anti-Sovietism

File:Mitingas Vingio parke Vilniuje 1988 m. (2).jpg of about 300,000 people in 1988, condemning the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Sąjūdis was a movement which led to the restoration of an Independent State of Lithuania in 1990.]]

During the Russian Civil War that followed the October Revolution of 1917, the anti-Soviet side was the White movement. During the Interwar period, some resistance movements, particularly in the 1920s, were cultivated by Polish intelligence in the form of the Promethean project. After Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, anti-Soviet forces were created and led primarily by Nazi Germany (see Russian Liberation Movement). During the Cold War, the United States led the anti-Soviet and anti-communist Western Bloc.

During the Russian Civil War, whole classes of people, such as the clergy, kulaks and former Imperial Russian officers, were automatically considered anti-Soviet. More categories are listed in the article "Enemy of the People". Those who were deemed anti-Soviet in this way, because of their former social status, were often presumed guilty whenever tried for a crime.Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future, 1994. {{ISBN|0-374-52738-5}}.{{Page needed|date=December 2021}}

The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term "enemy of the people" ({{langx|ru|враг народа|vrag naroda}}). The term was first used in a speech by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first chairman of the Cheka, after the October Revolution. The Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee printed lists of "enemies of the people", and Vladimir Lenin invoked it in his decree of 28 November 1917:{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41256361|title=The black book of communism : crimes, terror, repression|date=1999|publisher=Harvard University Press|others=Stéphane Courtois, Mark Kramer|isbn=0-674-07608-7|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=41256361}}

{{blockquote|all leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, as a party of enemies of the people, are hereby to be considered outlaws, and are to be arrested immediately and brought before the revolutionary court.Werth, Nicolas; Bartošek, Karel; Panné, Jean-Louis; Margolin, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; and Courtois, Stéphane (1999) The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|0-674-07608-7}}}}

Other similar terms were in use as well:

• enemy of the labourers ({{langx|ru|враг трудящихся|vrag trudjaščihsja}})
• enemy of the proletariat ({{langx|ru|враг пролетариата|vrag proletariata}})
• class enemy ({{langx|ru|классовый враг|klassovyj vrag}}), etc.

In particular, the term "enemy of the workers" was formalized in the Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code),[http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/uk58-e.html#58-1a "Article 58"], an online excerpt and similar articles in the codes of the other Soviet Republics.

At various times these terms were applied, in particular, to Tsar Nicholas II and the Imperial family, aristocrats, the bourgeoisie, clerics, business entrepreneurs, anarchists, kulaks, monarchists, Mensheviks, Esers, Bundists, Trotskyists, Bukharinists, the "old Bolsheviks", the army and police, emigrants, saboteurs, wreckers (вредители, "vrediteli"), "social parasites" (тунеядцы, "tuneyadtsy"), Kavezhedists (people who administered and serviced the KVZhD (China Far East Railway), particularly the Russian population of Harbin, China), and those considered bourgeois nationalists (notably Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Armenian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian nationalists, Zionists, Basmachi).{{cite web |title=Spies, Saboteurs, Embezzlers and Swindlers |url=https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1947-2/xenophobia/xenophobia-texts/spies-saboteurs-embezzlers-and-swindlers/ |website=Seventeen Moments in Soviet History |access-date=13 May 2025 |date=30 January 1953}}

Since 1927, Article 20 of the Common Part of the penal code that listed possible "measures of social defence" had the following item 20a: "declaration to be an enemy of the workers with deprivation of the union republic citizenship and hence of the USSR citizenship, with obligatory expulsion from its territory". Nevertheless, most "enemies of the people" suffered labor camps, rather than expulsion.

File:A T-55 on Václavské náměstí, Prague.jpg, the city of Prague placed a Soviet-era T-55, a symbol of the Soviet invasion of 1968, on its central square as a target for public ridicule.]]

Later in the Soviet Union, being anti-Soviet was a criminal offense, known as "Anti-Soviet agitation". The epithet "antisoviet" was synonymous with "counter-revolutionary". The noun "antisovietism" was rarely used and the noun "antisovietist" ({{langx|ru|антисоветчик|translit=antisovetchik}}) was used in a derogatory sense. Anti-Soviet agitation and activities were political crimes handled by the Article 58 and later Article 70 of the RSFSR penal code and similar articles in other Soviet republics. In February 1930, there was an anti-Soviet insurgency in the Kazak Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic village of Sozak.{{Cite journal|journal=Islam, Society and States Across the Qazaq Steppe|title=Interpreting an insurgency in Soviet Kazakhstan : the OGPU, Islam and Qazaq 'Clans' in Suzak, 1930|author=Niccolò Pianciola|author2=Paolo Sartori|year=2013|pages=297–340}}

After the end of the Second World War, there were Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies against the Soviet Union.

