The draft Criminal code of the USSR in 1939: general characteristics Special parts

The article presents a historical and legal analysis of the draft criminal code of the USSR in 1939 (hereinafter - the draft of the USSR criminal code). This project was developed by the USSR people's Commissar by 1939, was widely discussed in the legal press, and it was devoted to the First scientific session of the all-Union Institute of legal Sciences. The project of the criminal code of the USSR is of diverse scientific and practical interest in terms of improving the activities of judicial bodies for the systematization and codification of legislation, the development of criminal policy of the USSR at the time, the definition of the theoretical foundations of the General and special parts of Russian criminal law. The draft criminal code of the USSR, structurally consisted of General and Special part. The system of the special part of the project of the USSR criminal code reflected the priorities of criminal law protection, typical for the ideology of socialism, since the order of the sections in the project reflected the hierarchy of values, which was established by the Constitution of the USSR in 1936. The triad of the main values protected by law was as follows: state - personality - society. The author came to the conclusion that within the chapters the logic in their construction, in representation of criminal and legal regulations, according to direct object of encroachment to species which is declared in the name of the Chapter was not always observed. The criterion of sys-tematization of the Special part was not only the object of criminal law protection, but also the features of the objective side of the crime. The study of the draft criminal code of the USSR showed that in some cases the definitions of criminal law concepts (the so-called norms-definitions) were allocated in separate articles. Some articles contained definitions of the concepts used in the rules of individual sections and chapters. The draft also highlighted such a structural element as a note revealing certain criminal law concepts. The project was the incentive of the provision that established the special grounds of exemption from criminal responsibility. The analysis of techniques of legislative technique on the method of presentation of elements of the legal norm in the text of the Special part of the project of the criminal code of the USSR testifies to the use of direct, blank and reference techniques. The article notes that the qualified offences were contained in other parts of one article (which were separated by a paragraph indent and were not numbered) or in separate articles. Fixing of qualifying features of compositions within one part of article was carried out in the form of the single designation, alternative naming or in the form of the list designated by lowercase letters of the Russian alphabet. The draft criminal code of the USSR was not implemented, but its provisions were used in further legislative work.

Keywords

Authors

References