John Quigley, The Dilemma of Prostitution Law Reform. Lessons From The Soviet Russian Experiment

+(,121/,1(
Citation: 29 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1197 1991-1992

Provided by:
LSE Library
Content downloaded/printed from

HeinOnline (http://heinonline.org)
Mon Jun 20 03:15:40 2016
-- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance

of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license
agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License
-- The search text of this PDF is generated from

uncorrected OCR text.
-- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope

of your HeinOnline license, please use:
https://www.copyright.com/ccc/basicSearch.do?
&operation=go&searchType=0
&lastSearch=simple&all=on&titleOrStdNo=0164-0364
THE DILEMMA OF PROSTITUTION LAW REFORM:
LESSONS FROM THE SOVIET RUSSIAN EXPERIMENT
John Quigley*
I. INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1197

II. MARXIST ANALYSIS OF PROSTITUTION ..................... 1199
III. THE AIM OF ERADICATING PROSTITUTION IN SOVIET RUSSIA 1204
IV. THE ELIMINATION OF REGULATED PROSTITUTION ......... 1208
V. ANTI-PROSTITUTION PROGRAMS IN SOVIET RUSSIA ........ 1214
VI. PROSTITUTION AS A PUBLIC ORDER VIOLATION ............. 1219
VII. THE INTERNATIONAL IMPACT OF THE SOVIET RUSSIAN AP-
PR O A C H . ......................... ......... .......... 1227
VIII. IMPLICATIONS FOR LAW AND POLICY ..................... 1231
I. INTRODUCTION
Legislative policy on prostitution is a matter of continuing debate, a re-

flection of the fact that no universally acceptable approach has been found.
In the United States, the predominant approach has been criminalization
of the act of prostitution and all related activity. In Europe, the predomi-
nant approach was historically regulation of prostitution without making it
illegal. More recently in Europe, regulatory schemes have been abolished,
leaving prostitution legal for the prostitute but unlawful for those who or-
ganize it.
The United States approach of criminalizing prostitution and all related
activities has been criticized as a fruitless attempt to prevent the unpre-
ventable, with high cost to taxpayers that serves no purpose.' It has also
been attacked as a violation of the rights of women who work as prostitutes
by critics of two schools. One school views criminalization as inappropriate
on the theory that some women are compelled by economic circumstance to
* Professor of Law, Ohio State University. LL.B. Harvard Law School 1966, M.A. Harvard Univer-
sity (Soviet studies) 1966. The author is grateful for assistance in tracing coverage of prostitution in
Soviet periodicals to Ann Bigelow, Associate Editor, and Deborah Hunter, Translator, of the Current
Digest of the Soviet Press. He is grateful for assistance in identifying relevant legal literature to Val
Bolen, Foreign and International Law Librarian, Ohio State University.
I. JULIE PEARL. THE HIGHEST PAYING CUSTOMERS: AMERICA'S CITIES AND THE COSTS OF PROSTITU-
TION CONTROL 769, 790 (1987) ("The composite elements of prostitution control, in terms of both
public fiscal expenditures and decreased protection from other crimes, appear highly disproportionate in
light of the stated priorities of citizens and judges alike, and the apparently minimal benefits
attaine4").
1197
1198 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 29:1197
engage in work they would not otherwise choose.' Other critics of criminal-
ization assert a right, as a matter of individual liberty, to choose prostitu-
tion as a livelihood.' For those who view prostitution as a product of eco-
nomic necessity, however, decriminalization is not a total solution, because
even when the act of engaging in prostitution is not prohibited by law, the
same economic necessity operates.
A basic issue in developing a legislative approach is to determine why
prostitution should be deemed a negative phenomenon in society, if indeed
it should. Some analysts assert that prostitution is immoral, arguing that
sex should to be confined to the marital relationship or to situations in
which each party participates out of affection for the other." Others oppose
prostitution on the theory that it fosters oppression of women in general,
because prostitution finds males in control of the lives of women.5 In addi-
tion, the possibility of contracting sexually transmittable diseases is a seri-
ous hazard for a woman practicing prostitution. Moreover, prostitutes are
6
frequently the victims of violence.
The debate on prostitution has become international in recent decades.
Increasingly, women are transported from one country to another, and cli-
ents visit other countries in groups.7 At the United Nations, increasing at-
tention has been given to prostitution as a worldwide phenomenon. 8
In the debate on prostitution, it is generally assumed that prostitution,
the "oldest profession," is a fact of life that will always exist. The task of
government policy, under this approach, is how best to contain the negative
consequences of prostitution. One of the few governments to take a differ-
ent approach was that of Soviet Russia. In the years following the 1917
2. ROSEMARY TONG, WOMEN, SEX AND THE LAW 60 (1984) (referring to "pressure that flows from
the structures of capitalism and patriarchy," and stating that "unless poor women are given opportuni-
ties for education and employment, they will not be able to withstand the institutional pressures of
capitalism").
3. David A. J. Richards, Commercial Sex and the Rights of the Person: A Moral Argument for the
Decriminalization of Prostitution, 127 U. PA. L. REV. 1195, 1271-79 (1979). See also Implementation
of Economic and Social Council Resolution 1983/30 on the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and
of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others: Report of the Secretary-General at 7, U.N. Doc. E/
1990/33 (1990) (Netherlands government's view that "[ilt follows from the right of self-determination,
which is enjoyed by an independent adult man or woman on whom no unlawful interference has been
brought to bear, that he or she is at liberty to act as a prostitute and allow another person to profit
from his or her earnings").
4. PATRICK DEVLIN, THE ENFORCEMENT OF MORALS 8-9, 12 (1965).
5. Laurie Shrage, Should Feminists Oppose Prostitution?, ETHICS 347, 352 (1989).
6. Nancy Erbe, Prostitutes: Victims of Men's Exploitation and Abuse, 2 LAW & INEQ. J. 609, 618-
20 (1984). KATHLEEN BARRY, FEMALE SEXUAL SLAVERY 105-06 (1979) (discussing homicides and
rapes of prostitutes).
7. Mary Fish, Deterring Sex Sales to International Tourists: A Case Study of Thailand. South
Korea, and the Philippines, 8 INT'L J. COMP. & APPLIED CRIM. JUSTICE 175 (1984).
8. Laura Reanda, Prostitution as a Human Rights Question: Problems and Prospects of United
Nations Action, 13 HUM. RTS. Q. 202 (1991).
1992] SOVIET PROSTITUTION LAW REFORM 1199
revolution, the Soviet Russian government's policy towards prostitution was

highly innovative, in the spirit of reform reflected in its approach to gender
equality issues generally."
The Soviet Russian government, like most other governments, regarded
prostitution as a social evil. Unlike most other governments, however, it
was not content to allow prostitution to exist in the long term. Viewing
prostitution as a product of economic necessity that impelled women to be-
come prostitutes, the government posited the possibility of eliminating pros-
titution by eradicating its social causes. At the same time, it undertook
rehabilitation of prostitutes in an effort to provide an alternative way of life
for women then practicing prostitution.
The Soviet Russian policy on prostitution had a major impact interna-
tionally. Reforms instituted in Soviet Russia were later introduced in other
countries. This article explores the Soviet Russian policy on prostitution
and its international impact. It argues that the Soviet Russian experience
may still hold lessons that are useful in resolving the current policy di-
lemma over prostitution.
II. MARXIST ANALYSIS OF PROSTITUTION
The Soviet Russian policy towards prostitution derived from an analysis

of prostitution elaborated as part of the Marxist critique of capitalism in
the nineteenth century. Marxist writers examined prostitution from two as-
pects - the reason men created a demand for paid sexual activity, and the
reason women willingly engaged in paid sexual activity. The context for
their analysis was the industrial revolution, which brought a major increase
in prostitution, with prostitutes drawn from the laboring classes.10
The most comprehensive Marxist commentary on the role of women in
society was Friedrich Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State." Engels said that prostitution was a function of monogamy,
which he defined as a woman-man union in which the woman was required
to observe sexual exclusivity while the man was not. Monogamy, said En-
gels, emerged with the advent of private property, "the express purpose
being to produce children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is de-
manded because these children are later to come into their father's prop-
erty as his natural heirs."1 " For men, exclusivity of sexual relations was not
demanded, and thus the way was open for adultery and prostitution.
9. John Quigley, The Impact of Soviet Law in the West: Boon or Bane? in LAW AFTER REVOLU-
TION 131, 135-137 (William E. Butler et al. eds., 1988).
10. MAX CHALEIL. LE CORPS PROSTITULf 145-48, 158-61 (1981) (discussing how early capitalism
created poverty which limited women's choices and forced some into prostitution).
11. FREDERICK ENGELS, THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY. PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE (1972).
12. Id. at 125.
Because of the higher status accorded to men in capitalist society, the

woman prostitute and her male client were viewed differently: "What for
the woman is a crime entailing grave legal and social consequences is con-
sidered honorable in a man or, at the worst, a slight moral blemish which
he cheerfully bears." 1 3 Engels thought that with the fall of capitalism,
prostitution would disappear along with the discriminatory aspect of
monogamy:
[Bly transforming by far the greater portion, at any rate, of the

permanent, heritable wealth - the means of production - into
social property, the coming social revolution will reduce to a min-
imum all this anxiety about bequeathing and inheriting. Having
arisen from economic causes, will monogamy then disappear
when these causes disappear? One might answer, not without
reason: far from disappearing, it will on the contrary begin to be
realized completely. For with the transformation of the means of
production into social property there will disappear also wage la-
bor, the proletariat, and therefore the necessity for a certain -
statistically calculable - number of women to surrender them-
selves for money. Prostitution disappears; monogamy, instead of
collapsing, at last becomes a reality - also for men. 1"
In the socialized economy that would follow capitalism, the means of pro-
duction would not be passed as private property, and therefore it would no
longer be necessary to ensure that a woman's offspring were her husband's.
Thus, there would be no material basis for the double standard in sexual
morality. Women, moreover, would achieve economic equality with men
and would escape the situation of economic necessity that, under capital-
ism, led to prostitution.
The only other extended treatment of women's status in the Marxist
literature was a book titled Women and Socialism by the German social
democrat August Bebel.' 5 In a chapter titled "Prostitution: A Necessary
Social Institution of the Capitalist World," Bebel relied on Engels and ana-
lyzed prostitution as the complement of marriage: "Marriage presents one
side of the sexual life of the capitalist or bourgeois world; prostitution
presents the other. Marriage is the obverse, prostitution the reverse of the
medal. If men find no satisfaction in wedlock, then they usually seek the
same in prostitution."1 6 Bebel devoted the bulk of his analysis to the pres-
13. Id. at 138.

14. Id. at 138-39.
15. AUGUST BEBEL. WOMAN UNDER SOCIALISM (Daniel De Leon trans., Schocken Books 1971)
(1904).
16. Id. at 146.
sures on women to become prostitutes:

[T]he number of prostitutes increases in the same measure that
does that of the women engaged as female labor in the various
branches of industry and trade, and that are paid off with wages
that are too high to die, and too low to live on. Prostitution is,
furthermore, promoted by the industrial crises that have become
a necessity of the capitalist world, that commence to become
chronic, and that carry want and misery into hundreds and
7
thousands of families.
Bebel chided writers who viewed prostitution as a "necessary evil."'" Like
Engels, he saw an end to prostitution once women attained economic equal-
ity with men in socialism.
The American Marxist writer Emma Goldman, like Engels and Bebel,
analyzed prostitution in capitalism as a consequence of women's economic
status: "What is really the cause of the trade in women? . .. Exploitation,
of course; the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid
labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution."' 9 As
the solution, Goldman looked to a social and economic transformation that
would bring an end to capitalism: "As to a thorough eradication of prosti-
tution, nothing can accomplish that save a complete transvaluation of all
accepted values - especially the moral ones - coupled with the abolition
of industrial slavery. "20
On the economic causes of prostitution, Goldman cited the Dutch Marx-
ist criminologist Willem Bonger, who wrote a detailed factual analysis of
prostitution under capitalism." Bonger drew upon data from a number of
European countries:
[Ailmost all prostitutes spring from the classes without fortune,
and the great majority of them have been at first working-women
or domestics, and consequently have belonged to families without
fortune. If such women, for any reason whatever, cannot find
work, they are thrown into poverty. As this happens constantly in
society, poor women find themselves forced into prostitution."
Bonger cited "the fact that the wages paid to women are often so small
that it is impossible for them to pay even their necessary expenses, and are
17. Id. at 160.

