THE NEW SOVIET CODES AND SOVIET JUSTICE

Authors

Pitirim Sorokin, University of Petrograd; University of Minnesota

Abstract

Up to 1922 it is scarcely possible to speak of any justice, law, court and trial in Soviet Russia if we want to use these terms in their usual meanings. The years 1918-21 were the years of terror. And what this term means is clear from the following statement of Latzis, one of the heads of "The Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counter-Revolution and Speculation" or the "Che-ka." "We do not carry on the war against the individuals: we are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in the inquest for any material and for any evidences that accused persons acted by doing or by words against the Soviet Government. The first question which you (the other chekists) must put to him is: to which class he belongs, what is his social position, education and profession. These questions must decide the fate of a charged person. In that consists the essence of the red terror". Similar declarations were announced many times by Latzis, Peters, Dserjinsky and by many other leaders of the Che-ka and that of the Soviet government. Hundreds of official declarations and instructions of the same character were published by the Central and Provincial Soviet authorities.

Recommended Citation

Pitirim Sorokin, THE NEW SOVIET CODES AND SOVIET JUSTICE, 23 Mich. L. Rev. 38 (1924).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol23/iss1/4