Post-Socialist Perception of Human Rights in Russia

Abstract

Debates over human rights, their recognition, protection and realisation were one of the key questions for ideological opposition between the socialist and the Western worlds during the Cold War and remain a matter for contemporary debates between liberal democracies and post-socialist Russia today. In this chapter, the author argues that these debates largely reflect deep difference in understanding the nature and the content of human rights as well as in balancing individual rights with public interests in Russia and in the West. The perception of human rights issues in Russia (both by the government and by the most of people) is not free from socialist legacy: social solidarity and expectations of social support from the state prevails over individual liberty as the core value of human rights. Public interests (inter alia social security and peace) dominate over private rights and freedoms, many individual rights and freedoms suffer lack of legal recognition, though some of them could be realised de facto. Public law does not aim to limit the state, which supposes to be the main guarantor of rights, while instead of mass political participation, political interests are supposed to be represented by institutionalised public structures. These differences of perception of human rights are often perceived as an evil of authoritarian political regime, but they rather reflect the system of political values in the society.