18. Id. at 149.
19. EMMA GOLDMAN. The Traffic in Women, in THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN AND OTHER ESSAYS ON
FEMINISM 20 (1970). The essay was written in 1917.
20. Id. at 32.
21. Id. at 25.
22. WILLEM BONGER. CRIMINALITY AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 342 (1916).
thus obliged to find some supplementary source of income." ' 5 Of these con-
ditions, Bonger found, "the same thing is true of all the countries where
capitalism reigns."2' 4 Charting the incidence of prostitution over time,
Bonger concluded that it increased during economic downswings and de-
creased during economic upswings. 5
Referring to Engels, Bonger found as another corollary of capitalism the
phenomenon that later was termed sexual harassment, which he viewed as
a variant of prostitution because of the economic coercion common to both:
"[T]he proprietors or their foremen by abusing their power force the work-
ing-girls who please them to yield to their desires . . . . The threat of
dismissal suffices to overcome all resistance in nine cases out of ten, if not
in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred." 2
Among the Marxists in Russia, the leading theorist on gender equality
issues was Alexandra Kollontai. Her analysis of prostitution mirrored that
of Engels, Bebel, Goldman, and Bonger. Kollontai said that the increase in
prostitution under capitalism resulted from:
exploitation of labour by capital. When a woman's wages are in-

sufficient to keep her alive, the sale of favours seems a possible
subsidiary occupation. The hypocritical morality of bourgeois so-
ciety encourages prostitution by the structure of its exploitative
economy, while at the same time mercilessly covering with con-
tempt any girl or woman who is forced to take this path. 7
Kollontai wrote, "History has never before witnessed such a growth of
prostitution as occurred in the last part of the nineteenth and the twentieth
centuries. In Berlin there is one prostitute for every twenty so-called honest
women. In Paris the ratio is one to eighteen and in London one to nine." 28
Like Bonger, Kollontai argued that the economic cause of prostitution
was demonstrated by the fact that prostitution increased during times of
economic crisis and high unemployment. 9 White slavers traveling to Rus-
sia to seek young women "always found a rich harvest in areas where crops
had failed and the population was suffering from famine." 3 Prostitutes in
23. Id. at 345.

24. Id.
25. Id. See also ABRAHAM FLEXNER. PROSTITUTION IN EUROPE 85 (1914) (stating that young
women factory workers who are unemployed during economic downturns are forced into prostitution).
26. BONGER, supra note 22, at 340.
27. Alexandra Kollontai, Prostitution and Ways of Fighting It, Address before the Third All-Russian
Conference of Heads of the Regional Women's Departments (1921), in SELECTED WRITINGS OF ALEX-
ANDRA KOLLONTAI 261, 263 (Alix Holt trans. & ed., 1977).
28. Id. at 263.
29. Id. at 264.
30. Id.
19921 SOVIET PROSTITUTION LAW REFORM 1203
Russia, said Kollontai, came from the lower classes. 1

Like Engels, Kollontai viewed prostitution in capitalism as a variant of
marriage, which also provided women a means of survival: "There is an
undeniable element of material and economic consideration in even the
most legal of marriages. Prostitution is the way out for the woman who
32
fails to find herself a permanent breadwinner.1
Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik faction of Russian Marxism,
wrote a 1913 newspaper article about an international conference held in
London on prostitution. "What means of struggle were proposed by the
elegant bourgeois delegates to the congress? Mainly two methods - reli-
gion and police." Lenin reported that "[w]hen the Austrian delegate Gdrt-
ner tried to raise the question of the social causes of prostitution, of the
need and poverty experienced by working-class families, of the exploitation
of child labour, of unbearable housing conditions, . . . he was forced to
silence by hostile shouts." Lenin termed the congress' refusal to address the
social causes while purporting to be against prostitution as "disgusting
bourgeois hypocrisy." 33 Thus, Lenin took the general Marxist position that
prostitution was generated by poverty.
In another 1913 article, Capitalism and Female Labour, Lenin found
prostitution an inevitable feature of slave-holding, feudal, and capitalist so-
cieties, because in each instance the masters were able to compel women of
the underclass into sexual relations because of their economic hold over
34
them.
In 1919, two leading Bolsheviks, Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Pre-
obrazhenskii, characterized prostitution as a product of low wages for
women workers under capitalism: "[E]ven if she has work, the wages are
so low that she may be compelled to supplement her earnings by the sale
of her body. After a time, the new trade becomes habitual. Thus arises the
caste of professional prostitutes."3 5
The Marxist view thus was that prostitutes were victims of capitalism. 6
This thesis was not unique to Marxist writers, because the poverty associ-
ated with capitalism and its connection to the simultaneous rise in prostitu-
tion had been noted by analysts of other schools.37 The Marxists, however,
31. Id. at 265.

32. Id. at 264.
33. V.I. Lenin, The Fifth International Congress Against Prostitution, in ROBERT C. TUCKER. THE
LENIN ANTHOLOGY 683 (1975) and in FANNINA W. HALLE. WOMAN IN SOVIET RUSSIA 218-19 (1933).
34. TUCKER, supra note 33, at 682.
35. NIKOLAI BUKHARIN & EVGENII PREOBRAZHENSKII. THE ABC OF COMMUNISM: A POPULAR Ex-
PLANATION OF THE PROGRAM OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF RUSSIA 57 (University of Michigan Press
1966) (1919).
36. Alfred G. Meyer, Marxism and the Women's Movement, in WOMEN IN RUSSIA 87 (Dorothy
Atkinson et al. eds., 1977).
37. JOHN F. DECKER. PROSTITUTION: REGULATION AND CONTROL 146, 149 (1979) (describing his-
elaborated the thesis more comprehensively.
III. THE AIM OF ERADICATING PROSTITUTION IN SOVIET RUSSIA
In tsarist Russia, the Bolsheviks found a situation that seemed to confirm

their analysis. Prostitution was widespread.38 A system of registration of
prostitutes was in use, and shortly before World War I, 40,000 women
were registered in St. Petersburg39 and 20,000 in1 Moscow.' Many more
women practiced prostitution without registering.'
The "main motive" impelling women in tsarist Russia into prostitution
was, in the opinion of one recent analyst, "economic hardship or the fear of
it.' 42 According to another analyst, "[tihe hard life and extreme poverty of
the Russian peasantry, struggling under heavy taxation, drove thousands of
girls and women into the towns, to work in factories and as domestic ser-
vants, in the hope of earning more money to help out at home."' 3 Work in
a town typically brought small reward, as women's wages in industry were
far below those of men." Many women worked as domestics, receiving ex-
tremely low pay. "What wonder, then, that many women of the Russian
peasantry, even up to the time of the Revolution of 1917, accepted prosti-
tution as a means of livelihood." 48
In 1918, the Soviet Russian government, invoking the Marxist analysis
of prostitution, became the first government in history to declare the possi-
bility of eradicating prostitution. The aim was stated at a 1918 All-Russian
Congress of Women.' The eradication would come about, the government
predicted, not through legislative prohibition or regulatory schemes, but
through the elimination of capitalist wage-employment, and an equalization
tory of prostitution, but not suggesting socialism as a solution); FLEXNER, supra note 25, at 63 ("The
most striking fact in connection with the source of supply is its practically total derivation from the
lower working-classes..."); id. at 82 ("the huge proletariat is the reservoir from which victims can be
readily drawn"); id. at 84 ("economic pressure is mainly the region from which the prostitute comes").
38. FEIGA BLEKHER, THE SOVIET WOMAN IN THE FAMILY AND IN SOCIETY [A SOCIOLOGICAL
STUDY] 10 (1979).
39. Alice Withrow Field, Prostitution in the Soviet Union, 143 NATION 373 (March 25, 1936);
HALLE, supra note 33, at 221, 253.
40. supra note 33, at 253; Marion Nelson, Two Curious Institutions of Soviet Russia, 14
HALLE,
CANADIAN FORUM 260, 261 (April 1934).
41. Laurie Annabelle Bernstein, Sonia's Daughters: Prostitution and Society in Russia 144 (1987)
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California (Berkeley)).
42. RICHARD STITES, THE WOMAN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA: FEMINISM, NIHILISM, AND
BOLSHEVISM 1860-1930 183 (1978).
43. NINA NIKOLAEVNA SELIVANOVA, RUSSIA's WOMEN 213 (1923).
44. See HALLE, supra note 33, at 220-21 (average monthly wage for a man was 34 rubles, 13 rubles
for a woman).
45. SELIVANOVA, supra note 43, at 214.
46. STITES, supra note 42, at 330.
of the status of the sexes.47

The People's Commissar of Social Welfare in the Soviet Russian govern-
ment, Alexandra Kollontai, declared that prostitution would disappear with
the elimination of private property as the means of production.4 8 "The
workers' revolution in Russia has shattered the basis of capitalism and has
struck a blow at the former dependence of women upon men . . . . A
woman provides for herself not by marriage but by the part she plays in
production." ' '
During the civil war (1918-1921), the government of Soviet Russia insti-
tuted compulsory labor for all able-bodied adults, including prostitutes."0
Female unemployment dropped sharply as the government organized pro-
duction of war material. 1 Those unwilling to work, including prostitutes,
were sent to labor camps. 2 Prostitution declined markedly. 3 Police closed
brothels in some areas, but in others let them continue to operate. Some
prostitutes were prosecuted and sentenced to labor camps. 4 The govern-
ment aggressively prosecuted procurers. 5
The labor mobilization was, in any event, temporary. In the early 1920s,
the government terminated this movement, and prostitution increased
sharply. One contemporary analyst said that the ease of divorce under the
1918 Russian Family Law Code 6 had weakened the family, which in turn
led women into sexual liaisons, and then into prostitution. 7 He deplored
the generally freer sexual morality that prevailed in Russia in the 1920s
and said that it contributed to prostitution. 8
47. Id.
48. Alexandra Kollontai, Communism and the Family, in I CHANGING ATTITUDES IN SOVIET Rus-
SIA: DOCUMENTS AND READINGS 59, 68 (Rudolf Schlesinger ed., 1949). The essay was written in 1920.
49. Kollontai, supra note 27, at 265.
50. KZoT RSFSR, art. 1,Sobranie uzakonenii RSFSR [Collection of Legislation of the R.S.F.S.R.1,
Issue no. 87-88, Item 905 (1918); LEV FRIDLAND. S RAZNYKH STORON: PROSTITUTSIIA V SSSR (FROM
VARIOUS SIDES: PROSTITUTION IN THE U.S.S.R.] 146-48 (1931).
51. Field, supra note 39, at 373; Circular of the People's Commissar of Health (Semashko), No. 21,
0 merakh bor'by s prostitutsiei (Gubispolkomam dlia vsekh otdelov i gubprofsovetam) [On Measures
for the Struggle against Prostitution (To Province Executive Commissions for all Departments and to
Province Trade Union Councils)], EZHENEDEL'NIK SOVETSKOI IUSTITSII [SOVIET JUSTICE WEEKLY] Jan
26, 1923 at 381 [hereinafter On Measures for the Struggle against Prostitution).
52. HALLE, supra note 33, at 224; V. BRONNER, LA LUTTE CONTRE LA PROSTITUTION EN URSS 25
(1936). Dr. Bronner was an official of the Central Council to Combat Prostitution. See.infra note 105
and accompanying text (discussing this Central Council).
53. STITES, supra note 42, at 371; FRIDLAND, supra note 50, at 146.
55. See HALLE, supra note 33, at 224 ("militia of morals"). See also BRONNER, supra note 52, at
25; STITES, supra note 42, at 372 (citing shortage of funds on part of potential clients as factor in
decrease of prostitution during civil war).
56. See infra note 124 (listing family codes).
57. N. Brian-Chaninov, La Prostitution dans I'Union Soviitique, 228 MERCURE DE FRANCE 589,
593 (1931).
58. Id. at 597-99.
The People's Commissar of Health, N. Semashko, attributed the increase

