Chapter 8. The Soviet Union Communism and the Birth of the Modern Human Rights Movement

Opposition to Soviet rule has deep roots and traditions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Modern dissentism, however, is a response to Soviet rule different from what we call opposition in the West. In the Baltic republics it must be dated from 1968, the watershed year in the rise of human rights movement in the Soviet Union. In Estonia and Latvia, dissident activity was galvanized to life primarily by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia which provoked vocal criticism. In Lithuania, reaction to Czechoslovakia's occupation coincided with the growing concern that an increasingly severe implementation of prohibitive anti-religious legislation will choke off the existence of the Catholic church. Concern for religious rights served as the primary catalyst for the reborn dissent movement in Lithuania.

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Interview

Index on Censorship ◽

10.1080/03064228808534410 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 17 (5) ◽

pp. 11-13 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mykola Rudenko

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Political Prisoner ◽

The West ◽

Amnesty International ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Human Rights Movement ◽

Monitoring Group ◽

Andrei Sakharov ◽

Major General

At the end of last year, the Ukrainian writer, prominent human rights activist and political prisoner, Mykola Rudenko, was freed and allowed to leave the Soviet Union. A decorated war veteran who suffered a serious spinal wound at the siege of Leningrad, Rudenko enjoyed a successful career as writer, poet and playwright, and had over 20 books published. That was before he became a friend of Andrei Sakharov and Major-General Petro Hryhorenko (or, Grigorenko) in the early 1970s and joined the Soviet human rights movement. Although harassed, arrested and briefly detained in a mental hospital for becoming a member of the Soviet branch of Amnesty International, Rudenko went on to found the Ukrainian Helsinki monitoring group in November 1976. The following year he was arrested and given a twelve-year sentence of camps and internal exile. In 1980, his wife Raisa was also punished by a ten-year term for campaigning for his release. Shortly after his arrival in the West, Rudenko was interviewed for Index by Bohdan Nahaylo.

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Human Rights Naturalized

10.1093/oso/9780190868413.003.0011 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Allen Buchanan

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

World War Ii ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Modern Human ◽

Status Quo ◽

Economic Conditions ◽

World War ◽

Human Rights Movement ◽

The Status ◽

Naturalistic Theory

This chapter helps to confirm the explanatory power of the naturalistic theory of moral progress outlined in previous chapters by making two main points. First, it shows that the theory helps to explain how and why the modern human rights movement arose when it did. Second, it shows that the advances in inclusiveness achieved by the modern human rights movement depended upon the fortunate coincidence of a constellation of contingent cultural and economic conditions—and that it is therefore a dangerous mistake to assume that continued progress must occur, or even that the status quo will not substantially deteriorate. This chapter also helps to explain a disturbing period of regression (in terms of the recognition of equal basic status) that occurred between the success of British abolitionism and the founding of the modern human rights movement at the end of World War II.

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The Helsinki Accord: A Growth Industry

Ethics & International Affairs ◽

10.1111/j.1747-7093.1990.tb00245.x ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 53-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

William Korey

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Ronald Reagan ◽

The United States ◽

Jimmy Carter ◽

Mikhail Gorbachev ◽

Negotiation Strategies ◽

Security Issues ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Growth Industry

Despite conservative opposition, in the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter turned the tide in favor of the Helsinki Accord by taking a strong stand in fostering U.S. participation in it. Korey focuses on the U.S. delegation to the Commission on Security and Cooperation (CSCE) in Europe and credits the success of the Helsinki Accord to U.S. adroit negotiation strategies, beginning with the Carter administration. By 1980, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev came to embrace the “humanitarianism” of the treaty. The Vienna review conference's (1986–89) effort peaked when a milestone was reached in the human rights process, linking it directly to security issues equally pertinent to the East and the West. The author contends that the United States' ardent participation in the monitoring of compliance was particularly effective in putting pressure on the Soviet Union to uphold the agreement within its territory, yielding enormous progress in human rights

