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Sovietization of an Occupied Area through the Medium of the Courts (Northern Bukovina)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Jurij Fedynskyj
Jurij Fedynskyj*
Affiliation:
Lvov University and Innsbruck University, Shevchenko Scientific Society in America
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Extract

The role of the army and administrative officials in establishing Soviet authority in the areas occupied by the USSR during the past war is dramatic, and therefore carefully studied by those who analyze Soviet techniques. Much less notoriety attaches to the work of the courts, yet Soviet leaders appear to place considerable reliance upon these agencies in remolding a society in their own image. It was the writer's fate as a member of the Law Faculty of Lvov University to supervise the students' practice in the civil courts of the city of Czernowitz during the first Soviet occupation in 1940-1941. The city, as the capital of the former Rumanian Province of Bukovina, was the heart of the economic and political life of a territory whose northern part was brought under Soviet domination during the period of Soviet-Nazi collaboration in the early stages of the war. As such it was destined to play a key part in the Sovietization of an important segment of Eastern Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 1953 , pp. 44 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1953

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References

1 Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia were occupied by the Red Army, following an exchange of notes between the USSR and Rumania dated June 26–28, 1940. On August 2, 1940, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR enacted a law incorporating within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Northern Bukovina, as well as what had been the Khotin, Akerman, and Ismail Districts of Bessarabia. The rest of Bessarabia was incorporated in a newly created Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became a constituent republic of the USSR.

2 The courts which were established in the former Polish Provinces incorporated in the Ukrainian SSR had had no instruction nor order to guide them. In the initial days of their work they followed only one basic principle, namely that the laws of the Republic of Poland were incompatible with the principles of a socialist state and could not, therefore, be applied. Article 2 of the Soviet Law of December 16, 1922, putting into effect the Civil Code of the Ukrainian SSR had prohibited Soviet courts and other institutions of the Republic from hearing disputes which originated prior to November 7, 1917, the date of the Russian Revolution. The problem faced by the new Soviet courts in 1939 in the former areas of Poland was whether the 1922 injunction was applicable to the circumstances of 1939. Soviet courts resolved the problem by refusing to hear cases based on claims arising prior to the date of occupation. See S. Feinblit, “Primenenie sovetskogo zakonodatel'stva v zapadnikh oblastjakh UkSSR i BSSR” (The Application of Soviet Jurisprudence in the Western Territories of the UkSSR and the Byelorussian SSR), Sovetskaja Justitsija, No. 14, 1940, pp. 14–17 and No. 15, pp. 9–13; A. N. Makarov, “Die Einfuehrung der Sowjetgesetzbuecher in den der Sowjetunion angegliederten Gebieten,” Zeitschrift fuer Osteuropaeisches Recht, N.F. 7, 1941; and J. O. Fedynskyj, “Article 2 of the Introductory Law to the Civil Code and Its Significance for the Western Territories of the UkSSR” (thesis for the Scientific Session of the Faculty of Law of Lvov State University, Lvov, 1941). With the publication of Order No. 581, dated April 22, 1940, issued by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, concerning the application of civil and criminal legislation on the territory of the Western Provinces of the UkSSR and the Byelorussian SSR, the matter was settled. It provided in Article 4 that disputes involving property, regardless of the time at which they originated, were subject to examination by courts on the basis of the civil law and civil procedure of the UkSSR and of the BSSR, and other pertinent laws of the two Republics or of the USSR. Thus, Soviet law was given retroactive effect in the new provinces. See Revoljucijne Pravo, No. 10 (1940), p. 30.Google Scholar

3 Civil Code of the UkSSR, Article 44.

4 Ibid., Article 44, part 2.

5 Decision No. 98, November 2, 1940, affirming decision of People's Court of Lenin District, dated October 23, 1940.

6 Decision No. 232, December 12, 1940, affirming decision of People's Court of Kel'menec District, dated November 20, 1940.

7 Decision No. 272, December 24, 1940, reversing People's Court of Czernowitz Peasant District, dated December 7, 1940.

8 Civil Code of the UkSSR, Article 49.

9 Decision No. 12, 1941, affirming People's Court of Kel'menec District, dated December 19, 1940.

10 Decision No. 99, January 29, 1941, reversing People's Court No. 1, of the Stalin District, dated January 7, 1941. The same principle was enunciated in decisions No. 143, April 10, 1941, and No. 519, April 16, 1941. The courts of Western Ukraine took the position that the prescriptive period began to run at the moment that Soviet courts began to function in a given territory. See Revoljucijne Pravo, No. 23, 1940, p. 98. Finally the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR ordered that the period should be computed from the moment at which the right to sue was established. See Vil'na Ukraina (Free Ukraine), April 20, 1941.

