The Soviet Union was one of those states that left behind many unsolved mysteries and unsolved questions. As a totalitarian state with strict control over all spheres of life of ordinary citizens, the USSR had an appropriate constitution that defended with all its might the priorities that underlay communist power. In particular, a special case was political repression aimed at those who expressed any dissatisfaction with the existing government. Political repression gained grandiose scope under Joseph Stalin. For this, there was a special article 58. Until now, historians cannot come to unanimous conclusions regarding this issue. Therefore, it is worth figuring out whether a citizen in the USSR, even for a simple anecdote about the leader, could end up in camps or even be shot.
Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the USSR
All political convicts, regardless of the type of their crime, were held under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the USSR. The article provided for punishment for counter-revolutionary activities. What did she represent? Counter-revolutionary activities are actions thatprevented the spread or implementation of certain revolutionary ideals and provisions that were supported by the communist government. The first paragraph of this article stated that counter-revolutionary actions are any attempts to undermine or weaken Soviet power on the territory of the USSR, as well as attempts to weaken external power and political, military or economic gains. According to the concept of solidarity of workers, the same responsibility fell on those who committed crimes against a state that was not part of the USSR, but lived according to the proletarian system.
In fact, Article 58 in the time of Stalin was designed to bring to justice those who somehow denied or were opponents of Soviet power. In modern society, such people would be called extremists. It is necessary to consider in more detail all the points that Article 58 includes in order to understand what fell under the actions that the Soviet government considered counter-revolutionary.
Item 1
Clause 1a contains provisions relating to treason to the Motherland, namely going over to the side of the enemy, issuing state secrets to the enemy, espionage, and flight abroad. For these crimes, the highest pen alty was execution, and under extenuating circumstances - imprisonment for a period of 10 years with confiscation (full or partial) of property. A few words should be said about this. Since the USSR at that time was in a very hostile environment, it is not surprising that flight (namely, flight, and not leaving the country) was punished so severely, becausein fact, it was the same treason.
Paragraph 1b contains the same provisions as in 1a, but with regards to persons in military service. And there is no doubt that the same crimes committed by a person liable for military service are more serious, however, if these crimes have any gradation at all. So it is not surprising that the Criminal Code of the RSFSR punishes the military so severely.
Clause 1c establishes the responsibility of the families of servicemen who committed the crime. If family members knew about the impending crime, but did not report it to the authorities or contributed to its commission, then they are sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison with confiscation of property. This clause can be considered one of the most inhumane in the entire article, but, as a study of the archives showed, only 0.6% of all political prisoners served their sentences under this clause, that is, it was rarely used. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR can generally be called inhumane, but due to the realities of the time, it seemed appropriate to the authorities.
Clause 1d provides for punishment for failure to report to servicemen about impending treason. For the military then it was a direct duty, so it's not surprising that it was so severely punished. As regards civilians, there was paragraph 12, which provided for the same pen alties. But with the then system, the now-seemingly cruel punishment looked quite logical, because at that time there were no liberal thoughts.
Item 2
Clause 2 provided for capital punishment -execution - for those who, through an armed uprising, tried to overthrow Soviet power in the regions or union republics. Sometimes expulsion from the USSR with the deprivation of all rights and confiscation of property was used as a mild form of punishment. Such actions are strictly punished in a number of modern states.
Items 3, 4, 5
Items 3, 4 and 5 state that cooperation with a foreign country, aiding enemy spies or other actions against the Soviet Union are subject to the same pen alties as in clause 2.
Item 6
Point 6 referred to everything that was considered espionage, namely the issuance of state secrets to the enemy or important information that is not a secret, but is not subject to disclosure. For this, they also relied on execution or expulsion from the country.
Items 7, 8, 9
Sections 7, 8 and 9 establish the same pen alties for committing sabotage or counter-revolutionary terrorist attacks on the territory of the USSR.
Item 10 - anti-Soviet agitation
Perhaps the most infamous is point 10. It addresses the problem of the so-called anti-Soviet agitation, the essence of which was that any calls, propaganda to overthrow the Soviet regime, possession of prohibited literature, public expression of discontent and so on were punished imprisonment for at least 6 months. Indeed, in the Soviet state there was no such thing as freedom of speech. This paragraph in a modified form is also present in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, Article 280.
Items 11 - 14
Points 11 to 14 contain provisions regarding bureaucratic crimes, anti-people actions during the Civil War (and later the Great Patriotic War), the preparation of terrorist attacks, and so on.
The person affected by this article was called an enemy of the people. Such people, as mentioned above, were shot, expelled from the country, were in prisons and camps. Many of those convicted under Article 58 were those who really deserved it, but there were also those who were unfairly accused of treason. At that time, the security authorities had little interest in the truth, so confessions were simply beaten out from those who came to the attention of this article. There is a lot of evidence of this from that time. Those who served their sentences were kept under surveillance for a long time. They were forbidden to get a job, receive pensions, apartments, they were limited in the opportunities that an ordinary Soviet citizen had.
58 article in Stalin's time was the most common document that allowed the repression of civilians and military. However, already under Khrushchev, a special commission was organized to investigate these crimes. Many of the unjustly convicted were rehabilitated, unfortunately, posthumously. Those who survived were given back their former rights and privileges.
Any state must protect its territorial integrity and constitutional rights. Article 58 of the USSR was just such a guarantor of protection. Of course, now such harsh pen alties can be considered egregious.violation of human rights, but in those days, Article 58 seemed appropriate and really gave a fair punishment to those who plotted a crime against the Soviet regime.
