Responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism (Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation): the composition of the crime and the discussion around it

Safonov Vladimir Nikolaevich ORCID: 0000-0002-3676-1894 PhD in Law Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Law, Northwestern Branch, Russian State University of Justice; Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation 197046, Russia, Leningrad region, Saint Petersburg, Alexandrovsky Park, 5A svn205@gmail.com

Andreev Daniil Vadimovich Secretary of the court session of the Department of Civil Proceedings, Leningrad Regional Court 191187, Russia, Leningrad region, Saint Petersburg, nab. Fontanka River, 6 andreevdaniil2014@yandex.ru

Introduction

The need for a systematic counteraction to modern forms of manifestation of the rehabilitation of Nazism has become urgent. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Nazism, attempts to spread it and justify it, is a world problem. "Desecration of history" was previously a sign of foreign political practice. A telling event in this regard is the honoring of 98–year-old Ukrainian emigrant Yaroslav Gunko, who served in the Nazi SS division "Galicia", on September 22, 2023 in the Parliament of Canada as part of the visit of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The Russian media called this state-level event an ordinary fascism under a maple leaf. Unfortunately, the rehabilitation of Nazism has become a noticeable and painfully experienced political and legal problem for Russia. The direct or veiled justification of this phenomenon has lost its foreign residence permit. Usually, on the eve of the next date since the victory of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition in World War II, using the possibilities of cyberspace, modern adherents of Nazism are increasingly and more cynically attempting to rehabilitate his ideas.

The relevant question about our readiness to resist this evil involves an appeal to the study of the effectiveness of legal and organizational measures to counter the rehabilitation of Nazism. Even the first approach to the problem is alarming: against the background of the lack of accounting for the number of criminal cases of this category in the official statistics of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the very facts of the rehabilitation of Nazism and the number of criminal cases are multiplying. All this speaks to the urgency of the problem of countering the rehabilitation of Nazism in modern Russia and the need to assess the effectiveness of legal and organizational measures of such counteraction.

The object of the study was the legal relations arising in connection with the manifestations of the rehabilitation of Nazism as a negative socially dangerous behavior of subjects. At the same time, a systematic approach to the study was observed: these relations, in particular, were considered in the context of the vertical hierarchy of objects of legal protection adopted in Russian criminal law, taking into account their axiological content.

The subject of the study is the legislative consolidation and the established practice of judicial interpretation of the signs of the corpus delicti provided for in Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Rehabilitation of Nazism), as well as doctrinal approaches to the need to criminalize the act in question.

The purpose of the study is to argue the need to criminalize the rehabilitation of Nazism as a socially dangerous act; to clarify the systematic finding of the criminal law norm on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism as a factor that increases its effectiveness; to offer legal and organizational recommendations aimed at its optimization.

The research methodology is based on the application of general (generalization, observation), general scientific (dialectical, logical, systemic), private scientific (sociological, historical, axeological) and special (comparative legal, formal legal, method of legal hermeneutics) research methods.

When justifying the need to criminalize the rehabilitation of Nazism and proposals for optimizing the legal norm, preference is given to general, general scientific (dialectical, systemic) and private scientific methods of cognition. Special methods were used mainly in the study of the content of the legal norm and its legal and technical features.

Research results

We are convinced that countering the rehabilitation of Nazism is a complex socio–legal, including ideological problem. The specificity of this work sets its specific focus: the study of the legal and organizational-legal planes of counteraction, where the first involves an appeal to the corpus delicti provided for in Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, in particular, to the need to criminalize the act, the balance of the legal norm. The organizational and legal (law enforcement aspect) implies an appeal to the practice of regular monitoring of the rehabilitation of Nazism by the relevant services of the internal affairs bodies. This approach to the problem determined the structure of the study.

1) Criminalization of responsibility for Nazism as a legal form of implementation of the official policy of memory

Federal Law No. 128-FZ dated 05.05.2014 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" introduced Article 354.1 into Chapter 34 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind", which provides for criminal liability for the rehabilitation of Nazism, which caused an acute discussion about the expediency of criminalizing actions in the field of historical memory among researchers not only criminal law, but also history.

