Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin

Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin is a comprehensive 1997 account of Stalin's struggle to make criminal law a reliable instrument of rule.

Peter H. Solomon, Jr (Author)

9780521564519, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 October 1996

520 pages, 1 table
22.5 x 15 x 3.2 cm, 0.7 kg

"...monumental... Solomon exploits an impressive array of sources, including the recently declassified holdings of several archives, central and local newspapers and journals, and approximately sixty interviews with former Soviet legal officials. This study will become required reading for specialists interested in the history of Soviet law, institutions, education, labour, and society,as well as for students of comparative legal system." Heather Coleman, Canadian Journal of History

Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin, first published in 1997, is a comprehensive account of Stalin's struggle to make criminal law in the USSR a reliable instrument of rule. Using recently declassified archives, Peter Solomon tells the revealing story of non-political justice, on the local scene as well as in the center. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Solomon emphasizes the initial weakness of the Soviet state and the limits of Stalin's capacity to rule. Solomon's study also offers new perspectives on collectivization, the Great Terror, the politics of abortion and the disciplining of the labour force. This book should appeal to anyone interested in the political, social, or legal history of the USSR, judicial reform in post-Soviet states, law in authoritarian regimes, or comparative legal development.

Introduction
Part I. The First Phase: 1. The design of an experiment
2. Criminal justice under NEP
Part II. The Years of Collectivization: 3. Campaign justice
4. The decline of legality
Part III. The Conservative Shift: 5. The return to tradition: Vyshinsky and legal order
6. Stalin's criminal policy: from tradition to excess
7. Criminal justice and the great terror
8. The reconstruction of criminal justice
9. Preparing for war: the criminalization of labour infractions
Part IV. The Stalinist Synthesis: 10. Moulding legal officials for careers
11. The dynamics of Stalinist justice: bureaucratic and political pressures on legal officials
12. The distortion and limits of criminal policy
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Criminal law & procedure [LNF]