- Anti-Sovietism
Anti-Sovietism and Anti-Soviet refer to persons and activities actually or allegedly aimed against the
Soviet Union or the Soviet power within the Soviet Union.Three different flavors of the usage of the term may be distinguished.
*Anti-Sovietism in the international politics, such as American opposition to the Soviet Union during theCold War .
*Anti-Soviet opponents ofBolshevik s shortly after the Russian Revolution and during theRussian Civil War .
*As applied to Soviet citizens involved or allegedly involved in anti-Soviet activities.Soviet Union
In the USSR, the
epithet "antisoviet" wassynonym ous with "counterrevolutionary ". The noun "antisovietism" was rarely used and the noun "antisovietist" ( _ru. антисоветчик, "antisovetchik") was used in a derogatory sense.During the
Russian Civil War that followed theOctober Revolution of 1917, the anti-Soviet side was theWhite movement .Whole categories of people, such as clergy,
kulak s, formerImperial Russia n police, etc. were automatically considered anti-Soviet. More categories are listed in the article "Enemy of the people ".Being anti-Soviet was a criminal offense in the Soviet Union.
Anti-Soviet agitation and activities werepolitical crime s handled by theArticle 58 of theRSFSR penal code and similar articles in other Soviet republics.For many people the major evidence of their guilt was their social status rather than actual deeds.
Martin Latsis , chief of the UkrainianCheka , explained in a newspaper::"Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, hiseducation , hisprofession . These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused."Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. "The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future", 1994. ISBN 0-374-52738-5.]Reference
See also
*
Anti-communism
*Anti-Stalinist left
*Criticisms of Communist party rule
*Timeline of events in the Cold War External links
* [http://antisoviet.imwerden.de/ Anti-Soviet Electronic Library]
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