Union Republics Research Articles

Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada

Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada

Legal Support for Union Democracy

Legal Support for Union Democracy

Doctrinal approaches to the definition of the concept of criminal law policy and its determining factors

The article analyzes the issues of understanding criminal policy and its factors using the historical method. Ideological and philosophical prerequisites for the formation of criminal policy in the works on philosophy, criminal law and criminal sociology of the XVIII and XIX centuries are determined. Taking into account historical experience, the factors of criminal policy are described as factors of the state of crime. The author characterized three stages of the development of scientific knowledge about criminal policy in the USSR , without specifying their content in relation to individual Union republics. At the same time, he highlighted the experience of criminological studies of crime in sociological and anthropological areas within the framework of the Cabinet for the Study of Crime opened on October 26, 1926 in Minsk at the Belarusian State University under the leadership of professors V.V. Shiryaev and A.K. Lenz. The author of the article defines criminal law policy as a function of the state to manage the processes of preventing and resolving social conflicts of a criminogenic nature by establishing criminal law prohibitions and their implementation in the process of justice.

The Second Russian Revolution in historical perspective

The Second Russian Revolution, an event that took place between 1989 and 1992 and led to a radical transformation of social and economic relations and the political system in Russia, the separation of the Union republics, is compared to four major revolutions of the past: the American, French, Chinese, and First Russian revolutions. Particular attention is paid to two concepts of modern political economy: first, binding commitments, the impossibility of which in the context of power struggles explains why attempts to reform the political system on the eve of revolutions were unsuccessful; second, coordinated action by large numbers of individuals in the absence of common interests or any organizing structure. This helps to understand the mechanism of the events of 1989—1992, which is poorly described in the logic of group interests, and even less so in terms of class interests.

The Dynamics of the Housing Construction in the Republics of the USSR in the 1920s–1980s. Part 2

Despite 30 years of market reforms, the main difference between the housing sector in Russia and other post-socialist countries and that of the advanced Western nations lies in housing tenure distribution. In the former states, outright homeowners with property mainly built in the planned economy dominate the market. At the same time, in the latter countries, the majority of households pay rent or take out a mortgage (these types of households account for three-quarters of households in the USA and on average almost two-thirds of households in Western and Northern European nations). This article examines the evolution of main indicators of housing construction in the USSR as well as in the 15 Union republics from 1918 to 1990. The research rests upon a database composed by the author from more than 120 official statistical sources at the national and Republics' level. This work covers not only state housing construction but also individual housing construction as well as housing construction cooperatives in the USSR republics, which the post-Soviet and foreign scholarly literature have often neglected. We identify the main stages of housing construction in the USSR and analyze the data on housing completions in urban and rural areas, the evolution of the housing stock, flats and houses built, and the statistics on the people in the Union Republics who improved their living conditions. The time series collected and per capita indicators across the 15 republics of the USSR calculated by the author, reveal quite synchronized development of their housing sectors. Nevertheless, the three Baltic republics were leaders in many per capita indicators, whereas the RSFSR, the Kazakh, Byelorussian and Armenian SSR stood out in terms of housing completions and share of people who improved their living conditions. At the same time, the Georgian, Ukrainian and Moldavian SSR excelled in floor area per person.

Methods of Mathematical Statistics in Reconstruction of Historical Data on Economic Growth Factors of the Former USSR Republics

The lack of a complete set of historical statistical data is one of the main problems that does not allow econometric modelling and forecasting to be carried out in full. The historical data are characterized by numerous omissions, either singular or almost entire decades. The task of reconstructing them adequately is therefore always relevant. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the application of mathematical statistics methods for the reconstruction of the series of economic indicators of the former Soviet republics, subdivided in three groups: the volume of the economy, its institutional environment and the general technological level. The authors set and solved the following tasks: 1) formed a set of data on the economic statistics of the Union republics of the former USSR; 2) demonstrated the possibility of applying mathematical methods, especially regression analysis, for the reconstruction of historical and economic statistics; 3) tested the results by determining which trends in spatial differentiation prevailed in the late USSR: towards convergence or towards divergence of the republics. Methods. Modelling was based on historical national accounts, population and labour force, human capital, science financing in the Soviet republics, wage differentials for knowledge workers and industrial workers, homicide rate, and infant mortality rate. Methods of system analysis and econometric modelling were used, mainly correlation and regression analysis. Results. Data series were reconstructed for the former Soviet republics: GDP, homicide rate, wage differentials for knowledge workers and industrial workers, infant mortality rate. Their values are given in the Appendix to the article for further use by researchers.