11 Decision No. 24, January 6, 1941, reversing People's Court of the Kicman District, dated December 19, 1940.

12 Decision No. 279, December 21, 1940. In another case the short prescriptive period of the Ukrainian Civil Code was not applied, but the reason was because the Court found it necessary to apply the rule of conflict of laws existing in the USSR. The claim arose over a transaction entered into in Dagestan. Under the Civil Code of the RSFSR, which was applicable as the law of the place of contracting, the prescriptive period is three years rather than the shorter Ukrainian period. Decision No. 415, dated March 31, 1941, reversing the People's Court.

13 Decision No. in , November 10, 1940, affirming People's Court of Zastavna District, dated October 21, 1940.

14 Civil Code of the UkSSR, Article 9, and Family Code of the UkSSR, Article 109.

15 One-fourth of the father's income was payable in the event that there was one child; one-third in the event of two children and one-half in the event of three or more children.

16 This system of maintenance payments was later changed in the USSR by the Decree of July 8, 1944.

17 Decision No. 26 of People's Court No. 1 of Storozinec District. The decision was set aside by the Provincial Court on September 24, 1940, for procedural reasons.

18 Decision No. 18, October 18, 1940, affirming People's Court of Lenin District, No. 2.

19 Decision No. 454, April 9, 1941, affirming People's Court of Kicman District, dated March 15, 1941.

20 Decision No. 258, March 5, 1941, affirming People's Court of Zastavna District, dated December 30, 1940.

21 Decision No. 24, October 18, 1941, affirming People's Court of the Bricanskij District, dated October 4, 1940. The decision was an application of Article 125 of the Family Code.

22 Decision No. 30, January 7, 1941, affirming People's Court of Kel'menec District, December 24, 1940.

23 Decision No. 241, December 17, 1940, affirming People's Court No. 1 of Bričanskij District, dated October 29, 1940. The Soviet court said it was applying Article 418 of the Ukrainian Civil Code.

24 Decision No. 25, January 7, 1941, affirming People's Court of Vaškivci District, dated December 4, 1940.

25 Decision No. 284, March 3, 1941, reversing People's Court No. 3 of Ševčenko District, dated February 17, 1941.

26 Decision No. 198, February 14, 1941, reversing People's Court No. 1 of the Kicman District, dated January 29, 1941.

27 Decision No. 73, November 4, 1940.

28 Decision No. 66, October 25, 1940.

29 Decision of October 23, 1940, reversing People's Court No. 1 of the Lenin District.

30 Decision No. 235, February 24, 1941.

31 Decision No. 396, March 26, 1941, affirming People's Court No. 1 of the Kel'menec District, dated March 8, 1941.

32 Decision No. 195, December 7, 1940.

33 Decision No. 274, February 28, 1941, affirming People's Court No. 1 of the Lenin District, dated February 19, 1941.

34 Decision No. 36, October 24, 1940.

35 Decisions No. 14, October 17, 1940; No. 260, December 19, 1940 (two comforters pledged in the spring of 1940); and No. 99, January 29, 1941 (a fur coat pledged for a loan of 2,000 lei contracted in March, 1939).

36 Decision No. 125, November 16, 1940, reversing People's Court of the Kicman District, dated October 26, 1940.

37 Decisions No. 15, October 17, 1940 and No. 43, October 18, 1940.

38 Decision No. 4, October 16,1940 (265 rubles due on the purchase of furniture); Decision No. 19, October 14, 1940, affirming People's Court No. 1 of Bričanskij District, dated September 25, 1940 (2,500 rubles as the equivalent of the balance due on the purchase price of 100,000 lei for a tractor purchased on January 27, 1940. From the minutes it was not entirely clear whether the tractor had been nationalized subsequently).

39 Decision No. 95, November 2, 1940.

40 Decision No. 48, October 18, 1940.

41 Decision No. 175, November 21, 1940.

42 Decision No. 142, November 21, 1940.

43 Decision No. 147, February 12, 1941.

44 Decision No. 117, November 11, 1940.

45 Decision No. 25, January 7, 1941, affirming decision of People's Court of Vaškivci District, dated December 9, 1940. Similarly, a claim tor wages for the years 1932-1933 was ordered re-examined. Decision No. 272, December 24, 1940.

46 Decision of November 23, 1940, affirming People's Court No. 2 of the Stalin District, dated November 2, 1940.

47 Decision No. 234, February 21, 1941.

48 Decision No. 333, March 4, 1941, applying Article 289 (b) of the Civil Code.

49 Decision No. 54, October 29, 1940.

50 Decision No. 305, January 4, 1941.

51 Decision No. 12, October 16, 1940.

52 Decision No. 145, November 21, 1940.

53 Decision No. 181, December 3, 1940, affirming People's Court of the Sekurackij District, dated November 13, 1940.

54 Decision No. 43, October 18, 1940, affirming People's Court No. 1 of Šev D;enko District, dated September 28, 1940.

55 Decision No. 55, January 4, 1941.

56 Decision No. 320, December 29, 1940, reversing People's Court of Kel'menec District, dated October 24, 1940.

57 Decision No. 191, February 14, 1941, affirming People's Court No. 3 of the Stalin District, dated January 29, 1941.