The analysis of various scientific papers on this issue, as well as their own reflections, allowed us to identify the following reasons for the introduction of this article in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Firstly, "conflicts of interpretation of the past" began to grow in the world – a phenomenon that is interpreted by researchers as "memory wars" ^{[3, p. 340]}. This is a refutation of the fact of the USSR's victory in World War II, despite the existing international legal documents, and a reassessment not only of the role of the participants in the war, but also of the reasons for its beginning and its very nature ^{[14, p. 18]}.

Secondly, it is a threat of blurring of what liberals and part of the audience of the Echo of Moscow radio station were fiddling with – those spiritual ties, the self–consciousness of the people (in their adapted version - staples) that make up the core of national unity.

The result of the above phenomena was the legislative consolidation of this norm in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Such norms in the legal sphere are called memorial laws, that is, "the legal form of the implementation of the official policy of memory" ^{[3, p. 341]}.

2) Scientific discussion on the need for memorial laws

Some scientists, whose opinion we support, for these reasons, speak positively about legislative measures to counteract the rehabilitation of Nazism, taking into account the variety of forms of its manifestation. However, other researchers speak not only about the shortcomings of this article, which will be discussed below, but also negatively relate to the very fact of criminalization of such an act, questioning the expediency of legal regulation in the field of assessing historical events in principle.

In particular, P. V. Veklenko believes that the legal regulation of the sphere of historical memory is an "unjustified legitimization" and "legal pollution", since opinions about history are not important enough to be regulated by the norms of law. Moreover, in his opinion, "attempts to legitimize history discredit the very idea of law in its humanistic, naturalistic interpretation," as well as the justice system. The researcher considers this phenomenon as a struggle against "dissent" and "dissenters", compares it with the ideologization of history and a return to totalitarianism and, as a result, argues that such regulatory regulation violates the constitutional rights of citizens.

In addition, P. V. Veklenko believes that "the legislative consolidation of the "only true" version of the historical process is a direct road to paranoscience, to the limitations of the "isthmus" and outright Lysenkoism" ^{[2, pp. 357-362]}.

We categorically disagree with such judgments, and that's why. Firstly, legislation protecting historical memory must be given importance. The victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War is not just a memory. This is not only a historical and legal fact, which has invaluable historical, legal, humanistic, etc. meaning, but also an established symbol, so important for previous and subsequent generations of people, first of all, as time shows, Russia and the USSR that has gone down in history.

Secondly, of course, we do not consider the scientific discussion about the events of the past to be of little value and do not reject the fact that it is in it that the truth is born. However, there are, as already mentioned above, symbols that cannot be considered from a purely scientific and debatable point of view, so as not to slip into Satanism.

3) Problems of language and legal technique of the norm on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism

A consistent increase in the effectiveness of the norm involves addressing the shortcomings of the current article. It is noted in the scientific literature that the issues of terminology, validity and expediency of the application of this article remain not fully worked out, and philological and historical interpretation raise questions ^{[9, p. 101]}. Others note that the name of the norm does not correspond to the content, the generic and specific objects of the crime are incorrectly defined, there is no note limiting the scope of the article ^{[7, p. 57]}.

As part of our research, we will pay attention to the categorical apparatus of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, terminology issues, and also analyze the problem of distinguishing this corpus delicti from the one provided for in Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Precise and specific formulations are required to qualify crimes and distinguish some acts from others. There should be no ambiguous and indefinite interpretations in criminal law. Otherwise, it is impossible or difficult to distinguish legitimate behavior from illegal.

Controversial issues and interpretations in the context of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which should be paid attention to, are: the concept of rehabilitation, Nazism, as well as the criterion of publicity.

In the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by S. I. Ozhegov, the first meaning of the word "rehabilitation" is the restoration of the former good reputation or in the former rights. The second value is the elimination of the consequences caused by a serious illness or injury ^[11].