to the New Economic Policy, which was a free market approach initiated
in 1921 to stimulate the Russian economy. Semashko stated: "The New
Economic Policy brought forth once again an increase in prostitution,
which had disappeared. Information is coming in from various parts of the
republic about the resurgence of all kinds of professional prostitution, of
secret brothels, and of pimping.""
Unemployment and prostitution both increased in Russia following the
civil war, after the government stopped war production.60 With unemploy-
ment remaining high throughout the 1920s,61 analysts attributed the in- 62
crease in prostitution to the inability of many women to make a living.
Young peasant women moved to towns looking for jobs that did not exist.6"
"Thousands of young women had left their villages to migrate to the larger
cities. They were uneducated and without a trade . . . and prostitution
offered them . . . a temporary livelihood." ' 6 The famine of 1921 increased
the migration: "A hungry wave of women and children spread into the
cities in search of food. Hungry women and girls increased the ranks of
adult and child prostitution.""
Shortages, Kollontai said, also contributed to prostitution:
Soviet ladies exchange their favours for a pair of high-heeled
boots; working women and mothers of families sell their favours
for flour. Peasant women sleep with the heads of the anti-profi-
teer detachments in the hope of saving their hoarded food, and
office workers sleep with their bosses in return for rations, shoes
-and in the hope of promotion.66
During the 1920s, the government and scholars analyzed the life condi-
tions of women engaging in prostitution, as a basis for eliminating it. They
used survey methods to learn why women engaged in prostitution and what
impact it had on their lives.67 They discovered that women involved in
59. On Measures for the Struggle against Prostitution, supra note 51, at 38 1.
60. MAURICE DoBB, SOVIET ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SINCE 1917 152 (1966).
61. Id. at 189-91.
62. Wendy Zeva Goldman, The "Withering Away" and the Resurrection of the Soviet Family, 1917-
1936 150-55 (1987) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania) (on file with University Microfilms
International Dissertation Service, Ann Arbor) (discussing statistics and case studies detailing many
prostitutes' inability to find other work).
63. STITES, supra note 42, at 372-73; ALICE WITHROW FIELD, PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHIL-
DREN IN SOVIET RUSSIA 195 (1932); Field, supra note 39, at 373.
64. Rachelle S. Yarros, Moscow Revisited: Social Hygiene 1930-1936, 23 J. Soc. HYGIENE 200, 201
(April 1937).
65. STITES, supra note 42, at 394; S.E. GAL'PERIN, PROSTITUTSIIA V PROSHLOM I NASTOIASHCHEM
[PROSTITUTION IN THE PAST AND PRESENT) 36 (1928).
66. Kollontai, supra note 27, at 270-71.
67. See. e.g., D.P. Rodin, lz dannykh a sovremennoi prostitutsii (Sotsial'nyi ocherk) [From Data on
prostitution frequently developed problems with alcohol abuse.18 They also

found that prostitutes were frequently arrested for theft or for disturbing
the peace. 9 Furthermore, women engaging in prostitution lived in substan-
dard housing or were homeless.70 Many were illiterate or had not com-
pleted a primary education,7 1 and few had marketable skills.72 These facts
indicated that women were drawn into prostitution from the lower classes, 73
as studies had concluded in tsarist times. 4
The equality that was to eliminate prostitution had yet to be realized:
[T]he economic structure is far from being completely re-ar-
ranged in the new way, and communism is still a long way off,"
wrote Kollontai. "In this transitional period prostitution naturally
enough keeps a strong hold . . . . Homelessness, neglect, bad
housing conditions, loneliness and low wages for women are still
with us. Our productive apparatus is still in a state of collapse..
. .These and other economic and social conditions lead women to
prostitute their bodies. 75
Kollontai viewed reducing prostitution in the short term as helpful to
achievement of the socio-economic reform that in turn would eliminate
prostitution. She argued that prostitution made it harder to achieve the
necessary economic transformation. It "reduces the reserve of energy and
the number of working hands that are creating the national wealth and the
general welfare. From the point of view of the national economy the pro-
fessional prostitute is a labour deserter." 6 Also, prostitution, by spreading
7
venereal disease, was injurious to health and hence to labor productivity.
Finally, said Kollontai, prostitution worked against solidarity within the
working class, since "a man who buys the favours of a woman does not see
her as a comrade or as a person with equal rights. 178 "Prostitution will be
Contemporary Prostitution (A Social Study)], PRAVO I ZHIZN' [LAW AND LIFE] 63-69 (no. 5, 1927)
(discussing link between abuse of alcohol and prostitution).
68. Id. at 63.
69. Id. at 64.
70. A. Uchevatov, lz byta prostitutsii nashikh dnei (po materialam, sobrannym studentami I
M.G.U.) [From An Existence of Prostitution of our Day (according to materials gathered by students of
the first-year class at Moscow State University)], PRAVO I ZHIZN' [LAW AND LIFE] 50, 53 (no. I,
1928); see also Field, supra note 39, at 373; Rodin, supra note 67, at 65.
71. Rodin, supra note 67, at 65-66.
72. Id. at 66-67 (43.6% of prostitutes studied had trained for some trade; however, only 15.5% were
able to work independent of prostitution).
73. Id. at 66.
74. Uchevatov, supra note 70, at 50-51.
76. Id., at 266.
77. Id. at 267.
78. Id. at 268.
finally eliminated," Kollontai wrote:

when the basis of communism is strengthened .... But we also
need to understand the importance of creating a communist mo-
rality. The two tasks are closely connected: the new morality is
created by a new economy, but we will not build a new
79
commu-
nist economy without the support of a new morality.
A Soviet delegate told an anti-prostitution conference in Graz, Austria:
Prostitution is growing in all capitalist countries, and it is grow-
ing in our country. But the difference in the posture on this issue
in your countries and in ours is that in your countries, under
conditions of a capitalist economy, as this economy grows prosti-
tution inevitably and inexorably will grow. We, working under
conditions of a socialist structure, as our economy grows we will
eliminate prostitution. In your countries prostitution-generated
by legal and economic oppression-is the true companion of cap-
italism, while in our country the only reason for prostitution is
unemployment.8 0
The elimination of prostitution was viewed by the Soviet Russian govern-
ment "as only one aspect of the general problem of establishing social and
economic equality for women. ' 811
IV. THE ELIMINATION OF REGULATED PROSTITUTION
As of 1917, two models for dealing with prostitution were available. In

some countries, the acts of organizing and engaging in prostitution were
outlawed. This had long been the dominant approach in Europe. By the
late nineteenth century, however, most of Europe had begun legalizing and
regulating prostitution, which meant that brothels were authorized by the
government and prostitutes were required to register and to undergo peri-
odic medical examinations.82 Regulation was viewed as a social reform
designed to improve public health.83
In keeping with the European trend, tsarist Russia instituted the regula-
tory approach in the 1840s, requiring prostitutes to register and appear for
medical examinations. 8 ' The government issued a yellow card in place of
79. Id. at 270.

80. Uchevatov, supra note 70, at 51.
81. Field, supra note 39, at 373.
82. See JILL HARSIN. POLICING PROSTITUTION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY PARIS XV-xVi (1985);
GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 14-15; CHALEIL, supra note 10, at 191 (regulation of prostitution in
France and Germany had won over all of Europe); FLEXNER, supra note 25, at 112, 121-64.
83. BARRY, supra note 6, at 12.
84. STITES, supra note 42, at 62; Bernstein, supra note 41, at 372-77 (tsarist officials considered it
1992]" SOVIET PROSTITUTION LAW REFORM 1209
the woman's ordinary identification document. 5 She was not allowed to

