Soviet Concept of Human Rights and Legal System
The Soviet conception of human rights was different from conceptions prevalent in the West. According to Western legal theory, "it is the individual who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the government", whereas Soviet theory states that society as a whole is the beneficiary. Within the Soviet Union, emphasis was placed on economic and social rights such as access to health care, adequate nutrition, education at all levels, and guaranteed employment. The government of the Soviet Union considered these to be the most important rights, without which political and civil rights were meaningless.
It was argued in the West that the Soviets rejected the Western concept of the "rule of law" as the belief that law should be more than just the instrument of politics; the Soviet view on rights was criticized for considering the Marxist–Leninist ideology above natural law.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In The Soviet Union
Famous quotes containing the words soviet, concept, human, rights, legal and/or system:
“In the Soviet Union everything happens slowly. Always remember that.”
—A.N. (Arkady N.)
“The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of Marx and Freud. Marx showed the moving powers and the conflicts in the social-historical process. Freud aimed at the critical uncovering of the inner conflicts. Both worked for the liberation of man, even though Marx’s concept was more comprehensive and less time-bound than Freud’s.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“The only human beings I have thoroughly admired and respected in the world have been those who carried the load of the world with a smile, and who, in the face of anxieties that would have knocked me clean out, never showed a tremor. Such men and women end by owning us, soul and body, and our allegiance can never be shaken. We are only too glad to be owned. Religion is nothing but this.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The Civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, be infringed.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“We now come to the grand law of the system in which we are placed, as it has been developed by the experience of our race, and that, in one word, is SACRIFICE!”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)