Talk:Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)

Old talk
If it was the RSFSR penal code, then what legal grounds were there for arrests in other R's, from the Baltics to Uzbekistan? --Humus sapiens|Talk 01:25, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Their penal codes had articles of similar content. A quick Google search turns up article 59 in Latvian SSR code and article 66 in Belarussian SSR code. Andris 17:23, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)
 * It would be good if you added something along these lines into the article. Mikkalai 19:59, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * OK, I added a sentence. I can't find text of any of them on the web, though, just mentions about people convicted, with notes about similarity to article 58 in RSFSR. Andris 04:22, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)


 * Interestingly, I remember having read that up to a certain time RSFSR penal code was used in Estonian SSR' as well. This was definitely the case with repressions during the first Soviet occupation 1940-41, ESSR code was composed later (on the basis of RSFSR code). Interesting legality the Soviets had... --Constanz - Talk 07:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

In Soviet Union there was ONE penal code and article 58 is article of SOVIET penal code, not RSFSR penal code. Francesco


 * No, there was RSFSR code during Stalin's times, also used in other countries under soviet rule. (Solzhenitsyn writes this way)--Constanz - Talk 07:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Article 58 was split when the law was revised in the early 1960s (see Anti-Soviet agitation). §58-10 became §70 of the new RSFSR Criminal Code. This §70 defined a maximum of 7 years of imprisonment followed by at most five years of internal exile. The version from the Ukrainian Criminal Code is available online; the RSFSR version was identical (I haven't found it online, but it is reprinted (in translation) in Loeber, D.A.: Urheberrecht in der Sowjetunion: Einführung und Quellen, 2nd ed.; Alfred Metzner Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1981. No ISBN. In German). Also in the 1960s, a new article 190(1) on the "dissemination of known falsehoods that defame the Soviet political and social system" was introduced in the RSFSR Criminal Code; it specified a maximum punishment of imprisonment for up to three years, or penal labour of up to one year, or a fine of up to 100 rubles. (Source: Loeber; Ukrainian version also mentioned at the extlk given above.) Lupo 14:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Also see Nikiforov, B. S.: Fundamental Principles of Soviet Criminal Law, in The Modern Law Review 23(1), pp. 31-42; January 1960. states that the RSFSR §70 and the UkrSSR §62 were implementations of an identical §7 of the Union-wide "Fundamentals of Criminal Law" of 1958. Lupo 08:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Espionage Act of 1917
How is the Espionage Act of 1917 compared to the Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code) probably nobody knows? Unlike espionage act that was challenged in courts, the Article 58 was never questioned and used purely and mostly for political purpose rather than national security. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 13:21, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Bizarre Editorial Scribbles
Somebody has entered: "58-14 were "saboteurs")[citation needed]."

Um, that is a citation, seems to me.


 * Subsequently, I see a longer scribble, saying that the whole article lacks citations.


 * At the bottom of the entry, there are two footnotes, one to "extracts" the other a box to the full text, of article 58.


 * These solve the imaginary problem, shurely? Could somebody remove the scribbles perhaps?

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 11:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Obscure title
This article has a really obscure title that does not explain what the article is trying to be encyclopedic about and restricts to being little more than documentation of a particular law. The title makes it almost impossible to understand what is really being written about. If it was some other name, like "Counter-revolutionary laws of the Soviet Union", or "Enemy of the workers (Soviet penal code)" one would be much clearer what the article is about and much easier to include other similar law from other Soviet jurisdictions. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 09:03, 10 March 2021 (UTC)