt to mobilize them in support of their goals. The
traditionalist right, such as Solzhenitsyn explicitly endeavours to undermine
the legitimacy of socialism, strengthen its enemies, hinder its spread, and
strengthen the military might of the US and NATO. The liberals, by
encouraging Western governments (especially the US) to restrict trade, cul­
tural and scientific contacts, nuclear disarmament, etc., attempt to pressure
the Soviets into conceding their dissident demands for liberalization. While
the left, by appealing to foreign Communists and progressive intellectuals to
exert pressure through their contacts and media, hope to harness the Soviet
desire for smooth relations with leftist forces around the world to their
cause. This latter course has proved to be effective only in respect to the
reformist oriented Euro-Communist, and, to a lesser extent, the Albanian and
Chinese oriented Parties, and similarly oriented leftist intellectuals who
are equally likely to support the appeals of such liberals as Sakharov, as they
have been of Marxists such as Grigorenko.
According to Roy Medvedev:

Many dissidents, aware of the limited effect they themselves have had
and the absence of any mass movement favouring reform, place their
hopes on outside pressure, by which we mean not only the pressure of
Western public opinion but also pressure from various government
institutions, for example, the US Congress and the White House.48

Knowing that there is considerable anti-Communist sentiment in the West,

the dissidents have, for the most part, elected to feed to it the information
it wants to hear about the Soviet Union. Statements by an individual in the
Soviet Union can easily become headlines in the world press or exert
considerable influence in the US Congress because of the attention afforded
to them by anti-Communist sources. The influence o f the small number of
dissidents in the USSR is thus magnified out of all proportion to their
numbers or support in the Soviet Union.
The more leftist of Soviet dissidents, such as Roy Medvedev, oppose the
appeals of liberal and reactionary dissidents to the West, which are designed
to undermine detente. In criticizing dissidents such as Sakharov, he has
argued:

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Calls are made for an end to trade between the West and the USSR, for
boycotting all forms of scientific and cultural exchange, and for non*
participation in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Some Soviet émigrés,
along with certain Western politicians, have even suggested suspension
of the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT)'
To accept these proposals would be to open a new round in the Cold
War between East and West, which would do appreciable harm not
only to the East, but to the West as well, and would lead to results
directly opposite to those intended.49

Sanctions against Dissidents

As Soviet society became increasingly stable, legitimate and secure in the
mid-1950s, there was a radical decrease in coercion as an instrument for
dealing with dissidence. There has been a corresponding increase in the use
of persuasion together with a long-term growth in tolerance of divergence
viewpoints.50 Furthermore, crimes are fairly well defined, and typically,
many warnings are given before prosecution for dissident activities, and pen­
alties are fairly well graded according to the offence. Dissidents thus know
reasonably well what will be the consequences o f their activities.51
While, prior to the criminal law reform in the i950s, many forms of
oppositional activity (‘counter revolutionary activities’) were punishable by
death, such draconian penal practices were abandoned in the mid-1950s.
At that time, too, there was a drastic reduction in the use of labour camps
and other forms of detainment and police harassment.52 Article 3 of the
i 960 Russian Republican Criminal Code provides that no person could be
punished unless they committed a crime in law.53 Since the i950s - contrary
to what often happened in the 1930s and 1940s —such legal provisions
have been fairly strictly adhered to in practice.
Article 70 of the i960 Criminal Code of the Russian Republic which
prohibits ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’, has been one of the
principle articles under which dissidents have been arrested and sentenced.
In 1966, a further article was added to the Legal Code which, unlike Article
70, did not assume subversive intent, but merely deliberate propagation of
slanders against the Soviet system. Since i% 6 this Article has also been
widely invoked against dissidents. Amnesty International has found that in
the late 1970s there were fewer prosecutions under ‘the anti-Soviet agitation
and propaganda' statute, and more under the less stringent statute against
‘dissemination o f fabrications known to be false which defame the Soviet
state and social system'.54
Soviet practice is to warn those who engage in dissident activities a
number of times before bringing criminal charges against them. To quote
Hough and Fainsod:

In practice, the post-Stalin regimes generally have instituted legal

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proceedings only as a last resort, preferring to use a number of lesser

penalties as warnings.
Dissidents report repeated visits by the police before any action is
taken, visits in which the agents attempt to persuade them that they
are mistaken and that their speech has unhealthy consequences.
If the warnings are not heeded, the sanctions can be progressively
tightened; first, denial of permission to travel abroad, reduced size in
the edition of a book or postponement of its publication, loss of an
administrative post or the possibility of one; then rejection of manu-
scripts, secret police searches of apartments. If the dissident abandons
his political activity, he generally is permitted to resume a normal
life.*5

There are a wide range of sanctions against dissident activists, of which

only the most harsh is actual imprisonment in labour camps. In the 1960s
and 1970s about 15 dissidents a year were judged to be insane (schizophren­
ics) and committed, usually for relatively short terms, to mental institutions.
From time to time prominent dissidents like Solzhenitsyn are either
expelled from the country or deprived of citizenship and the right to return
when abroad. People in highly paid and high prestige professional jobs and
other positions of responsibility (officers in the military, chairman of
collective farms, research scientists with military clearance, etc.) are some­
times deprived of their professional positions and required to take jobs as
menial labourers.56 Roy Medvedev has argued:

As a rule Soviet dissidents are not allowed to pursue their intellectual

profession, but they can work as simple labourers or clerics or ordinary
assistants in the sciences. Some are offered jobs in libraries or archives
of secondary im portance... .
They have a rough time, of course. Some of them work privately at
bookbinding, restoring furniture, doing things like that. .. . But we
must remember one thing: that in my country everything of prime
necessity, like housing, transportation, bread, milk, and so forth is
extremely cheap. And that’s an advantage not to be under-estimated.57

Dissidents, like all Soviet citizens, are subject to the ‘anti-social parasite’
laws which forbid making a living from such activities as collecting rents,
profits, blackmarketing, etc. Thus, dissident ex-professionals in secure jobs
are immune from prosecution under this legislation since they are working.
Some dissidents, however, refuse to take regular employment and, as a result,
have been tried and sentenced to a year in a labour camp under the social
parasite laws.58 However, some dissidents without regular employment live
from money sent from the West by friends and relatives, and foreign book
royalties (e.g. Roy Medvedev) and are not prosecuted under such laws.59
University students who engage in dissident activities are liable to expulsion
and consequently exclusion from privileged, professional careers.

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Other sanctions, more common than incarceration or loss of professional

jobs, include expulsion from the Communist Party, expulsion from one’s
professional union (with the subsequent loss of fringe benefits, but not
deprivation o f the right to practise one’s profession), search of homes, seizure
o f personal papers and books, police interrogation, surveillance of telephones
and mail, warnings from the government, and public attacks in the media as
well as personal abuse by neighbours and work-mates.00 Such relatively mild
sanctions, together with measures to tighten party discipline, mobilize party
members and supporters, tighten control over professional unions, and
intensify political education),61 have proved to be rather effective in limiting
the size of the dissident movement.*
The corrective labour camps for political prisoners received considerable
notoriety owing to their generally brutal conditions during 1937-53, a
period o f exceptional crisis and paranoia as well as of desperate need for
economic construction and reconstruction. It must be emphasized that the
harsh regimes in these camps, from which many political opponents o f the
regime never returned, was unique to that period. Conditions were consider­
ably more humane in the pre-1937 period and became so once again in the
post-1953 era. Solzhenitsyn’s influential exposés (which considerably
exaggerate the very real abuses and brutalities of this period) are historically
specific.
Sentencing political dissidents to corrective labour camps is regarded as a
process of re-education and therapy, rather than as punishment, similar to
the process of sending cadres to work on communes during the Chinese
Cultural Revolution. The regime in the re-educative labour camps is actually
less rigorous than in criminal prisons. Corrective labour camp inmates who
violate regulations can be sent for a year or two to a regular criminal prison
(where the inmates do not work) as punishment. Zhores Medvedev states
that:
The locations and conditions of the camps have altered greatly in the
past twenty-five years.. . . Today, many of these camps in the Far
North have disappeared: the Siberian camps are generally reserved for
repeated professional criminals who are regarded as very dangerous -
organizers of armed robberies, for example. For ordinary crimes or
political offences, people are sent to camps in their local regions.. ..
They are organized around one or other industrial complex, and
perform economic functions. . .. The prisoners work there as labourers.
Technically, they receive a wage, from which is deducted the cost of
the upkeep of their guards, so that the system is economically self-
sufficient. .. . There is no longer widespread hunger in them; but food

• It should be noted that the same sanctions were successfully applied by the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation in the late 1940s and early 1950s to virtually extinguish the
pro-Soviet ‘dissident movement* in the USA (see chapter 6).

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rations are not generous and can be reduced in the isolators within
the camps for violation of discipline.62

Dissidents are also often sentenced to internal exile, which normally

means living and working in a peasant village, or a state or collective farm for
a set period. There is little physical maltreatment of prisoners in the USSR.
In its 1974 Report on Torture, Amnesty International noted:

Though prison conditions and the rights of the prisoners detained on

political charges in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union may still be
in many cases unsatisfactory, torture as a government-sanctioned,
Stalinist practice has ceased. With a few exceptions . . . no reports on
the use of torture in Eastern Europe have been reaching the outside
world in the past decade.63

Throughout the 1970s the Soviet government increasingly employed

exile from the USSR (both voluntary and forced emigration) instead of
incarceration, as a punishment for dissidents. About half of the prominent
dissidents of the 1960s were either allowed or forced to emigrate in the
1970s. According to Zhores Medvedev (who himself was forced to emigrate
to the United Kingdom), \ . . some 400-500 politically active people have
left Russia. Today more or less any dissident can emigrate if they want.
» 64

Dissidents Categorized as Schizophrenic

In the mid-1950s there was an intense debate within Soviet psychiatric
circles regarding the definition of schizophrenia. The result of this debate
was the triumph of an expanded definition, defended by Professor Andrei
Snezhnevsky* and other leading Societ psychiatrists, including Dr Georgy
Morozov, Professor Ruben Nadzharov and Professor Daniel Lunts. This
expanded concept has permitted certain forms of dissent to be viewed as a
symptom of severe mental illness, and some dissidents, considered not to be
morally responsible for their actions, thus committed to mental
institutions.65
According to the hegemonic Soviet conception, schizophrenia has three
different forms, of which one, the ‘continuous form*, accounts for 25-30%
of all schizophrenias diagnosed. ‘Continuous* schizophrenia is characterized
as follows: first, subtle personality changes occur —withdrawal, apathy and
diminished interests; next follows the development of psychotic (or
‘positive*) symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations. The continuous

* Director of the Institute of Psychiatry of the Academy of Medical Sciences and editor
of the Korsakov Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry during the 1970s.

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form of schizophrenia has two sub-types defined by the rate of progression

of the disease : (1) malignant (rapid) and (2) mild (sluggish). Symptoms in
the malignant form are obvious and severe. In the mild form, patients retain
much of their ability to function in society, but manifest neurotic-type
symptoms, with such features as obsessions, hypochondria, hysterical
psychopathy and paranoia. Those dissidents categorized as insane and
committed to mental institutions are normally diagnosed as having the
’sluggish* variety of continuous schizophrenia, in which the disease is
typically manifested in paranoid symptoms of over-evaluation of one’s own
importance, often exhibiting grandiose ideas of reforming the world.61
Common in commitment reports are phrases such as ’paranoid reformist
delusional ideas’, ’paranoid delusions of reforming society*, ‘over-estimation
of his own personality*, ‘over-inflation of his capabilities*.67
A single psychiatrist can initiate civil commitment proceedings against a
person suspected of mental illness. Once an individual is admitted to a psy­
chiatric institution he or she must be examined by a three-member panel of
psychiatrists within 24 hours; this panel is responsible for deciding on the
appropriateness of commitment and the need for compulsory treatment. In
the case of dissidents who have violated Soviet laws, the evaluations of
expert psychiatrists are subject to judicial review.
Dissidents who are declared to be not responsible for their actions are
typically committed for an indefinite period of compulsory treatment at a
mental institution. In recent years periods of commitment have tended to be
relatively short. Patients in a psychiatric hospital are examined at six-month
intervals by a commission of psychiatrists who report to the courts. Upon
release from the hospital, patients are required to register at their local
psychiatric clinic and to be supervised on an out-patient basis. After release,
depending on the degree to which the psychiatrists, in consultation with the
police, think the dissident remains a ‘social danger*, he/she may be subject
to police surveillance. Sometimes, released dissidents who are regarded as
‘socially dangerous* may be temporarily recommitted for a few weeks, or
required to travel out of town on major holidays or during visits by foreign
statesmen.68
The Soviet categorization of relatively few dissidents as mentally ill owing
to their strong and active opposition to Soviet institutions, would appear to
be an example of the general phenomena emphasized by Thomas Szasz in
his influential book, The Myth o f Mental Illness (1961). Szasz suggests that
the diagnosis of ‘mental illness* by Western upper middle-class psychiatrists
in people o f very different class and ethnic backgrounds reflects more the
lack of understanding of such people than any actual mental disorder. Thus
we would expect that wherever there is a high level of consensus or very
strong feelings about what is ‘proper* or ‘true* the ability to understand
people who fundamentally disagree is reduced, and hence the likelihood of
dismissing them as ‘crazy* is enhanced.
Indeed, in times when, and in circles where US patriotism is very high,
those who reject such values and sympathize with Communism or other

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‘deviant9 movements have also been regarded as ‘crazy9. US pilots in the

Indo-China War who refused to fly bombing missions because of their
political objections to the indiscriminate devastation they were causing were
committed to mental institutions. One such case involved Charles Clements
who, in April 1970, told his superior officers that he would fly no more
missions. Failing to convince him that he should resume his flights, they had
him confined to a psychiatric hospital for several months, and eventually
gave him a psychiatric-based discharge.* It is interesting to note that after
his discharge Cements earned degrees as a doctor o f medicine and a master
in public health. In 1982 Cements (as apparent further evidence of his
’insanity9) spent a year as a doctor serving with the guerrillas in El Salvador.69

Numbers of Dissidents Confined

Both the few dissidents and the relatively high degree o f tolerance of
dissident activity in the Soviet Union is manifested in the small number of
people who, in the last two decades (that is, since reliable information on the
total numbers of detainees has become readily available in the West) have
been detained for any form for dissident activities. Maximum estimates of
political prisoners in the USSR supplied by dissident sources and endorsed
by anti-Soviet opinion in the West in the late 1970s ranged from about
2,000 to 10,000. Counts o f those confirmed to be political prisoners
(broadly defined) average around Amnesty International’s figure o f350-400.
In 1978 Amnesty International, which gives disproportionate and minute
attention to dissidents of all types in the Soviet Union had 350 individuals
either adopted as ‘political prisoners’ or under investigation. This total
includes inmates of mental institutions, those sentenced to exile, and those
undergoing corrective labour without imprisonment.w In April 1980
Amnesty International stated that in the previous four years the Soviets had
imprisoned or restricted more than 400 dissidents (including at least 100
in psychiatric hospitals).71
According to Bloch, a careful analyst deeply sympathetic to the dissidents,
between 1962 and 1977 a total of approximately 600 individuals (about 40
a year) were sentenced to labour camps for one or another type of dissident
activity. Bloch’s total includes not only ’political9dissidents, but also those
confined for nationalist agitation and active religious propaganda, and for
organizing in support of easier emigration and for trying to emigrate
illegally. According to Hough and Fainsod, ’All in all, according to the
most careful Western estimate, approximately 670 persons were sentenced

* Explaining why he accepted the psychiatric-based discharge. Dements stated: *1 took

the craziness they were labelling me with rather than the craziness of that war. The real
crazy thing was that I was very loyal.9 {New York Times, 16 March 1983).

