Washington Law Review Volume 25 Number 2 5-1-1950 Penalties and Rewards in Soviet Law George C. Guins Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons Recommended Citation George C. Guins, Far Eastern Section, Penalties and Rewards in Soviet Law, 25 Wash. L. Rev. & St. B.J. 206 (1950). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol25/iss2/6 This Far Eastern Section is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at UW Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington Law Review by an authorized editor of UW Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. FAR EASTERN SECTION PENALTIES AND REWARDS IN SOVIET LAW GEORGE C. GUINS* T HE SOVIET system and practice of penalties and rewards have sev- eral peculiarities which are undoubtedly bound up with Soviet socialism. Long before the Revolution of 1917, the eminent Russian scholar L. J. Petrazicki pointed out that with a transition to socialism there would be greater emphasis on the system of compulsion and rewards.' When the government becomes the supreme monopolist and arbitrator of all earnings and prices, when the livelihood of all its citizens is placed in direct dependence on the state, the stimuli of acquisition, gain, and risk lose their power. The incentive to work is derived from disin- terested devotion to national and humanitarian causes, or from antici- pation of favors from the powers that be. Lofty ideals and altruistic psychological motives are, however, not common among the masses.