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13 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 451 (1980)
The Soviet Human Rights Doctrine in the Crossfire between Dissidents at Home and Critics Abroad

handle is hein.journals/vantl13 and id is 465 raw text is: THE SOVIET HUMAN RIGHTS DOCTRINE IN THE CROSSFIRE BETWEEN DISSIDENTS AT HOME AND CRITICS ABROAD* F.J.M. Feldbrugge** TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ................................... 451 II. THE DEBATE OF 1974 ............................ 453 III. HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE 1977 CONSTITUTION ......... 461 IV . CONCLUSION .................................... 465 I. INTRODUCTION Political and foreign relations aspects, rather than justiciability and legal instrumentalities, have always been preponderant in So- viet human rights doctrine. It is widely admitted now, at least outside the Soviet Union, that the main purpose for the much- publicized inclusion of an extensive catalogue of basic rights in the 1936 Constitution of the USSR can only have been the crea- tion of a favorable impression upon the Western democracies.' One has to remember that this happened not only at a time when the victims of Stalinist terror were numbered in millions (making the constitutional pronouncements a lugubrious farce) but also at a time when Stalin was eager for his young Soviet state to acquire a degree of respectability. * An earlier version of a portion of this article entitled Grundrechte in zweierlei Sicht. Die Grundrechtsdiskussion zwischen Staatsrechtlern und Dissidenten in der Sowjetunion appeared in VERFASSUNGS- UND VERWALTUNGSREFORMEN IN DEN SOZIALISTISCHEN STAATEN 101-09 (F. Schroeder & B. Meissner eds. 1978). ** Mr. Feldbrugge, Professor of Soviet and East European Law at the Uni- versity of Leiden and Director of the Documentation Office for East European Law, serves as Editor of Law in Eastern Europe and Review of Socialist Law. His principal publications include Soviet Criminal Law (1964), Encyclopedia of Soviet Law (ed. 1973), Samizdat and Political Dissent in the Soviet Union (1975) and The Constitution of the USSR at the Union Republics (ed. 1979). 1. See, e.g., J. HAZARD, THE SOVIET SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 9-10 (5th ed. 1980); D. Scorr, RUSSIAN POLITIcAL INSTITUTIONS 81 (4th ed. 1969).

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