In the dictionary of the Russian language of the Russian Academy of Sciences , rehabilitation is understood as:

1. Restoration of honor, reputation of a wrongly accused or defamed person;

2. Restoration (by court or administrative procedure) of the former rights;

3. Restoration of health and working capacity of persons whose physical or mental abilities are limited after diseases, injuries ^[10].

In the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language edited by D. N. Ushakov, the word "rehabilitation" has the following meaning: restoration of the former, unblemished reputation, refutation of accusations ^[12].

In Russian law, in paragraph 34 of Article 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the following definition of the concept of "rehabilitation" is fixed: the procedure for restoring the rights and freedoms of a person unlawfully or unreasonably subjected to criminal prosecution, and compensation for the harm caused to him.

Thus, based on the analysis of definitions contained in various dictionaries, as well as from the normative definition, it can be concluded that the word "rehabilitation" is ambiguous, polysemic ^{[8, pp. 139-148]}, but in jurisprudence it has a positive connotation and is used to restore the former position of an unreasonably accused person.

The idea that the legislator put a positive meaning in the title of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is excluded. Sharing the point of view with other researchers, we note that a better term for the title of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation would be the word "justification". The proof of this is an example from judicial practice. The Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea, in its verdict of October 30, 2015 in case No. 1-25/2015, indicated that "... [by committing a crime,] the person pursued the goal of justifying the activities of the SS troops during the Second World War. At the same time, justification of the activities of the "SS" troops also includes approval of the activities of the "SS" troops, since the category of "justification" includes "approval" (the verdict of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea of October 30, 2015 in case No. 1-25/2015). Note that this example from judicial practice is not the only one.

With the interpretation of the concept of "Nazism" or, as it is also called, "national Socialism", everything is much more complicated, because, firstly, it is inextricably linked with the terms "fascism" and "nationalism", and different opinions are expressed about their relationship, and secondly, the legislative consolidation of these concepts not at all. A number of researchers believe that Nazism is part of fascism. Others view Nazism and fascism as two distinct phenomena. Having analyzed many definitions of Nazism and fascism in the legal literature, we come to the conclusion that fascism and Nazism have the same nature, but fascism is an extreme radical form of nationalism, and Nazism (National Socialism) is one of the varieties of fascism ^{[13, pp. 66-76]}. It turns out that the following chain of concepts from broader to narrower: nationalism, fascism, Nazism.

To clarify the term "Nazism", let's turn to the dictionary. In a Large legal dictionary, Nazism is understood as the name of the ideology and practice of the Hitlerite regime in Germany in 1933-1945, the essence of which is the totalitarian terrorist methods of power, as well as the official gradation of all nations according to their degree of usefulness ^[1].

There is another definition given by A.V. Marayeva: "Nazism" is an ideology and practice that is associated with the assertion of the superiority of a racial, national or ethnic group, as well as the need for the suppression, complete or partial destruction of lower groups as a condition for the survival and prosperity of the "higher" nation (nationality), accompanied by military aggression and genocide" ^{[5, pp. 104-105]}.

Thus, under the rehabilitation of Nazism in the context of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as it seems to us, it is necessary to understand the justification of its reputation among the population of Russia, that is, challenging the validity of the existing prohibition of Nazi ideology, restoring the lost "good" name, recognizing the illegality of accusing Nazis of crimes committed ^{[14, p. 19]}.

4) Law enforcement aspects of the criminal law norm on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism

To do this, we will consider the types of justification of Nazism enshrined in the disposition of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as well as legislative regulation and practical (law enforcement) interpretation of the criterion of publicity. To this end, let us turn to the judicial practice of this article and analyze some court decisions.

1. Denial of the facts established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal. Thus, the culprit, who is a supporter of the ideology of German Nazism, acting intentionally, adhering to the ideology of German Nazism and approving of the actions committed by A. Hitler during World War II, realizing the public nature of his actions, as well as the fact that the materials posted by him on one of the Internet sites will be available for viewing to an unlimited number of persons, publicly In order to rehabilitate Nazism, he placed texts under a graphic image of a Soviet soldier holding a Victory banner against the background of a city destroyed by war, in which he positively assessed A. Hitler and his actions.