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on political grounds between 1960 and 1971.’73 The US Congress

Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe (which monitors com­
pliance with the 1975 Helsinki accords) reported that approximately 560
dissidents were arrested between June 1975 and 1 May 1980 (about 110 a
year).74
According to Yelena Bonner (wife of Andrei Sakharov) in 1981 there were
approximately 400 political prisoners (broadly defined) in the USSR. Accord­
ing to Bonner, these consisted of 200 'religious dissidents’, 110 'nationalists
or persons arrested for asking to emigrate’ and 90 'human rights dissidents’.75
Estimates o f the number of those confined for political reasons some­
times range as high as 10,000. Such figures are not, however, based on actual
counts or careful projections as are the figures reported above. For example
the CIA guess as to the number of ‘political prisoners’ in the USSR is
10,000 people.76
Probably the actual number of political prisoners is somewhat greater
than either the Amnesty International, Bonner or Bloch’s counts, since
although these are based on a reasonably extensive network of dissident
sympathizers who monitor trials and places of internment and have wide
contacts among political dissidents, they probably miss out some people,
especially isolated individuals tried in small towns or sentenced to smaller,
more obscure prisons or labour camps. Conversely, the 10,000 estimate by
anti-Soviet groups with an interest in exaggerating the extent of political
repression must be generally discounted, especially as it is a self-admittedly
unsubstantiated guess, not based on analytical projections from known
cases. Possibly a reasonable estimate of the number of political detentions
in the 1975 to 1980 period is likely to be something less than 150 a year,
and, in 1980, the number of confined political prisoners (broadly defined)
is approximately 500. Both these figures are liberal estimates, and include the
broadest possible definition both of political prisoners (those sentenced under
Articles 70 and 190-1 o f the Criminal Code, plus those sentenced for
religious propaganda, those arrested while trying to illegally emigrate, etc.),
and prisoners (those in labour camps, actual prisons, exile, under house
arrest, etc.).
Between 1962 and 1967, approximately 210 individuals (around 15 a
year) were known to have been confined in mental institutions, having been
adjudged as legally schizophrenic owing to dissident activities (broadly
defined). Approximately 115 of these were confined for 'political’ reasons,
being general protesters. The remainder were committed because of
nationalist-separatist agitation, religious agitation, or campaigning for, or
actually attempting to, illegally emigrate.77

Political Tendencies of Dissident Activists

Three fundamentally different tendencies may be identified among political
dissident activists in the USSR. (1) the authoritarian and traditionalist right.

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who reject both Communism and Western parliamentary forms in favour of

¿restoration of something approaching Czarist authoritarian institutions
purged of Western ‘cosmopolitan’ influences of either the Marxist or liberal
varieties; (2) the non-Marxist social democrats or ‘liberals’ who campaign
for the development o f Western-style political institutions and formal
liberties; and (3) Marxists (both revolutionary and Euro-Communists) who
maintain that current Soviet policies are a distortion of true socialism. This
latter group is the weakest and in good part has converged with the liberals;
most prominent dissidents subscribe to one or other o f the first two. Given
the isolation from the masses of the Soviet people of all three types of
dissidents, their small number, and their common interest in protecting each
other and securing support in the West, they frequently collaborate with
each other, despite their different visions of the desirable future course of
Soviet society, at least in so far as supporting the rights of each to exist, and
minimizing state interference in their activities.

The Liberals
Liberals tend to envisage a convergence of Western parliamentary capitalism
and Soviet socialism toward a parliamentary social democracy through a more
or less gradual process of evolution (that is, without an armed overthrow of
the Soviet state). They are committed to the development of a political
pluralist system without restraints on formal freedoms of expression and
organization, a system which operates according to the established traditions
of the ’rule of law’.78 They also champion the rights of religious groups to
greater autonomy and freedom to proselytize, the rights of Jews and others
to freely emigrate, and the rights of minority nationalities, such as the
Crimean Tartars, to return en masse to the Crimea. They were abo highly
critical of Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. But perhaps their central
focus is on securing and broadening formal freedoms within the Soviet
Union.
In the late 1970s, the most prominent dissident in the Soviet Union was
a leading nuclear physicist, Andrei Sakharov. Like Solzhenitsyn he has
never been imprisoned for his long term and multifaceted dissident activities,
although he was exiled to Gorky in 1980. A member o f the USSR Academy
of Sciences, who played a key role in the development of Soviet nuclear
weapons, Sakharov became the leading liberal spokesman in the 1970s.
While remaining a liberal, and thus not sharing the traditionalist authori­
tarian analysis o f such rightists as Solzhenitsyn, over the years Sakharov has
moved to the right. After 1968 he came to reject socialism, even as an ideal,
and since 1973 has focused increasingly on attacking detente.
In August 1973 (on the fifth anniversary of the Soviet intervention in
Czechoslovakia) Sakharov held a press conference in Moscow for Western
reporters to denounce detente between the USSR and the USA as under­
mining the rights of dissidents in the Soviet Union. His statement to the
Western press read in part:

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Détente without democratization, détente in which the West in effect

accepts the Soviet rules of the game, would be dangerous. It would not
really solve any of the world’s problems and would simply mean
capitulating in the face of real or exaggerated Soviet power. It would
mean trading with the Soviet Union, buying its gas and oil, while ignore
ing all other aspects.79

Sakharov went on to support the 'Jackson Amendment’ which makes

relaxation of US-USSR trade conditional on allowing free emigration from
the Soviet Union. At the 1973 press conference he argued that such a step
by the US looks like a minimum step, which is important not only by itself,
but as a symbol of the fact that detente with the Soviet Union does not
preclude some kind of control on this country so that it could not become a
danger for its neighbours*.80
In February 1973, Sakharov was publicly criticized in an article in Lieront
Gazeta, an important Soviet paper, which attacked him for his views;81
following his August 1973 statement to the Western press, however, he came
under much heavier criticism in the Soviet media. The world-wide attention
his statement received, and the Soviet press campaign against him, resulted in
Sakharov granting numerous telephone Interviews to the Western media and
Western correspondents.82
In the late 1970s, just before his enforced exile to Gorky, Sakharov
publicly supported the US in the Vietnam War, arguing that they could have
done more to defeat the National Liberation Movement in that country:

I believe that with greater determination and persistence on the part

of America in the military and especially the political sphere tragic
developments could have been avoided. Political pressure could have
been put on the USSR not to supply arms to North Vietnam, a strong
expeditionary force could have been sent there at the right time, the
UN could have been brought in, more effective economic aid could
have been made available and other Asian and European countries
could have been involved; all these things could have so influenced
events as to avert the war with its horrific consequences for both sides.
. .. But even when the war had reached a state of deadlock, a combin­
ation of diplomatic and determined military effort, if explained to the
American people and the rest of the world, could have stabilised the
situation.83

Unabashedly pro-American attitudes are common among liberal

dissidents. For example, Anatoly Radygin, a leading emigre, when asked how
he saw his future, answered:

1 picture it in America. I’ve always felt myself an American. I’m glad 1

went to Israel first. Had 1 not done that 1 would have never forgiven
myself that 1 wasn’t there during the Yom Kippur war. 1 had to come

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here to find out where I really belong. When I was trying to escape I
was thinking of eventually reaching the States. My ideal is still the
American tolerance, the American Constitution, and that is why I,
an atheist and a hater of all slogans, began and ended each day in prison
with a prayer, ’America, God bless thee from ocean to ocean*.84

Hie Traditionalist Right

The dissident right, the most prominent individual representative of which,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (who was expelled from the USSR in 1974),
advocates the revival of traditional Russian institutions and the purging of
both socialist and Western influence from Russian society. For the most part
it bemoans the secularization that has occurred in European society since the
Renaissance and seeks the reconstitution of a new, ascetic, religious civil*
ization governed by a corporate state and inspired by social Christian
ideology, probably through a Russian Orthodox renaissance. Russian
Orthodoxy is generally seen as the instrument for the resurrection of the
world, while Russia is seen as having the mission of world salvation. This
chauvinist Russian position advocates the destruction of the USSR and the
creation of an authoritarian unitary state.65
As do most of the traditionalist rightists, Solzhenitsyn speaks of the ‘many
sided cul-de-sac of Western civilization’, o f ’the ruinous path of Western
civilization’.86 By no means does he hope for or advocate either an adoption
of Western parliamentary democratic forms or a convergence between the
two systems. His model is a traditional authoritarian regime of the right,
‘enlightened authoritarianism’ in contrast to ’Communist despotism’. In his
letter to the Soviet leaders he argues, ’Thus, perhaps we should recognize
that for Russia this path [the struggle against authoritarianism] was mistaken
and premature? Perhaps, in the foreseeable future, whether we want that or
not, Russia is nevertheless destined to have an authoritarian system? Perhaps
it is only ready for this?*87
Economic, scientific and technical progress made by humankind in the
19th and 20th Centuries is regarded by Solzhenitsyn as ’an insane, ill-con­
sidered, furious dash into a blind alley’. He adds that ‘Economic growth is
not only unnecessary but ruinous’.88
Solzhenitsyn’s politics are those of the extreme right in the West. He is
opposed to detente, to wars of national liberation, to multiparty parliamen­
tary forms. He advocates an active and aggressive Western offensive against
the Soviet Union and the abandonment of detente. He criticizes Western
liberals for their ‘evenhandedness’ in condemning both the Greek military
dictatorship and other rightist anti-Communist military regimes and Soviet
leaders, as if the crimes of anti-Communists were of the same magnitude as
those of Soviet leaders. He argues that anti-Communist authoritarianism is
necessary to contain Communism.89 He also strongly criticizes the
‘avaricious leaders’ of non-aligned nations, and the ‘apologists for bloody
“ national liberation wars’” for not understanding the dangers o f
Communism.90

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Marxist and Woiking-Gass Dissidents

Only a relatively small handful of prominent dissidents in the last generation
have argued from a more or less revolutionary Marxist perspective against
what they saw as the Communist Party’s deviation from correct socialist
policies. The most famous of these has been General Peter Grigorenko;
well known, too, have been Ivan Yakhimovich (a former collective farm
chairman) and Aleksei Kosterin (a writer).91 There is also some evidence
that leftist circles were formed in a few cities, for example in Ryazan, Saratov
and Gorky. Fragmentary evidence describes these groups as reading, and
basing themselves on Lenin’s State and Revolution 92 None of these, however,
seem to have maintained their leftist critique for very long.
In late 1977, a group of 43 workers from different regions and industries
announced the formation of an independent ‘trade union’ dedicated to
protesting against violations of their rights to the Western press. The
announcement to the Western press that such a group existed resulted in
considerable publicity in the West because a group of working-class dissidents,
rather than o f members of the intelligentsia, was unique. But the highly
scattered geographical basis of the group, together with their smallness,
suggests that the characterization of themselves as a labour union’ was
designed to appeal to Western sympathies and gather support from outside
the Soviet Union. As a result of the adverse, world wide reaction their press
conference brought upon the Soviet Union, four of their leaders were arrested
and temporarily confined to psychiatric hospitals for examination; three
were released after a few days; and another sentenced to one year in a labour
camp for ‘social parasitism’.93
The basic document o f the Free Trade Union Association of Workers in
the Soviet Union is their Charter, which was published in the West for the
first time in the AFLCIO Free Trade Union News. It reads very much as if
specifically designed for Western ears and contains no mention of socialism.
Thus, this group must be categorized with the liberals. Article 9 of the
Charter’ which defines the purposes of the association reads in its entirety :

a. to carry out the obligations reached by collective bargaining;

b. to induce workers and other employees into joining free trade
union associations;
c. to carry out those decisions of the Association which concern the
defence of rights and the seeking of justice;
d to educate Association members in the spirit of irreconcilability
toward deficiencies, bureaucracy, deception, inefficiency and
wastefulness, and a negligent attitude to national wealth.94

The Charter defines membership as ‘open to any worker or employee

whose rights and interests have been unlawfully violated by administrative
governmental, Party or judicial agencies’; a definition that makes clear that
this association is not a trade union designed to deal collectively with manage­
ment but a ‘human rights’ organization designed to protest against alleged

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violation of 4rights and interests4. The concluding Article of the charter

clearly indicates that this association was formed primarily to appeal to the
West« rather than to the organization of Soviet workers:

As soon as the Free Trade Union Association of workers in the Soviet

Union will be recognized by the International Labor Organization or
by professional trade unions of foreign countries« and after it will have
received moral and material support« it will review its Charter« keeping
in mind the specific conditions of workers in our country. Such a
review will be conducted not earlier than one year after the Associa­
tion^ founding.95

To summarize: contrary to prevailing popular opinion in the West« there

is, in the Soviet Union« a considerable range of publicly expressed opinions
on almost all questions which affect society. Divergent opinions are not only
tolerated but actively encouraged by the Party« government and media.
Dissident activity is defined in terms of public attacks on the socialist found­
ations of Soviet society« and generally repressed only when such public
attacks are conveyed to the West for use as anti-Communist propaganda. The
dissident movement in the late 1970s was very small« at most a few thousand«
almost all professional people. Because o f the hegemony of Soviet ideology
in the Soviet Union (that is, the legitimacy of its socialist institutions)«
especially among the working people« the dissidents receive a cold response
within the USSR. Their appeal is consciously directed to the West« mostly
to anti-Socialist forces who not only broadcast their statements back to the
Soviet Union but« more importantly« use them in their general campaign
against the Soviet Union and the expansion of socialism. The majority of
active dissidents appear to have no qualms about the use o f their activities to
undermine SALT« detente« national liberation movements in Indo-China«
Africa or Latin America« cultural and scientific exchange between socialist
and capitalist countries, the credibility of the socialist alternative in the
West« etc.« because they are not socialists and have rejected the Communist
ideal. Further« the repression of the active dissidents who feed the anti-
Socialist forces in the West with information they want to hear is relatively
even-handed - even gentle by comparative and historical standards.
In short« it appears that the attention given by the West to the repression
of 4human rights4 in the USSR is out of all proportion to what is actually
occurring there. This suggests that the immense publicity the dissident
movement receives in the West must have other causes.