change residence without police permission and had to wear a colored arm
band or a dress of a special color. 86 This system severely stigmatized pros-
titutes and made it difficult for women to leave prostitution.8
At the turn of the century, the tsarist regulatory system was criticized
for failing to reduce venereal disease. Disease could be transmitted even by
a woman recently examined, since she could contract a disease and trans-
mit it between checkups.8 8 Russian medical societies, liberals and leftists
called for the closing of regulated brothels.89 In 1913, the St. Petersburg
Club of the Progressive Women's Party introduced a bill to that effect in
the Duma (parliament), though without success.90 Officials of the tsarist
Ministry of Interior acknowledged that regulation did not serve its
purpose."
Bebel, criticizing regulation as practiced in Germany, said that it made
it "extremely difficult, even impossible, for the prostitute ever again to re-
turn to a decent trade. A woman, that has fallen under police control, is
too risky to free prostitutes from state control); Laura Engelstein, Gender and the Juridical Subject:
Prostitution and Rape in Nineteenth-Century Russian Criminal Codes, 60 J. Moo. HIST. 458, 463, 485
(1988). The regulations were not written into the general legislation. Mikhail Strogovich, Bor'ba s
prostitutsiei putem ugolovnoi repressii [ The Struggle Against Prostitution through Criminal Repres-
sion], EZHENEDEL'NIK SOVETSKOI IUSTITSII [SOVIET JUSTICE WEEKLY] 1212 n.2 (no. 37, 1925). Refer-
ence to the regulations is found in Svod ustavov o preduprezhdenii i presechenil prestuplenii [Collec-
tion of Regulations on the Prevention and Cutting Off of Crimes], art. 155 n.1, in 14 SVOD ZAKONOV
RossnsKoi IMPERIn [COLLECTION OF LAWS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE] Ill (I.D. Mordukhai-Boltovskii
ed. 1913) (prohibiting opening one's house for prostitution, entering such a house as a client, or living
from the earnings of prostitution). This was a non-penal offense and was not used to stop legalized,
regulated prostitution. Engelstein, supra this note, at 485-87. In 1909, violation of these prostitution-
related regulations was made punishable by arrest up to six months. Ugolovnoe ulozhenie [Criminal
Code], art. 528, in 15 SVOD ZAKONOV RossiISKO! IMPERIl [COLLECTION OF LAWS OF THE RUSSIAN
EMPIRE] 260 (I.D. Mordukhai-Boltovskii ed. 1913). On "'arrest," see id., art. 21. In addition, solicita-
tion for prostitution in public was punishable by arrest up to one month. Ustav o nakazaniiakh nala-
gaemykh Mirovymi Sud'iami [Statute on Punishments Imposed by Justices of the Peace], art. 43, in 15
SVOD ZAKONOV ROSSIISKOI IMPERIl [COLLECTION OF LAWS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE] 210 (I.D.
Mordukhai-Boltovskii ed. 1913). The 1903 Criminal Code made it a penal offense to act as intermedi-
ary for the prostitution of a woman under twenty-one years of age or to receive such a woman into a
house of prostitution. Ugolovnoe ulozhenie [Criminal Code], arts. 524, 529, in 15 SVOD ZAKONOV Ros-
SIISKOI IMPERIl [COLLECTION OF LAWS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE] 259, 260 (I.D. Mordukhai-Boltovskii
ed. 1913).
85. See GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 16; Bernstein, supra note 41, at 16-17 (prostitutes had to carry
"yellow tickets" as a police and hygienic measure); Engelstein, supra note 84, at 492.
86. Field, supra note 39, at 373; HALLE, supra note 33, at 221.
87. HALLE, supra note 33, at 222 (woman could be set free from life as regulated prostitute if she
proved she was seriously ill, or dies); Bernstein, supra note 41, at 172 (yellow ticket could only be
canceled by healthy woman if she proved she "quit the trade of vice"); STITES, supra note 42, at 184.
88. GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 20.
89. Id. at 26-27.
90. HALLE, supra note 33, at 223.
1210 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW (Vol. 29:1197
'
lost to society; she generally goes down in misery within a few years. "92
9
Bebel, along with other analysts, asserted that regulation did not substan-
tially reduce venereal disease. 94
The Soviet Russian government opposed both regulation and criminaliza-
tion. Mikhail Strogovich, a criminal law specialist, criticized the tsarist
regulatory approach of "a system of yellow cards, registration of brothels,
[and] medical checks" as oppressive of women.9 Health Commissar
Semashko said that "old methods of supervision used in pre-revolutionary
Russia, and which instead of protecting women oppressed them, must abso-
lutely be repudiated. This includes cordoning off an area, investigation of
prostitutes, and forced examinations. . . . The struggle against prostitution
must in no way be replaced by a struggle against prostitutes." 96
Disenchanted with the tsarist regulatory scheme, the Soviet Russian gov-
ernment abolished it. Hence, prostitution was no longer a crime, but pro-
curing or keeping a brothel was outlawed. Strogovich explained that "[in
our law, prostitution has entirely lost the character of a legal institution,
since there are no longer legal norms regulating the engaging in of
97
prostitution.
In 1922, a proposal was circulated within the People's Commissariat of
Internal Affairs to establish a "morals militia" to investigate prostitution.
The function of a morals police force was to ferret out women practicing
prostitution.9 8 Its activities in several European countries were criticized, or
stopped, because the morals police had the power to take any women they
suspected of prostitution into court and force her to undergo periodic ex-
aminations, often conducted in a crude and demeaning fashion.99 When
criticized by the German Communist Klara Zetkin as oppressive to women,
the proposal for a "morals militia" was abandoned by the Russian
government. 100
Some Bolsheviks thought that the act of engaging in prostitution should
be criminalized, on the rationale that professional prostitutes are labor de-
serters. However, Kollontai objected that on this theory, housewives too
92. BEBEL, supra note 15, at 152.

93. FLEXNER, supra note 25, at 343-94; FRIDLAND, supra note 50, at 29-34 (stating that medical
examinations were perfunctory and that corruption hindered effective regulation); Richards, supra note
3, at 1281.
94. BEBEL, supra note 15, at 152.
95. Strogovich, supra note 84, at 1212.
96. On Measures for the Struggle Against Prostitution, supra note 5 1, at 38 1.
98. FRIDLAND, supra note 50, at 26.
99. BARRY, supra note 6, at 13-15.
100. Klara Zetkin, Protiv militsii nravov [Against the Morals Police], IZVESTUIA [NEws], July 8,
1922, at 3.
would have to be punished for not engaging in social production. 10 1

In 1921, a Russian trial court convicted several women of engaging in
prostitution. In the same case, the court convicted other persons for bring-
ing the women into contact with clients and for permitting prostitution in
their apartment. The People's Commissariat of Justice, exercising its power
of "supreme judicial control," overturned the convictions for engaging in
prostitution, while leaving the convictions of the other persons in force.' 02
The Commissariat explained:
While it is indisputable that pimping and maintenance of a den
of debauchery are criminal offenses, the act of engaging in pros-
titution as such cannot in and of itself be deemed criminally pun-
ishable; the struggle against this social evil, which is the result,
chiefly, of the poverty of the masses and the low status of
women, as an inevitable legacy of the bourgeois-capitalist order,
must be conducted by measures directed at elimination of the
03
reasons generating it.'
Thus, engaging in prostitution was not criminalized. The view that pre-
vailed was that "the war was on prostitution, not on prostitutes."' 10 ' The
Central Council to Combat Prostitution, established by the government to
coordinate efforts against prostitution, explained: "we are unable to accept
the view that [engaging in prostitution] should be punished so long as there
is unemployment that we cannot do away with."' 0 6
The first Soviet Russian Criminal Code was enacted in 1922.106 It did
not penalize engaging in prostitution or the purchasing of the services of a
prostitute. 0 7 In line with the 1921 Commissariat decision, however, Article
171 prohibited bringing persons together for prostitution, and Article 172
outlawed maintaining a house of prostitution. 08 The courts imposed severe
sentences, typically three years or more, on persons convicted under these
articles.' 0 9

102. Praktika Vysshego sudebnogo kontroliia [Practice of Supreme Judicial Control], EZHEDEL'NIK
SOVETSKOI IUSTITSII [SOVIET JUSTICE WEEKLY] 12-13, (no. 16, 1922) (People's Commissariat of Jus-
tice, Decision in Criminal Case No. 2828 of 1921).
103. Id. at 13.
106. Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, UK RSFSR, Sobranie uzakonenii RSFSR [Collec-
tion of Legislation of the R.S.F.S.R.], Issue no. 15, Item 153 (1922). [hereinafter Criminal Code
1922].
108. Criminal Code 1922, supra note 106, arts. 171-172.
109. V.D. Men'shagin, Pritonoderzhatel'stvo (sotsiologicheskii ocherk) [Brothel-keeping (a sociolog-
ical piece)], in PRAVONARUSHENIIA V OBLASTI SEKSUAL'NYKH OTNOSHENII [LAW VIOLATIONS IN THE
AREA OF SEXUAL RELATIONS] 158, 178 (E.K. Krasnushkina et al. eds., 1927).
Strogovich reported, however, that a few prosecutors and judges used

Article 171 to convict women for engaging in prostitution. He found this a
misapplication of Article 171:
Sometimes (in general very rarely) in court practice one finds
instances of prosecution under Article 171 of the Criminal Code
of persons engaging in prostitution (directly or by analogy). Such
an interpretation of Article 171 of the Criminal Code, based on
a total misunderstanding of the text and spirit of the statute,
clearly is liable to be eradicated from court practice." 0
Strogovich's reference to "analogy" was to Article 10 of the 1922 Criminal
Code, which authorized a court to convict for socially dangerous acts not
prohibited by the Code but deemed by the court to be socially dangerous.
Prosecution was to be carried out by analogy to a code provision prohibit-
ing similar conduct."' Analogy did not, however, extend the reach of a
penal statute to persons not specified in the statute."' Thus, Article 171,
which punished those who organize prostitution, could not by analogy be
extended to punish those who engage in prostitution.
Strogovich said that liability under Articles 171 and 172 was premised
on a motive of material gain on the part of a person promoting prostitu-
tion." 3 He explained that Articles 171 and 172 were included in a chapter
of the 1922 Criminal Code titled Crimes Against the Life, Health, Liberty
and Worth of the Individual: "This means that the crimes provided for by
both [of] the indicated articles are directed against the personality of
women engaging in prostitution . . . . In cases of crimes provided for in
Articles 170 and 171 of the Criminal Code, a woman engaging in prostitu-
tion is the victim.""' 4 Strogovich's explanation reflected the government's
view that the prostitute was the victim of prostitution.
The view of prostitute as victim was also seen in enforcement practice.
Local police moved actively in the mid-1920s to close brothels." 5 Health
Commissar Semashko called for investigations of locations where women
were drawn into prostitution." 6 The Central Council to Combat Prostitu-
tion established a special "militia to combat prostitution." In instructions it
issued to the militia in 1924, the Council stressed that while the militia
I10. Strogovich, supra note 84, at 1213.

I11. Dana Giovanetti, The Principle of Analogy in Sino-Soviet Criminal Laws, 8 DALHOUSIE L.J.
382, 389-90 (1984).
112. M.D. SHARGORODSKII, VOPROSY OBSHCHEI CHASTI UGOLOVNOGO PRAVA [QUESTIONS OF THE
GENERAL PART OF CRIMINAL LAW] 21-23 (1955).
114. Id.
116. On Measures for the Struggle against Prostitution, supra note 51, at 381.
were to close brothels, they were to treat the prostitutes as victims:

4. While the militia must perform its duty in searching out cen-
ters of vice with the utmost determination and tenacity, [it] must
refrain from all acts of oppression towards individual prostitutes
when, in case of need, it cites them as witnesses.
5. Remembering that a woman who carries on the trade of a
prostitute has only entered into it as the result of unfavorable
circumstances, material or otherwise, every worker in the militia
must observe all the rules of courtesy in the exercise of his func-
tions and must under no circumstances allow himself to be
tempted into rough treatment of the women."
This view of the prostitute as victim was not uniformly followed, as
many police officials held negative views of prostitutes. " 8 Strogovich com-
plained that investigators and prosecutors stressed the public order aspects
of prostitution, presenting evidence in court of drinking, card-playing, or
disruptive noise in the brothels. He said that investigators and prosecutors
should, rather, focus on the harmful effects on the prostitute of having
been enticed into prostitution. " 9
Prosecuting officials sometimes refrained from prosecuting organizers if
they considered the prostitutes to be professionals. Strogovich cited approv-
ingly a case in which a Moscow court rejected this tendency:
The criminal law protects equally the rights of the woman, re-
gardless of whether she is a prostitute or not. A prostitute cannot
be considered as some kind of being of a lower order. In a well-
publicized case heard several months ago in the Moscow Prov-
ince Court, involving an accusation of the administration of "The
Bar" under Article 171 of the Criminal Code, the weight of
criminal repression fell on the heads of the guilty parties [the
organizers] despite the fact that the victims were professional
prostitutes.'2 0
Not all prostitutes were pleased at being viewed as victims, if it meant
that brothels would be shut down. In a letter to a newspaper, a Russian
prostitute who identified herself only as Tania pointed out that the govern-
ment, by closing brothels, made it difficult for prostitutes to earn a liv-
ing. 2 ' In response, the Central Council to Combat Prostitution conceded
that its policy of closing brothels put the woman in a difficult situation but
117. HALLE, supra note 33, at 227-28.