Adaptation of the Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS19-Q) for Russian-Speaking Populations-International Collaboration across Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the USA.

The Russian language is the eighth most spoken language in the world. Russian speakers reside in Russia, across the former Soviet Union republics, and comprise one of the largest populations of international migrants. However, little is known about their health literacy (HL) and there is limited research on HL instruments in the Russian language. The purpose of this study was to adapt the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLS19-Q) developed within the Health Literacy Survey 2019–2021 (HLS19) to the Russian language to study HL in Russian-speaking populations in Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the USA. The HLS19-Q was translated either from English or from a national language to Russian in four countries first and then critically reviewed by three Russian-speaking experts for consensus. The HLS19 protocol and “team approach” method were used for linguistic and cultural adaptation. The most challenging was the adaptation of HLS19-Q questions to each country’s healthcare system while general HL questions were flexible and adaptable to specific contexts across all countries. This study provides recommendations for the linguistic and cultural adaptation of HLS19-Q into different languages and can serve as an example of international collaboration towards this end.

Genesis of the Republic of Belarus Language Policy

The problems of language policy are multifaceted, they allow for variability of approaches to assessing its effectiveness and compliance with the national-ethnic model of social relations. The importance of the formation and development of legal instruments for regulating the linguistic landscape and protecting the language is confirmed by the presence of an impressive number of international normative acts. However, the main legal mechanisms in this area are in the plane of responsibility of national legislation. In this regard, the experience of the Republic of Belarus, which, in contrast to other union republics of the former USSR, has managed to preserve state bilingualism seems to be interesting. The research was carried out on the normative legal acts regulating the modern state language policy of Belarus. The methodology of the work included general scientific methods of generalization and systematization, logical and comparative analysis. Until the 1990s, the modern Belarusian language did not have the formal status of the state language (the Constitution of Soviet Belarus only enshrined the norms of its use on a par with Russian in all spheres of official business communication). At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, the problems of regulating language issues were included in the political agenda. The first legislative acts of sovereign Belarus consolidated the state monolingualism and were focused on a forced transition to Belarusian-language communication. Belarusianization in the country was the most effective in the sphere of general secondary and preschool education, but it could not completely oust the Russian language from the socio-political discourse and, of course, everyday communication. The promotion of the national language grew into a political slogan that was not supported by the public: at the 1995 referendum, amendments to the Constitution were adopted to give the Russian language the status of a state language. These changes were reflected in other normative acts. The experience of building the language policy of the Republic of Belarus is unique for the postSoviet space: the country, which is at the forefront of the nationalist positions of monolingualism in the early 90s of the last century, managed, during a period of independence and sovereignty that was short by historical standards, to go through a fairly serious way of harmonizing the language situation, legally normalizing the processes social communicative interaction and retaining the features of national linguistic identity. The modern linguistic landscape of Belarus is characterized by the obvious dominance of the Russian language in almost all spheres of communicative interaction. At the same time, the Belarusian language as the language of the titular nation functionally plays the role of not so much a means of communication as a symbol of national self-identity.

From Indigenization to Sovereignization: How the Disintegration of the Soviet Union Was Prepared

Having analyzed the unique statistical material of the 20th century, the author examines the national composition of the USSR institutions of governance: executive, legislative, and judicial authorities, the CPSU apparatus at the level of the highest authorities of the Soviet Union; and republican and local institutions, as well as in the army and law enforcement bodies. According to the author, since the 1930s, there has been a gradual displacement of Russians and their replacement with representatives of the “titular nations” in all the union republics, which turned the USSR federal structure into the “cradle” of new states that appeared on the ruins of the Soviet Union.