Comparisons with the USA

Close parallels exist between restrictions on formal civil liberties in the US

during those periods in which there was a challenge to its hegemonic
institutions, and the restrictions on civil liberties in the Soviet Union in the

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 Toleration and Repression in the Soviet Union (1965-82)

last generation. Both societies have deported those whom It considers

undesirables, and both restrict the entry of foreigners considered to be
undesirable, and the right of its citizens to travel overseas, although emi­
gration from the USSR has been more restricted than it has in the US. Both
societies have employed police harassment, surveillance, seizure o f books,
etc., against dissidents. There appears to be no significant difference in
this regard between the US response to the Red Scare periods of 1917-23
and 1947-56 and the response to dissident activity in the Soviet Union
since the 1950s. Both societies have restricted the circulation of published
works and the expression o f subversive ideas in the mass media. The ban on
the expression of leftist ideas in American radio, television, films, mass news*
papers, etc. in the 1950s was as thorough as the suppression of anti-socialist
ideas in the Soviet Union. On the whole, it appears that the level of
repression in the Soviet Union in the 1955 to 1980 period was at approxi­
mately the same level as in the US during the McCarthy years (1947-56).
Cycles of suppression of civil liberties have occurred throughout US
history, corresponding to periods when the dominant institutions, namely,
the state and the property of the upper class, have been challenged. When
neither of these institutions was specifically endangered, but when
mobilization for external wars was considered necessary, civil liberties were
also repressed. Usually, a combination of both these factors has precipi­
tated periods o f the most intense repression of civil liberties in US history.
Growing repression o f the working-class left, which culminated in its
virtual destruction during 1917-23, was a rational response of the upper
class, and the US state that it dominated, to contain what could have become
(as it did in most of the rest of the Western world) a real threat to private
property in the means of production. The need to mobilize the American
people behind a ‘Crusade against Communism’ in order to stop the rapid
advance o f world revolution that occurred in the wake of World War II was
determinant. Domestic Communists had to be scapegoated, in much the same
way that Jews were traditionally scapegoated in central Europe, in order to
mobilize support for the upper class and its wars and interventions. It be­
came ‘un-American’ to oppose higher taxes for the military, or the draft,
or US foreign policies.
The periodic Red Scares in the US over the last 100 years have served to
effectively increase the identification of the American people with the
traditional capitalist values o f free enterprise and individual mobility, as well
as to discredit all forms of socialism and even progressivism as ‘un-American’.
Socialism has been identified as a ‘foreign plot’ and identified with the
‘horrors’ of the Soviet Union. Thus, the legitimacy of the domination of
corporate property has been considerably enhanced concomitantly with the
popular discrediting o f fairly widespread anti-capitalist sentiments among
both farmers and working people in the US. The suppression of the civil
liberties o f Communists, Socialists, and ‘Wobblies’ has thus proved to be a
most rational course of action on the part of the US ruling class.
Both the Soviet Union and the US have most strongly repressed those who

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have identified with the other. In both cases. Identification with the fore­
most foreign opponent seems to provoke outrage rooted in a sense of
violation o f the patriotic cause, as well as being invoked to mobilize people
behind the ‘national interest’.

Notes

1. Rotberg, 1972, pp. 140, 171.

2. Ibid., p. 328.
3. Saunders, 1974, p. 39;Tokes, 1975, p. 12.
4. Tokes, 1975, pp. 22-25.
5. R. Medvedev, 1980, p. 68.
6. Ibid., pp. 137, 147.
7. Z. Medvedev, 1981, p. viii.
8. Skilling, 1971.
9. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, pp. 287-91.
10. Ibid., p.289.
11. Ibid., p.287.
12. Kolkowicz, 1971, ch. 5; Osborn, 1970, ch. 4; Simmons, 1971, ch. 8;
Gregory and Stuart, 1974, ch. 10; Sherman, 1969, ch. 11 ; Skilling,
1971; Kelley, 1976; Yanowitch, 1977.
13. Griffiths, 1971.
14. Hopkins, 1970.
15. Osborn, 1970.
16. Z. Medvedev, 1981, p. viii.
17. Hopkins, 1970, pp. 302-11 ; Skilling, 1971, pp. 43-4.
18. Hopkins, 1970, pp. 303-4.
19. Skillings, 1971; Judy, 1971 ; Barry and Berman, 1971.
20. Hopkins, 1970, ch. 1 ; Hough and Fainsod, 1979, pp. 291-4.
21. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, p. 291.
22. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, p. 293.
23. Ibid., p. 293-4.
24. See for example, R. Medvedev, 1980, p. 45 ; and Hough and Fainsod,
1979, p. 281.
25. Bloch, 1977, p. 103.
26. Ibid.
27. Tokes, 1975, pp. 123-4.
28. R. Medvedev, 1980.
29. Tokes, 1975, pp. 40-1.
30. Nove, 1975; White, 1974.
31. R. Medvedev, 1980, p. 51.
32. Z. Medvedev, 1981, pp. viii, ix.
33. Tokes, 1975, p. 131.
34. Kirk, 1975, p. 198.
35. R. Medvedev, 1980, p. 8.
36. Tokes, 1975, p. 125.
37. Ibid., pp. 122-3.
38. Ebenstad, 1981, p. 28.

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 Toleration and Repression in the Soviet Union (1965-82)

39. Tokes, 1975, p. 98; Saunders, 1974, p. 43.

40. White, 1974; Lane, 1976, p. 115.
41. Tokes, 1975, pp. 107-8.
42. Ibid., pp. 266-7.
43. Ibid., pp. 265-6.
44. Ibid., p. 106.
45. Ibid., pp. 106, 109.
46. Ibid., p. 24.
47. R. Medvedev, 1980, p. 11.
48. Ibid., p. 125.
49. Ibid., 1980, pp. 125-6.
50. Tokes, 1975, p. 54.
51. Ibid., pp. 35-6.
52. Ibid., p. 60.
53. Ibid.
54. Amnesty International, 1977, p. 278.
55. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, pp. 281-2.
56. Tokes, 1975, ch. 1.
57. R. Medvedev, 1980, pp. 19, 22.
58. Amnesty International, 1979, p. 240.
59. R. Medvedev, 1980, p. 17.
60. Tokes, 1975, p. 66; R. Medvedev, 1980, pp. 17, 141.
61. Tokes, 1975, p. 62.
62. Z. Medvedev, 1979, p. 22.
63. Cited in Chomsky and Herman, 1979, p. 8.
64. Z. Medvedev, 1979, p. 24.
65. Bloch, 1977, pp. 220-1.
66. Ibid., pp. 246-7.
67. Ibid., p.251.
68. Ibid., pp. 104-5.
69. See the New York Times, 16 March 1983.
70. Amnesty International, 1978, p. 244.
71. New York Times, 30 April 1980, p. 6.
72. Bloch, 1977, p. 274.
73. Hough and Fainsod, 1979, p. 282.
74. New York Times, 12 May 1980.
75. Scherer (ed.), 1982, ch. 9, p. 371.
76. See New York Times, 7 November 1982, p. 3.
77. Bloch, 1977, pp. 248-64; see also Amnesty International, 1978, p. 242.
78. Tokes, 1975, p. 99;Saunders, 1974, p. 413.
79. Tokes, 1975, pp. 386-7.
80. Ibid., p.387.
81. Ibid., pp. 389-90.
82. Ibid., pp. 404-5.
83. A. Sakharov in R. Medvedev, 1981, p. 292.
84. Kirk, 1975, p. 27.
85. Saunders, 1974, p. 425.
86. Yanov, 1978, p. 91.
87. Ibid.
88. Z. Medvedev, 1979, p. 71.

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

89. Tokes, 1975, p. 26.

90. Ibid., p. 25.
91. Saunders, 1974, p. 42.
92. Ibid., p. 415.
93. Amnesty International, 1978, pp. 243-4.
94. Freedom at Issue, No. 47, p. 21.
95. Ibid.
9. Conclusion

The preceding chapters have examined the level of civil rights for national
minorities and women in the USA and the USSR, and the differential level
of economic rights (including both workers* job rights and social and
economic security), and level of formal civil liberties (especially advocacy
rights) in the two countries. In this chapter the results of the preceding
chapters are briefly summarized and their significance drawn out. A general
theory of the level of tolerance/repression in any society is developed and the
class basis of civil liberties elaborated. The systematic uses of ’disinformation*,
regarding the level of rights and freedoms for working people in the socialist
countries, by those forces in the West concerned to discourage the socialist
and national liberation movements will be examined. Finally, the tendencies
in the various types of rights both in the capitalist and socialist countries will
be examined and some speculations made about the future of freedom in
both types of country.

Summary
In Chapter 2 it was seen that the relations between the Asian (and trad*
itionally Islamic) areas of the USSR and the Slavic areas have lost their
former colonial character. Central Asia has rapidly industrialized in the
period of Soviet power and the standard of living of its people raised to
approximate Southern European levels. This contrasts sharply with the acute
differential between the US and Puerto Rico, the colonial character of whose
relationship with the US is manifested in a much lower standard of living.
Similarly, the very rapid economic progress o f Soviet Asian minorities con­
trasts with the slower progress of Blacks and Latins in the American economy.
The vastly improved state of basic industry and consumption is more than
matched by that of social welfare and education, which are on virtually an
equivalent level in both Soviet Europe and Asia. While Soviet Asians have not
yet achieved educational levels on a par with most European nationalities,
the gap is rapidly closing. In strong contrast to the US, where a consistent
policy of Americanization and Anglicalization of language has been applied
to all minorities (indigenous as well as immigrant) the Soviet Union celebrates

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and encourages the development o f the languages and cultures of its diverse
nationalities, channelling considerable funds into subsidizing complete
education systems, books, newspapers and the full range o f cultural forms in
all the basic languages of the Union. Minorities are, as a rule, proportionately
represented in the various political bodies (both Soviets and party bodies)
at all levels within their Republics. The fruits of Soviet nationality policy and
the guarantee of a high level of civil (or national) rights for its Asian peoples
has been manifested in the desuetude of the traditional religious practices of
Islam, the lack o f a dissident movement among the Asian intelligentsia, and
the virtual absence of either anti-Russian, anti-socialist or anti-Soviet feelings
among any segment o f the Asian population. The Soviet achievement in
Central Asia must be ranked among the most important accomplishments of
the regime.
Although there are significant nationalist and dissident movements in
Estonia, Lithuania and among the Jews, as well as popular anti-Russian
feelings in Soviet Georgia, Estonia and Lithuania, ¡Soviet nationality policy
for the European minorities in the USSR has, in general, been very successful.
The Baltic Republics have the highest living standards in the entire country,
and are among the most industrialized and most rapidly industrializing,
while their health care and educational institutions are inferior to none within
the Union. The level of cultural development of most of the European
nationalities, especially those o f the Baltic Republics, the Ukrainians, the
Armenians and the Georgians is very high, with large numbers of books and
newspapers published in all their languages. Further, there are heavily
subsidized all-around cultural activities, which celebrate the local culture both
in the Republics themselves and throughout the Soviet Union. An extensive
examination o f the position of the Jews in the Soviet Union shows that the
Western attempt to colour the Soviet Union as fundamentally anti-Semitic
is baseless. In fact, Soviet Jews were found to be heavily over-represented
in both professional life and the Communist Party. No evidence of official
anti-Semitism and little evidence of popular anti-Semitism was found.
Along with the achievements of the Soviet system in Central Asia, one of
the most prominent achievements of Soviet power has been the rapid and
radical transformation of the position of women in society. From being one
of the most backward in Europe, as well as in Asia, in these regards, Soviet
women are today probably the most advanced of women in any country in
their relative position vis-2-vis men, as well as in the availability of socialized
child care. The wake of the revolution saw the fundamental transformation
of women’s legal status and economic role. The Soviet Union was the first
country to legalize abortions, develop public child care, bring women into
top government jobs, etc. The radical transformation of women’s position
was most pronounced in the traditionally Islamic areas, where an intense
campaign liberated women from extremely repressive conditions. Women’s
level of education through advanced university degrees is approaching that of
men. Women are much more likely to be found in such occupations as
engineering, medicine, physics, and the other natural sciences than is the case

296
in the West; and, although still significantly under-represented, they are
much more likely to be found in administrative positions than they are in
the West. Few women have yet achieved top levels in government or the
Party, but large and growing numbers of women are to be found in lower and
middle level government and Party positions. Considerable progress is being
made in minimizing the time women spend in housework and child care, as
well as in persuading men to share in these tasks. In general, radical improve­
ments in women’s position have taken place, but problems remain, especially
the lack of women in top political positions.
As one would expect from a Socialist revolution, economic rights (both
property and social security rights) for working people have been radically
improved. The economic rights of the Soviet people are impressive by
Western standards (especially in comparison either to countries at a similar
level of economic development or to the USA). The Soviet standard of living
has improved considerably since 1955, in sharp contrast to the US, where
working-class take-home pay declined between 1965 and 1982. Extensive
subsidies for housing, basic food stuffs, child care, and transportation,
together with free education and medicine are major benefits of the Soviet
system for working people. A growing proportion of Soviet consumption is
in the form of 'the social wage’, that is, goods distributed on the basis of
need, rather than on the basis of labour; that is, by the Communist rather
than the Socialist principle of distributive justice. The Soviet retirement and
disability system (especially for non-job related disabilities) is generous by
US standards, especially taking into consideration the heavily subsidized
basics of life.
The strongest contrast between the USA and the USSR is in the area of
job rights. Soviet workers have far greater rights in their jobs: both in their
right to their particular job (the great difficulty of dismissing a worker);
their right to a job in general (freedom from unemployment); and their
increasing rights of participation in enterprise management.
When the anti-Soviet forces in the West attack the Soviet Union the
cutting edge o f their critique is usually on the level o f type III civil liberties
(advocacy and emigration rights). Since it is difficult to deny the consider­
able economic progress, the high level o f civil rights for women and
minorities, and of economic rights for working people, a picture is painted
of a qualitative difference between the ‘Free World’ and 'totalitarian
Communism’ where the individual allegedly has ‘no rights’. A careful com­
parison of the dissident movement in the USSR and its treatment by the
Soviet state (as well as of the vital Soviet public debates on a wide range of
questions) with the level of repression of anti-capitalist forces in the West,
demonstrates that, in fact, there is no qualitative difference between the two
—that is, that the case made in the West that the Soviet Union is qualita­
tively more repressive of civil liberties than is the capitalist world is without
substance. Both the number of dissidents and the number of political
prisoners in the Soviet Union is grossly exaggerated by innuendo, just as the
wide range of publicly expressed ideas and debates in that country is ignored

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

in the West. The dissident movement, and political repression in the USSR
(at least since the mid-1950s) has largely been a creation of the Western
media, rather than an actual phenomenon of any consequence. The level
of political repression/tolerance of publicly declared anti-socialist aims and
ideas in the Soviet Union in the 1970s was roughly equivalent to the level
of political repression/tolerance of anti-capitalist sentiments in the USA in
the early 1950s, and qualitatively repression is less than existed in most of
Latin America in the 1970s.
In summary, the Soviet system is distinguished as especially superior to
that of the West in the areas of civil rights for minorities and women, in
property rights for working people, including participation in economic
decision-making, rights to a job, and rights in a job. Given that the USSR is
still rather poor, its social security system matches that of any major Western
capitalist country, and is clearly superior to that in the US. Concerning
advocacy rights, about which those in the West who oppose the Soviet
system choose to make comparisons, the reality of effective opposition is not
significantly different in the two countries. The high levels of type III civil
liberties in the West in the 1950-80 period were historically exceptional
and reflect a particularly stable and prosperous phase of capitalist develop­
ment, rather than any inherent property of capitalism (that is allegedly
necessarily tolerant, in contrast to socialism which is allegedly inherently
repressive). The intense repression in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and
1940s, far from being an inherent characteristic of socialism, was rather a
result o f the extraordinary crisis in which Soviet society found itself at that
time.
An evaluation of the level of rights in the USSR in terms of the criteria
of the Marxist-Leninist tradition shows that the USSR has made considerable
advances in terms of its own explicitly held theory of right as originally
articulated by Marx, Engels and Lenin. In traditional Marxist-Leninist terms
the Soviet Union is in a fairly advanced state of full socialism, making gradual
progress in the transition to Communism. Although it characterizes its state
as 'a state of the whole people’ this essentially amounts to a 'dictatorship of
the proletariat’ (broadly defined) since the only other classes are the collec­
tive farm peasantry (ever smaller in size, and more like state farm workers in
their conditions), and the intelligentsia (which, officiaiiy, is described as a
stratum of the working class). All productive property of consequence has
been socialized since the mid-1930s. State owned property co-ordinated
through the central plan, and managed, without exploitation, by working
people, encompasses most of the economy. Since the 1930s, the principal
mode of distribution has been according to labour, although the 'social
wage’, consisting of basic services, has been growing as a proportion of all
consumption, while income differences have been shrinking quite radically
(distribution on the basis of need is coming to supplant distribution on the
basis of labour contributed). The administrative and technical division of
labour is being slowly transcended with increasing automation, increasing
skill levels and growing participation in all levels of economic decision making.

