Beshukova Z.M. The development of legislation on responsibility for extremism and terrorism during the validity period of 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the analysis of legislation on responsibility for extremism and terrorism during the validity time of the Criminal Code of RSFSR of 1960. It is claimed that the beginning of a new stage of criminal legislation became the introduction in 1058 of the USSR Law “On Criminal Responsibility for State Crimes”. The author conducts a comparative analysis of the corresponding positions of 1926 RSFSR Criminal Code in the area of counteraction against counterrevolutionary crimes and against the order of government and positions of the Criminal Code of 1960 in the sphere of counteraction against state crimes, especially dangerous for the Soviet Union. The author concludes that regulation on responsibility for various crimes in the Law of 1958 did not contribute to the development of a general definition of the notion of the other state crime. Due to this fact, there is no unified opinion within the Soviet legal literature related to the question of what should be understood under a state crime. It is stated that namely for this reason the similar difficulties emerge in development of a scientific definition of “extremism (extremist activity)”. The responsibility for racial and (or) ethnic discrimination first in history of the Russian criminal legislation, has been established in the original version of the Article 74 of the 1960 Criminal Code. At the same time, in describing the objective side of such crime, there was no indication towards agitation or propaganda aimed at instigation on religious animosity, as in the Criminal Code of 1926. The author considers such legislative solution as a certain step back.

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