User:Srguan/Communism and capital punishment

The article highlights the communist attitudes towards the capital punishment.

Karl Marx
Karl Marx acknowledged the death penalty as an inherent part of the revolution. On 19 May 1849, he wrote in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung:

"We are merciless and we do not ask for mercy for us. When it is our turn, we will not conceal the terror behind the hypocritical phrases."

In other his writings, however, he did not underscore the death penalty as a necessary attribute of the state’s repressive machine.

Soviet leaders
Vladimir Lenin defended the death penalty as a weapon in the class struggle. He said:

"No revolutionary government can do without the death penalty, and the essence of the question is only against what class will the weapon of the death penalty be directed."

However, the death penalty was abolished after the October Revolution at the insistence of Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, a coalition partner of Bolsheviks for a brief period.

In February 1918, Lenin decreed to shoot "hostile agents, speculators, burglars, hooligans, counterrevolutionary agitators, and German spies [apprehended] at the scene of the crime". The executions were carried out based on the administrative decisions of Cheka, that means extrajudicial killings without a trial. On 18 June 1918, People's Commissariat (Ministry) of Justice issued a circular, saying that revolutionary tribunals "were not bound by any restrictions' in their struggle against counterrevolution and sabotage". The Council of People’s Commissars justified this by underscoring the necessity of responding to the "White Terror" and "defending the achievements of the revolution". It argued that the death penalty was justified to "safeguard the Soviet republic from class enemies". This was followed by a first case involving a death penalty issued by the Soviet court, against Admiral of the Baltic Fleet, Alexey Schastny. However, officially the decree abolishing the death penalty was only put aside on 5 September 1918 by a decree "On Red Terror".

On 17 January 1920, the Bolshevik government abolished death penalty, stating that "the annihilation of the counterrevolution and the consolidation of Soviet power made it possible to abolish the death penalty for the enemies of Soviet power", but provided a possibility for restoring the death penalty. The abolition was only extended to the decisions of the ordinary courts, while the military and revolutionary tribunals continued to issue death sentences. In May 1920, the death penalty was restored during the Polish offensive on Ukraine. Lenin said that the death penalty would in force "no longer than is necessary", but it was retained after the civil war. Thus, after this the application of death penalty during Lenin's reign can no longer be explained by the necessity of Red Terror and a doctrine of its usage against the class enemies during the revolution.

The 1922 RSFSR Criminal Code provided a death penalty as a "temporary measure until its complete abolition". It was prescribed for political crimes, military crimes and also for economic crimes. The death penalty was applied against the common criminals as well, which was justified as the interest of workers' state. The 1922 decree authorized the State Political Directorate (successor of Cheka) "the right of extrajudicial repression, including execution" in cases of banditry.

The 1926 RSFSR criminal code called a death penalty "an exception measure for the protection of the workers' state" existing provisionally "until its abolition". In the following months, it was restricted to military and political crimes as well as banditry, resulting in a sharp decline in its application. In 1928 number of death sentences dropped to 450 from 1300 in 1926. In 1930, its number increased with the collectivization campaign. Central Executive Committee and the USSR Council of People's Commissars instructed to apply "the most extreme measure of punishment (capital punishment)" with "no hesitation" against kulaks who actively engaged in counterrevolution. This was also repeated by Politburo of Communist Party. This signifies a restoration of a system of summery executions as a part of the dekulakization campaign.

In August 1932, a death penalty was extended to cases of theft of property from trains or ships and from kolkhozes. Stalin called thieves "counterrevolutionaries" and they were referred to as "enemies of people". In 1934, death penalty was extended in peacetime to include the theft of weapons, murder committed by servicemen under aggravating circumstances, and treason. During the World War II, the right under matial law to summerly execute "provocateurs, spies and other agents of the enemy, inciting violation of order" was laid down in the law.

During this period, the use of death penalty was governed by state interests. In 1947, it was abolished in peacetime but restored in 1950. This time it was applied in a different fashion, as in 1954, it was authorized as a punishment for premediated, aggraviated murder. This application was more related to an increase in a violent crime and public indignation. While Soviet authors explained Lenin's attitude towards a death penalty by referring to social class as the most important factor towards its application, the application of death penalty towards murderers was more problematic than its application towards class enemies from a Marxist-Leninist standpoint. Soviet authors during Lenin's period did not examine whether a murderer turned into a class enemy by his action. In 1976, Leningrad University criminal lawyer, Osipov, wrote:

"The doctrine of Marxism-Leninism on revolutionary terror does not bear any relation to the question of the death penalty as a punishment for common crimes in peacetime and the absence of class struggle within the country."

The next Soviet criminal codes also retained a death penalty for crimes against state, political and military crimes. In 1961-1962 the list also was extended to economic and other specific crimes, such as hijacking later in 1973. The right of security police to apply summery execution was finally abolished in 1959.