Human Rights in The Soviet Union - Freedom of Political Expression

Freedom of Political Expression

In the 1930s and 1940s, political repression was practiced by the Soviet secret police services Cheka, OGPU and NKVD. An extensive network of civilian informants – either volunteers, or those forcibly recruited – was used to collect intelligence for the government and report cases of suspected dissent.

Soviet political repression was a de facto and de jure system of persecution and prosecution of people who were or perceived to be enemies of the Soviet system. Its theoretical basis was the theory of Marxism concerning class struggle. The terms "repression", "terror", and other strong words were official working terms, since the dictatorship of the proletariat was supposed to suppress the resistance of other social classes, which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of the proletariat. The legal basis of the repression was formalized into Article 58 in the code of the RSFSR and similar articles for other Soviet republics. Aggravation of class struggle under socialism was proclaimed during the Stalinist terror.