Human Rights under Communism and Post-Communism

Human Rights under Communism and Post-Communism

HMRT 24100-01/HIST 29409-01
Tuesdays & Thursday 12-1:20
Harper Memorial Room103

Instructor: Jennifer Amos, PhD Candidate Office Hours:
email: [email protected] Mondays 1-2:30 Uncommon Grounds

(2nd floor Reynolds Club)
Tuesdays 2-4 Foster 4
(in basement)

Course Description:

In this class we will explore human rights under communism and in the post-communist societies of
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Communist governments were amongst the most
vocal advocates of cultural, economic and social rights as well as the rights of minority and colonial
peoples. These governments liberated women in Central Asia from forced marriage and encouraged
both them and minorities to partake in politics. They introduced universal education, universal
health care, and eliminated unemployment. They challenged „bourgeois‟ ideas of human rights and
influenced international human rights treaties with their ideas. At the same time, these states built
one of the most notorious systems of forced labor camps and created elaborate networks to spy on
its citizens. They jailed dissidents who challenged their governments‟ legitimacy also using claims of
human rights. When Communism collapsed, governments and their citizens did not automatically
embrace Western ideas regarding human rights. What did human rights mean in these societies and
how did that meaning change over time and place? What role did ideology play in defining these
rights and what happened to the rights once communist ideology disappeared?

Course Goals:

In this course, students will compare different time periods and under different ideologies to gain a
fuller understanding of what “human rights” can mean. Students will also assess the role human
rights played in the collapse of communism.

Course Requirements:

1. Class Participation (20%): You are expected to take part in class discussions. Class discussion
will be a main component of the course. Therefore, you will need to come to class prepared,
meaning you need to read and think about the readings. To guide class discussion, you will need to
prepare one question about the reading for each class. Think of this as a question that you could
write a short essay about. Your question will be due by 10AM the day of class and should be posted
on the “discussion board” of the course‟s Chalk site.

During the quarter, students will complete two types of writing assignments.

2. First, students will complete five short (1 ½ to 2 pages) essays based on the reading materials.
These essays will be due on October 14th [summary], 21st [critical review], 28th [analysis of primary

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source] and November 18th [comparison]. Each student will also write a one-page memo to the
class regarding the author of one of the readings. Students must circulate this memo on Chalk at
least one class before the reading is to be discussed. Handouts regarding these assignments will be
distributed in class and available on Chalk. Each of the assignments is worth 10%.

3. The students will also complete a take-home final exam (30%). The final will be due on
December 9th.

Alternatively, the student may write a research paper in lieu of the final. This paper should look at a
human right of your choosing through Communist and post-Communist regimes and should look at
the following questions: Who considers this a human right? What do they mean by this right? How
do others interpret this right (including you)? How was and is this right fulfilled (or not)? What are
the consequences of this right? (30%) The 10-15 page paper is due on December 9th. If you are
going to write a research paper, you must discuss your topic with me in advance.

Your final grade will be the total of your class participation (20%), the short response papers (50%),
and the final exam or research paper (30%).

All written assignments should have your name, course number and a title on the first page with
page numbers at the bottom. Please use 1” margins and 12 point font. Citations should follow a
conventional format such as that found in the Chicago Manual of Style or MLA Handbook.

Week 1: The Beginning
Sep. 30: Introduction
Overview of the quarter.
Overview of human rights.
Oct. 2: Marxist-Leninist Conception of Human Rights
Brief history of Russia and the Russian Revolutions
Primary Sources:
The Soviet Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited Peoples (1917)
Rights and Duties of Polish Citizens (1952)
Amendments to the US Constitution
The French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789)
Reading Questions:

 How do these documents differ and how are they the same?
 Who guarantees the rights in these different declarations?

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 Are there any obligations?

 What do you think led to these particular differences?

Week 2: Workers and Women
Oct. 7: Workers‟ Rights
Secondary Sources:
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. "Ascribing Class: The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Russia." In

Stalinism: New Directions, 20-46. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Kotkin, Stephen. "Coercion and Identity: Workers' Lives in Stalin's Showcase City." In Making

Workers Soviet : Power, Class, and Identity, edited by Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Ronald Grigor
Suny, 274-310. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Reading Questions:

 Who are „workers‟? What benefits and what obligations do workers have?

 How do the readings on workers‟ lives compare with what was presented in the Declaration
on the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited Peoples?