The Court qualified these actions as containing signs of justification of the ideology of fascism (Nazism), as well as denial of the facts established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial and Punishment of the Main War Criminals of the European Axis countries, approval of crimes established by this verdict committed in public (the verdict of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court of November 06, 2019 in case No. 2-34/2019).

2. Denial of punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis countries. In judicial practice, we have not encountered criminal cases with charges on this basis.

3. Approval of crimes established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal. In particular, the culprit, acting intentionally, publicly, for the viewing of an unlimited circle of people, posted on the social network "In Contact" a photo image of political figures who have an external resemblance to B. Mussolini and A. Hitler, dressed in the military uniform of the German army during World War II, with the image of Nazi symbols on A. Hitler's uniform shirt (swastikas), as well as a comment of the following content: "An incomprehensible holiday is approaching on February 23, much more suitable days for the holiday are September 01, because on September 01, 1939, Nazi Germany attacked Poland and the war began, or for example on June 22, because on June 22, 1941, the Reich troops attacked the USSR. So let's celebrate such significant days!!! Hitler at least tried to change the world for the better."

The Court stated that with this comment S. V. Prusov approved the beginning of the Second World War, that is, the invasion of German troops on September 1, 1939 on the territory of Poland and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, that is, the invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, which according to the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial and Punishment of the Main war Criminals of the European Axis countries, recognized as an act of obvious aggression and a crime (the verdict of the Stavropol Regional Court of November 21, 2016 in case No. 2-34/2016).

4. Dissemination of deliberately false information about the activities of the USSR during the Second World War.  The plot of the case is as follows. The suspect, being registered in one of the social networks accessible to an unlimited circle of people, acting intentionally, publicly, with the aim of rehabilitating Nazism, posted on his personal page video files, texts, audio recordings, as well as comments to them, which contain false information about the activities of the USSR during World War II and which are aimed at justification of the ideology of fascism (resolution of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mari El dated May 12, 2020 in case No. 2-5/2020).

5. Dissemination of deliberately false information about veterans of the Great Patriotic War. This kind of justification of Nazism is also not noticeable in the general law enforcement picture of the Criminal Code norm under consideration.

6. Dissemination of information expressing obvious disrespect for society about the days of military glory and memorable dates of Russia related to the protection of the Fatherland. For example, the contempt of the holiday "May 9 is the Victory Day of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 (1945)", which, in accordance with Article 1 of Federal Law No. 32-FZ of 13.03.1995 "On Days of Military Glory and memorable dates of Russia" is the day of military glory of Russia associated with the defense of the Fatherland.

In a particular case, the criminal actions were expressed in the following. The convict deliberately posted, thereby presenting the content to an indefinite circle of persons from among the registered users of the VKontakte social network for public, i.e. in open access for other users of the review, an image of the award badge of Nazi Germany, an image with the text "May 9 is dedicated to no surrender!!! HeilHitler!", as well as an image of A. Hitler with an inscription containing profanity and negative information about May 9 in an indecent form.

The Court noted that the final decisions of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal of 1945 condemned Nazism as a criminal system and ideology, and the content of the posted images clearly indicates their attitude to fascism and fascist symbols, its information is sufficient to understand. The text and the image itself as a whole contain information that the victory of the USSR in the war over Nazi Germany is undeserved, and the glorification of the victory on May 9 is unjustified, i.e. contains negative information about May 9 as a memorable date of Russia (the verdict of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Buryatia of December 27, 2016 in case No. 1-34/2016).

In the already mentioned verdict of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea dated October 30, 2015 in case No. 1-25/2015, publicity is defined as follows: "Internet page... with the materials posted on it, it was publicly available for viewing by all users of this network, that is, to an unlimited circle of people... Thus, the placement ... the information on its Internet page was of a public nature."