298
 The Soviet Union would seem to have achieved the fundamental level of
right laid down in the Marxist classics as characteristic of the socialist stage
of the post-revolutionary process. The basic 'democratic rights* of social
security, education, medical care, the right to work, etc. have long been
established, as have basic civil rights for national minorities and women.
Obviously, private property in the means of socialized production is denied
to individuals, as one would expect in a socialist society. Political partici­
pation, including membership in the single (Communist) Party, is open to
all. The role of formal political participation in decision-making, as well as
the tendency towards decentralization of decision-making, has been
significantly increasing.1 As one would expect from a socialist dictatorship
‘of the Proletariat* (or ‘o f the people*) the rights of public advocacy are
limited to what is considered not to be destructive of the process of tran­
sition to Communism. Basic individual (level 1) liberties, such as the right to
leave one’s job, find a new one, internal migration, free marriage and divorce,
reproductive rights, religious belief, privacy, and so on, are, however, secure.
Further, level 11 liberties o f due process rights have become secure since the
1950s: predictable and fair treatment by the courts and police is now general.
Emigration and international travel have become subject to less restriction as
the accomplishments o f the Soviet regime’s domestic policies, and its high
level o f legitimacy, have resulted in such factors being less potentially harmful
to further Soviet advance; relatively few people actually want to emigrate,
and also the skills of the potential émigrés are not as vital as they were. In
summary, the level of right in the Soviet Union closely approximates the
classical Marxist-Leninist theory of post-revolutionary transformation and
rights projected for a society of the Soviet type. By its own criteria the
Soviet Union has to be considered successful.

State Power and Qvil Liberty

All states are primarily concerned with self-preservation, as are all dominant
propertied classes. These general principles are independent of the mode of
production, nature of the dominant class, or form of government. They apply
equally to feudal, slave, capitalist and socialist societies; to absolute, and to
constitutional monarchies, to military dictatorships, parliamentary democ­
racies, governments based on workers* councils, and party systems, etc. A
state may change its form by peaceful methods (for example, from military
dictatorship to parliamentary institutions) but power is rarely transferred
from one class to another peacefully and never transferred from the
propertied class to the unpropertied class in a peaceful and non-coercive
manner. States, by their very nature, are mechanisms of coercion, existing
primarily to enforce particular forms of socio-political conduct upon their
people; police, prisons and the army are the very core of the state.
That all states, at all times, will concentrate their powers - police and
ideological —upon self-preservation and the preservation of the dominant

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institutions o f property may, in fact, be postulated as a law. To the extent

possible the state will attempt to achieve this goal by engaging the support of
those subject to its authority; and to the extent that persuasion fails to
achieve this end, coercion wiii be applied to prevent its opponents from
attempting to influence others, and to encourage the repression o f such oppo­
nents in order to promote national unity and national mobilization. Those in
power will endeavour to maintain their position by attempting to neutralize
any organizations, individuals and ideologies that threaten their power.
But police power is only one mechanism by which the state controls the
people. The ’ideological State Apparatuses’, that is, institutions such as
schools, patriotic parades, political speeches, military training, the mass
media, the churches, etc., convince, invoke and mobilize the people’s support
of the propertied classes right to property, and hostility towards the enemies
of the propertied dass and the state both in the form of domestic challenges
and foreign interventions and wars. The state that relies primarily on police
repression is weak, while that able primarily to rely on generating national,
patriotic enthusiasm is strong.
Social controls are essential for a society’s survival. A viable society also
needs a sufficient degree of consensus, or mutual tolerance, to facilitate the
co-existence of people and sub-groups in fundamentally constructive ways.
Thus, regardless of their dass nature, all societies must take measures to
control ideas which are seen as potentially powerful forces disruptive of the
harmony necessary for societal survival. Subversive ideas and movements
must be contained below the level of potential threat to social order, in
capitalist societies, this means containing revolutionary socialist ideas and
movements, in socialist societies, pro-capitalist ideas and movements, as well
as other ideologies fundamentally disruptive o f socialist construction must
be contained; this includes suppression of racist,’elitist’ or other anti­
democratic ideas which, especially in the period after a socialist revolution,
can have a most pernicious effect on various social groups (owing to the
legacy o f pre-revolutionary ideology) as well as hinder the process o f socialist
construction. It also means that individualistic, anti-coiiectivist ideologies
which hinder the transformation of human motivation, the project for the
creation o f new, more caring and co-operative people, must be suppressed.
The denial o f public advocacy rights to those opposed to the dominant
system of power and property must be considered as ’a continuation of war
by other means’. Ideological mobilization and the isolation o f ideas and
people that would affect popular mobilization negatively are an essential
part of modern warfare, which, to be effective, requires massive, enthusiastic
participation. Likewise, in the period following civil war or violent revo­
lution, such mobilization and isolation are necessary in order to consolidate
the victories and build a new social order - again, independently o f the
class nature o f society. This applies to the post-French Revolutionary period
and to the post-Russian Revolutionary period equally.
The rules apply both to mobilization for external war and for revolution­
ary (or counter-revolutionary) civil war alike; the interests of military victory

300
require a sufficient degree of popular mobilization, and hence the contain*
ment of opposition. Anything less indicates indecisiveness about the goals
of the war, and increases the chances of defeat. General Westmoreland, the
commander of the US expeditionary force in Vietnam, understood this well.
Westmoreland argued that ’Vietnam was the first war ever fought without
any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the
public mind. Television is an instrument that can paralyze this country.’
According to the New York Times dispatch ’General Westmoreland said that
before the Vietnam War the military censored all news articles from a war
zone so that they could not damage the morale of the troops and the public.’
He went on, according to The Times, to argue: ’The armed forces cannot win
wan without public support and thus should control the news media in
wartime.’2
To show combat troops their opponent’s propaganda films, or to present
to them a purely neutral and objective appraisal of their opponent’s positions,
can only raise doubts about the legitimacy of the cause for which they are
fighting. To present both sides tends to produce more ’tolerant’ people,
people less willing to sacrifice, less convinced, less effective troops, people
less willing to change. Whether this is bad or good must, of course, be judged
on the basis of the relative rightness or wrongness o f the causes in contention.
To have shown Nazi films to US GIs during World War II, resulting in greater
understanding and tolerance for the Nazi cause, or KKK anti-Black films on
US television, resulting in increased racism, would clearly be bad from the
point o f view o f anti-fascism and anti-racism. Conversely, to have shown
Viet Cong films to GIs during the Vietnam War, or films promoting Black-
White solidarity would, from the point o f view of national liberation or anti­
racism be good. Tolerance, then, is historically and class specific and must be
judged according to its effects in retarding or promoting greater substantive
freedom, i.e. the ability of working people to achieve dignity, a decent
standard of living, and control over their lives and environment.
Herbert Marcuse has argued:

Withdrawal of tolerance from regressive movements before they can

become active; intolerance even toward thought, opinion, and word,
and finally, intolerance in the opposite direction, that is, toward
the self-styled conservatives, to the political Right - these anti­
democratic notions respond to the actual development of the demo­
cratic society which has destroyed the basis for universal tolerance.
The conditions under which tolerance can again become a liberating
and humanizing force have still to be created. When tolerance mainly
serves the protection and preservation of a repressive society, when it
serves to neutralize opposition and to render men immune against
other and better forms of life, then tolerance has been perverted.
And when this perversion starts in the mind of the individual, in his
consciousness, his needs, when heteronomous interests occupy him
before he can experience his servitude, then the efforts to counteract

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his dehumanization must begin at the place of entrance, there where

the false consciousness takes form (or rather: is systematically formed)
—it must begin with stopping the words and images which feed this
consciousness.3

Any state, any ruling group, any dominant class, will use coercion, in­
cluding the suppression of basic civil liberties, to the extent that its ideological
hegemony has broken down. Objectively, then, it makes little difference
whether compliance with its interests is achieved by willing subordination or
by force. The mechanisms o f securing ideological hegemony or willing com­
pliance not only accomplish the same purpose as overt repression, but are more
effective in that they do not arouse antagonism, but objectively, they are
repressive nonetheless. To overwhelm socialist, or other anti-system ideas, by
a monopoly of the media, compulsory education, state co-ordinated patriotic
campaigns and religious indoctrination all inculcating pro-system ideology,
can most effectively produce compliance, especially when combined with
isolation, by means of the denial o f basic formal liberties, the active oppon­
ents o f the system, in order to ensure a virtual monopoly of the means of
creating ideology.
All societies and all social groups socialize and pressure their members to
perceive certain things as desirable and impart certain expectations about the
probability and reasonableness o f obtaining them. But freedom could in one
sense be defined as the ability to get what one wants. Freedom of speech to say
publicly whatever one wants; freedom of assembly to gather where and around
whatever issues one wants; freedom of movement to travel wherever one
wants, etc. If society succeeds in convincing us that we want only what it
wants in all these cases, are we then truly more free than an individual who
refuses to comply with social mores —assuming in both instances that to
speak, assemble, etc. is contrary to social edicts. No, in the last instance the
difference must be considered not one of degree of real freedom, but rather
one o f the effectiveness of socialization, social control or ideological hegemony.
If there is formal freedom of expression in any media, but that structural
and ideological constraints result in so few people using this freedom that no
one pays attention and that it has no effect, what kind of freedom is this? If
such freedom was so widely employed and elicited a response such that the
ideological hegemony o f the dominant group were to break down and the
dominant property arrangements were thus threatened, then public advocacy
would be repressed. Thus, the mere existence of formal freedom, which if
employed effectively would be suppressed, cannot be considered as evidence
of real freedom.
To quote Chomsky and Herman:

The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as contrasted

with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate by
subtly establishing on a voluntary basis —aided by the force of nation­
alism and media control by substantial interests - presuppositions

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 Conclusion

that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with a
bludgeon.
The system of brainwashing under freedom, with mass media volun­
tary self-censorship in accord with the larger interests of the state, has
worked brilliantly. The new propaganda line has been established by
endless repetition of the Big Distortions and negligible grant of access
to non-establishment points of view; all rendered more effective by the
illusion of equal access and the free flow of ideas. US dissenters can
produce their Samizdats freely, and stay out of jail, but they do not
reach the general public or the Free Press except on an episodic basis.4

It can well be argued that the existence of formal freedoms, which are
utilized by only an isolated few to challenge the dominant ideology and
institutions, actually contribute to real unfreedom ; that permitting a few
people, who have little or no impact, to speak against the system is, in fact,
more repressive of real freedom than the denial of that formal right. The
existence of a few small newspapers, critical speakers, university professors or
very small leftist parties on the ballot, implies that formal freedom is real,
that people are free to choose, and, they do, in fact, choose freely to accept
the system. The repression of such formal freedom shows that the people are
not free, and that those in power are afraid of critical ideas. To repress
alternative ideas can both make them more attractive and generate sympathy
for them, as well as strengthen the resolve of those who are repressed - if they
feel strongly enough about their ideas. Such ‘repressive tolerance* is an im­
portant mechanism whereby people in the West are convinced that they are
free, and that those in the socialist countries are not. The focus on formal
liberties, rather than on either substantive liberties, or on the degree to which
people actually use, or are permitted to use, their formal freedom, the range
of popular debate or the effect of the exercise of formal freedom, thus comes
to serve the capitalist system, which since around 1950 has been very stable in
the West, and very effective in preserving its ideological hegemony.
Outside the approximately dozen wealthiest countries, however, the
capitalist world cannot afford the luxury o f ‘repressive tolerance*. There the
most brutal suppression of civil liberties is necessary in order to preserve the
capitalist system, just as the most brutal suppression of civil liberties was
necessary in the inter-war period, when the ideological hegemony of capitalist
rule was no longer effective. The correlation between formal civil liberties/
parliamentary forms and capitalism is actually very tenuous. During the 1940-
80 period only eight capitalist countries (Australia, the Republic of Ireland,
Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the
United States) maintained a continuous 40 year period of even formal civil
liberties/parliamentary forms; and in most of these countries, especially during
and after World War ll, there has been significant repression of those who
tried to exercise their rights of advocacy. In addition, four others (Denmark,
Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium) whose formal civil liberties/parliamen­
tary forms were suspended owing to the Nazi invasion, should be included.

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Among more than 100 capitalist societies, these dozen we^thy, socially stable,
advanced capitalist countries alone have experienced even that comparatively
short period in which their people were permitted to exercise formal liberty
o f advocacy. This is clear evidence that the right o f public advocacy in capi­
talist economic formations exists only in the absence of any challenge to
privilege and property that may be effectively facilitated by the exercise of
formal liberties.
In the United States the cycles of tolerance and repression have been
directly correlated to the degree of threat presented by movements against
privilege and property, either because periods of severe economic or foreign
policy crises threatened the hegemony of the capitalist class and/or because
radical movements were growing in strength. Many of the peak periods of
political repression in the US have been coincidental with times when the
working class movement appeared to present a major threat - 1877, 1886,
1894 and 1919 —on each occasion major strikes had called social stability into
question. Others coincided with the need to generate patriotic enthusiasm
for America’s wars: 1775-83; 1861-65; 1917-18; 1940-45; 1950-53; 1968-
71. Generally, the intensity o f repression has largely been a product of the
degree of internal threat and the degree of solidarity that needed to be gener­
ated for war. Thus the periods of strictest repression were during the
Revolutionary and Civü Wars, and the 1917-23 period when the threat of
working class radicalism was the greatest. The intense repression during 1917-
19 was a result of the concomitant need to mobilize for war, and the radical
threat, a coincidence manifested in the absence of identification with the
British-French side in the War by a significant proportion of the US working
class bom in Central and Eastern Europe, a not inconsequential sector sym­
pathetic to the Bolshevik Revolution.
It is instructive to examine the different state responses to radical leftist
and radical rightist movements. Radical rightist movements have been subject
to little or no interference except when they have engaged in overt violence,
while leftist groups have been regularly and systematically repressed merely
for advocacy of ideas. Historically, the US has permitted the activities of
the KKK and other such racist and anti-socialist groups except when they
were directly involved in killing and bombings.* The repression of leftist
opposition to war (the US Revolution aside) has invariably been considerably
harsher than similar rightist opposition. Many Confederate sympathizers
were gaoled in the North during the Civil War, but few, if any, were executed,
and the treatment of the defeated Confederate leaders was exceptionally mild
(one execution) by any historical standards. Likewise, although a few Nazis
were imprisoned during World War 11, German sympathizers were treated very
gently in comparison to the treatment of Soviet sympathizers either in the

* The extent of their suppression even in such instances has, however, normally been
far milder than that applied to such groups as the Black Panthers or the IWW when, in
fact, the evidence for involvement in similarly violent activities was weaker.

