Human rights in the Soviet Union have been viewed differently, one view by the communist ideology adopted by the Soviet Union and another by its critics. The Soviet Union was established after a revolution that ended centuries of Tsarist monarchy. The emerging Soviet leaders sought to establish a new order and understanding of equality based on Marxist–Leninist ideology.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union ruled the country and mobilized the entire population in support of state ideology and policies. As a result, civil and political rights were limited. The emphasis was placed on the principles of guaranteed economic and social rights.
Read more about Human Rights In The Soviet Union: Human Rights, Soviet Concept of Human Rights and Legal System, Freedom of Political Expression, Freedom of Literary and Scientific Expression, Right To Vote, Economic Rights, Freedoms of Assembly and Association, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Movement, Human Rights Movement in The Soviet Union, U.S. Condemnations of Soviet Human Rights Abuses
Famous quotes containing the words soviet union, human, rights, soviet and/or union:
“Today he plays jazz; tomorrow he betrays his country.”
—Stalinist slogan in the Soviet Union (1920s)
“What is human in me is not what is best in me. What is human in me is that I desire, and to obtain what I desire, I believe I would crush anything that stood in my way.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“So they lived. They didn’t sleep together, but they had children.”
—Russian saying popular in the Soviet period, trans. by Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov (1993)
“My whole working philosophy is that the only stable happiness for mankind is that it shall live married in blessed union to woman-kind—intimacy, physical and psychical between a man and his wife. I wish to add that my state of bliss is by no means perfect.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)