Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda

Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda
Citation	Ved. 1962 No. 29 item 449
Enacted by	Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
Date enacted	25 July 1962

Circulation of Fabrications Known to be False Which Defame the Soviet State and Social System
Citation	Ved. 1966 No. 38 item 1038
Enacted by	Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
Date enacted	16 September 1966

Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda (ASA) (Russian: Антисове́тская агита́ция и пропага́нда (АСА)) was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. To begin with the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolutionary agitation. The latter term was in use immediately after the first Russian Revolution in February 1917. The offence was codified in criminal law in the 1920s, and revised in the 1950s in two articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code. The offence was widely used against Soviet dissidents.

The new Criminal Codes of the 1920s introduced the offence of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda as one of the many forms of counter-revolutionary activity grouped together under Article 58 of the Russian RSFSR Penal Code. The article was put in force on 25 February 1927 and remained in force throughout the period of Stalinism. Article 58:10, "propaganda and agitation that called to overturn or undermining of the Soviet regime", was punishable with at least 6 months of imprisonment, up to and including the death sentence in periods of war or unrest.

As applied in Stalin's time, the phrase in practise could mean virtually anything that a State security interrogator or informant wanted it to mean; consequently, the charge became an exceedingly potent weapon in political or personal quarrels and intrigues.

The offence was significantly revised in the post-Stalin Criminal Code of the RSFSR, introduced in 1958. Article 58.10 was replaced by Article 70, Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda.

The new definition brought it closer to Western legal norms, although it had few if any parallels in the criminal codes of democratic countries.

It was defined as:

‘You are a Soviet man,’ says the KGB detective, ‘and therefore obliged to help us.’ And what can you say in reply? If you’re not Soviet, what are you: anti-Soviet? That alone is worth seven years in the labor camp and five in exile.

The penalty was from six months to 7 years of imprisonment, with possible subsequent internal exile from 2 to 5 years. Article 70 was considered by critics of the Soviet System to be a grave violation of freedom of speech. It was one of the two main legal

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