section_path: Government and politics/Human rights
section_name: Human rights
paragraph_text: Human rights
  
  Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 and a one-party state until 1990. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in free labor unions, private corporations, independent churches or opposition political parties. The freedom of movement within and especially outside the country was limited. The state restricted rights of citizens to private property.
  
  The Soviet conception of human rights was very different from international law. According to Soviet legal theory, "it is the government who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the individual". The Soviet state was considered as the source of human rights. Therefore, the Soviet legal system regarded law as an arm of politics and courts as agencies of the government. Extensive extrajudicial powers were given to the Soviet secret police agencies. The Soviet government in practice significantly curbed the rule of law, civil liberties, protection of law, freedom of movement and guarantees of property, which were considered as examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet law theorists such as Andrey Vyshinsky. According to Vladimir Lenin, the purpose of socialist courts was "not to eliminate terror... but to substantiate it and legitimize it in principle".
  
  The Soviet Union signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973, but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by the Communist authorities.