As follows from the examples given, the criterion of publicity is understood by the courts as the availability (accessibility) of an unlimited (indefinite) circle of persons to view (review, familiarization) information, i.e. finding information in open access for other persons.

5) The problem of competition of norms and the systematic arrangement of the article on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism

An important issue is the ratio of competing norms: Article 354.1 and Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Analysis of judicial practice has shown that in most cases the courts consider a set of crimes provided for in Articles 354.1 and 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Recall that, in addition, Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation constructively has an administrative prejudice (Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation).

If everything is clear with the delineation of the composition of an administrative offense provided for in Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation from the composition of a criminal act enshrined in Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, then difficulties arise when distinguishing the criminal legal compositions enshrined in Articles 282 and 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

This issue was considered, in particular, by the researcher M. A. Karimov. The author came to the conclusion that the main difference between these compositions, among others, is the subjective side of the crime, namely the different purpose. In the case of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation , the criminal " expresses his own opinion about Nazism ... however, he does not impose it on them." The purpose of the crime provided for in Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is "to arouse the determination of an indefinite circle of persons to commit illegal actions" ^{[4, p. 216]}.

Judicial practice confirms this opinion. The verdict of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea dated August 02, 2017 in case No. 1-18/2017, decided in a special order in connection with the admission of guilt and consent to the consideration of the case in this order, the defendant was found guilty of committing crimes under Articles 282 and 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The criminal acts were expressed in the publicly accessible, open for viewing by an unlimited number of persons, posting on the page on the Vkontakte social network of lyrics and statements in which the defendant negatively evaluates a group of persons on various grounds and which call for hostile actions against this group of persons of other users, and their further dissemination in order to incite hatred and hostility towards this group of persons in violation of Part 2 of Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

In addition, the defendant, being a supporter [personally] of the ideology of German Nazism, publicly posted a text with the title "The myth that Hitler wanted to kill all Slavs" on a page open for viewing by an unlimited number of people on the Vkontakte social network, with the aim of rehabilitating Nazism, "The myth that Hitler wanted to kill all Slavs", which contains linguistic and psychological signs justifications of the ideology of fascism (Nazism), as well as denial of the facts established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial and Punishment of the Main War Criminals of the European Axis countries (the verdict of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea dated August 02, 2017 in case No. 1-18/2017).

This point of view takes place and is justified if we take into account the fixed arrangement of articles in the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

However, more and more researchers, whose opinion we share, not unreasonably express the point of view that the composition provided for in Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is still an extremist crime, and the inclusion of the article "Rehabilitation of Nazism" in the chapter of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation containing norms on responsibility for crimes against the peace and security of mankind violates the doctrine of the object of the crime, since the latter encroach on the fundamental foundations of international peace and security established by the norms of international law. The crime provided for in Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation should be attributed to one of the forms of extremism, since it violates the constitutional foundations of the Russian state, therefore, it is advisable to move this criminal prohibition to Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Crimes against the foundations of the constitutional system and state security" ^{[14, p. 19-20]}. One more argument: the crimes provided for in Chapter 34 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are essentially extraterritorial, and the act provided for in Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has a pronounced Russian binding.

Researchers P. V. Poshelov and Y. S. Pestereva talk about the justification of the social danger of the rehabilitation of Nazism by justifying the social danger of extremism in general ^{[7, p. 59]}, indirectly confirming our vision of the problem.

Moreover, the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, I. V. Krasnov, at the international scientific and practical forum "Khabarovsk Process: Historical significance and Modern Challenges" on September 6, 2021, proposed equating "rehabilitation, justification and propaganda of Nazism" with extremist activity, which, in his opinion, should "significantly expand the possibilities of countering such phenomena" ^{[6, p. 213]}.