Oct 9: Women‟s Rights
Primary Sources:
V. I. Lenin, “Soviet Power and the Status of Women”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/nov/06.htm
Northrop, Douglas Taylor. "Appendix." In Veiled Empire : Gender & Power in Stalinist Central Asia,

359-64. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Pankratova, Anna Mikhailovna. Soviet Women Have Equal Political Rights with Men and Take an Active

Part in Government. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956.
Secondary Sources:
Northrop, Douglas Taylor. "Subaltern Dialogues: Subversion and Resistance in Soviet Uzbek Family

Law." In Contending with Stalinism : Soviet Power and Popular Resistance in the 1930s, edited by
Lynne Viola, 109-38. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.
Reading Questions

 Where are men in these readings? How are their lives supposed to change because of the
Revolution? How did they?

 What does gender equality mean in the Soviet context? How is it supposed to be achieved?
What do the authors suggest happened?

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Week 3 Questionable Peoples
Oct 14: Nationalities
Primary:
“Theses on the National and Colonial Question (1920)” discussed at the Second Congress.
http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/DTNCQ20.html
Secondary:
Naimark, Norman M. "Soviet Deportation of the Chechens-Ingush and the Crimean Tartars." In

Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe, 85-107. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2001.
Slezkine, Yuri. "The Soviet Union as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted
Ethnic Particularlism." In Stalinism: New Directions, edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick, 313-47. New
York: Routledge, 2000.
***Note: Summary Paper Due***
Reading Questions
 What drove Soviet policy on nationalities (historically and ideologically)?
 What rights and obligations did nationalities have?
 What makes a nationality an enemy nationality?
 Where is the Russian nationality in these readings?
 If nationalities were like classes, who are the proletariat? The exploiters/capitalists?
 Compare nationality policies with gender policies.
Oct. 16: Purging Undesirables
Primary:
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956. Translated by Edward E. Ericson. New
York: Perennial Classics, 2002. (Selections)
Secondary:
Lewin, Moshe. "Who Was the Soviet Kulak?" In The Making of the Soviet System: Essays in the Social
History of Interwar Russia, 121-141. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
Reading Questions
 What makes one an enemy of the state/Revolution?
 What rights and obligations do enemies have?

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 How do these enemies compare with others we read about/discussed?
Week 4: Civil & Political Rights
Oct 21: Freedom of Speech & Political Participation
Beglov, S. "The Free Press Is Not Free." In The Myth of Western Democracy: A Collection of Articles, 26-9.

Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1975.
Secondary:
Holquist, Peter. ""Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work": Bolshevik Surveillance in Its

Pan-European Context." The Journal of Modern History 69, no. 3 (1997): 415-50.
Choldin, Marianna T., Maurice Friedberg, and Barbara Dash. The Red Pencil: Artists, Scholars, and

Censors in the USSR, Special Study of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, the Wilson
Center. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989. (selections)
***Critical Summary Due***
Reading Questions

 Do you think Beglov‟s criticisms about the press in the US are true?

 What is the obligation of the Soviet press, and writers in general?
Oct. 23: The Cold War and Human Rights
Primary:
"U.S. Senate: A Model of American 'Democracy'." International Affairs (Moscow) 8, no. 3 (1962): 111-

12.
Kunin, V. "A Prison State." In The Myth of Western Democracy: A Collection of Articles, 26-9. Moscow:

Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1975.
Secondary:
Dudziak, Mary L. “Josephine Baker, Racial Protest and the Cold War,” The Journal of American

History, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Sep., 1994), pp. 543-570.
Reading Questions

 If you were a minority in the 1950s, would you rather be in the Soviet Union or the United
States? Why?

 Based on this week‟s and previous readings, what does democracy entail in the socialist
context?

Week 5: Dissent
Oct 28

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Chalidze, Valerii. To Defend These Rights: Human Rights and the Soviet Union. New York: Random
House, 1975. (selections)

Nathans, Benjamin. "The Dictatorship of Reason: Aleksandr Vol'pin and the Idea of Rights under
'Developed Socialism'." Slavic Review 66, no. 4 (2007): 630-63.

***Primary Source Analysis Paper Due***
Oct. 30
Primary:
Selections from The Chronicle of Current Events
Secondary:
Horvath, Robert. The Legacy of Soviet Dissent: Dissidents, Democratisation and Radical Nationalism in Russia.

