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Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin is the first comprehensive account in any language of Stalin's struggle to make criminal law in the USSR a reliable instrument of rule. Using declassified archives, the book reveals the story of nonpolitical justice, on the local scene as well as in the center. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Peter Solomon emphasizes the initial weakness of the Soviet state and the limits of the dictators' capacity to rule.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. The First Phase: 1. The design of an experiment; 2. Criminal justice under NEP; Part II. The Years of Collectivization: 3. Campaign justice; 4. The decline of legality; Part III. The Conservative Shift: 5. The return to tradition: Vyshinsky and legal order; 6. Stalin's criminal policy: from tradition to excess; 7. Criminal justice and the great terror; 8. The reconstruction of criminal justice; 9. Preparing for war: the criminalization of labour infractions; Part IV. The Stalinist Synthesis: 10. Moulding legal officials for careers; 11. The dynamics of Stalinist justice: bureaucratic and political pressures on legal officials; 12. The distortion and limits of criminal policy; Conclusion.
Summary
Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin, first published in 1997, is a comprehensive account of Stalin's struggle to make criminal law a reliable instrument of rule. This book appeals to anyone interested in the political, social, or legal history of the USSR, judicial reform in post-Soviet states, and law in authoritarian regimes.