In this way, it is advisable to distinguish the crimes provided for in Articles 282 and 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation by the objective side and the direct object, since when these articles are found in the same chapter of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, generic and specific objects will coincide. Although the differentiation of crimes by their purpose, even in such circumstances, will not be without reason. But in this case, a fundamental question inevitably arises about the independent criminalization of the rehabilitation of Nazism, since it is seen as a special case of extremism.

Of course, we can say that Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is somewhat similar to Article 282.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and against its background, the appearance of an article on the protection of historical memory in Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation would be superfluous. But as already mentioned above, the victory of the USSR in the Second World War is an established and important symbol in every sense, the significance of which is very difficult to overestimate and which, of course, is subject to enhanced legal protection. In addition, the objective sides of the crimes provided for in Article 354.1 and Article 282.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, even partially overlapping, do not coincide.

6) Organizational and legal (law enforcement) aspect of countering the rehabilitation of Nazism

The practical (non-judicial) aspect of countering crime of one direction or another is characterized by a variety of activities of the relevant departments: from statistics to securing a "job site" for a certain law enforcement agency, including the accumulation of experience, interaction between services, etc. Our study of criminal cases and the practice of law enforcement agencies (mainly ATS) led us to disappointing conclusions in this part of the work:

1) Official quantitative and qualitative statistics of crimes under Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are not conducted by judicial or law enforcement agencies, which does not allow us to see the scale of the problem;

2) The "peripheral" location of the norm on the rehabilitation of Nazism in the system of Russian criminal law reduces the interest in it from the practical workers of the Department of Internal Affairs engaged in countering extremism and who have gained some practical experience in this regard. Their attitude to the problem actually also becomes "peripheral".

3)                 The transfer of the norm on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism from Chapter 34 to Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will make it possible to more effectively direct the experience of law enforcement agencies to the prevention and suppression of actions for the rehabilitation of Nazism, will lead to their regular monitoring of the sphere of public relations under consideration and will bring positive results.

4)                 Law enforcement agencies need to develop methodological recommendations for monitoring and legal assessment of actions for the rehabilitation of Nazism. Such recommendations are usually developed by the prosecutor's office. Interdepartmental participation is also possible and desirable. This would simplify the solution of specific tasks for the relevant legal rule implementers.

Science cannot boast either: there are practically no scientific publications devoted to operational investigative experience in monitoring, detecting, suppressing, preventing the rehabilitation of Nazism and experience in operational support of the investigation of criminal cases of this category.

Conclusions.

The undertaken research allows us to come to a number of conclusions.

1)                  The Memorial Law on Responsibility for the Rehabilitation of Nazism with the dedication of a separate norm to it in the criminal law system of Russia is historically, socially and criminologically justified.

2) The disposition and the name of the norm need a more correct wording and replacement of the word "rehabilitation" with "justification".

3) Since, according to a number of researchers, the arrangement of articles in a Special part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is constructed as the importance of the object of criminal law protection decreases, insofar as the placement of this article in Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will increase the importance of the object protected by criminal law. This means that the role of the norm on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism will increase as a factor in protecting the constitutional order and strengthening the security of the state.

4) The systematic transfer of the norm on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism from Chapter 34 to Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will make it possible to more effectively direct the experience of law enforcement agencies to the prevention and suppression of actions for the rehabilitation of Nazism, will ensure regular monitoring of the sphere of public relations under consideration and will bring positive results.

5) From an organizational point of view, the following practical measures are proposed, and within which it is advisable:

 a) The Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of Russia in the relevant sections of the annual statistical reports to provide indicators on the practice of applying the norm on responsibility for the rehabilitation of Nazism,

b) the anti-extremist units of the internal affairs bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia should be charged with regular operational control over the areas of rehabilitation of Nazism, the typology of which should be developed;

c) The Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation (or at the interdepartmental level) for the relevant categories of law enforcement officers (operational and other services) to develop recommendations for monitoring and legal assessment of actions for the rehabilitation of Nazism in order to facilitate their solution of specific law enforcement tasks;

 d) scientific departments of law enforcement universities to intensify research on the problem of countering the rehabilitation of Nazism with an emphasis on practical orientation.