304
 Conclusion

1917-23 or 1948-55 periods. This differential treatment of right and left

opponents (with the non-violent right virtually immune to persecution and,
even when prosecuted, treated very mildly) stems from the fact that the radical
right, unlike the radical left, generally shares the politically dominant capitalist
class’s positive evaluation of private property and class inequality, as well as
a negative evaluation o f socialism; it does not then present a systematic threat
to the dominant system o f power and privilege. Thus, a level of violence,
talk of violence, opposition to wars, and so on by the radical right similar to
that engaged in by the radical left, is normally treated either as an ordinary
crime (dealt with on a case by case basis) or, in various degrees, tolerated by
state officials sympathetic to their activities, especially when acts of
terror against the left are involved. Such radical rightist activities, especially
when mobilization for imperialist wars is needed, or working class/minority
left threats need to be neutralized, is positively functional for the goals o f the
state and is often co-ordinated with official state repressive activities; for
example, the activities o f the American Legion during 1919-23. Fascist groups
similarly served the ruling classes o f Germany, Italy and the other European
countries, both immediately after World War 1, and again in the 1930s.

Factors Determining the Level of the Civil Liberty of Public

Advocacy
A considerable number o f factors affect the degree to which public advocacy
of ideas which oppose the dominant system of property and the state are
tolerated or repressed. The two most important of these: (1) the intensity of
the threat to dominant property forms, and (2) the extent of the need to
mobilize the people for war, have already been treated at length. Other basic
factors which affect all forms of societies are: (3) the strength o f the ideo­
logical hegemony of the dominant class, and (4) the depth of feelings of
popular offence at the violation of the symbols o f societal solidarity.
The state is less likely to suppress public advocacy o f ideas that oppose the
system if the vast majority of its people willingly subscribe to the
legitimacy o f the prevailing property system and, thereby, enhance the
security o f the propertied class.
The stronger the sentiments o f group solidarity - that is, patriotism, nation­
alism, socialism, religious feeling, and so on —and the deeper the emotional
response o f a people to the society, then spontaneous anger and outrage is the
more readily aroused in the face o f public expression of opposition to the
fundamental symbols and values of that society. For example, the desecration
o f sacred objects among deeply religious people; the burning of a flag or
substitution o f profane words in a national anthem among deeply patriotic
people; or stamping on a red banner among deeply socialist people, all tend to
evoke the same response of spontaneous anger. Thus at times of the most
deeply felt nationalist, religious, or socialist sentiment, the state is more
likely to outlaw and actively suppress such public expressions of opposition,

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

and further to ban mere verbal advocacy which is popularly regarded as

profane.5 This is so, even if there is little or no threat to the dominant
institutions. In such cases, the state's response can be seen as an overkill - or
even as 'irrational'.
Other factors which are differentially specific to various types of society
include: ( 1) the relative size o f the dominant and dominated groups; (2) the
desire to transform the character and consciousness of a people, in contrast to
merely conserving the status quo; (3) the relative levels of expectations and
skills in a repressed, but formerly dominant group, compared to a new domi­
nant group; and (4) the extent o f reliance on moral incentives and Ideological
mobilization, in contrast to economic incentives and physical coercion.
We would expect, other things being equal, that the smaller the group that
benefits from the operation of a society, and the larger the group that is
potentially mobilizable by a challenge to the prevailing property forms, then
the greater the level of repression of the advocacy rights o f those who attack
the dominant property system. Other things being equal, we would expect
that the level of repression will be greater in capitalist or other societies with
a relatively small dominant group, than in socialist societies where the vast
majority of people benefit from the prevailing property system, and thus the
threat to the dominant system o f property is necessarily less. Accordingly
we find that repression of public advocacy in Latin America, as well as in much
of East Asia in the 1970s, was qualitatively greater than that in the Soviet
Union, Eastern Europe, or Cuba.
We would expect that a dominant group interested merely in conserving
the status quo, and not in transforming people, concerned rather to demobilize
or depoliticize them, in encouraging them to focus on the problems of their
daily life, traditional antagonisms, parochial interests, individualist pursuits
and so on, can thus, other things being equal, allow a greater degree of
tolerance for diverse viewpoints, whose expression, being highly diverse (right,
left and centre) makes systematic change in any direction difficult. On the
other hand, a regime that is intent upon popular mobilization in order to
transform the people, must limit the range of tolerance, in order to ensure the
enthusiasm necessary for transformation. Thus, the Jacobin regime during the
French Revolution was necessarily more repressive than its Monarchist
predecessor, just as the Bolsheviks in the post-revolutionary generation were
necessarily more repressive than their Czarist predecessor. Once there is
popular acceptance of a new consciousness, a new way of relating and new
values, the level of tolerance can increase, but until then, a too wide level of
tolerance can only neutralize and undermine the effort to create a new
consciousness.
Upper- and middle-class groups which, for a considerable time have been
displaced by a popular revolution, continue to have expectations of regaining
their positions o f power and privilege. Further, the average level of thèir
speaking, writing, organizing, etc. skills is much higher than that of average
peasants and workers. Such people, too, have been socialized into the habit of
command and have acquired leadership skills, while peasants and workers have

306
mainly been conditioned for subordinate roles, respect of authority, and so
on. Consequently, by using their superior skills and abilities, a traditional
élite may more easily rule workers and peasants, than can workers and peasants
dominate a former élite. There is, therefore, greater need for stricter repression
by a working people’s state over the old ruling groups and of ideologies which
reflect the interests o f such groups, than for a traditional élite to restrict the
public advocacy of working people and peasants. In classical Marxist termin­
ology a period o f the dictatorship of the proletariat’ is necessary during which
time the previously dominant groups lower their expectations o f a counter­
revolutionary reversal and come to terms with their situation; and, concom­
itantly, the working people acquire leadership skills and confidence in their
ability to rule. Meanwhile, a new generation is raised, in which propensities to
be dominated or to dominate are absent, and which enthusiastically accepts
the basic principles of a democratic and co-operative socialist order.
Societies that employ ideological mobilization or moral incentives, rather
than relying primarily on economic incentives or force, to ensure that
workers produce and the people in general make a positive contribution to
society, will probably need to restrict public challenges to ideological
mobilization more severely than will societies that place less reliance on moral
incentives. The greater the importance of the prevailihgideology to the general
system of social control and motivation, the more important that it shall be
secured and advanced. The less important is Ideological mobilization for a
society, the more tolerant it can be of publicly expressed attacks which under­
mine ideological hegemony. In capitalist societies the fear of unemployment,
the attraction of promotions and pay raises, etc., serve to motivate economic
performance, and fear of the negative consequences often motivate people
to obey the laws. In socialist societies, which guarantee everyone a job, where
pay differentials are less, social security is more advanced, and people are
mobilized in good part to police and administer themselves, economic incen­
tives and physical constraints are less important. Instead, ideological mobil­
ization, the generation o f enthusiasm, what the Cubans call consciencia Is
more central; hence, the fundamental importance of containing threats to the
dominant Ideology.
In addition to the eight social forces that lead to the limiting of advocacy
rights there are also a number of general social forces that lead to the widening
of tolerance. First is the positive jeffect of an exchange of ideas on the develop­
ment o f new, creative and positive solutions to problems facing a society. The
greater the restrictions on advocacy, other things being equal, the more likely
a society is to stagnate and fail to develop original and useful responses to its
problems. The greater the width and depth o f expression the greater the chance
for innovations to be developed. The greater the suppression of ideas, the
greater the intimidation of those who might well have good ideas. The maximal
solution to the problem of encouraging creativity in the development of
positive solutions to social problems, under conditions where significant
restrictions on advocacy are necessary, is to impose broad but clear limits on
what is and what is not considered to be destructive, thereby repressing clearly

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

negative contributions without inhibiting positive diversity. Soviet policy

seems to be aimed at achieving this. But the greater a society’s need for
innovation, the greater is the range o f advocacy rights likely to be practised.
A second general force leading to the expansion of civil liberties is the
legitimating effect of free expression versus the delegitimizing effect of its
denial. Those with divergent opinions who are prohibited from expressing
them publicly may develop resentment against their society that could well
lead to broader and more fundamental opposition. Conversely, those who are
enabled to express themselves freely, even if with little effect, are less likely
to blame the social institutions for their problems and thus are less likely to
become alienated from society. Social stability can be enhanced by allowing
people to ‘let off steam* that otherwise might prove the more socially
dangerous if repressed and thus generate bitterness and resentment; advocacy
rights (as well as emigration) perform a ‘safety valve* function. Other things
being equal, then all societies - to the extent possible - will expand the range
o f permissible opinions, if only to decrease the potential social discontent
consequent upon formal prohibitions on expression.
In the case o f minority ruling class societies this is ‘repressive tolerance’,
the latitude for expression of divergent opinions in order to convince people
that they are really free when they in fact are not. Socialist countries (for
example, China during the Cultural Revolution, or the Soviet Union in the
early 1950s) which prescribed excessively narrow limits on freedom o f
expression —limits subject to sudden change with formerly prohibited
opinions becoming acceptable, and vice versa - are likely to generate popular
disaffection, cynicism and scepticism about the wisdom o f the leaders. A
state is wiser to allow as wide a range of opinions as is compatible with
socialist construction in order to prevent undermining the credibility o f the
system by changes in the Party’s line. Further, to permit the expression of all
ideas, short o f challenging the fundamental postulates o f socialism, encourages
the people’s positive creativity and enables the government (and Party) to be
more responsive to their needs.
A third force leading to the expansion of advocacy rights is the degree o f
structural diversity o f the dominant groups. The more economically diverse
the ruling group, the more necessary is free debate and expression among
them in order for compromises to be worked out, and to create solidarity
and avoid a sense of alienation or oppression within any sub-group. Thus
within class societies, the most developed parliamentary forms and civil liber­
ties for the propertied classes have occurred in commercial societies in general
and in capitalist societies in particular. Ancient Athens, the mediaeval city
states, Holland, England, etc., were the cradles both o f civil liberties and
modem parliamentary forms (for the propertied classes). The modem idea of
formal freedom of assembly, speech, demonstration, writing and religion
(as well as o f emigration) originated in the most commercial of Western
societies. The upper class in such societies was considerably more diverse than
that in feudal or slave societies where the interests o f all members of the
upper class tended to be pretty much the same, thus requiring much less

308
divergent expression and compromise to achieve common policies and maintain
stability. Commercial societies consist ot a wide range ot financiers, industrial­
ists, producers o f raw materials, transport owners, consumer goods capitalists,
etc., each with divergent and partially contradictory interests, each generating
somewhat different ideologies and ideas. Modem Western tolerance, then, is
in good part a product of commercialism (and capitalism), but it is tolerance
within the limits of what a stable commercial dass society requires.
Fourthly, the free expression of opinions provides those in power élite
or decision-making positions in any society important information about
social conditions, especially discontent among the masses of people, inform­
ation which is largely denied to them to the extent that free expression is
repressed. Thus, the broader the range o f public expression the more accurate
the information available to a decision-making éiite, and thus the sounder are
its decisions, from its own point of view, in a capitalist or pre-capitalist class
society, this means that free expression of ideas serves as a 'barometer of
discontent*, warning the ruling group that trouble is brewing, and that appro­
priate reforms or repressive measures should be undertaken in order to prevent
the transformation of verbal discontent into more practical opposition, in
authentically state socialist societies, this means that the party, government
and economic leaders, are better enabled to understand the concerns and prob­
lems of the people, the better to modify policies and thus have the state and
party better serve the people, correcting abuses, and when necessary,
explaining more effectively to the people the need for sacrifices or the cause of
difficulties, thus generating greater support and undermining the causes of
deiegitimization.6
The fifth and final factor that affects the degree of tolerance in a society
is the ability of the politically dominant group to effectively repress its
opponents without precipitating large scale social disorders or otherwise
endangering its ruie. At times the dominated ciasses/minority groups in a
society have been able to extract significant concessions from the politically
dominant groups because of their ability to disrupt society; such concessions
typically include freedom to organize parties in radical opposition to the
dominant values and maintain media in sharp opposition to the state. In US
history, perhaps the clearest example of this was the institutionalization of
the Constitution in the late i780s. Because of widespread discontent with the
ability o f the loose, post-Revoiutionary state to deal with the threats to the
dominant propertied interests in the new United States (slave revolts in the
South, small farmer revolts in the North, Indians in the West, pirates on the
high seas) and advance propertied interests —by protective tariffs, common
markets, patent protection, regulation of money, guarantee of debt, isolation
o f the courts, executive and legislature from popular pressures for egalitarian
measures, etc. - a federal Constitution was drafted by representatives o f the
wealthy, northern merchants and the southern slaveowners. This draft docu­
ment was submitted to the states for ratification, but failed to achieve a
popular majority because of its obvious class bias. In order to gain a majority
for ratification in four of the decisive states (including New York, Virginia

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

and Massachusetts, the three most populous) the designers of the document
had to agree to make some significant modifications, namely to add ten
amendments: the so called Bill of Rights. This 'Bill of Rights’ guaranteed to
the small farmers the right to assembly, speech, religion, arms, etc; fights which
were not mentioned in the body of the document. The Bill of Rights was a
concession to this class, made necessary by their ability to block the major
reorganization o f the state in the interests of the wealthy classes that the
Constitution represented.7
The relatively high degree of tolerance of the left in the 1933-39 period in
the US, a period of severe economic crisis which, at other times in the US,
and at that time throughout almost all the rest of the world, was associated
with severe repression of the left, was a product of the Roosevelt New Deal
coalition between progressive capital and thelabour movement - within which
socialists of various kinds played an important role. It should be noted that
in the 1935-39 period the rapidly growing US Communist Party pretty much
supported Roosevelt, submerging, meantime, its radical critique of*American
society. In the period 1941-45, when the Party was allowed to operate freely,
it did everything possible to mobilize the US working class behind the War
effort. Thus, during 1935-39 and 1941-45 the dominant Marxist movement in
the US objectively operated in the interests of capital, both in helping to organ­
ize the working class into non-revolutionary unions (a process opposed by the
majority of US capital at the time, even though it was in the interests of the
capitalist system) and mobilizing for the War; there was, then, no need to
repress it. This contrasts sharply with the pre-1935, 1939-41 and post-47
periods when the thrust of the Communist Party was in sharp opposition to
the dominant, domestic propertied interests, as well as foreign imperialist
wars: consequently, it was sharply repressed. The situation in France during
the Popular Front period of 1936-38 was similar to that in the US from
1935-39.
There were similar periods of a high level of tolerance for classes/organ-
izations in opposition to the dominant system of property in Western
Europe in the post-World War 11 years, where the need to stabilize and
reindustrialize socially and economically devastated societies required co­
operation between anti-Fascist capital and the Marxist parties. In return for
their co-operation the organization of the working class was facilitated by the
European governments between 1944 and 1947. In the post-1947 period, in
return for their absence of support of revolutionary activity, Marxist
organizations were tolerated wherever they were strong, in Italy and France,
for example. To reconstruct France or Italy without the co-operation of the
Communists in the earlier post-War period would have been difficult; an
attempt to repress them in the post-1947 years would probably have resulted
in civil war. This policy, first of co-operation, then, because o f the prolonged
period of prosperity after 1947, tolerance/isolation, successfufly neutralized
the potential revolutionary bite of the Western European Communist move­
ments without formal repression. In Greece, however, where the Communists
refused to co-operate in reconstruction and instead pursued social revolution,

310
they were violently repressed.
Thirteen factors, determining the level of limitation/toleiance of public
advocacy in a society, are summarized below:

