Editing Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)

{{Short description|Criminal law statute in Soviet Russia}}
{{More citations needed|date=April 2021}}
'''Article 58''' of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]] Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to prosecute those suspected of [[counter-revolutionary activity|counter-revolutionary activities]]. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles and put in force on 8 June 1934.{{Citation needed|date=July 2019|reason=This is a law that is being referenced and we need to be able to see the text of the statute.}}

This article introduced the formal notion of the [[enemy of workers]]: those subject to articles 58-2 &mdash; 58-13 (those under 58-1 were "traitors", 58-14 were "saboteurs"){{Citation needed|date=July 2019}}.

Penal codes of other [[republics of the Soviet Union]] also had articles of similar nature{{Citation needed|date=July 2019|reason=Making the claim that it is similar to the codes of other soviet republics requires a citation to a comparative legal study.  Otherwise, we cannot verify the accuracy of this information.}}.

==Summary==
'''Note:''' In this section, the phraseology of article 58 is given in quotes.

The article covered the following offenses.

*58-1: Definition of [[counter-revolutionary]] activity: 
<blockquote>A counter-revolutionary action is any action aimed at overthrowing, undermining or weakening of the power of workers' and peasants' [[Soviet (council)|Soviet]]s... and governments of the USSR and [[Soviet republic (system of government)|Soviet]] and [[Autonomous entity|autonomous]] republics, or at the undermining or weakening of the external security of the USSR and main economical, political and national achievements of the proletarian revolution</blockquote>

It was not limited to anti-Soviet acts: by "international solidarity of workers", any other "worker's state" was protected by this article.
**58-1а. [[Treason]]: death sentence or 10 years of prison, both cases with property confiscation.
**58-1б. Treason by military personnel: death sentence with property confiscation.
**58-1в. In the case of flight of the offender in treason subject to 58-1б (military personnel only), his relatives were subject to 5–10 years of imprisonment with confiscation or 5 years of [[Siberia]] exile, depending on the circumstances: either they helped or knew and did not report or simply lived with the offender. 
**58-1г. Non-reporting of a treason by a military man: 10 years of imprisonment. Non-reporting by others: offense by Article 58-12.
*58-2. Armed uprising or intervention with the goal to seize the power: up to death with confiscation, including formal recognition as "[[Enemy of the people|enemy of workers]]".
*58-3. Contacts with foreigners "with counter-revolutionary purposes" (as defined by 58-1) are subject to Article 58-2.
*58-4. Any kind of help to "international bourgeoisie" which, not recognizing the equality of communist political system, strives to overthrow it: punishment similar to 58-2.
*58-5. Urging any foreign entity to declaration of war, military intervention, blockade, capture of state property, breaking diplomatic relations, breaking international treaties, and other aggressive actions against USSR: similar to 58-2.
*58-6. Espionage. Punishment: similar to 58-2.
*58-7. Undermining of state industry, transport, monetary circulation or credit system, as well as of cooperative societies and organizations, with counter-revolutionary purpose (as defined by 58-1) by means of the corresponding usage of the state institutions, as well as by opposing their normal functioning: same as 58-2. ''Note: the offense according to this article was known as [[Wrecking (Soviet Union)|wrecking]] and the offenders were called "wreckers".''
*58-8. Terrorist acts against representatives of Soviet power or of workers and peasants organisations: same as 58-2.
*58-9. Damage of transport, communication, water supply, warehouses and other buildings or state and communal property with counter-revolutionary purpose: same as 58-2.
*58-10. [[Anti-Soviet agitation|Anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary propaganda and agitation]]: at least 6 months of imprisonment. In the conditions of unrest or war: same as 58-2.
*58-11. Any kind of organisational or support actions related to the preparation or execution of the above crimes is equated to the corresponding offenses and prosecuted by the corresponding articles.
*58-12. Non-reporting of a "counter-revolutionary activity": at least 6 months of imprisonment.
*58-13. Active struggle against revolutionary movement of [[Imperial Russia|tsarist]] personnel and members of "counter-revolutionary governments" during the [[Russian Civil War|civil war]], same as 58-2.
*58-14 (added on June 6, 1927<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.mnemosyne.ee/hc.ee/pdf/appendixes/329-331.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2019-12-31 |archive-date=2020-11-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111213642/http://www.mnemosyne.ee/hc.ee/pdf/appendixes/329-331.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>) "Counter-revolutionary sabotage", i.e., conscious non-execution or deliberately careless execution of "defined duties", aimed at the weakening of the power of the government and of the functioning of the state apparatus is subject to at least one year of freedom deprivation, and under especially aggravating circumstances, up to the highest measure of social protection: [[execution by shooting]] with confiscation of property.