Study of the Fundamental Causes Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union is an Urgent Problem for Russian Science (Russian Federation Council)

According to the author, Soviet localization policy and the almost complete expulsion of Russians from the administrative apparatuses of the Union republics predetermined the avalanche-like sovereignization at the end of the 1980s–beginning of the 1990s. The factor that accelerated this process was the ill-conceived chaotic policy adopted by the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) and the Politburo, headed by M.S. Gorbachev.

Labor Unions and Democracy: A Long View

This essay historicizes some of Stephen Ashby's findings, and elaborates on a thesis that union democracy is weak in the United States because capitalist opposition was so strong in a formative stage of union development. It introduces a brief survey of the first major U.S. industrial union, the United Mine Workers of America, to show that leadership cordoned off more radical alternatives in service to capital and to middle class and political operatives influence. It introduces a brief survey of the first major industrial union, the United Mine Workers to show that leadership cordoned off more radical alternatives in service to capital and to middle class and political operatives influence. Union leadership responded to that challenge with highly centralized control that blocked more democratic and struggle-based unionism. This had long term consequences through the next insurgency the Congress of Industrial Organizations. These historic influences are operative in the present, when workers seek power to build a counter to the growing inequality of wealth.

Union Democracy, Union Bureaucracy, and the Left

To have healthy union democracy, it is essential for the Left to be active in unions. Leftist unions are more democratic than non-leftist unions on all measures of union democracy including the absence of union corruption, the quantity of union factions, the presence of grassroots militancy, and union member participation in social movement unionism and community unionism. Additionally, although union democracy is associated with union effectiveness, restrictions on union democracy and decisions implemented by the union bureaucracy might be advantageous to the union as an organization in certain situations. If the survival of the union as an organization is at stake, it will be necessary for the union bureaucracy to make decisions, independent of rank-and-file union members. Although potentially denoting an infringement on union democracy, such decisions might aid the union as an organization, especially with the existence of a progressive union bureaucracy.

Discipline of labour and working procedures in the context of the Labour Legislation Framework

Based on the analysis of the Fundamentals of the legislation of the USSR and the Union republics on labor, the article considers topical legal issues of labor discipline and labor regulations.

Improvement of civil legislation

The current problems of various spheres of civil legislation, both in legislation and in the application of norms, developed after the general codification of the civil legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics of 1961 - 1964, including after the well-known decisions of the governing bodies on economic reform, are considered. It is noted that there is a need to take a fresh look at the relationship between the plan and the contract; the need to eliminate the so-called initial gap in civil legislation; the need to resolve the issue of responsibility for guilt or regardless of guilt; the unresolved issue of the property responsibility of the bodies of inquiry, preliminary investigation, prosecutor's office and court; individual – specific – shortcomings of the Foundations of the civil legislation of the USSR and the civil codes of some Union republics are called. It is proposed to develop the exchange of experience in rule-making and norm-applying activities in the field of civil legislation between the Union republics, which will eliminate unjustified “inconsistency” in the civil codes of the Union republics caused by defects in legal technology. Other proposals are also being made.

Factors in the development of athletics and the achievements of Olympic sports in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast of the USSR

Olympic Sport is an important part of physical culture and sports movement at the international, national and regional levels. The achievements of athletes at the Olympic Games are the hallmark of the country and are of great importance for the formation of its image in the international arena. Track-and-field athletics is a leader in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in the number of athletes participating in the Olympic Games and in the number of Olympic medals won during the Olympic games from 1952 to 1988. The article studies the historical aspects of the development of this sport, which is of significant interest not only for the historiography of the physical culture and sports movement in Ukraine and the region, but also allows us to highlight the main factors that determine the effectiveness of training highly qualified athletes. The chronological scope of this study covers the period from 1922 to 1991, when Ukraine was the part of the USSR and the Olympic sports developed in the conditions of the tough competition among athletes from 15 union republics. During this period, the Russian Federation had an advantage in the development of Olympic sports, training experience of athletes from Ukraine and other Union Republics was of particular importance. According to this, preparation of Ukrainian and other Union Republic athletes is of great interest.

