Emigration Laws Under The Soviet Union
The departure of individual citizen of the USSR was conditioned on the approval of the KGB. Many who sought those approvals were denied. Those who tried to escape the USSR and did not succeed were considered traitors, were fired from their jobs, and became targets of hatred by the public. The civilians of the USSR who did receive approval to emigrate were forced to cede their Soviet nationality and to pay money. Under the Communist regime, real estate assets such as apartments usually belonged to the state, and emigrants had to cede those assets in the majority of cases. After the establishment of capitalism in Russia and other former Soviet republics, those laws were canceled. Emigrants who left after the fall of communism were able to keep their citizenship and assets.
Read more about this topic: Russian Jewish Immigration To Israel In The 1990s
Famous quotes containing the words soviet union, laws, soviet and/or union:
“Today he plays jazz; tomorrow he betrays his country.”
—Stalinist slogan in the Soviet Union (1920s)
“If ... we admit a divinity, why not divine worship? and if worship, why not religion to teach this worship? and if a religion, why not the Christian, if a better cannot be assigned, and it be already established by the laws of our country, and handed down to us from our forefathers?”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“They were right. The Soviet régime is not the embodiment of evil as you think in the West. They have laws and I broke them. I hate tea and they love tea. Who is wrong?”
—Alexander Zinoviev (b. 1922)
“Castro couldn’t even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)