The Death Penalty in Soviet Russia

We have received from a correspondent a letter dealing with the age at which young persons in Soviet Russia are liable to the death penalty. He refers to a statement quoted in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD for June, 1940, from Souvarine’s “Stalin,” that “a decree extended the application of the death penalty for delinquents and criminals as from the age of 12,” and says that a telephone message to the Soviet Embassy elicited the assurance that Souvarine’s statement is untrue. The assertion that children aged 12 are liable to the death penalty was first referred to in these columns in a review of Yvon’s “What has become of the Russian Revolution” (THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, March, 1939). In the issue for July, 1939, we published a denial by a correspondent, who quoted from “The Soviet Comes of Age” that “the death sentence cannot be pronounced on a person under 18 years of age.

ED. COMM