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La géopolitique des droits humains

Les Cahiers de droit ◽

10.7202/042825ar ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 473-486

Author(s):

Jean-Louis Seurin

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Third World ◽

Eastern Bloc ◽

Political Conflicts ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Droits Humains ◽

Points Of View ◽

The Third World ◽

Communist Countries

The universality of the ideology of Human Rights is presently enjoying increased interest inspite of the limited results and disappointing concrete realizations achieved in this area. At the time of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the universality of the doctrine of Human Rights was only an illusion and the problems raised by the application of subsequent international accords have made evident the political conflicts which are at play behind the human rights debate. Presently, one may accurately speak of a "geopolitic of human rights". Starting from the precept that the best way to resolve opposing points of view is to begin with reality, the author examines the relative situation of Human Rights in three groups which are each relatively homogeneous : the Atlantic zone regrouping the pluralist constitutional democracies; the totalitarian countries including the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc countries and the communist countries of Asia and, finally, the zone of non-aligned countries of the "third world".

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The Human Rights of Foreign Labor

Worldview ◽

10.1017/s0084255900046416 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 7-9

Author(s):

Steven Charnovitz

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Reagan Administration ◽

Forced Labor ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Foreign Labor ◽

Foreign Countries ◽

The Press ◽

Developed World ◽

New Criteria

Little noticed by the press. United States trade policy is undergoing significant changes aimed at promoting the rights of workers in foreign countries—changes achieved through the use of both a carrot and a stick. The carrot, now being offered to the less-developed world, is dutyfree access to the U.S. market for qualifying products exported by countries that meet certain new criteria on bbor. The stick is a ban on imports made by forced labor— something the Reagan administration is under increasing pressure to invoke against the Soviet Union. While it is too early to gauge the success of such attempts at exercising economic leverage, they may yet become a milestone in the march of human rights.

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Tyranny, Communism, and U.S. Policy in Equatorial Guinea, 1968–1979*

Diplomatic History ◽

10.1093/dh/dhz020 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 699-728

Author(s):

Geoffrey Jensen

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Equatorial Guinea ◽

The Soviet Union

Abstract This study of Washington’s dealings with Equatorial Guinea under the rule of one of modern Africa’s most brutal dictators, Francisco Macías Nguema, analyzes US perceptions and policies relating to communist intervention, human rights, and related geopolitical issues during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter presidencies. It also sheds light on the relationships and conflicts between the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba in Africa. In addition, it offers new perspectives on Cuba’s close ties to the dictatorship of Francisco Macías Nguema and on the possible role of international actors in his downfall in 1979.

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Derogation of Human Rights in Emergency Situations

Canadian Yearbook of international Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international ◽

10.1017/s0069005800013035 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 16 ◽

pp. 92-115 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

L. C. Green

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

South Africa ◽

Human Rights ◽

Soviet Union ◽

International Politics ◽

Developing World ◽

Olympic Games ◽

The United States ◽

Emergency Situations ◽

The Soviet Union

Since Mr. Carter became President of the United States, there bas been a revival in the use of human rights as a weapon in international politics. More and more western countries have stated that they are contemplating measuring the aid they give to members of the developing world in proportion to the extent to which the latter conform to basic humanitarian standards or improve their own record in relation to observance of human rights. In addition, there have been calls for the cancellation of visits by politicians, academics, and artistic performers; for non-participation in international athletic contests — a western adaptation of the African ban of the Montreal Olympic Games because of New Zealand’s participation while the latter’s athletes were not barred from competing in South Africa; for non-participation in technical and scientific conferences; and for the breaking of town-twinning arrangements. This attitude has been fed somewhat by reason of the activities of “Helsinki watchers,” who contend that this or that country, and particularly the Soviet Union, is not living up to its human rights obligations as embodied in the Helsinki Agreement.

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