2012/01/01 by Maria Cristina Galmarini · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #European history and politics #Law in Society and Culture #French Historical and Cultural Studies #Gulag #Politics #Law #State (computer science) #Imprisonment #Duty #Principle of legality #Prison #Political science #Negotiation #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9434.2012.00640.x
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
In 1918, when Russian prisons became crowded with thousands of citizens convicted for political crimes, some lawyers and members of the old revolutionary intelligentsia felt the duty to intervene. They founded a non‐oppositional relief organization called the Political Red Cross, which legally operated in the Soviet Union until 1938. This article analyzes the rationales for the creation of the Political Red Cross and its continued existence throughout the 1920s and 1930s. I articulate its philosophical platform and analyze the process of interceding on behalf of prisoners, emphasizing in particular the Political Red Cross's aspiration to cooperate constructively with state agencies. I also reconstruct the dialogues between the Political Red Cross's activists, the state officers, and the prisoners, arguing that this organization became the official intermediary selected by both sides to conduct negotiations between them. Ultimately, this article explores the paradoxical ambiguity of a relief organization operating within the Soviet system of imprisonment and control over legality in the Gulag.