120. Id. at 1214.
argued that eventually the government would create jobs for all, and in the
meantime, venereal disease had to be stopped. 122
V. ANTI-PROSTITUTION PROGRAMS IN SOVIET RUSSIA
Even though in the 1920s the government had not begun economic re-
form to bring full employment, it instituted a number of reforms intended
to reduce prostitution. Given the Marxist perspective on the causes of pros-
titution, these measures were not viewed as a complete solution. However,
legislation was adopted in Soviet Russia to give women legal equality with
men. Improved civil status, it was hoped, would make women better able to
take care of themselves and less likely to resort to prostitution.' 2 The 1918
Family Code, in a sharp departure from tsarist law, accorded women
equality with respect to entry into marriage, choice of surname, and rights
within marriage regarding place of residence and upbringing of children.
Also, for the first time in Russia, divorce was made available to women. 2 4
Commissar Semashko asked the anti-prostitution councils to educate the
public regarding prostitution, through youth groups, army units, and
schools. The aim was to "explain to the workers the essence of prostitution,
the fact that it is impermissible and a shame in the workers' republic, and
the dangers connected with it.' 2 "[P]rostitution will begin to disappear if,
while we struggle to consolidate our economic front, while we struggle to
liquidate unemployment, we also enter upon a struggle to impress upon the
minds of the workers all the inadequacy, all the shame of purchasing a
12
human body.' 6
The Council to Combat Prostitution urged that names of male clients be
placed on bulletin boards at the factories where they worked. 12 7 Police in-
formed the employers of clients, and clients' names were published in local
newspapers.' 28 The Communist Party expelled members found to have pa-
tronized a prostitute. 1 29 By the early 1930s, it was reported that the de-
mand for prostitution had declined. 13 0
122. Id. at 231-32.

124. KZoBS RSFSR, arts. 52-73, 86-99; SOBRANIE UZAKONENII I RASPORIAZHENII RABOCHEGO I
KREST'IANSKOGO PRAVITEL'STVA [Collection of Enactments and Regulations of the Worker-Peasant
Government); Issue no. 76-77, Item 948 (1918). See also JOHN QUIGLEY. THE 1926 SOVIET FAMILY
CODE: RETREAT FROM FREE LOVE. SOVIET UNION 166 (1979).
125. On Measures for the Struggle against Prostitution,supra note 51, at 381.
127. Id.
128. Nelson, supra note 40, at 261.
129. William J. Robinson, News from Other Countries: Russia, 19 J. Soc. HYGIENE 228, 229
(1933).
130. See Nelson, supra note 40, at 261 (decline in number of prostitutes from 20,000 in 1913 to 400
in 1934).
Within the Communist party, a women's section (zhenotdel) was estab-

lished which took the elimination of prostitution as a major aim.1 33 In
1919, the People's Commissariat of Health formed for the first time an
anti-prostitution commission.13 2 It. was replaced in 1920 by an inter-agency
commission, 3 which in turn was reorganized in 1923 under the People's 3
Commissariat of Health as the Central Council to Combat Prostitution.1 4
Province-level councils were established as well.' 3 5 The Central Council
was later placed under the People's Commissariat of Social Security, under
36
the title Inter-Agency Commission to Combat Prostitution.
The councils organized anti-prostitution work at the local level, with va-
rying degrees of success.' 37 They provided dormitory housing for unem-
ployed women and found temporary housing for rural women coming into
cities. ' Both groups of women were viewed as likely to resort to
prostitution.
The government established clinics to treat prostitutes free of charge for
venereal disease.' 39 Venereal disease rates were high in Russia in the
1920s." ' An Institute of Venereal Diseases was established in Moscow,""
and a significant reduction in syphilis was reported.""
Still, female unemployment was high and was viewed as the primary
problem underlying prostitution.4 ,3 Women workers earned less than male
workers because "most women are engaged in unskilled work." 14 The gov-
ernment tried, however, to reduce female unemployment, with the stated
aim of reducing prostitution. The anti-prostitution councils helped women
find jobs." 5 They tried to ensure that women got a fair share of places in

132. HALLE, supra note 33, at 224; 21 BOL'SHAIA SOVETSKAIA ENTSIKLOPEDIIA [LARGE SOVIET EN-
CYCLOPEDIA] 114 (3d ed. 1975).
134. GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 33; On Measures for the Struggle against Prostitution, supra
note 51, at 381. The Council included the People's Commissar of Health, the Head of the Venereal
Disease Section of the People's Commissariat of Health, and representatives of the People's Commissa-
riat of Internal Affairs, of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, and of the zhenotdel.
135. GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 33; On Measures for the Struggle against Prostitution, supra
note 51, at 381.
136. LARGE SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA, supra note 132, at 114.
137. FRIDLAND, supra note 50, at 92-93.
139. Id.; see also Field, supra note 39, at 373; Yarros, supra note 64, at 200-04.
141. Yarros, supra note 64, at 202 (Infections declined from 221 per 10,000 in 1914 to 9 per 10,000
in 1934).
142. Id. at 203.
145. See HALLE, supra note 33, at 232 (increased places for women in factories and technical
schools).
existing job-training programs.1" 6 They sought special consideration for

women in cases of factory layoffs, especially for single women, girls not
living with their families, and pregnant women with small children. 4 7 Lack
of attention to this matter, Commissar Semashko said, "inevitably pushes
the least well established into prostitution.' 4 8
The councils also organized industrial and agricultural cooperatives for
unskilled women workers. '" Cooperatives were provided with low-rent
premises and were accorded favorable tax treatment of earnings. 3 0
Beginning in 1923, the government established institutions for teaching
prostitutes a trade.' 61 "Women picked up by inspectors at railroad stations
or other public places are taken not to jail but to a prophylactorium where
they are taught a useful trade with a view to removing the economic cause
which is held to be the chief one in this practice."' ' 2
These institutions, of which sixteen functioned by 1930, provided literacy
training and job skills."" Prophylactoria in Moscow typically had a textile
shop in which. the women received wages equal to those of workers in other
textile shops. The average salary was seventy-five rubles a month, with
fifty-five rubles deducted for room and board. 3 4 Managerial skills and
training in the arts were provided for those so inclined. 5 Classes were
held in mathematics, geography, politics, physics, and physical educa-
tion. 1 6 The women were free to leave on days off and after the seven-hour
57
work day, but they were held to a 10:00 p.m. curfew.1
The concept of prophylactoria was not entirely new in Russia. There, as
in other European countries, charitable societies had operated halfway
houses to facilitate a woman's departure from prostitution. However, these
"houses of mercy," as they were called, were few in number and achieved
only marginal success."'
146. On Measures for the Struggle against Prostitution, supra note 51, at 381; GAL'PERIN, supra
note 65, at 35.
147. GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 35; Kak borot'sia s prostitutsiei: Rabota moskovskikh venero-
logicheskikh dispanserov [How to Fight Prostitution: The Work of the Moscow Venereal Disease Dis-
pensaries], RABOCHAIA GAZETA [WORKER'S GAZETTE], Feb. 25, 1925, at 8, col. 2.
149. GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 35; How to Fight Prostitution: The Work of the Moscow Vene-
real Disease Dispensaries, supra note 147, at 8, col. 2.
151. FIELD, supra note 63, at 196; Yarros, supra note 64, at 205; Nelson, supra note 40, at 261;
HALLE, supra note 33, at 233.
152. MARY CALLCOTT. RUSSIAN JUSTICE 60-61 (1935).
153. HALLE, supra note 33, at 235-36; FIELD, supra note 63, at 197.
154. Nelson, supra note 40, at 261; GAL'PERIN, supra note 65, at 38; Field, supra note 39, at 374.
155. Yarros, supra note 64, at 205; Nelson, supra note 40, at 261; HALLE, supra note 33, at 236.
156. HALLE, supra note 33, at 236-37.
157. Yarros, supra note 64, at 205; Field, supra note 39, at 374; Nelson, supra note 40, at 261.
158. Bernstein, supra note 41, at 189-207 (describing Houses of Mercy, their financial woes and
Women typically entered Soviet prophylactoria on referral from a social

agency, venereal disease clinic, or hospital, or after a police round-up of
homeless women. 159 Although women might be carted to a prophylactorium
by police, a stay there was voluntary. 16 0 Some women left after a short
time, and others were expelled for violating rules. 6 ' A place to live and a
salary, however, were significant attractions.' 62 Those entering were typi-
cally young. For example, the women living in the Moscow prophylactoria
in 1931 were all under twenty-five, with one quarter under sixteen.' 6"
Many of the women stayed in the prophylactorium long enough to com-
plete their job training.' Women completing a stay at a prophylactorium,
typically one year," 5 were accorded preference in job placement. 160 Offi-
cials reported success both in getting their charges to learn a trade and in
finding them employment.' 6 7 Graduates of prophylactoria were generally
accepted socially by fellow workers. 6 8
The system of prophylactoria was criticized on the grounds that there
were too few of the institutions to make a difference.' 6 9 The prophylactoria,
moreover, could not eliminate prostitution so long as alternative employ-
ment remained unavailable to large numbers of women. In the free evening
hours, it was reported, some prophylactorium residents continued to prac-
tice prostitution. 7 0
Legislative and administrative mechanisms were seen as only stop-gap
solutions to prostitution. Strogovich wrote that "[t]he full eradication of
this phenomenon is a matter for the future, a matter of further restructur-
ing of social relations."''
In the late 1920s, when the government took over the economy with the
first five-year plan, new industry was started which created many new
jobs.' 71 Unemployment was quickly reduced to low levels.' 73 Rural women
limited success in preventing return to prostitution); Stites, supra note 42, at 71, 224-25; BERNICE
MADISON. SOCIAL WELFARE IN THE SOVIET UNION 11 (1968).
160. HALLE, supra note 33, at 237; FIELD, supra note 63, at 196.
162. Field, supra note 39, at 374; Nelson, supra note 40, at 261; HALLE, supra note 33, at 251.
163. FIELD, supra note 63, at 198; Field, supra note 39, at 374.
164. Yarros, supra note 64, at 205; Nelson, supra note 40, at 261.
165. FIELD, supra note 63, at 196.
167. Yarros, supra note 64, at 205; Nelson, supra note 40, at 261; HALLE, supra note 33, at 244-47;
FRIDLAND, supra note 50, at 48.
168. HALLE, supra note 33, at 249-50 (general acceptance, with some exceptions).
170. Brian-Chaninov, supra note 57, at 592, 598.
172. HARRY SCHWARTZ, RUSSIA'S SOVIET ECONOMY 517-18 (1954).
173. BASIL DMYTRYSHYN, USSR: A CONCISE HISTORY 165 (1971) (stating that unemployment was
migrating to a town for employment were likely to find it. This turnaround
in employment coincided with a reduction in prostitution.'" One contempo-
rary analyst wrote that "[b]y the middle of 1930, unemployment was fi-
nally liquidated. Simultaneously, of course, unemployment completely
ceased among women, and the most terrible concomitant of unemployment
' 75
- prostitution - was done away with.'
While that statement was exaggerated, the high employment levels of
the 1930s did seem to be a factor in the significant decline in prostitu-
tion.1 76 A 1928 survey by the Moscow Venereal Dispensaries put the num-
ber of prostitutes in Moscow at 3000.177 An estimate of 800 was made in
1931178 and 400 in the mid-1930s.1 79 To the extent that prostitution ex-
80
isted, it was predominantly part-time rather than full-time work.1
By the late 1930s, prophylactoria were phased out, as the decreased
number of prostitutes no longer warranted their use.' 8' One analyst wrote
that "prostitution disappeared as a statistically measurable phenomenon al-
most immediately after the ending of unemployment."' 82
During the early 1930s, however, prostitution appeared in a new context.
Men, often without their families, were recruited to work in newly built
industrial towns. Local young peasant women became "camp followers in
return for tempting gadgets such as silk stockings and cosmetics.' 3 This
kind of prostitution was apparently a temporary phenomenon, connected
with the founding of new industrial towns.
Prostitution persisted with respect to the foreign community in major cit-
ies, as foreigners possessed items of value not available locally. Foreign
businessmen had long been prime clients of prostitutes in Russia. The in-
dustrialization plans provided new impetus for this type of prostitution,
since few consumer items were imported, and few were produced. Foreign-
ers thus became a source of scarce commodities that a prostitute could
either use or sell. In the 1930s, these prostitutes became known as "foreign
eliminated in the early 1930s); DOBB, supra, note 60, at 191 (attributing the drop in unemployment to
large construction projects in 1929-30).
175. G.N. SEREBRENNIKOV. THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE U.S.S.R. 47 (1937).
176. STITES. supra note 42, at 405; Cf. Robinson, supra note 129, at 228 (explaining the decline in
prostitution not by employment levels but by the decline in number of wealthy men: "'How can the
Russian women practice prostitution when the men are so poor that they have nothing to offer them?").
177. Yarros, supra note 64, at 203; HALLE, supra note 33, at 253.
178. Yarros, supra note 64, at 203.
179. Nelson, supra note 40, at 261.
180. Yarros, supra note 64, at 206.
181. Id.; Field, supra note 39, at 374.
182. WILLIAM M. MANDEL, SOVIET WOMEN 68 (1975). See also LARGE SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA,
supra note 132, at 114 (in 1930s, prostitution eradicated as widespread phenomenon).
currency girls."1 4
After the 1930s, prostitution continued at a modest level.18 5 In 1951,
when the United Nations circulated a questionnaire about prostitution, the
Soviet delegate indicated that there was no need for the Soviet Union to fill
out the form, because there was no prostitution to report." In 1954, when
the Soviet government signed an international treaty directed against pros-
titution, it filed a declaration stating, "[i]n the Soviet Union the social con-
ditions which give rise to the offenses covered by the Convention have been
eliminated." ' 7
Not all official Soviet sources were as categorical.1 88 Still, professional
prostitution was in fact not widespread in Soviet Russia, and brothels were
hard to find. 89 As in the 1930s, most who engaged in prostitution did so in
addition to regular employment, operating typically without procurers. 9
VI. PROSTITUTION AS A PUBLIC ORDER VIOLATION
With high employment levels in the 1930s and beyond,19 1 the Soviet
Russian government's analysis of the causes of prostitution remained con-
stant. 19 2 However, the government's attitude towards women engaging in
prostitution changed. Prostitutes were no longer viewed as victims, because
they were seen to have job alternatives. The government regarded them as
morally culpable.19 3 This new attitude was reflected in a 1936 Communist
Party journal:
One of the evils of a capitalist society is prostitution. The Octo-
ber Revolution dealt a severe blow to prostitution, but to put an
184. Field, supra note 39, at 374. Red-Light Ladies, NEWSWEEK, Nov. 10, 1986, at 46.
186. 1951 U.N.Y.B. 541.
187. U.S.S.R. Declaration, Aug. 11,1954, Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons
and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, in United Nations, Multilateral Treaties Depos-
ited with the Secretary-General. Status as at 31 December 1990, at 299, U.N. Doc. ST/LEG/SER.E/
9 (1991).
188. LARGE SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA, supra note 132, at 114 ("[i]ndividual manifestations of prostitu-
tion bear a local character").
190. BLEKHER, supra note 38, at 38; Gabriel' Vol'nov, Drevneishaia professiia v stolitse kom-
munizma [The Most Ancient Profession in the Capital of Communism] POSEV 1213, Feb. 1975 at 52,
53.
191. ALEC NOVE. THE SOVIET ECONOMIC SYSTEM 219 (1977); ABRAM BERGSON, THE ECONOMICS
OF SOVIET PLANNING 106 (1964) (stating that "unemployment of a persistent sort has not been
sizable").
192. 35 BOL'SHAIA SOVETSKAIA ENTSIKLOPEDIIA [LARGE SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA] 100 (2d ed. 1955)
(roots of prostitution lie in inequality, lack of rights for women, their significantly lower salaries, un-
bearable conditions of poverty and enslavement of the workers and unemployment).
193. GAIL WARSHOFSKY LAPIDUS, WOMEN IN SOVIET SOCIETY: EQUALITY, DEVELOPMENT, AND SO-
CIAL CHANGE 113 (1978).
immediate end to it was impossible. During the first years of the

