682 



EUSSIA, THE CRIMINAL CODE OF. 



harmonize it with the spirit of the age. This 

 report, which was presented to the Minister of 

 Justice in February, 1868, and approved by 

 the Emperor and the Senate in May, was a great 

 disappointment to the more enlightened por- 

 tion of the people of Russia, who had confi- 

 dently expected that the laws of their country 

 would in this respect, too, be rendered more 

 like those of Western Europe. For, although 

 the report, as submitted to the minister and 

 approved by the Government, recommended 

 the repeal of quite a number of sections of 

 the criminal code, promulgated by the Em- 

 peror Nicholas on the 1st of May, 1846, the 

 changes which it proposed related principally 

 to the mode of criminal procedure, and modi- 

 fied but very slightly the list of crimes, their 

 definitions, and the penalties imposed upon 

 them. Considerations, partly of a political 

 and partly of a religious character (a majority 

 of the so-called Old Russian party, whose influ- 

 ence, for the time being, has become para- 

 mount in Russia, being opposed to radical re- 

 forms in the domestic laws of the country till 

 the Russification of the border provinces has 

 been fully carried into effect), caused the Gov- 

 ernment of the Czar to content itself for the 

 present with this half measure; and, unless 

 revolutionary convulsions should supervene, a 

 considerable time will elapse, in all probability, 

 before the criminal laws of Russia will be 

 changed so as to be more in keeping with the 

 spirit of the age and the codes now in force in 

 other civilized countries. 



The criminal code of Russia, as revised in 

 1868, contains upward of twenty-two hundred 

 paragraphs, or nearly five times as many as 

 the French code penal, which contains 484 ar- 

 ticles, and nearly seven times as many as the 

 Russian criminal code of April 14, 1851, which 

 has only 349 paragraphs. This extraordinary 

 extent of the Russian code is owing partly to 

 the fact that it embraces, besides felonies, the 

 whole series of infractions of the laws regard- 

 ing police matters, censorship, the construction 

 of buildings, street and road improvements, 

 post-offices, etc. paragraphs which, in reality, 

 should not have been incorporated with a 

 criminal code, but, at the most, with a police 

 code ; and partly to the fact that the low state 

 of culture and morality prevailing among a very 

 large portion of the population as yet stamps 

 many acts as crimes which more enlightened 

 times would no longer regard and punish as 

 such. Another peculiarity of the criminal 

 code of Russia is, the large number and arbi- 

 trary classification of penalties, of which there 

 are no fewer than thirty-seven. They are di- 

 vided into penal and correctional ones ; of the 

 former, there are four classes, and of the lat- 

 ter, seven, which are subdivided into a num- 

 ber of " degrees ; " namely : 



1. Penal penalty of the first class : The 

 criminal is divested of all the privileges of his 

 rank, and suffers death. 



2. Penal penalty of the second class, first 



degree: Criminals exempted from corporal 

 punishment, after being divested of all the privi- 

 leges of their rank, are transported to Siberia, 

 where they are imprisoned for life at hard la- 

 bor in the mines. Non-exempted criminals 

 receive in addition one hundred lashes, which 

 are inflicted publicly by the executioner, and, 

 with the exception of women, or men over 

 seventy years of age, they are branded on the 

 cheeks and forehead with the letters K. A. T. 

 (Katorshnyi convict). Second degree : For 

 the exempted criminals, transportation to Si- 

 beria, hard labor in the mines for from fifteen 

 to twenty years, and colonization for life ; for 

 the non-exempted, from eighty to ninety lashes, 

 and branding in addition. Third degree : For 

 the exempted, transportation to Siberia, hard 

 labor in the mines for from twelve to fifteen 

 years, and colonization ; the non-exempted re- 

 ceive from seventy to eighty lashes, and are 

 branded, in addition. Fourth degree : For the 

 exempted, transportation to Siberia, hard labor 

 for from ten to twelve years in a fortress, and 

 colonization for life; for the non-exempted, 

 sixty to seventy lashes, and branding, in addi- 

 tion. Fifth degree : For the exempted, trans- 

 portation to Siberia, hard labor for from eight 

 to ten years in a fortress, and colonization for 

 life ; for the non-exempted, fifty to sixty lashes, 

 and branding, in addition. Sixth degree : For 

 the exempted, transportation to Siberia, hard 

 labor for from eight to ten years in a factory, 

 and colonization for life ; for the non-exempted, 

 forty to fifty lashes, and branding, in addition. 

 Seventh degree : For the exempted, transporta- 

 tion to Siberia, hard labor for from four to six 

 years in a factory, and colonization for life ; 

 for the non-exempted, thirty to forty lashes, 

 and branding, in addition. 



3. Penal penalties of the third class. First 

 degree: For the exempted, transportation to 

 the Eastern districts of Siberia, and coloniza- 

 tion for life ; for the non-exempted, twenty to 

 thirty lashes, in addition. Second degree: 

 For the exempted, transportation to the less 

 remote districts of Siberia, and colonization 

 for life ; for the non-exempted, ten to twenty 

 lashes, in addition. 



4. Penal penalties of the fourth class: 

 The criminals are transported beyond the Cau- 

 casus, and colonized there for life. 



The seven classes of the correctional penal- 

 ties are subdivided into twenty-five degrees, 

 and the whole classification is so illogical 

 and arbitrary that few Russian judges know 

 by heart what penalty is to be imposed 

 upon crimes of secondary importance, and 

 printed tables of the various penalties are 

 generally consulted before sentence is passed 

 upon a prisoner. Both with the penal and 

 correctional penalties, there is coupled, in cer- 

 tain cases, an ecclesiastical penance, the char- 

 acter and duration of which are fixed by the 

 Church authorities; and some correctional 

 penalties are rendered more severe by the 

 publication of the sentence in the Senate Ga- 