1) The greater the domestic threat from any movement that attacks the basic
system of property and privilege, the less the tolerance of public advocacy
that challenges the system.
2) The greater the need to mobilize people for war (especially civil war) or
overseas intervention, or the greater the threat from external powers, the less
will public advocacy o f anti-war ideas be tolerated.
3) The less secure the ideological hegemony of the dominant class, the less the
willing acceptance of the prevailing property and political arrangements, the
less the tolerance of public advocacy of Ideas that attack property and the
state.
4) The greater the popular feelings that the symbols of the society (the flag,
patriotic myths, heroes, etc.) are sacrosanct, the greater the sentiments of
group solidarity, the greater the emotional enthusiasm, then the lesser
the tolerance of public advocacy that attacks or profanes these symbols.
5) The fewer the number of people benefiting and the greater the number of
people suffering from the operation of a society, the less the tolerance of
public advocacy o f ideas opposed to the system.
6) Regimes which need to dominate former ruling groups with high levels of
expectations about returning to power, and high levels of organizational and
mobilization skills, are less tolerant of oppositional views than regimes that
dominate those with lower levels of expectations and organizational and
mobilization skills.
7) The more the dominant group of a society is concerned to change (as
opposed to preserve) popular consciousness and conduct, the less Is public
advocacy o f anti-system Ideas tolerated.
8) The more a society relies on moral incentives or ideological mobilization
(as opposed to economic incentives and physical coercion) to motivate labour
and social contributions, the greater the need to secure the dominant ideology,
the lesser the tolerance o f conflicting ideologies.
9) The greater a society’s need for innovation, the greater will be the tolerance
of ideas that challenge the system; because the lower the level or tolerance,
the less likely are useful and original responses to society’s problems to develop
and stagnation avoided.
10) The greater the economic diversity of the ruling group, the greater the
need for open debate and free expression of diverse opinions within it to
enable compromises to be negotiated and solidarity maintained. Hence, the
greater the level of tolerance of diverse opinions within ruling groups, such as
in parliamentary forms and formal public advocacy rights developed in the
most commercial societies.
11) The corollary o f the need for decision-makers in any society to be aware
of potential social discontent, etc., is social tolerance of freely expressed
opinions; that is, the maintenance of public advocacy rights as a ‘barometer

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of discontent’.
12) The public expression of ideas which fail to have a significant social effect
serves as a ’safety-valve’ for discontent and to legitimate the existing power
structure, since such tolerance seems to be ’proof of freedom. This process
has been called ’repressive tolerance’ since such formal freedom, in fact,
weakens substantive freedom. To formally prohibit the expression of ideas
generates potentially dangerous resentments that 'freedom’ o f expression,
even if ineffectual, successfully neutralizes.
For the reasons outlined in theses (11) and (12) under stable conditions
societies will tend to expand the range o f tolerated opinions in order to
strengthen the existing power structure.
13) The greater the danger that repression may precipitate large scale social
disorder, the greater will be the level o f tolerance for those fundamentally
opposed to the system to express their ideas publicly.

The changes over time in the degree o f formal advocacy rights in a given
society, or the variation among societies of a given type, is a product of the
changes in the relative strength of the above 13 factors. The degree of toler­
ance and repression then has nothing whatsoever to do with constitutions,
national character, abstract civil libertarian commitments, authoritarian
personalities, megalomania, totalitarianism, irrationality, traditional
intolerance, 'iron laws o f oligarchy’ etc.
Thus, in Soviet society, the significant increase in tolerance from the 1930s
to 1940s and the 1960s to 1970s would seem to be largely a product o f the
diminished external threat, the consolidation of the ideological hegemony of
socialism, the effective demoralization o f old dominant groups, and the reduc­
tion of the threat o f domestic opposition. Throughout US history, the radical
fluctuations in tolerance are a product o f periodic involvement in foreign
wan, the variation in the domestic threat to private property, and fluctuations
in the ideological hegemony o f the propertied.class. The contemporary
variation among the capitalist countries, for example, Guatemala, Uruguay,
Indonesia, in contrast to Britain, US 1980 etc., is owing to the far greater
level of ideological hegemony o f capitalist institutions and the far lesser
domestic threat from internal revolutionary forces in the latter countries.
The somewhat higher level o f formal public advocacy in the US compared
to the USSR today would seem primarily to be as a result of: (1) the ongoing
Soviet project to create 'Soviet Man’, that is, to develop a collective conscious­
ness in its people, in contrast to American capitalism’s aim to perpetuate an
individual, competitive consciousness; (2) the continuing, greater international
pressure on the Soviet Union (as the second strongest, and relatively isolated,
world power) than on the US; (3) the continued need for Soviet socialism to
constrain the highly skilled and often ambitious professional intelligentsia,
and induce them to serve the working people rather than themselves; (4) the
Soviet’s greater reliance on popular mobilization and ideological incentives to
motivate workers to work and the people in general to perform their roles in

312
society, in contrast to the purely economic Incentives operative in the US;
(5) among wide sectors of the SovieLpopulation, there is apparently a strong
emotional attachment to Soviet institutions, and thus a deep, spontaneous
sense of outrage in the face of dissident criticisms, whereas in the US, for
example, at least in the 1970s, emotional commitment to the patriotic cause
appears to have been weaker.

The Class Basis of Civil Liberties

In the words of Leon Whipple: ’Whoever has power has civil liberties'. Lenin
expressed the same principle: 'In the final analysis, force alone settles the
great problems of political liberty'.8 To pose the question in terms of
’Freedom' versus ’repression' is, in the last analysis incorrect, for in the real
world, the freedom of one group to realize their interests implies the
suppression of another’s.
Liberty is class based. Christopher Cauldwell has argued:

What, to the proletarian is liberty - the extermination of those bourgeois

institutions and relations which hold them in captivity - is necessarily
compulsion and restraint to the bourgeois, just as the old bourgeois
liberty generated non-liberty for the worker. The two notions of liberty
are irreconcilable. Once the proletariat is in power, all attempts to
re-establish bourgeois social relations will be attacks on proletarian
liberty, and will therefore be repulsed as fiercely as men repulse all
attacks on their liberty. This is the meaning of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, and why, with it, there is censorship, ideological acerbity,
and all the other devices developed by the bourgeois in the evolution of
the coercive state which secures its freedom.9

How does one judge the superiority of right? Is the right to live in what­
ever country one wants superior to the right to adequate health care? Is the
right o f a doctor to emigrate from a less developed socialist country in order
to earn $75,000 a year in a highly developed capitalist country superior to the
right of a peasant child to be cured of a potentially fatal disease? Right, then, is
a class question. A poor country, which makes a socialist revolution must, of
necessity, bring its intellectuals and professionals to serve the needs o f the
people by restricting their relative privileges, and reorienting them towards
meeting the needs of the poor. From an upper middle-class doctor’s viewpoint,
it is entirely proper that he/she should have the right to emigrate to any
country he chooses at any time. But from the point of view of the peasantry
(whose labour has provided the means for him or her to receive medical
training) it is right to demand that their needs be served rather than, for
example, those of middle-class Americans. In general, this same argument
applies to skilled workers and professionals from poor countries who
emigrate to the wealthier countries which can pay them much more. It is a

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Human Rights in the Soviet Union

question o f right versus right: a class question.

The claim by one group of the superiority of its right in relation to that of
another group cannot be based on abstract and absolute criteria, but rather
only on which claim to right is more progressive at a given time. That is upon
which best realizes the substantive freedom of the most people, which gener­
ates the best standard of living for all, the highest level of human dignity,
the most advanced social services and social security, the greatest participation
in the decisions that affect one’s life. This applies to conflicting claims about
property rights (as between feudal landlord’s, capitalists and workers), about
the legitimacy of state power, and to conflicting arguments about the
repression of formal liberties. The liberty of the capitalist class to say whatever
it likes, go wherever it likes, etc., conflicts with the right of the working
people to say whatever they like, go wherever they like, etc., as becomes
vividly clear in times o f instability, war, and decline of capitalist ideological
hegemony, when typically, formal freedoms are suspended. One class’s
‘freedom’ of expression and action necessarily conflicts with another’s, as
does the freedom of white racists to make anti-Black propaganda necessarily
conflict with the freedom of Blacks to civil rights and liberties. The question,
therefore, devolves upon whether, at a given time, the predominance o f capital
over feudalism, of capital over the working class, of the working class over
capital, is more, or less, progressive.
Who is to decide upon the limits of ‘free speech’ must, then, be answered
in terms of which social group, which class’s liberties, are the most progressive
at any given time. At the time of the bourgeois revolution against feudalism,
the representatives of the bourgeoisie decided. At the time of the socialist
revolution against capitalism and imperialism, the representatives of the
working people decide. Some class always decides. It is a question only of
which class. Not until a truly classless society, a society without a state,
without the means to suppress anyone’s civil liberties, comes into being will
tolerance of all opinions become, in itself, a progressive and reasonable goal.
Only then, when ideas are no longer class based, when basic racist, sexist,
individualist, élitist prejudices have been virtually eliminated, when all people
have been fully socialized into co-operative social relationships, can there be
a truly ‘free marketplace of ideas’ where ideas can be judged on their own
merits, and not on the basis of class interests and implanted prejudices, and
thus the situation in which no one should or can decide for others the
limits of freedom truly viable.

Disinformation and the Cold War

As part of national mobilization, each major state will attempt to develop
support for its position among those subject to its authority, to undermine
support for its competitor states among those subject to their authority, and
to win supporters from around the world in its struggle for the system it
represents. A primary way to do this is to portray one’s own state as the

314
repository, representative and defender o f all that is good in civilization. In
previous centuries, religion above all else served this purpose.
In the 20th Century, especially since 1945, the central mobilizing ideas
have been ‘liberation’ and the right to make the decisions that affect one’s
life - that is, ‘freedom’. Both the Communist movement and the ‘West’, whose
leading nation states have been the USSR and the USA respectively, have
appealed to sentiments of liberation and self-determination to mobilize the
world’s people. Both portray themselves as the true defenders of ‘real’ free­
dom. However, the specific definition of liberation and self-determination
employed by the two competing world systems differs. The US defines
freedom in terms of the existence of multi-party parliamentary forms, the
existence of formal civil liberties to publicly express opinions in any media
without state interference, the right to emigrate, and the right to own and
dispose of property in the means of production in any way those with the
requisite material resources choose. The Soviets and the world Communist
movement (in all its factions) define freedom in terms of the substance of
state policies serving the interests of working people, rather than an élite
propertied class.
The Marxist tradition maintains that in a socialist society, advocacy rights
should be permitted only to those who offer basically constructive criticism,
while such rights should be denied to those opposed to the system, that is,
following the traditional theory of ‘the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’,
subversive views should be contained. The majority of non-Socialist states do
not formally differ on this point. Almost all the non-Socialist countries of
Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe between the World Wars, and the US
in its Red Scare periods, have denied the basic rights of public advocacy to
Communists and other anti-capitalist ‘subversives’. In times of stability and
strong popular support, however, wealthy Western capitalist states, unlike
states in the less developed world, arc able to maintain parliamentary forms
and retain a reasonably high degree of formal advocacy rights. In such times
the West criticizes socialist countries on the grounds that they repress formal
civil liberties and defines itself as ‘free, unlike the USSR’. Such was the basic
theme o f the Carter administration’s Human Rights campaign. Its aim was to
generate international support for the cause of the US (a cause that had
suffered greatly as a result of US intervention and defeat in Vietnam, and the
victorious wave of national liberation movements throughout the less
developed world) while attempting to reverse the concomitant significant
increase in popular support for the Soviet Union as defender and supplier of
so many o f these movements.
The Soviet system has proved itself to be superior to the US economic
system as a means to develop poor countries, as an efficient industrial system
and in its ability to distribute the economic product fairly. The Soviet rate of
economic growth per capita in the 1960-70 period was 1.9 times that of the
US; and 2.5 times greater over 1970-77. The annual rate of economic growth
per capita of all the centrally planned economies in the 1970-77 period was
5.0%. This compares with 2.3%for all the developed market economies;

315
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

3.4% for Latin America; 2.5% for Africa; and 2.7% for the market economies
of South and Southeast Asia.10 Projecting the trends in economic growth per
capita into the future» and assuming that the 1970s growth rates in the Soviet
and US persist for another 30 or so years, the USSR would reach the 1977
per capitaJncome level o f the USA in approximately the year 1995 and
actually catch up with the USA around the year 2010.
The economic distribution of goods within the socialist countries is con­
siderably more egalitarian than in the capitalist countries. In the USSR in
1975 the ratio of the wage exceeded by the top 10% to that [wage] exceeded
by 90% was 2.9, while in the US it was 6.2. The astronomical incomes of the
richest few thousand Americans are non-existent in the USSR.11 Around 1970
the top 5% of households in the German Democratic Republic had 9.2%
of total income while the top 20% had 30.7%. This compares with the
equivalent figures o f 16.6% and 45.7% in the USA; and 37.8% and 63.2% in
Mexico at the same time; that is, in the US the richest 5% had 1.8 times
more, and in Mexico 4.1 times more, of the total national income than they
did in socialist Germany.12
It is becoming increasingly difficult to convince the people o f the world,
especially the working people o f the less developed countries, that Western
capitalism is superior to Soviet socialism on economic grounds. The Soviets
are clearly demonstrating that their system can 'deliver the goods'. Part of the
West's claim for superiority is, however, still based on the fallacious argument
that the standard o f living in the West is higher than in the Socialist countries,
and correspondingly, that the West's higher standard of living is a result of
capitalism. But the West's higher living standards are solely the outcome of
advanced capitalist countries' higher level of development when the compe­
tition with the socialist system began; neither did they experience anything
approaching the level of World War II devastation wrought in the East. As
differentials in the standard of living between the East and the West diminish,
as the superior growth rates of the socialist countries have their effect, the
fallaciousness of this argument becomes obvious.
likewise, in terms of basic social welfare, the Soviet system has provedto
to be far superior to those capitalist countries at the same level of economic
development. In terms of basic humaneness and consideration for the day-to-
day needs o f its people, it would be impossible for the West successfully to
compete against the Soviets.
The one area in which the West can still make a credible case for superiority
is in the realm o f 'freedom'. Freedom to publish or read anything without
restraint, and freedom to attempt to become rich, are the two most important.
It is no accident that day after day the Western mass media gives prominent
attention to the dissidents in the Soviet Union, to the attempted 'escapes'
from the German Democratic Republic, to the flight of 'boat people' from
Vietnam, the restrictions on books at the Moscow International Book Fair,
and so on. But these events are virtually insignificant in comparison with the
denial o f civil liberties, massive deaths through repression, malnutrition and
preventable disease, and other sufferings in US-supported states in Asia and