N.E.P. [New Economic Policy] it was widespread in many places
in our country. By the victory of socialism the economic roots of
prostitution in our country have been completely eliminated: the
absence of unemployment, the progress in woman's material in-
dependence, the collectivization of the village, the large-scale
participation of women in social and productive work, equal pay
for male and female labour, the rise in women's cultural and po-
litical standard - all this destroys every excuse for
prostitution. 9 "
This shift in the official attitude towards prostitution was part of a more
general change during the mid-1930s in the Soviet government's policy to-
wards persons engaging in anti-social conduct. Soviet criminal law shifted
from a view of criminals as victims of the social order to one of criminals
as persons responsible for their own actions and capable of avoiding
crime. 19 5
This shift was reflected by changes in the criminal code. Soviet Russia
had three criminal codes - those of 1922, 1926, and 1960. All three pro-
hibited the drawing of persons into prostitution and the maintenance of
premises for, prostitution. None prohibited the act of engaging in prostitu-
tion. Within this uniformity, however, a change in emphasis occurred. The
1922 and 1926 Codes had included this offense in a chapter on crimes
against the person. 9 6 As explained by Strogovich, this placement reflected
the notion that the offense was one against the person of the prostitute. A
1937 draft (never enacted) of a uniform penal code for the U.S.S.R. like-
1 97
wise placed this offense in a chapter on crimes against the person.
The 1960 Code, however, placed the offense in a chapter entitled crimes
against public security, public order, and health of the population. 9 8 The
offense thus was deemed to be against society, not against the individual
prostitute. 99 The placement change was obviously intentional. Commenta-
194. V. Svetlov, Socialist Society and the Family, Pod Znamenem marksizma [Under the Banner of
Marxism], (organ of C.P.S.U.), 1936, in I CHANGING ATTITUDES IN SOVIET RUSSIA: DOCUMENTS AND
READINGS. supra note 48, at 345.
195. HAROLD J. BERMAN, JUSTICE IN THE U.S.S.R.: AN INTERPRETATION OF SOVIET LAW 56 (2d ed.
1966).
196. Criminal Code 1922, supra note 106, chap. 6. UK RSFSR; SOBRANIE UZAKONENII RSFSR
[COLLECTION OF LEGISLATION OF THE RSFSR] Issue No. 80, Item 600 (1926).
197. V. D. Men'shagin, PRESTUPLENIIA PROTIV LICHNOSTI PO PROEKTU UGOLOVNOGO KODEKSA
SSSR [CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON IN THE DRAFT OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE U.S.S.R.], SOTSI-
ALISTICHESKAIA ZAKONNOST' [SOCIALIST JUSTICE] 34, 47 (no. 9, 1937).
198. UK RSFSR, art. 226; Vedomosti RSFSR, Issue No. 40, Item 591 (1960) [hereinafter Criminal
Code 1960].
199. SOVETSKOE UGOLOVNOE PRAVO: CHAST' OSOBENNAIA [SOVIET CRIMINAL LAW: SPECIAL PART]
379 (N.I. Zagorodnikov et. al. eds., 1965). The same placement was found in the post-War criminal
ries on the 1960 Code omitted any characterization of the prostitute as the
victim of the offense. Rather, they described the offense as one that
threatened public order and morality.2"' They did not make it clear if
amorality was found in the act of the prostitute, or found only in that of
the organizer. 0 1
In line with the new conception of prostitution as a public order offense,
commentators treated prostitution as a variety of a broader sphere of activ-
ity defined as "parasitism." The Large Soviet Encyclopedia stated that
prostitution in the U.S.S.R. "is regarded as a form of parasitic exis-
tence."2 Prostitution engaged in as a livelihood after 1960 was indeed
punished as "parasitism," and prosecutions were reported.20 3
The 1960 Criminal Code, unlike its predecessor, prohibited "systematic
engaging in vagrancy or begging."204 "Vagrancy" meant "repeated moving
by vehicle or on foot from one populated point to another, accompanied by
refusal to undertake socially useful labor." 20 5 "Systematic" meant a mini-
mum of three moves to new towns or cities.20 6 The reason behind the pro-
20 7 All
hibition was the opinion that vagrancy "is a form of parasitism.
persons were to engage in socially useful labor, in keeping with the provi-
sions in successive Soviet constitutions making socially useful labor a civic
codes of the other fourteen union republics: Ukraine, art. 210; Belorussia, art. 221; Uzbekistan, art.
219; Kazakhstan, art. 215-1; Georgia, art. 230; Azerbaidzhan, art. 229; Lithuania, art. 239; Moldavia,
art. 222; Latvia, art. 208; Kirghizstan, art. 237; Tadzhikstan, art. 242; Armenia, art. 226; Turkmeni-
stan, art. 260; Estonia, art. 201. The Estonia provision, alone among the republic codes, omitted pimp-
ing, punishing only maintenance of a house of prostitution. In the codes of several republics, the title of
the chapter in which this provision appeared omitted reference to health, indicating only social order:
Uzbekistan, chap. 10; Georgia, chap. 10; Azerbaidzhan, chap. 10; Lithuania, chap. 10; Kirghizstan,
chap. 10; Estonia, chap. 10. This was a further indication that the offense was deemed one against
public order. See UGOLOVNOE ZAKONODATEL'STRO SOIUZA SSR I SOIUZNYKH RESPUBLIK [CRIMINAL
LEGISLATION OF THE SOVIET UNION AND UNION REPUBLICS] pts. I & 11(1963) (all laws cited appear
in this publication).
200. SOVETSKOE UGOLOVNOE PRAVO: CHAST' OSOBENNAIA (SOVIET CRIMINAL LAW: SPECIAL PART]
377-78 (M.D. Shargorodskii & N.A. Beliaev eds., 1962); UGOLOVNOE PRAVO: CHAST' OSOBENNAIA
[CRIMINAL LAW: SPECIAL PART] 401 (M.l. Kovalev et. al. eds., 1969).
201. One text stated that an aim of the provision was to prohibit acts that lead citizens to a parasitic
lifestyle, although it did not specify whether this referred to prostitution, or to the organizing of drug
use or playing games of chance, which were also prohibited by the same code provision. SOVETSKOE
UGOLOVNOE PRAVO: CHAST' OSOBENNAIA [SOVIET CRIMINAL LAW: SPECIAL PART] 362 (V.D.
Men'shagin et. al. eds., 1964).
202. LARGE SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA, supra note 132, at 114. See also FLEXNER, supra note 25, at
17 (indicating that criminalization of prostitution was rationalized in a few European countries in the
early twentieth century on the grounds that the prostitute is a parasite or a vagrant).
203. Vol'nov, supra note 190, at 53. See also MICHAEL STERN & AUGUST STERN, SEX IN THE
SOVIET UNION 160 (1981).
204. Criminal Code 1960, supra note 198, art. 209.
205. KOMMENTARII K UGOLOVNOMY KODEKSU RSFSR [COMMENTARY ON THE CRIMINAL CODE OF
THE RSFSR] 445 (G.Z. Anashkin et al. eds., 1971).
206. Id.
207. Id. at 446.
duty for able-bodied adults.2 08