Труды Манаша Козыбаева в контексте современной исторической науки

The life and works of the organizer of historical science of Kazakhstan, scientist-encyclopedist, historian-researcher, Prof. Manash K. Kozybaev are considered. Academician Manash Kozybaev is the author of 800 scientific, scientific-journalistic works, including multi-volume works. The suc-cessful promotion on the hierarchical ladder of the Soviet scientific and educational system allowed Manash Kozybaev to realize not only his organizational abilities, but also to expand the format of research both in the purely academic and journalistic genre. The last twenty years of the existence of the USSR were characterized by the spirit of ethnic revival in the Union republics. The non-orthodox thinking national intelligentsia began to declare the ideas not of amorphous Soviet patriotism, but of moderate and enlightened nationalism. The publications of Manash Kozybaev of that period are aimed at popularizing real historical knowledge about the Kazakh people. Here the interests of intellectuals coincided with the aspirations of a new generation of Kazakhstan political and business elite.

БЮДЖЕТНОЕ НЕРАВЕНСТВО В СССР В 1950–1980-е гг.

The article aims at identifying the scale of budget inequality in the USSR in the 1950s–1980s between the union republics and the regions of the RSFSR. The sources of the research were: published statistical collections of the USSR State Statistics Committee, materials of the RSFSR Ministry of Finance and indicators of regional budgets published in the central press. The methodology of the work was based on the calculation of the main indicators of descriptive statistics for each set of regions and for each year of observation. The author comes to the conclusion that budget inequality was present both at the level of the Union republics and at the level of the regions. It manifested itself in the fact that the difference between budget expenditures per capita could reach 2.9 times at the level of the union republics and up to 6 times at the level of the regions of the RSFSR. However, at different levels of the budgetary system, this inequality had different dynamics. At the republican level, we can talk about a certain convergence of the 1950s–1960s, when budget inequality declined. But since the 1970s this trend was replaced by divergence. The growth of budget inequality between the republics became especially noticeable in the second half of the 1980s. At the regional level, budgetary expenditures tended to level out throughout the period under review. However, a noticeable gap between the “rich” and “poor” regions remained, and by 1989, it reached 5.5 times.

The legal nature of relationships between union republics before the conclusion of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR

The legal nature of relationships between union republics before the conclusion of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR

Strengthening union democracy through connective and collective action logics

Strengthening union democracy through connective and collective action logics

ВІЙНА З УКРАЇНСЬКОЮ КНИГОЮ: РАДЯНСЬКІ ЧАСИ ТА СУЧАСНІ РЕАЛІЇ

The article examines the history of the struggle against the Ukrainian book and the word, which was waged by Russia for many centuries. This war began as soon as the Ukrainian lands became part of the Muscovite Empire.It continued during the years of the existence of the Russian Empire, which was successfully transformed into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The new state did not change its attitude towards Ukrainians and continued its Russification policy. The article focuses on the Soviet era, namely the creation of a fond of special storage in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (hereinafter – NLUV).Special fonds became a typical phenomenon and were created in the leading libraries of the Union republics. Their goal was to hide national literature from ordinary readers, which contradicted the Marxist-Leninistideology, professed bycommunistparty, aimedattheeducationofanew «Sovietman». As a result of the activity of the special fond of the NLUV, the works of many writers and scientists of the 1920s and 1930s remained unknown to the general public, as did the literature of the Ukrainian diaspora. The proposed study drew parallels with modern realities and the next wave of Russian aggression. The fate of Ukrainian books and libraries in the occupied territories was told. Examples of incidents of removal of literature and its destruction were given. Exposing and highlighting the barbaric mission of the Russian occupiers became possible thanks to the liberation of part of the Ukrainian lands by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which made it possible to examine the situation in public libraries and collect eyewitness evidences.Ukrainian libraries have also become victims of shelling and fires caused by them. It was summarized how the attitude of Russians to Ukrainian books, culture, and science changed during the 20th – 21st centuries.Using the example of the fate of Ukrainian books, the policy of genocide aimed at the destruction of Ukrainian identity by the Russians, which they themselves called «denazification», is proven.