Anti-Soviet Agitation
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Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) (russian: антисове́тская агита́ция и пропага́нда (АСА)) was a
criminal offence In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. To begin with the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolutionary agitation. The latter term was in use immediately after the first
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
in February 1917. The offence was codified in criminal law in the 1920s, and revised in the 1950s in two articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code. The offence was widely used against
Soviet dissidents Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union in the period from the mid-1960s until t ...
.


Stalin era

The new Criminal Codes of the 1920s introduced the offence of ''anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda'' as one of the many forms of counter-revolutionary activity grouped together under Article 58 of the Russian RSFSR Penal Code. The article was put in force on 25 February 1927 and remained in force throughout the period of
Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
. Article 58:10, "propaganda and agitation that called to overturn or undermining of the Soviet regime", was punishable with at least 6 months of imprisonment, up to and including the
death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
in periods of war or unrest. As applied under Stalin's regime, the phrase in practice could mean virtually anything that a State security interrogator or informant wanted it to mean; consequently, the charge became an exceedingly potent weapon in political or personal quarrels and intrigues.


1960s–1980s


Article 70

The offence was significantly revised in the post-Stalin Criminal Code of the RSFSR, introduced in 1958. Article 58.10 was replaced by Article 70, Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.In the new Criminal Code of the other 14 Union republics this offence had a different numeration, e.g. Article 62 in Ukrainian SSR, and to avoid confusion was usually expressed as Article 70. It was defined as: #propaganda or agitation with the purpose of undermining or weakening of the
Soviet power The political system of the Soviet Union took place in a federal single-party soviet socialist republic framework which was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only party permitted by the Co ...
or with the purpose of committing or incitement to commit particularly grave crimes against the Soviet state (as defined in the law); #the spreading with the same purposes of slanderous fabrications that target the Soviet political and social system; #production, dissemination or storage, for the same purposes, of literature with anti-Soviet content The penalty was from six months to 7 years of imprisonment, with possible subsequent internal exile from 2 to 5 years. Article 70 was considered by critics of the Soviet System to be a grave violation of
freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
. It was one of the two main legal instruments for the prosecution of
Soviet dissidents Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union in the period from the mid-1960s until t ...
, the other being Article 190 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. Other means of control were extrajudicial, such as the use of
punitive psychiatry Political abuse of psychiatry, also commonly referred to as punitive psychiatry, is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment, for the purposes of obstructing the human rights of individuals and/or groups in a society ...
or the generalised offence of the social parasitism. In particular, the clause about literature targeted ''
samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
''. While the clauses were phrased using the provision "with the purpose of", official commentaries (referred to as "Additions and Explanations to..."), as well as the actual legal practice made it sufficient to assert that the prosecuted person of sane mind must have realized the malicious implications of their utterances.


Article 190-1

Shortly after the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial, the Soviet Penal Code was augmented with Article 190-1, Dissemination of knowingly false fabrications that defame the Soviet state and social system (1966), which was a weaker version of Article 70. It basically repeated the Article 70, with the omitted provision of the "anti-Soviet purpose". The penalty was lower: up to 3 years of imprisonment.


Application

Petro Grigorenko Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko ( uk, Петро́ Григо́рович Григоре́нко, russian: Пётр Григо́рьевич Григоре́нко, link=no, – 21 February 1987) was a high-ranking Soviet Army ...
in his memoirs wrote that any critique of the Soviet government or events in the Soviet Union was easily classified as ASA. Dissemination of any information which was not officially recognized was classified as "Anti-Soviet slander". In this way nearly all members of
Helsinki Watch Helsinki Watch was a private American non-governmental organization established by Robert L. Bernstein in 1978, designed to monitor the former Soviet Union's compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Expanding in size and scope, Helsinki Watch b ...
were imprisoned. Anti-Soviet political behavior, in particular, being outspoken in opposition to the authorities, demonstrating for reform, writing books were defined in some persons as being simultaneously a criminal act (e.g., violation of Articles 70 or 190-1), a symptom (e.g., "delusion of reformism"), and a diagnosis (e.g., "
sluggish schizophrenia Sluggish schizophrenia or slow progressive schizophrenia (russian: вялотеку́щая шизофрени́я, translit=vyalotekushchaya shizofreniya) was a diagnostic category used in the Soviet Union to describe what was claimed to be a for ...
"). The 70th and 190th Articles of the Criminal Code concerning "slanderous fabrications that discredited the Soviet system" and "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" served as the formal basis to sentence
Vladimir Bukovsky Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (russian: link=no, Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 1950 ...
,
Pyotr Grigorenko Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko ( uk, Петро́ Григо́рович Григоре́нко, russian: Пётр Григо́рьевич Григоре́нко, link=no, – 21 February 1987) was a high-ranking Soviet Army ...
,
Valeria Novodvorskaya Valeria may refer to: People * Valeria (given name), a female given name * The gens Valeria, a family at Rome * Valeria (ancient Roman women), a name used in ancient Rome for women of the gens Valeria * Saint Valeria (disambiguation), several ...
,
Zhores Medvedev Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (russian: Жоре́с Алекса́ндрович Медве́дев; 14 November 1925 – 15 November 2018) was a Russian agronomist, biologist, historian and dissident. His twin brother is the historian Roy Medv ...
, Andrei Amalrik and many others to months and sometimes years of indefinite confinement in psychiatric institutions. On 19 February 1986,
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Nuclear physics, nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident, dissident, ...
in his letter to
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
wrote, "application by courts of Articles 70 and 190-1 is pronounced persecution for beliefs." In 1990, just before the very end of the Soviet regime, "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" was excluded from the RSFSR Criminal Code after three decades of its application.


Post-Soviet Russia

In April 1989, Article 70 was reformulated as part of a series of statutory changes made under
perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
. It was more strictly formulated and became explicitly related to violent actions. The terms "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" were replaced by "public appeals", "subversion" (''podryv'', подрыв) and "overthrow" (''sverzheniye'', свержение). In October 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian law retained an offense of "public appeals to alter the constitutional order by force or to seize power, as well as the largescale distribution of material with such content", punishable by detention for a period of up to three years or a fine of twenty monthly minimum wages. In the new Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, effective from 1 January 1997, the offence of "anti-Soviet propaganda" has no parallel. More recently a retrogressive trend in amendments to existing laws led attorney
Henri Reznik Henri Markovich Reznik, also Genri Reznik (russian: Ге́нри Ма́ркович Ре́зник; born 11 May 1938, in Leningrad) is a prominent Russian lawyer, former criminal investigator and criminologist. He chaired the presidium of the Mosc ...
to raise the alarm about the appearance of the phrase "
anti-Russian Anti-Russian sentiment, commonly referred to as Russophobia, is dislike or fear of Russia, the Russians, Russian culture. or Russian policy. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as intense and often irrational hatred of Russia. It is the ...
" in certain legislative proposals.


See also

*
Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code) Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles and ...
*
Inciting subversion of state power Inciting subversion of state power () is a crime under the law of the People's Republic of China. It is article 105, paragraph 2 of the 1997 revision of the People's Republic of China's Penal Code.Articles 70 and 72 of the RSFSR Criminal Code
{{Portal bar, Soviet Union, Socialism, Law Political repression in the Soviet Union Persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union Suppression of dissent Censorship in the Soviet Union Soviet law Political and cultural purges Stalinism