In 1970, a new article was added to the criminal code, titled "Malicious
Refusal to Carry Out a Decision to Take a Job and to Terminate a Para-
sitic Existence" and prohibiting "malicious refusal by a person leading an
anti-social way of life to comply with a decision of the executive committee
of a district (or city) council of working people's deputies regarding the
taking of a job and termination of a parasitic existence. 2 09 The offense
was committed if a person not regularly employed and leading a parasitic
life was ordered by the local government to take a job but failed to do so
within fifteen days. While the article did not mention prostitution by name,
it made engaging in prostitution as a source of income an offense, even if
the person did not move from place to place.2 10
In 1975, this article was repealed 2 11 but the vagrancy provision was
amended to include the words "leading a parasitic way of life in some
other fashion for a lengthy period.1 21 2 In 1982, the phrase "for a lengthy
period" was deleted.21 3 In 1984, the Supreme Soviet said that the mini-
mum period was four consecutive months or four non-consecutive months
214
within one year.
The 1984 interpretation also defined "non-labor income" as "income
gained by games of chance, fortune telling, begging, petty speculation, or
other illegal means. "21 6 "Other illegal means" evidently included income
from prostitution. A commentary stated that prostitution was not "socially
208. KONST. USSR art. 12 (Dec. 5, 1936); IZVESTIIA TsIK SOIUZA SSR I VTsIK [GAZETTE OF THE
CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE U.S.S.R. AND THE ALL-UNION CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMIT-
TEE] (no. 283, Dec. 6, 1936). KONST. USSR art. 60; VEDOMOSTI SSSR. Issue No. 41, Item 617 (1977).
See Case of Smirnova, BIULLETEN' VERKHOVNOGO SUDA RSFSR [Bulletin of the Supreme Court of
the R.S.F.S.R.] 7 (no. 11, 1965) (a person physically incapable of socially useful labor was not punish-
able for parasitism).
209. Criminal Code 1960, supra note 198, art. 209-1.
210. Peter Juviler, Women and Sex in Soviet Law, in WOMEN IN RUSSIA, supra note 36, at 250.
211. UK RSFSR; VEDOMOSTI RSFSR, Issue No. 33, Item 699 (1975) (repealing art. 209-1).
212. UK RSFSR; VEDOMOSTI RSFSR, Issue No. 33, Item 698 (1975) (amending art. 209).
213. UK RSFSR, Amendment to article 209, VEDOMOSTI RSFSR. Issue No. 41, Item 1513 (1982)
(amending art. 209).
214. 0 PORIADKE PRIMENENIIA STAT'I 209 UGOLOVNOGO KODEKSA RSFSR [ON THE PROCEDURE
FOR APPLYING ARTICLE 209 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE RSFSR] (Dec. 13, 1984); VEDOMOSTI
RSFSR. Issue No. 51, Item 1793 (1984), (translated in 37 Current Digest of the Soviet Press 8
(1985)). A warning was to be given after the first three months; a person who continued a parasitic
way of life one additional month violated Article 209. ld; GeT P. Van Den Berg, A New Explanation
of the Soviet Law Against Parasites: A Note, 11 REv. SOCIALIST L. 181 (1985).
215. On the Procedure for Applying Article 209 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, supra note
214; Van Den Berg, supra note 214, at 181; 1. Portnov & V. Fokin, Deiatel'nost' suda po presecheniiu
paraziticheskogo obraza zhizni [Activity of the Court in Cutting Off the Parasitical Way of Life],
SOVETAKAIA IUSTITSIIA [SOVIET JUSTICE] 21-23 (no. 4, 1984); S. Tropin, Primenenie zakonodatel'stva
ob otvetstvennosti za vedenie paraziticheskogo obraza zhizni [Application of Legislation on Responsi-
bility for Leading a Parasitical Way of Life], SOVETSKAIA IUSTITSIIA [SOVIET JUSTICE] 7 (no. 13,
1984).
useful labor" and that "[florms of non-labor income, the acquisition of

which is prohibited by law . . . include . . . prostitution."21' "Parasitism"
could be charged only rarely against 21 a 7 prostitute, however, since most
maintained regular, lawful employment.
If a prostitute took payment in foreign currency, the receipt of such pay-
ment was a crime, even though the act of prostitution was not. 2 18 Payment
would ordinarily be in foreign currency if the client was a foreigner, which
was frequently the case.2 1 9
From the 1940s through the 1970s, the media and scholarly literature in
Soviet Russia rarely mentioned prostitution.220 Operating a brothel and
pimping were characterized by one of the few analysts to address prostitu-
tion as "an extremely rare crime. '"221 Alcoholism was said to play a role in
prostitution: "in practice there have been no cases in which this crime was
committed without there being drunkenness." In 1952 a woman whose sole
216. COMMENTARY ON THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE RSFSR, supra note 205, at 447 (commenting
on art. 209-1).
217. Vol'nov, supra note 190, at 55.
218. Criminal Code 1960, supra note 198, art. 88 (making violations of rules on currency transac-
tions punishable by deprivation of freedom for three to eight years, possible confiscation of property,
confiscation of the currency, and possible additional exile for two to five years). The rules regarding
foreign currency prohibited its receipt in exchange for goods or services. 4 KURS SOVETSKOGO
UGOLOVNOGO PRAVA [COURSE IN SOVIET CRIMINAL LAW] 256 (A.A. Piontovskii et al eds., 1970). If,
however, foreign currency were received "in small amounts," then the act constituted not a crime but
an administrative violation, for which a fine was exacted. Decree, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of
the U.S.S.R., Ob otvetstvennosti za skupku, prodazhu i obmen v nebol'shikh razmerakh valiuty i
skupku veshchei u inostrantsev [Responsibility for Buying up, Selling, and Exchanging Foreign Cur-
rency in Small Quantities and for Buying up Items from Foreigners], (Mar. 25, 1970); VEDOMOSTI
USSR. Issue 13, Item 108 (1970). According to the Criminal Code, if this act were done twice within
a year, it became a crime. CRIMINAL CODE 1960, supra note 198, art. 154-2. "Small amount" meant
less than 25 rubles in foreign currency at the official rate of exchange. COMMENTARY ON THE CRIMINAL
CODE OF THE RSFSR, supra note 205, at 333.
219. Vol'nov, supra note 190, at 54. See, e.g., A. Pravov, Pliazhnye devochki: Dni oni provodiat v
barakh, a vecherami atakuiut postoial'tsev dorogikh nomerov [Beach Girls: They Spend Their Days in
Bars, and in the Evenings They Attack Guests in Expensive Rooms], KoMSOMOL'SKAIA PRAVDA [KOM-
SOMOL TRUTH], Sept. 19, 1987, at 2, (translated in 39 CURRENT DIGEST OF THE SOVIET PRESS 12 (no.
42, Nov. 18, 1987)) (two chambermaids in a Black Sea hotel arrested for prostitution involving Finnish
tourists).
220. A.A. Gabiani & M.A. Manuil'skii, Tsena 'liubvi' (obsledovanie prostitutok v Gruzii) [The
Price of Love (A Survey of Prostitutes in Georgia)], SOTSIOLOGICHESKIE ISSLEDOVANIIA [SOCIOLOGI-
CAL INVESTIGATIONS] Nov.-Dec. 1987, at 61. After 1935, little criminological research was conducted
on any topic. See PETER H. JUVILER, REVOLUTIONARY LAW AND ORDER: POLITICS AND SOCIAL
CHANGE IN THE USSR 42-47 (1976) (discussing the attack on criminology during the Stalinist era);
WALTER D. CONNOR, DEVIANCE IN SOVIET SOCIETY: CRIME. DELINQUENCY, AND ALCOHOLISM 32
(1972) (discussing the rebirth of criminology after Stalin's death). In the 1960s, criminological research
began again, A.A. GERTSENSON, VVEDENIE V SOVETSKUIU KRIMINOLOGIIU [INTRODUCTION TO SOVIET
CRIMINOLOGY] 21-42 (1965), but prostitution was not heavily discussed.
221. IU. M. TKACHEVSKII. PRESTUPNOST' I AL'KOGOLIZM [CRIMINALITY AND ALCOHOLISM] 32
(1966).
income derived from letting her room for prostitution was convicted. 22
In the mid-1980s, when the government initiated the policy of glasnost'
(greater public candor), the media described prostitution in various set-
tings,2 23 and scholarly literature followed this lead.2 24 Some specialists com-
plained that the long silence about prostitution had hindered efforts to
eradicate it:
For too long we pretended that no such thing existed here and
that it could not exist . . . .There comes a day when life con-
fronts society with a 'long eliminated' problem and forces it to
resolve it. In such situations one is always sad for the lost oppor-
tunities of time irretrievably lost.22 6
The public discussion of prostitution in the 1980s touched on its possible
causes. One journalist analyzed prostitution in Kirghizstan, but his point
was equally relevant to Russia. He queried: "If our society does not have
the social roots for prostitution, then what is it that facilitates its emer-
gence and growth?" 22 6
The journalist proposed no answer but discounted explanations he attrib-
uted to others: shortage of high-quality, fashionable goods; improper educa-
tion by family and schools; and Western influence 2 7 Educational and eco-
nomic measures to eliminate prostitution, wrote another journalist, had not
228
been successful.
Criminologists of the Ministry of Internal Affairs studied prostitution in
Georgia, though, again, the analysis probably reflected the situation in
Russia as well. Based on a survey of 532 women who had engaged in pros-
titution, the study found that while they did not lack for life necessities,
their modest salaries did not permit them to buy finer things. Further,
many of the women did not find great job satisfaction. Fashionable attire,
obtainable from prostitution earnings, provided a sense of self-worth the
women did not find in their employment. Their material-acquisition
222. Id.
223. See, e.g., Vasilii Golovanov, Avtomobil'nye devochki [Car Girls], LITERATURNAIA GAZETA
[LITERARY NEWSPAPER], Sept. 16, 1987, at 13 (translated in 39 Current Digest of the Soviet Press II
(no. 42, Nov. 18, 1987)). A. Mel'nik, Eleonora khochet poznakomit'sia i dlia etogo ona vybiraet
primorskuiu gostinitsu [Eleanor Wants to Get Acquainted and To Do So She Selects a Hotel on the
Ocean], PRAVDA UKRAINY [TRUTH OF THE UKRAINE], OCt. 18, 1987, at 4. 1. Osinskii & lu. Popov,
Grekhopadenie [The Fall], SOVETSKAIA BELOROSSIIA [SOVIET BELORUSSIA], Nov. 13, 1987, at 3.
224. Gabiani & Manuil'skii, supra note 220, at 61.
225. Id.
226. V. Yurlov, Putany iz Kirgizstana [Prostitute from Kirghizstan], SOVETSKAYA KIRGIZIIA [So-
VIET KIRGHIZSTAN], May 16, 1987, at 3 (translated in 39 Current Digest of the Soviet Press 13 (no.
42, Nov. 18, 1987)).
227. Id.
228. M. Gurtovoi, Pochem liubov'? [How Much Does Love Cost?], Trud [LABOR], July 31, 1987, at
4 [hereinafter Gurtovoi 1987].
mentality made them view prostitution as a commercial exchange and not

229
as a "moral fall."
These same criminologists cited other studies which found that most
young people in the U.S.S.R. were not critical of prostitution.230 Some me-
dia accounts viewed the issue as a moral one and placed responsibility on
prostitutes.2 3 Boredom on the part of Russian teenage girls was cited by
one journalist. 2 2 Loose morals among youth was blamed by some.2 3 3 A
male blue-collar worker put primary responsibility on men: "Men are
largely to blame. You should hear how they talk about women at our fac-
tory. When I try to fight this cynicism, they make fun of me."'234 Greater
educational efforts were urged.23 5
The criminologists who surveyed prostitution in Georgia addressed the
fact that prostitution had outlived the social reform of the 1930s: "The
reasons for the spread of prostitution cannot be traced only to negative
aspects of the functioning of social relations. Prostitution in large measure
is a consequence of the costs of the socialization of the personality, of low
culture in interpersonal relations. ' 236 The young women surveyed, the crim-
inologists concluded, had not received proper influence from family and 2 37
school. Many were from broken homes, and many had left school early.
With prostitution persisting, a body of opinion formed in Soviet Russia
that prostitution should be criminalized.2 38 One journalist wrote that while
''some people feel sympathy for prostitutes," prostitutes "have chosen to
walk the streets not out of hunger or because they are homeless or unem-
ployed. ' 23 9 "Law-enforcement agencies and the public should declare war
229. Gabiani & Manuil'skii, supra note 220, at 62-64.