==Application==
{{More citations needed|date=September 2019}}
Sentences were long, up to 25 years, and frequently extended indefinitely without trial or consultation.{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}} Inmates under Article 58 were known as "politichesky" (полити́ческий, short for полити́ческий заключённый, "politichesky zakliuchonny" or "[[political prisoner]]"), as opposed to common criminals, "ugolovnik" (уголо́вник).{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}} Often prisoners would be released without the right to settle within [[101st kilometre|100 km of large cities]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}}

Section 10 of Article 58 made "propaganda and agitation against the Soviet Union" a triable offence, whilst section 12 allowed for onlookers to be prosecuted for not reporting instances of section 10. In effect, Article 58 was [[Full Powers|carte blanche]] for the [[List of Soviet secret police agencies|secret police]] to arrest and imprison anyone deemed suspicious, making for its use as a political weapon.{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}}

Article 58 was applied to Soviet citizens outside the USSR as well. In the [[Soviet occupation zone|Soviet occupation zone of Germany]] people were interned as "spies" for suspected opposition to the Stalinist regime, e.g. for contacts with organizations based in the [[Allied Occupation Zones in Germany|Western occupation zones]], on the basis of Article 58 of the Soviet penal code.<ref name=Cornelius129>Kai Cornelius, ''Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen'', BWV Verlag, 2004, p.129, {{ISBN|3-8305-1165-5}}</ref> In the [[NKVD special camps|NKVD special camp]] in [[Bautzen]], 66% of the inmates fell into this category.<ref name=Cornelius129/>

==Evolution==
After the [[On the Personality Cult and its Consequences|denunciation]] of [[Stalinism]] by [[Nikita Khrushchev]] the code was significantly rewritten. {{cn|date=December 2023}}

==Application of the article==
[[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] in his 1973 book ''[[The Gulag Archipelago]]'' characterized the enormous scope of the article in this way:

<blockquote>One can find more epithets in praise of this article than [[Ivan Turgenev|Turgenev]] once assembled to praise the [[Russian language]], or [[Nikolay Nekrasov|Nekrasov]] to praise Mother Russia: great, powerful, abundant, highly ramified, multiform, wide sweeping 58, which summed up the world not so much through the exact terms of its sections as in their extended dialectical interpretation.<br />Who among us has not experienced its all-encompassing embrace? In all truth, there is no step, thought, action, or lack of action under the heavens which could not be punished by the heavy hand of Article 58.<ref>Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. [[The Gulag Archipelago]]. Harper & Row, First Edition, 1973. {{ISBN|0-06-013914-5}}. Chapter 2, Page 60</ref></blockquote>

According to Solzhenitsyn, "The paragraph 58 had no minimum of age! So was it even told at the lectures on law held for the people — Tallinn, 1945. Dr Uusmaa had known a six year old boy, who was in the colony on the ground of paragraph 58 — this is obviously a record!"<ref>The Gulag Archipelago, Part 3, Chapter 17</ref>

==Analogs in other Union republics==
In Ukraine the article corresponded to Article 54 (UkrSSR Penal Code), in Belarus – Article 63 (BSSR Penal Code).

==See also==
*[[Anti-Soviet agitation]]
*[[Soviet law]], [[NKVD troika]]
*[[Gulag]], [[101st kilometre]]
*[[Politics of the Soviet Union]], [[Lenin's Hanging Order]]
*[[White (political adjective)|"White"]], a label on those considered anti-Soviet (almost exclusively in the context of the [[Russian Civil War|Russian Civil War 1918-1922]])

===Comparable concepts in other countries===
*[[Inciting subversion of state power]], [[Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people]], China
*[[Berufsbeamtengesetz]], [[Reichstag Fire Decree]], [[The Malicious Practices Act 1933]], Nazi Germany
*[[Article 301 (Turkish Penal Code)|Insulting Turkishness]], Turkey

==References==
<references/>

==Bibliography==
* V.A. Kozlov et al. (eds.) ''58.10. Nadzornye proizvodstva prokuratury SSSR po delam ob antisovetskoi agitatsii i propagande: annotirovannyi katalog'' (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnyi Fond "Demokratiia", 1999)
(An annotated account of every single case prosecuted under Article 58.10 of the Soviet Penal Code from the death of Stalin until the fall of Communism with reference to the relevant files in the State Archive of the Russian Federation [GARF] for researchers)

==External links {{Circular reference|date=July 2019}}==
{{wikisource3|ru:Статья 58 Уголовного Кодекса РСФСР|Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code, Special Part, revision of year 1926 (in Russian)}}
*[http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/uk58-e.html#58-1a Extracts from Article 58 (in English)]

[[Category:1927 in law]]
[[Category:1927 in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Gulag]]
[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Law of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Official documents of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]]
[[Category:Treason]]