Biyushkina N.I. Specificity of the development of the Soviet criminal and procedural law throughout the period of codification of 1950’s – 1960’s

Abstract: The author carefully examines the key historical events of the second part of the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, which in time made possible the codification of the criminal and criminal procedural law of that period. The point of origin of codification can be considered the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which took place in February of 1956 with the speech by N. S. Khrushchev “On the cult of personality and its consequences”, in which he raise the questions of rehabilitation of citizens repressed during the period of Stalin’s reign. One of the goals of the CC CPCU in accordance with the decisions of the 20th Congress was complete eradication of crime with replacement of measures of criminal punishments with measures of social rehabilitation. The author detects multiple exclusively significant changes in the Soviet criminal and criminal procedure law in the studied period that were reflected in the codification of the second half of the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, which contributed to the restoration of the Socialist lawfulness. The author’s contribution into this subject is the conclusion that the qualitative political-legal transformations that took place in the USSR from mid-1950’s to 1960’s have prompted the development of the organizational legal mechanisms of protection of the rights of Soviet citizens, shielding them from arbitrary punishment by the branches that carried unconstitutional character and were abolished during said period.

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