316
 Conclusion

Latin America. The relative handful o f Soviet dissidents have been elevated
to the status of international heroes and their every proclamation circulated
around the world, but hardly anyone in the US realizes that repression is
qualitatively greater in US client states, and that very few know the names of
any of the hundreds o f thousands of people murdered for their political
beliefs by ’friendly’ governments in these countries in recent years.
The prominent media and US government concern with ’Human Rights’
in the late 1970s, and in a somewhat different way in the early 1980s, was an
attempt to resuscitate the cold war with the Soviet Union in order to mobilize
the US people to willingly support measures necessary to once again facilitate
the US’s effective intervention in Asia, Africa and Latin America (and, when
necessary, in Europe). After a virtual stalemate since 1949, national liberation
movements have made considerable advances since the 1975 victory of the
Vietnamese. Not only South Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos, but also Angola,
Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan have acquired
revolutionary anti-imperialist regimes. In 1978 and 1979, Iran, Nicaragua and
Grenada overthrew conservative, US-sponsored regimes, indicating that
revolutionary waves could soon spread throughout both the Near East and
the Caribbean - and all o f Latin America. The best strategy for the US is to
portray the rising wave of revolution (Communist and non-Communist led)
as Soviet inspired, and thus to mobilize American and world opinion against
the Soviet Union, and thereby enable the US state to reinstitute the draft,
increase military spending (on conventional as well as nuclear arms) and
above all, reverse the ‘post-Vietnam syndrome’ o f resistance to the use of US
troops to intervene against revolutions in the less developed countries.
The ‘loss’ of Vietnam left a dangerous residue of distaste among the
American people for similar interventions. A residue that has seriously
obstructed the US’s ability to prevent leftist developments in Angola, Nicar­
agua, Ethiopia, and elsewhere from taking place. The Soviet Union has been
a major arms supplier, as well as a source o f ideological inspiration and political
support for most of the recent revolutions, thus making credible the attempt to
identify liberation movements with the USSR. Central to the US campaign
to mobilize the American people’s support for future interventions was the
‘Human Rights’ campaign’s focus on the limitations on advocacy rights in the
USSR, a campaign based on a gross distortion of world reality in the interests
of US imperialism. Support for regimes such as those of Thieu in Vietnam,
Marcos in the Philippines, Park in South Korea, the military dictatorships of
Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia and Thailand is thus generated
in the name o f ‘freedom’. Such regimes are anti-Communist and anti-Soviet,
and take the measures necessary to prevent Communist revolution (which
would, ‘as in the Soviet Union, deny civil liberties’). Thus virtual ‘non-issues’
such as the judicious suppression (by historical standards) of the dissident
movement in the USSR are employed to obscure the really central issue in
the world today - the ongoing straggles of the world’s people for national
liberation and socialism.
To quote Chomsky and Herman:

317
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

The success of the Free Press in reconstructing imperial ideology since

the US withdrawal from Indochina has been spectacular. The shift of the
United States from causal agent to concerned bystander - and even to
leader in the world struggle for human rights - in the face of its empire
of client fascism and long vicious assault on the peasant societies of
Indochina, is a remarkable achievement. The system of brainwashing
under freedom, with mass media voluntary self censorship in accord
with the larger interests of the state, has worked brilliantly. The new
propaganda line has been established by endless repetition of the Big
Distortions.. . .
There is, to be sure, an element of absurdity in the constant refrsin
that socialism equals Gulag, as revealed by events in the underdeveloped
societies. A comparison of the problems facing such societies as Vietnam,
Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Mozambique, etc., with the situation in the
industrial West would simply be ridiculed in societies that were not
subjected to such effective ideological control as ours. But despite the
inherent absurdity of attributing say, revenge killings by Cambodian
peasants who were bombed out of their homes by Western force to
‘Marxism’ or ‘atheism’, the practice is common and quite successful
as a tactic in engineering consent to the priorities and structures of
contemporary state capitalism.13

Trends in Rights in Capitalist and Socialist Societies

Owing to the different levels of economic development of Western Europe/
the USA/Japan and the Eastern European Socialist countries/Cuba/China/
Vietnam, etc., and because o f the problems of developing socialist institutions
under conditions of systematic opposition by the militarily and economically
strongest powers* any comparison between the two sets o f countries is
necessarily heavily biased in favour of the West. With only 65 years to validate
socialist institutions, starting from a very poor economic base without any
external assistance, comparisons with the USA which, in 1917, was the richest
society in the world, and in 1945 had 50% of the world’s GNP, as well as
unquestioned military superiority (including a monopoly on atomic weapons)
and allies everywhere, are heavily loaded against the USSR. Nevertheless, even
with these disadvantages the Soviets have done remarkably well in all areas
o f basic rights and freedoms.
What can be expected (barring a general nuclear catastrophe, tragically
a very real possibility), over the next generation in the two sets o f countries?
With the economic differential in rates of growth and increases in working-class

* And for the Soviet Union, the absence of any concrete example to guide policy, two
nufor military intervention# by the Western powers, and the need to keep up militarily
with the USA.

318
living standards becoming greater in the Soviet Union, with the legitimacy of
Soviet institutions showing signs of growth rather than deterioration, and the
urbanization and industrialization of Soviet society almost completed, a
further increase in economic and participatory rights, as well as in advocacy
rights in the USSR can be anticipated. There would appear to be no obstacle
to the acceleration of the tendency to increase popular participation at all
levels o f Soviet society. Likewise, given the system’s high level of legitimacy
and the decreasing threat of externally supported subversion (as the military
and economic power of the Soviet Union in relation to the West increases)
there is every reason to project a continuing expansion of the level of tolerance.
Economic and social security should also continue to be enhanced. The social
wage should continue to increase as a proportion of total consumption, with
more and more goods and services provided on the basis of the communist
principle of right. The quality of such public services as child care, medicine,
and housing will undoubtedly improve, since the quantity of services currently
available has finally approximated public demand, that is, intensive rather
than extensive strategies of providing goods and services should increasingly
predominate.
Future developments in basic economic rights (social and economic security
security) as well as the continuation of the formal rights of political partici­
pation and the rather high level of formal advocacy rights characteristic of the
advanced capitalist countries in the 1960s and 1970s is contingent upon the
continued ability of Western capitalism to prosper and increase the living
standards of working people. In the early 1980s, however, there are strong
indications that Western capitalism’s ability to continually improve living
standards has significantly declined, if it has not actually reversed. The
expansion o f social security/welfare systems, and the continuation of formal
political participation/civil liberties in the West in the post-World War II
period has been contingent on an 'expanding pie’, and consequently on there
being no need for the capitalist class to cut down working class living standards.
A consequence which would produce a legitimation crisis and, perhaps, a
popular anti-capitalist movement which would necessitate a wave of repression
of advocacy rights and restrictions on formal participation; such a develop­
ment would be a repetition of what occurred in most capitalist countries in
the 1930s, and in most non-European capitalist countries in the 1970s.
Movements to curtail social services are becoming increasingly prominent
in Western countries (for example, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United
States) as it becomes clear that growing social services are undermining capital
accumulation. Funds contributed to popular consumption are not invested,
and goods provided as a matter of right (as well as growing job rights) under­
mine the work incentive o f workers, and hence result in lowering productivity.
The creeping economic crisis of the ad vanced capitalist countries mani­
fested in a declining rate of productivity increase, declining rates of growth in
living standards, the rapid increase in unemployment, and accelerating
inflation, could - in an attempt to boost productivity and the funds available
for investment, and hence raise profitability and accelerate the capital

319
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

accumulation process - result in a major reversal of the economic security

advances of the post-World War 11 period. The response to such cut backs in
economic rights as well as the stagnation, if not decline, in working class living
standards could conceivably be manifested in either a revival of working class
radicalism or of massive fascist movements.
As typically happens in the face of "social disorders’ and growing anti­
capitalist movements, it can be expected that the extraordinarily high level
of political tolerance and civil liberties characteristic of Western Europe in the
post-World War 11 generation will be undermined. Parliamentary forms will
possibly be abolished or greatly constricted in the least prosperous and poten­
tially most unstable of the countries (Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and
perhaps France, Germany, Ireland and even the UK) as indeed they were in
most cases in the pre-World War II period.
In the area of minority civil rights, the tendency for the Western capitalist
countries to increase the rights of minorities seems to have reached its peak in
the late 1960s and early 1970s. The United Kingdom has progressively adopted
more restrictive immigration policies, as has most of continental Europe,
little improvement in the position o f Asian, African and Southern European
immigrants in Northern Europe should be expected; especially vis-à-vis
economic rights, pressure to expel and to increase restrictions on immigrants
(and their descendants) should be expected to increase. In times of economic
crisis, racist attitudes and measures normally increase and will probably do so
in the future. likewise, in the US, although a proportion o f Blacks are becom­
ing integrated into the US middle class, a much larger segment are being frozen
into the underclass of the decaying urban ghettos, while a whole new wave of
immigrants from Latin America are becoming the primary source of menial
labour - and thus increasingly become the primary victims of racism. Many
of the new Latin immigrant labourers have no legal status in the US, and thus
have fewer rights than the "guest workers’ of Europe. It should be emphasized
that capitalist economies generate racism primarily because o f their need for
a continuing source of cheap, hard working menial labour from outside the
major industrial regions. Racism serves both as a legitimation of the treatment
o f such workers and as a means to disorganize the working class as a whole by
dividing the new immigrant menial workers from the rest of the working class.
As long as capitalism exists, racism will be generated. There is no such logic
in socialist societies. The contrast between the various minorities in the Soviet
Union, especially the Asian peoples, and the position of minorities in
capitalist Europe and the US is likely to become all the more stark over the
next generation. The same might perhaps also be said o f the position of
women, while continuing progress is made by Soviet women.
Projecting oneself into the year 2050 (assuming, probably unrealistically,
the absence of a general nuclear war) and looking back on the period of the
birth of socialist societies, probably the political repression in the Soviet
Union of the 1930s will be seen in a similar light to that in which the
repression of aristocrats and their supporters by the French Revolution or
Loyalists by the American Revolution is regarded in the 1980s. The historical

320
 Conclusion

conjuncture in which the level of civil liberties has been higher in the advanced
capitalist countries than in the advanced socialist countries cannot be expected
to last. As capitalism declines and is subject to increasing international and
domestic pressure, measures similar to those taken in the 1930s in the advanced
capitalist countries, and those in most of the poorer capitalist countries in the
1960s and 1970s, can be expected. As more and more countries become
socialist, and living standards in the advanced socialist countries come to out­
strip those in the West, the process of ‘the withering away of the state* should
accelerate, with both decentralized participation and ever more vital and
unconstricted public debates broadening in their significance. If, in fact, the
tendency towards encroaching stagnation of Western capitalism is consoli­
dated, while the current tendencies of Soviet socialism continue, the 21st
Century will see a very different picture of civil liberties and standard of living-
than did the mid-20th Century. As Eastern European living standards come to
exceed those in Western Europe we would expect an increased flow of un­
employed low paid Western workers emigrating to the socialist countries in
search of high paid and secure work. Very possibly, in fact, in the early part
of the 21st Century the German Democratic Republic will remove restrictions
on emigration, and begin the active recruitment of workers from West
Germany. This could well be followed by the West Germans imposing restric­
tions on the emigration of its citizens to the German Democratic Republic.
A flow of workers towards the socialist countries, which may be expected to
become more common over time, would thus be augmented by a similar
flow of intellectuals and political activists (and perhaps persecuted minorities)
reacting to growing restrictions on formal political and civil liberties in the
West —and accelerated by shrinking employment possibilities in the state
sector for intellectuals).
‘Freedom*, the most inspiring slogan of the 20th Century, can increasingly
be expected to slip from the grasp of Western capitalism (as it already has
from most capitalist regimes in Asia and Latin America). A progressive decline
and eventual collapse may be anticipated in the credibility of increasingly
repressive regimes with stagnant living standards that appeal to their people to
support monopoly capitalism, with the claim that their system offers superior
civil, economic and participatory rights and civil liberties. With the slogan of
‘human rights* and ‘freedom* increasingly lost by capitalists to the Socialist
world, other means of legitimation will be sought (as they were sought and
found in Europe in the 1930s). Nationalist, Christian and Fascist movements
(for example, The Moral Majority, the KKK in the US) will probably be re­
vived with the active support of capital, movements which emphasize neither
the superiority o f capitalism in providing a higher living standard nor a higher
level of participatory rights, civil liberties or economic rights, but rather stress
intangibles such as the national dignity, Christian morality or the ‘Aryan race*,
as well as authoritarian leadership principles, such as the Latin American and
Asian dictatorships do today. But in the face of an increasingly prosperous,
participatory and tolerant socialist world, an attempt to revitalize nationalism
and mysticism in order to justify ever more repressive capitalist regimes will

321
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

potentially be characterized in the same manner as Marx categorized the

regime of Napoleon the III in France: ‘The first time as tragedy, the second
as farce/

Notes

1. Hough and Fainsod, 1979; Szymanski, 1979, ch. 5.

2. New York Times, 21 March 1982, p. 12.
3. Marcuse, 1965, pp. 110—I.
4. Chomsky and Herman, 1979b, pp. 30, 300.
5. Durkheim, 1915.
6. See Mao Tse-tung, 1957.
7. Charles Beard, 1913; Louis Hacker, 1940.
8. Lenin, 1905, Vol. I, p. 499.
9. CauldweU, 1971, pp. 201-2
10. See Szymanski, 1981, Table 10.1.
11. See Szymanski, 1979, pp. 64-6.
12. Ibid., Table 10.13.
13. Chomsky and Herman, 1979b, pp. 297-300.

322
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Index

abolitionists and civil liberties, 157*8 Bill of Rights (US), Suspension of, 158-9
abortion, 102, 103, 109, 110 birth control, 102, 109
Adams, John, 156 Black Movement (US 1960s), repression
Afghanistan, attitude towards intervention of, 187-90
among Central Asians, 66*7 Black Panthers, repression of, 189, 193-4
agriculture, 129-32, 215*25 Boloff, Ben, 173
Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), 155-7 boat people in the American Revolution,
ambassadors of the USSR, execution of 155
(1936*38), 248-9 Browder, Earl, 174
American Legion, 171-2 Brown, David, 156
The American Revolution, and political Brunner, Eugene, 179
repression, 152-5 Bukhara, Emirate of, 35-6
American Sociological Society, and free­ Bukharin, Nikolai, 211, 228, 229, 234,
dom of communication, 164 239, 248-50
anarchists (US), repression of, 162, 164 Bund, Jewish, 209
anti-Comintern Pact (AXIS), 252 Burlingame Treaty, 19
anti-cosmopolitan campaign, 258-60 Burnside, General Ambrose, 158
anti-Marxist professors, purges of, 214-15
anti-semitism, 88, 95-7, 99 capitalism and civil liberties, 303-04,
anti-slavery literature and the US mail, 306-09, 321-2
158 Carter’s Human Rights Campaign, 1, 186,
anti-Soviet propaganda, laws against, 315-7
272-3 Central Intelligence Agency (activities in
anti-Zionism, 90-91, 93, 96-7 Eastern Europe), 252-3, 266
Armenia, 73-7, 85-6 Cheka (extraordinary commission to
Asian nationalities in the USSR, 33-69, combat counter-revolution and sabotage),
105-07 205-08
Attestation Committee, 145-6 childcare (socialization of)» 108-09
Attorney General’s List of subversive Chinese Cultural Revolution, 233
organizations, 180, 183-5 civil liberties, class basis of, 303, 313-14
Civil War (Russian 1918-20), 204-05
barometer of discontent, 309 Clements, Charles, 284
the Basmachi, 37 Coeur L’Aleñe, martial law in, 163
Bell, General Sherman, 163 Coffee Houses (US), suppression of, 192
Belorussia, 77, 84-5 Cohn, Roy, 181
Berger, Victor, 171 Cold War, effect of, 258-62
Beria, L.P.,240, 254, 261 Collective Bargaining Agreements (USSR),
Berlin blockade, 259-60 143
Berlin Wall, 321 collective bargaining in the USA, 146-7
Bill of Rights (US Constitution), 309-10 collectivization, 106, 2}2, 215-25