New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. (Selections)
Week 6: Helsinki & Solidarity
Nov. 4: Helsinki
Primary:
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Final Act (1975):

http://www.osce.org/documents/mcs/1975/08/4044_en.pdf Read Roman Numerals I,
VII, & VIII.
Charter 77 Manifesto:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/19/documents/charter.77/
Secondary:
Thomas, Daniel C. The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. Introduction, Chapters 3 & 7
Nov. 6: Human Right Movement in Communist Eastern Europe
Primary:
Havel, Václav. "The Power of the Powerless." In The Power of the Powerless : Citizens against the State in
Central-Eastern Europe. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1985.
Week 7: Collapse & Reform

Nov 11: Collapse
Primary:

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Nina Andreeva. "'I Cannot Give up My Principles' (March 1988)." In The Structure of Soviet History:
Essays and Documents, edited by Ronald Grigor Suny, 438-45. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003.

Secondary:

Suny, Ronald Grigor. "Chapter 4: Nationalism and Nation-States: Gorbachev's Dilemmas." In The
Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union, 127-60. Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993.

Dallin, Alexander. "Causes of the Collapse of the USSR." In The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and
Documents, edited by Ronald Grigor Suny, 549-64. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Holmes, Stephen. "What Russia Teaches Us Now: How Weak States Threaten Freedom." In The
Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents, edited by Ronald Grigor Suny, 564-73. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Nov 13: Human Rights in Contemporary Eastern Europe

Taras, Ray. "Civil Society, Human Rights, and the Shaping of Postcommunist Europe's Identity
Politics." In (Un)Civil Societies: Human Rights and Democratic Transitions in Eastern Europe and
Latin America, edited by Rachel A. May and Andrew K. Milton, 31-51. Lanham, Md.:
Lexington Books, 2005.

Watson, Peggy. "Eastern Europe's Silent Revolution: Gender." Sociology 27, no. 3 (1993): 471-87.

Week 8: Russia

Nov 18: Transition:

Primary:

"Soviet Turmoil; Text of Rights Adopted by the Soviet Congress." The New York Times, September 7,
1991. Online at
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0DF1331F934A3575AC0A967958
260

Secondary:

Gilligan, Emma. Defending Human Rights in Russia: Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and Human Rights
Commissioner, 1969-2003. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Chapters 4 & 5

***Comparative Paper Due***

Nov 20: Chechnya

Primary:

Politkovskaia, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2003. (Selections)

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Week 9: Central Asia

Nov 25:

"Sacrificing Women to Save the Family? Domestic Violence in Uzbekistan." Human Rights Watch 13,
no. 4 (D) (2001): 1-54. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/uzbekistan/uzbek0701.pdf
pages 1-48.

Nov 27: Thanksgiving

Week 10: Summary

Struthers, Marie, Joanne Csete, and Human Rights Watch (Organization). Kazakhstan: Fanning the
Flames: How Human Rights Abuses Are Fueling the AIDS Epidemic in Kazakhstan. New York:
Human Rights Watch, 2003.
http://proxy.uchicago.edu/login?url=http://hrw.org/reports/2003/kazak0603/

Class Policies
Attendance policy: Students are required to attend classes. Please come prepared to critically
discuss the readings for the day and respond thoughtfully to your peers‟ work. Excessive absences
will be reflected in your participation grade.

Incomplete work policy: Assignments handed in after class begins, it will be reduced one full grade
level per day (From A- to B-).

Special needs: Please speak to me if you need any special accommodations to meet any of the
course requirements.

Academic integrity: The following is both the policy of the University and the instructor of this
class (as quoted from the College website
http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_09/AcadInteg.pdf)

“As students and faculty of the University of Chicago, we all belong to an academic community with
high scholarly standards of which we are justly proud. Our community also holds certain
fundamental ethical principles to which we are equally deeply committed. We believe it is contrary to
justice, to academic integrity, and to the spirit of intellectual inquiry to submit the statements or
ideas or work of others as one‟s own. To do so is plagiarism or cheating, offenses punishable under
the University‟s disciplinary system. Because these offenses undercut the distinctive moral and
intellectual character of the University, we take them very seriously; punishments for committing
them may range up to permanent expulsion from the University of Chicago. The College, therefore,
expects that you will properly acknowledge your use of another‟s ideas, whether that use is by direct
quotation or by paraphrase, however loose. In particular, if you consult any written source and either
directly or indirectly use what you find in that source in your own work, you must identify the
author, title, and page number. If you have any doubts about what constitutes „use,‟ consult your
instructor and visit www.college.uchicago.edu/academics/discipline.shtml.”

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