Legislating after Stalin

Bohdan Nahaylo

On 4 April a letter in the Times from Lord Coggan and others drew atten- tion to a new Soviet law which severely penalises dissenters who receive financial or other material support from abroad. Aimed primarily at the impoverished families of political prisoners and those whose noncon- formity has cost them their livelihoods, it provides the Soviet authorities with a par- ticularly cruel weapon with which to sup- press dissent. It is not, however, widely known that this new law is but the tip of an iceberg, and that it indicates an ominous re- Stalinisation of Soviet society.

In February, as a corollary to the most extensive drive against dissent of the post- Stalin period, the Soviet regime amended the criminal code making it even more repressive. The changes represent the most significant ightening-up of the Soviet legal system since new articles limiting freedom of expression and association were intro- duced in September 1967 in the wake of the notorious trial of Sinyaysky and Daniel. Stalinist in essence, they go against not only the spirit of the Soviet legal reforms of the era of de-Stalinisation, but also the various international human rights instruments which the USSR has freely undertaken to uphold since then.

For instance, the frequently used article of the Soviet Criminal Code which prescrib- ed a 12-year sentence of imprisonment and internal exile for first offenders convicted of 'anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda' and a total of 15 years for second offenders, has been broadened and made more punitive. Now dissenters charged for the first time with this particular 'especially dangerous crime against the state' who can

The Spectator 5 May 1984 also be shown to have received foreign goods as trivial as a pair of jeans or a book: face a draconian 15-year sentence. But the is not all. Whereas previously offences under this article included the preparation and dissemination of anti-Soviet literature, now they also include the keeping and cif' culation 'in letter, printed or other form' of works considered to be anti-Soviet. In other words, a drawing or musical score which fails to meet with official approval is suf11 cient grounds for prosecution. Another sinister development is the ex- tension of the article of Soviet law concern: ed with 'actions disrupting the work' tn, labour camps. Previously only `especially dangerous recidivists and persons sentenced' for serious crimes' faced between eight an ten years' imprisonment or the death penal- ty

i

ty if convicted under it. Now all prisoners can be sentenced to between three and eight years' imprisonment for this offence. In effect this amendment allows the authorif ties to prolong the imprisonment prisoners of conscience who take part in protests, as most of them invariably do, c)ci who refuse to recant. It should be Pointe„f out that conditions for Soviet prisoners conscience, whose numbers have swollen by hundreds during the 1980s, have i deteriorated in recent years and cases brutality and torture become more fre- quent. The new extension of the law ahn,./„ dons imprisoned Soviet dissenters to mercy of their jailers. Changes have also been made in 11 other articles of Soviet law. A second coal viction for 'illegal exit abroad' and `illegby entry into the USSR' is now punishable ' between two and five years' imprisoninen.: This amendment is somewhat academl_Le. Most Soviet citizens who attempt to ti,ey. and across receive th e bsoerudteeru sentences of up e o u to 15 with y years. ed amendment of the article concernii, with sabotage is more intriguing- In ad`,.. tion to the 'destruction of socialist P.rriLig perty', 'mass poisoning' and the spreadlthe of epidemics in order to undermine Soviet state, the crime of sabotage now in.,.,c, eludes 'other acts aimed at massive Having tion' or harm to the population. s nis driven moderate, open and legalism frn. is of dissent underground, the Kremlin evidently expecting more incidents s political terrorism than the isolated cases recent years. Nevertheless, a bizarre, toff distinction between 'terrorism rr;" :s 'sabotage' remains in force. Terror's v.'s when the victims are Soviet or ft 1:_e:ns officials. Sabotage is when ordinary citizens officials.

public property are attacked. Code

The revisions in the Soviet Crimin nd have been carried out against a backgr(111._ f of increasing emphasis on ideological discipline and Russificatio. non-Russians. This trend has been dtsvvlien ible since at least the spring of 1982 the Yuri Andropov moved from the OH t° Central supposed politicalSecretariat. Chan. enic°' h

the

political adversary.' ratified ofjecin with this hard-line attitude. His address

Kremlin power struggle, i s s alo ide

ideological matters at last June's Central Committee plenum was neo-Stalinist in tone. Since then Yuri Lyumbirncoland Oleg Bitov have painted a gloomy picture of the consequences for intellectual and cultural life in the Soviet Union.

The workers have been ordered to work harder and last summer new decrees were introduced strengthening labour discipline. The multifarious dissident movement has beenL'aul A,

y mauled by an unrelenting KGB offensive now in its fifth year, compelling dissidents to seek new forms of struggle. Fresh campaigns have been launched against 'bourgeois nationalism' among the non-Russians, and anti-semitism has been promoted in the guise of combating Zionism. Yet at the same time Moskov- skaYa Pravda has announced only this Month that a palace started by Catherine II will be completed as part of a programme to give the Soviet capital a more Russian flavour.

Accompanying it all is a grotesque officially fostered xenophobia and grande Peur, the like of which have not been seen since the darkest days of the Stalin era in the late 1940s. The internal anti-Western propaganda has become more and more Ctide and vitriolic. The West is out to destroy the USSR, the Soviet population is c°nstantly told, and President Reagan, once preferred to President Carter, is fre- qunt!

compared to Adolf Hitler. Per-

n'celons Western influences are held to be ,a,,rtiong the greatest evils, to be repulsed at on costs. Recent denunciations of Western Stalinist for instance, hardly differ from the ?alinist diatribes against jazz. As far as the K rernlin is concerned, it is in a state of total Ideological war with the West. riA. new law has even been introduced "sIgned to discourage Soviet citizens from providing foreign journalists with any In Jorrnation that could prove embarrassing tt? the authorities and to reduce contacts with foreigners. It is now a crime punishable by up to eight years' imprison- eaentiton to Pass on to a foreign country `inf°1' se that constitutes a professional cree. The divulgence of 'state or military

krets' is a treasonable offence in the

v:SR, and just what constitutes the new of gue ategory of 'professional secrets' is c_ acoucrse left for the state to decide. It ceurtitidin be information about rationing in a

citY, conditions in a prison apqchiatric hospital, or simply details about

again disaster. One thing is clear: once Thta_1.11 Helsinki and the freer flow of infor- lnon have

en gone by the board. SePternber 1966, the last time major E:rnents were made to the Soviet reninal Code broadening the sphere of u;

0„Pression, numerous protests were heard. fe Petition included the signatures of no ine er seirribers

than nine full or corresponding of the USSR Academy of

ovvlices, the composer Dmitry Shosta- Tile "1 and the writer Vladimir Voinovich. the silence on this occasion is testimony to uirection in which Soviet society has moved since those hopeful years.