{{Main|Decommunization}}

In August 2022 Estonia began removing Soviet monuments, beginning with a T-34 tank in Narva, claiming it was necessary for "public order" and "internal security".{{Cite web |date=2022-08-16 |title=Estonia removes Soviet Union war monuments |url=https://www.politico.eu/article/estonia-removes-soviet-union-war-monuments/ |access-date=2022-08-18 |website=POLITICO |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Olsen |first=Jan |title=Estonia removes Soviet-era monument, citing public order |url=https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/estonia-removes-soviet-monument-citing-public-order-88433371 |access-date=2022-08-18 |website=ABC News |publisher=Associated Press |language=en}}

File:Demonstration in Riga for the removal of Soviet Monument (1).jpg to remove a Victory monument to the Red Army, May 2022{{cite news |title=How this tiny Russian neighbour is fighting to save its tourism industry |url=https://www.timeout.com/news/how-this-tiny-russian-neighbour-is-fighting-to-save-its-tourism-industry-051622 |work=Time Out |date=16 May 2022}}]]

On 6 May 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš announced that the removal of the controversial monument to the Red Army was inevitable.{{cite news |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/culture/history/soviet-memorials-days-are-numbered-confirms-latvian-pm.a455554/ |title=Soviet memorial's days are numbered, confirms Latvian PM |date= 6 May 2022 |publisher=Public Broadcasting of Latvia}} Five days later a public fundraising campaign was launched and more than 39,000 euros had been donated by 12 May{{cite news |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/culture/history/fundraising-begins-in-latvia-for-dismantling-soviet-monument.a456387/ |title=Fundraising begins in Latvia for dismantling Soviet monument |date= 12 May 2022 |publisher=Public Broadcasting of Latvia}} when the Saeima voted to suspend the functioning of a section regarding the preservation of memorial structures in an agreement between Latvia and Russia.{{cite news |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/politics/saeima/saeima-decides-to-legally-allow-soviet-monument-demolition.a456417/ |title=Saeima decides to legally allow Soviet monument demolition |date= 12 May 2022 |publisher=Public Broadcasting of Latvia}} By 13 May, the total amount of donations had almost reached 200,000 euros.{{cite news |last=Zvirbulis |first=Ģirts |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/culture/history/nearly-eur-200000-collected-for-demolition-of-soviet-memorial.a456555/ |title=Nearly EUR 200,000 collected for demolition of Soviet memorial |date=13 May 2022 |publisher=Public Broadcasting of Latvia}}

A rally "Getting Rid of Soviet Heritage" taking place on March 20 was attended by approximately 5,000 people,{{cite news |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/thousands-turn-out-to-support-removal-of-soviet-relics.a457795/ |title=Thousands turn out to support removal of Soviet relics |date=20 May 2022 |publisher=Public Broadcasting of Latvia |agency=LETA}} while a counter rally by Latvian Russian Union was prevented from taking place by security forces, claiming threat to "public security".{{cite news |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/security-service-gives-red-light-to-latvian-russian-unions-rally.a458177/ |title=Security service gives red light to Latvian Russian Union's rally |date=24 May 2022 |publisher=Public Broadcasting of Latvia}}

A list of 93 street names still glorifying the Soviet regime (such as 13 streets named after the Pioneer movement), as well as 48 street names given during the Russification at the end of the 19th century (like streets named after Alexander Pushkin), has been compiled by historians of the Public Memory Center and sent to the corresponding municipalities who were recommended to change them.{{cite news |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/culture/history/soviet-related-street-name-change-urged-in-latvia.a468410/ |title=Soviet-related street name change urged in Latvia |date=8 August 2022 |publisher=Public Broadcasting of Latvia}}

{{Portal|Politics|Soviet Union}}

• Anti-communism
• Anti-Soviet partisans
• Criticisms of communist party rule
• Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies
• White movement
• Anti-People's Republic of China, distinguished from anti-Chinese sentiment
• Anti-Russian sentiment
• Anti-Stalinist left
• Decommunization
• Decommunization in Russia
• Decommunization in Ukraine
• List of monuments and memorials removed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Enemy of the people
• German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war
• Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union
• Catacomb Church
• Predictions of the collapse of the Soviet Union
• Political repression in the Soviet Union
• Refusenik
• Soviet dissidents
• Red Scare and Red Terror
• Russian war crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Soviet Empire
• Timeline of events in the Cold War
• White émigré

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{{Soviet Union topics}}

Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union

Category:Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

Category:Anti-Soviet resistance