Military Justice in Russia: Issues and Questions - by Peter H. Solomon, Jr., Professor of Political Science, Law and Criminology, University of Toronto

Some years ago when I was conducting research for a book Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin, I came to recognize the contradictory nature of military tribunals in the USSR, especially in the decade following World War II. On the one hand, from 1939 to 1956 these bodies served as the place of choice for handling cases of political repression (where the charges were usually unfounded or contrived). On the other hand, according to the oral testimony of émigré jurists of the time, Soviet milita...