333
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

deaths associated with, 225-6 strategy and tactics, 276-9

and industrial workers, 218-19 dissidents (USSR), 267-92
Committees of Censorship (in American psychiatric confinement, 280, 282-5
Revolution), 154 sanctions against, 279-81
Communism, roll back of, 260 support for, 268, 274-5
Communist Control Act of 1954 (US), 182 divorce, 102,103, 107
Communist Party (CPSU): dizzy with success, 221
bureaucratization of, 232 Dubois, W.E.B, 180
and collectivization, 218 Dzerzinski, F., 206
enterprise branches, 145-6
membership: European minorities, 87-8 East Timor, 1%
national composition, 59-60 economic equality, East-West, 316
occupational composition, 145, 218 economic growth, East-West, 315-16
principle of, 210 economic rights in the USSR, 128-49
sex (gender) composition, 118-19,123 education, 137
Communist Party (US), repression of, 167, emigration restrictions, history and logic,
169-70, 172, 174-86,191 13-26
comparative analysis, 26-7 emigration rights, China, 19-20
Compensation Agreements, 133 emigration rights, UK, 14-18, 24
Corrective Labour Camps, conditions in, emigration rights, USSR, 20-21
281 Engel, George, 162
Corrective Labour Camps, contemporary, Engels, Frederich, 11-12,104
281 enterprises, general meetings, 141-2
counter-purchase agreements, 132-3 Estonia, 72-3, 77-9
Creches see childcare European minorities in the USSR, 72-99
Crimean Tartars, issue of, 258, 286 European nationalities:
Cripple Creek, martial law in, 162-3 education, 75
Criminal Syndicalism Acts (US), 165-6, health care, 74
173-4,191-2 European Republics, economic develop­
cult of personality, 254-7 ment, 72-4
Cultural Revolution (in the USSR), 213-15, executions 1936-38, politics of, 248-50
228,230,233 exclusion of Leftists from US, 185-6

The D aify W orker (US), suppression of, famine of the early 1930s, 216, 225-6
180,185 Fascists (US), repression of during WW11,
Daniel, Yuli, 267 175
Davis, Angela, firing of, 193 Federal Bureau of Investigation:
Davis, Jefferson, 161 disruption and Cointel Programs, 188-91
debt to the West, 133-4 race-baiting, 190-91
death squads (Latin-America), 195-6 and US universities, 184
Debs, Eugene; imprisonment, 170 Federalists, 155-7
DeJonge, 173 Fifth Amendment to US Constitution,
dekulakization, 220, 221 179,181-5
democracy campaign 1937, 230, 233-4 films, restrictions on (US), 193
Denis, Eugene, 176 Finnish-Soviet War, 1940, 253
deportation, of US Leftists, 169-70,186 First Five Year Plan, 215-18, 226-7
diet, Soviet, 129 Fiynn, Elizabeth, 178
disenfranchise of Confederate supporters, food supplies, Soviet, 128-9
161 forced immigration from USSR, 282
dismissals of Leftists from employment, Foster, William, 176-83
180-4 France, emigration rights, 15
disinformation, 314-18 Frank, Andre Gunder. exclusion from
dismissal of workers (USSR), 137-9 US, 186
dissident movement: Free Trade Union Association of Workers
size, 273-5 in the Soviet Union, 289-90
social composition, 275 freedom, definition, 2 ,4 ,9

334
freedom of expression (USSR), 269-73, 279 Jackson Amendment, 277-8
Garnies, Harry, arrest of, 174 Jackson State Massacre, 192
Gates, John, 176 Japanese Americans and concentration
Georgia (Soviet), 73-5, 86-7 camps (WW1I), 175
German Bund (US), repression of, 174-5 Jeffersonian Republicans, 155-7
German invasion of USSR, 1941-45, Jewish culture in USSR, 89-91, 93-4
257-8 Jewish emigration, 95-9
Gestapo involvement in USSR, 230, Jewish national districts in USSR, 89
234-6, 239, 252 Jewish religion, 92-3
Ginzburg, Alexander, 268, 275, 277 Jews:
Gitlow, Benjamin, 165, 167 in CPSU, 88-9, 94
Goldstein, Robert, 169 economic position in USSR, 91-2
GPU (State Political Directorate of the in Soviet political institutions, 94-5
Commissariat of the Interior), 208, in USSR, 88-9
227 jobs, compulsory assignment to, 139
grain, 129-32 job rights, 137-49
Grand Juries (US) and political repression, job rights in USA, 146-8
193 job security, 136-8
Granick, David, 141-2
Green, Gilbert, 176 Kamenev, Lev, 211, 228-31, 239
Greene, Nathanael, 154 Kent State Massacre, 192
Grigorenko, Peter, 278, 289 Khrushchev, Nikita, 250, 267, 269
Guatemala and human rights, 195 King, Martin Luther and the FBI, 191
Habeas Corpus (in US), suspension of, Kirov, S.M., assassination, 235, 239
158-63 Knights of Labor (US), repression of, 162
Hall, Gus, trial and imprisonment, 176 Korean War, 259-61
Hampton, Fred, 194 Korean War, demonstrations against,
Hayward, ’Big Bill*, 167 suppression in US, 180
health care, 136-7 Ku Klux Klan:
Healy, Dorothy, 176 (post WW1), 171-2
Herndon, Angelo, 167 government repression (during
Hoover, J. Edgar, 189-90 reconstruction), 161
House Committee on Un-American Kulaks, 215-16,219-25,228
Activities, 178-82 Kosterin, Aleksei, 289
housework, 107-08, 122 Kronstadt Mutiny, 207-09
housing, 134-5
housing (US state supported), denial to Labour Dispute Commissions, 144
communists, 183 Labour Reeducation Camps, 228, 235-6,
human rights: 245-7
and Iran, 196-8 mortality rates in, 247
in South Africa, 196 numbers sentenced to, 245-7
in South Korea, 196 Lapidus, Gail, 108, 124-5
US support for, 195-8 Larson, Kitty, 177
Latvia, 72-3,77,81-3
L ebenstraum , 252
immigration restrictions, 22-3
imports, grain, 129, 132 Lee, General Robert E., 161
imports, high technology, 132-4 legitimacy, of Soviet system, 274-5
Indonesia and human rights, 196 Lenin, V.I., 7, 8, 13
Industrial Party, 226 Leningrad affair, 258
industrial workers and collectivization, liberties, civil (formal rights), 3, 6-8
218-19 liberal dissidents (USSR), 286-8
Industrial Workers of the World life expectancy, 136-7
(suppression), 162, 164, 167-8, 172 liberalization, 1931-32, 226; 1954-56,
international situation 1931-32, effect of, 261-2
227-8 Lightfood, Claude, 177
Islam (in Soviet Asia), 61-3,105-07. 112 limits on opinion publicly expressed

335
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

(USSR), 271-3, 279 NKVD, 235, 237, 240, 250, 252, 261
Lincoln, Abraham, and political repression, Nikolayev, L., 235, 238
159-60 Nomenklatura, 145
literacy of Women, 110
Lthuania, 72-3, 77, 79-81 Occupational Health and Safety Admini­
livestock, 130-32 stration (USA), 146, 148
living standards, Soviet, 128-9, 134 occupational prestige, 117
loyalty oaths (US), 180, 184-5 occupations, choice of, 122-3, 139
loyalists, rights, in the American Revolu­ Old Bolsheviks, 248-9
tion, 152-4 Ontario, settlement of, 155
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 184
MacArthur, Douglas, 260 Orlov, Yuri, 268
McCarren Act, Internal Security Act 1950,
183 Palmer Raids, 169-70
Magna Carta, 16 Parent!, Michael, firing of, 193
Malcolm X and the F.B.I., 190, 196 Parsons, Albert, 162
Malenkov, Georgi, 254 participation of workers in enterprise
managers, selection of, 145 management, 140-46
Mandel, Ernst, exclusion from US, 186 Patterson New Jersey, and civil liberties,
marriage, 102-03, 105, 107 173-4
Marx, Karl, 12-13 peasants, forced relocation, 224-5
Marxist dissidents (USSR), 289-90 Philippines and human rights, 196
May Day, origins, 162 Pepsi-Cola, 132-3
Medvedev, Roy, 278, 280 Permanent Production Conferences, 142
Medvedev, Zhores, 282 Phoenix, 277
Mensheviks, 206-07, 238 Piatakov, G.L., 250
Miller, Arthur, plays, suppression of, 180 Picasso, Pablo, exclusion from US, 186
Missouri newspapers, government censor­ Pilsudski, Joseph, 212
ship, 160 political arrests and executions of late
The M ilwaukee L eader , repression of, 168 1930s, 241-4, 248
Moldavia, 74-7 political executions, 228, 238, 241-4,
Molotov, Vyacheslav, 239-40, 254 248-57
mother’s, rights of, 104 political expression/repression, effect of,
Moscow, trials 1936-38, 230, 239-42 300-313
causes of, 250-7 Political Parties, in USSR, 208-11
Most, Johann, 164 political prisoners:
Munich Pact, 252 condition of, 207, 228, 235-6, 245
Muslim Bolshevik Party, 34-5 number, contemporary (USSR), 279,
284-5
The N ation (US), suppression of, 168 US Civil War, 160
National Labor Relations Board (NLR) political repression:
and US Communists, 182 logic of, 299-318
National Liberation Movements and US/USSR, comparisons, 290-92, 297-8,
criticism of USSR, 317-18 312-13,315-17,321-2
nationalist movements, Soviet Asia, 63-6 and tolerance (USSR), trends, 1964-81,
Nearing Scott, 164, 171 267-8
New Economic Policy, 208, 211, 216 political trials, 1928-30 (USSR), 226
‘New Left’ in USSR, 275 Popular Front, 251-2
New Left (US), repression of, 187-91 population policy (Soviet), 103
New Soviet Man, 215 post-Vietnam syndrome, 317-18
The N ew York Caii, repression of, 168 private plots, 131
N ew Y ork D aily N ew s, government the press, Soviet letters to editors, 270
suppression of, 159 propaganda of freedom, 1,6, 25
newspapers, US, suppression of, 156-8, property rights, 2-3, 5-8
163-4, 168-9, 180 public advocacy, factors determining level
Newton, Huey P., 194 of, 305-13

336
public debates (USSR), 269-72 Shakhty Trial, 226
public demonstrations (USSR), 276 Shcharansky, Anatoly, 268
purges (expulsion of Party members), Shekekino Plan, 138
229-32 Sinclair, John, 192
purges, 1947-53, 258-61 Sixth Congress of the Communist Inter­
national, 212
Radek, Karl, 239 Sinyavsky, Andrei, 267
radical right, repression of (US), 304-05 slavery, 11-12
radio liberty, 277 Smith Act, Sedition Act, 1940, 174-8
Radygin, Anatoly, 287-8 Snezhnevsky, Andrei, 282-3
rape, 103 Social Parasite Law, 139, 280
reconstruction (US South) and political social security (US), Communists denied
repression, 160-61 benefits, 183
Red Army and collectivization, 219 social wage (social consumption), 134
Red Flag Ordinances (US), 166-67, 173, social revolutionaries, 206-07, 238
192 Socialist Party (US), repression, 170-72
Red Tenor, 205-07, 244 socialist realism, 214
refugees, from American Revolution, 155 Socialist Workers* Party, 174, 189-90;
refugees, US Civil War, 161 repression of, 174
relocation (concentration) camps for US Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 261, 278, 280-81,
Leftists, 186 286, 288
relocation, forcible, in the American Sons of Liberty (USA), 1534
Revolution, 153 Soviet Asia:
rents, 134-5 books and newspapers, 52-3
repressive regimes, US support of, 195-8 cultural development, 51-8
repressive tolerance, 301-03, 308 economic development, 3743
Republic of Turan, 36 education, 48-51, 54
Richmond, Al, 176 health care, 44-6
right of participation in management, history of, 33-7
14041 industrialization, 43
rights, 2-13 language policy, 52-6
advocacy, 3 literacy, 46-7
and capitalism, 13 living standards, 4041
civil, 3-4,6-7,9-10 politics, 59-61
class basis, 7-10 urban-rural disparities in, 40
distribution, 3 4 ,6 welfare, 43
political, 3, 5, 8-9 Soviet minorities, relocation, during WW11,
process, 3 258
progressiveness, 10-12 Soviet Union, regional disparities, 342
in USSR, evaluation, Marxist-Leninist Spanish Civil War, 252-3
criteria, 298-9 sphinxes, 277
rights, property, 2-3, 5-8 Starsky, Morris, 193
Robeson, Paul, 180, 185 strike, right to, 144
Ross, Edward, 164 Stalin, Joseph, 211-13, 220, 229, 235,
Rykov, Alekey, 228, 231, 239, 249-50, 239, 254-7, 260
253 Stalin, popularity, 257
the State, nature of, 299-300; apparatuses.
safety and health in enterprises, 143, 148 Ideological, 306
Sakharov, Andrei, 268, 277-8, 285-7 states (US) and anti-Communist legisla­
Samizdat, 276-7 tion, 178-80
Scales, Junius, 177 Stromberg, Yetta, 167
Seale, Bobby, 194 student radicalism in USSR, 275
Seattle Liberation Front, 192 Students for a Democratic Society, 188,191
security clearance (US), 180-81 Sweezy, Paul, 184
Security Index (FBI), 186-8 syntax, 277
Sedition Act, 1918 (US), 164-9 Szasz, Thomas, 283

337
Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Taft-Hartley Act, 182 wives, rights of, 102-04, 107

Tashkent Soviet, 35-7 women; 102-27
teachers (US), firing of, 164, 169,183-4 in Central Asia, 105-06, 112
Tennessee, Sedition Act, of 1817, 157 and education, 106-07, 110-12,121
terror, role in the American Revolution, engineers, 116-17
154 and higher education, 111-12
Terrorists', number of victims, 198 labour force participation, 112
Thompson, Robert, 183 liberation of and the Bolshevik Revolu­
Tltoism, 258-9 tion, 102-07
tolerance, critique of, 301-03 managers, 116-17, 121
tollerance/represslon, variations, 304-13; physicians, 115,117,122
future of, 318-22 in the professions, 115-17, 122
Tomsky, M.P., 211, 228-9, 239, 249 protective legislation for, 117-18
torture, 228, 236, 282 scientists, 115-21
the Traditional Right (USSR), 288 and Soviet Politics, 118-20, 123
traitor, mania of 1936-38, 235-57 wages and income, 112-15
causes of, 250-57 and work, 104-05, 107, 112-18,122-3
transnational corporations (US), and work week, length, 139-40
USSR, 133 workers* opposition, 207-08, 248
travel restrictions: working class dissidents, 275, 289-90
history and logic, 13-26, 185-6 working class movement (US), 161-4
in US, 185-6
Trotsky, Leon, 207, 211-12, 216, 230, 235, Yagoda, G.G., 240, 249-50
239, 248-9, 251 Yakhimovich, Ivan, 289
Tukhachevsky, Mikhael, 239, 246, 253 Yates, Oleta O’Connor, 176-7
Yezhov, N.I., 240, 249
Ukraine, 77, 83-4 Yiddish, 93-4
unions, 142-5 Young Bukharans, 35-6
unions (US), exclusion of Communists,
182- 3 Zhenotdel (Women's Department of the
united opposition, 211-12, 228, 248 CPSU), 106
US Civil War and civil liberties, 158-60 Zinoviev, Grigori, 211-12, 216, 228-31,
US civil liberties, history of, 152-98 239, 249
US travel and entry restrictions, history of, Zhdanov, Andrei, 239-40, 254, 259
21-2
University of California, and McCarthism,
184
university professors (US), firing of, 164,
183- 4, 191, 193
upward mobility (effected by purges of
1936-38), 253-4
Uruguay and human rights, 196

vacations and holidays, 140

veterans benefits (US), denial to Commun­
ists, 183
Voice of America, 277
Veblen, Thorstein's works, suppression
of, 169

Wallace, Henry, 180

Wellman, Saul, 176, 183
Westmoreland, William, 301
Whitney, Anita, 167
Winston, Henry, 176
Wirz, Henry, 161

338