230. Id.
231. Osinskii & Popov, supra note 223, at 3; Irina Inoveli, Tiazhkoe brerniia legkogo povedeniia
[The Heavy Burden of Loose Behavior], ZARIA VOSTOKA [EASTERN DAWN], Sept. 25, 1987, at 4,
translated in 39 CURRENT DIGEST OF THE SOVIET PRESS 11 (1987).
232. Golovanov, supra note 223, at 13.
233. M. Gurtovoi, Tiazhkaia rasplata za "legkuiu" zhizn': Chitateli prodolzhaiut razgovor,
nachatyi v stat'e "Pochem liubov'?, [Heavy Payback for an Easy Life: Readers Continue the Conver-
sation Begun in the Article "How Much Does Love Lost?"] TRUD [LABOR], Feb. 7, 1988, at 2 [herein-
after Gurtovoi 1988].
234. Id.
235. Id.
236. Gabiani & Manuil'skii, supra note 220, at 64.
237. Id. at 65. The criminologists did not abandon economic causation. They held out the hope that
prostitution would diminish as the country, through economic reform, overcame the "stagnation" of
prior decades. Id. at 68.
238. Osinskii & Popov, supra note 223, at 3; Gurtovoi 1988, supra note 233, at 2; L. Kislinskaya,
Legkoe povedenie na vesakh pravosudiia [Easy Virtue on the Scales of Justice], SOVETSKAIA ROSSiIA
[SOVIET RUSSIA], March 12, 1987, at 4 (translated in 39 CURRENT DIGEST OF THE SOVIET PRESS I
(1987)).
239. Yurlov, supra note 226, at 13.
against it today. ' 24 0 Danger of the spread of AIDS through prostitution

was cited as a reason to criminalize prostitution.2 4 Criminalization was
said to be a logical step in the stricter government measures taken in the
1980s against parasitism, alcoholism, and drug abuse.2 42
No criminal punishment against engaging in prostitution was enacted,
but in 1987 the Russian Supreme Soviet took a major step by making the
act of engaging in prostitution an administrative violation, punishable by a
fine of up to one hundred rubles. In the case of a repeat violation within
one year, the fine could be two hundred rubles. Police were authorized to
detain a suspected violator to obtain information and commence the pro-
cess. Cases were heard not in court but before a commission established
under the local government council (soviet) to hear administrative
charges.2 4 3 One journalist, however, doubted the utility of the fines, given
the large amounts prostitutes could earn. 2 "
The decree represented a major reversal in legislative policy in Soviet
Russia by imposing a penalty on a woman engaging in prostitution, along
with other administrative measures. In certain localities, police began to
maintain a register of prostitutes.'" This practice violated the Convention
for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the
Prostitution of Others, to which the U.S.S.R. was a party.24 "
Another administrative measure taken was the withdrawal of residence
permits. In Soviet Russia, as part of an effort to limit urbanization, permits
were required for residence in major cities. 47 Police had the power to with-
draw a permit for reasons specified by law. Under Moscow regulations in
240. Id.
241. Gurtovoi 1987, supra note 228, at 4.
242. Id.
243. Decree, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic
(May 29, 1987) 0 vnesenii izmenenii i dopolnenii v zakonodatel'stvo RSFSR ob otvetstvennosti za
administrativnye pravonarusheniia [On the Introduction of Changes and Additions into the Legislation
of the RSFSR on Responsibility for Administrative Violations], VEDOMOSTI RSFSR, Issue No. 23,
Item 800 (1987). Income derived from an activity that violated administrative law was "non-labor
income," and so this decree re-affirmed that prostitution-related income was not derived from socially
useful labor. P. Grishaev & T. Koshaeva, Pravovoe poniatie netrudovykh dokhodov [The Legal Con-
cept of Non-Labor Income], Sov. lUST. [SOVIET JUSTICE] 22, 23 (no. 23, 1987).
244. Gurtovoi 1987, supra note 228, at 4.
245. Kislinskaya, supra note 238, at I (reporting the maintenance of such a register in Moscow
precinct with substantial prostitution).
246. Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitu-
tion of Others, Dec. 2, 1949, art. 6, 96 U.N.T.S. 272, 276 ("Each Party to the present Convention
agrees to take all the necessary measures to repeal or abolish any existing law, regulation or adminis-
trative provision by virtue of which persons who engage in or are suspected of engaging in prostitution
are subject either to special registration or to the possession of a special document or to any exceptional
requirements for supervision or notification").
247. Jane Giddings, Administrative Commissions of Local Soviets, 3 REV. SOCIALIST L. 53, 75
(1977).
the 1980s, prostitutes lacking a residence permit could be expelled from a

city"4 8 if three acts of prostitution were carried out within one year.24 9
Thus, the reform period of the late 1980s in Russia brought increased
attention to prostitution and stricter measures against it. The notion that
women were forced by economic circumstance into prostitution no longer
carried weight.
VII. THE INTERNATIONAL IMPACT OF THE SOVIET RUSSIAN APPROACH
The Soviet Russian approach of eradicating prostitution by social reform

was not wholly successful. Prostitution persisted, though not at high levels,
through the decades of full employment. In the late 1980s, when the state
economic system broke down, unemployment rose, and with it prostitution.
Nonetheless, over the years, the Soviet Russian approach attracted atten-
tion abroad. By the early twentieth century, as indicated, most European
countries had systems of legalized, regulated prostitution. 6 0 In the 1920s,
however, following the Soviet Russian lead, a few of these countries abol-
ished their regulatory schemes, and others followed suit.261 Increasingly,
specialists and governments came to believe that such a system did not stop
the spread of venereal disease.
At the international level, the League of Nations studied the issue, with
a majority favoring an end to regulated prostitution. 6 2 After World War
II, the United Nations continued this work, and the Soviet government be-
came a prime sponsor of a treaty to require states to abolish regulated
prostitution.
The 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and
of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others outlawed regulatory
2 53
schemes by requiring states parties to punish procuring for prostitution,
keeping a brothel,2 6 ' or maintaining a registry of prostitutes.2 6 Sixty-five
248. STERN & STERN, supra note 203, at 161.

249. Kislinskaya, supra note 238, at 2. In 1980, to remove prostitutes from Moscow prior to the
Olympic games, the residence permits of many women were revoked. Id.
250. DECKER, supra note 37, at 66; FRIDLAND, supra note 50, at 35.
251. See CHALEIL, supra note 10, at 207 (citing as reasons that regulated prostitution did not reduce
venereal disease and that clandestine prostitution continued outside the regulated system).
252. Reanda, supra note 8, at 208-09.
tion of Others, supra note 246, art. I.
254. Id., art. 2. The Netherlands refused to adhere to the Convention because of its position, supra
note 3, that adults have a right to engage in prostitution and that if this is so, there is no basis for
punishing those who facilitate prostitution. See Implementation of Economic and Social Council Reso-
lution 1983/30, supra note 3, at 6 (Netherlands stating that it is not a party to Convention because it
,compels states to use the criminal law to combat exploitation of the prostitution of independent adult
women who have freely consented to be exploited").
tion of Others, supra note 246, art. 6.
states are parties to the Convention. 2 " While the Convention did not re-
quire states to forego outlawing the act of engaging in prostitution, few
2 57
states had done so before, and few adopted that approach subsequently.
Following the Soviet view that in capitalist countries prostitutes are vic-
tims, the Convention did not suggest that prostitutes themselves should be
punished. 2 " It said that states ought "to take or to encourage, through
their public and private education, health, social, economic and other re-
lated services, measures for the prevention of prostitution and for the reha-
bilitation and social adjustment of the victims of prostitution. ' 259 This for-
mulation adopted the Soviet Russian view that economic causes underlie
prostitution, and mirrored the prophylactoria system of Soviet Russia of
the 1920s.
In Britain, the Wolfenden Committee, whose report in 1963 formed the
basis for British law reform on prostitution, accepted the notion that eco-
nomic circumstance was a causal factor in prostitution. In line with the
Russian analysis of that period, the Committee denied that such causation
existed in the Britain of the 1960s:
[W]hatever may have been the case in the past, in these days, in
this country at any rate, economic factors cannot account for it
to any large or decisive extent. Economic pressure is no doubt a
factor in some individual cases. So, in others, is a bad upbring-
ing, seduction at an early age, or a broken marriage. But many
women surmount such disasters without turning to a life of pros-
titution. It seems to us likely that these are precipitating factors
rather than determining causes, and that there must be some ad-
ditional psychological element in the personality of the individual
woman who becomes a prostitute. . . . [T]he great majority of
prostitutes are women whose psychological make-up is such that
they choose this life because they find in it a style of living which
is to them easier, freer and more profitable than would be pro-
256. Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General. Status as at 31 December 1985,
supra note 187, at 297. There were two earlier treaties on prostitution, but they dealt with international
transfer of persons for purposes of prostitution and did not address internal policy. See International
Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, March 18, 1904, 1 L.N.T.S. 83; Convention
for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, May 4, 1910, 103 BRIT. & FOREIGN STATE PAPERS
244 (1914).
257. DECKER, supra note 37, at 141. See also CHALEIL, supra note 10, at 419 (naming the several
countries that do make prostitution illegal).
258. Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prosti-
tution of Others, supra note 246, art. 16; NATALIE KAUFMAN HEVENER, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND
THE STATUS OF WOMEN 78 (1983).
259. Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prosti-
tution of Others, supra note 246, art. 16.
vided by any other occupation."O

As women's rights gained more attention in treaty law, the view of the
prostitute as victim was reiterated. The 1979 Convention on the Elimina-
tion of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women required state parties
to "take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all
2 61 In
forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women."
a broad provision that did not mention prostitution but appeared to encom-
pass it, the Convention required states to "modify the social and cultural
patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimi-
nation of . . . all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferi-
ority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for
men and women. 26 2
In the second half of the twentieth century, the system that came to
predominate in prostitution policy followed the approach of the United Na-
tions Convention. States typically prohibited procuring and operating a
brothel. The United States remained in a minority of states that eschewed
both the Convention and the regulatory approach and instead penalized the
act of engaging in prostitution. Forty-nine of the fifty states also made
prostitution a criminal offense.26 a The United States did not join the
Convention.
As with prostitution policy, the international community followed the So-
viet lead on the issue of economic opportunity. The Soviet Russian ap-
proach to full employment inspired demands by Western workers and led
western governments to be concerned that they, like the Tsar, might be
overthrown. This concern was reflected in the preamble to the 1919 Consti-
tution of the International Labor Organization: "And whereas conditions of
labour exist involving such injustice, hardship and privation to large num-
bers of people as to produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of
the world are imperilled. ' 26 4 This language referred to the Bolshevik
revolution.2 65 The preamble drew the conclusion that "improvement of
260. THE WOLFENDEN REPORT: REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMOSEXUAL OFFENSES AND PROS-
TITUTION 131 (1963).
261. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Dec. 18, 1979,
art. 6, 19 INT'L LEG. MAT. 33 (1980).
262. Id., art. 5.
263. The sole exception in U.S. jurisdictions is Nevada. See NEV. REV. STAT. 201.354 (1989) ("It
is unlawful for any person to engage in prostitution . . . except in a house of prostitution"); NEV. REV.
STAT. 244.345 (providing for the licensing of houses of prostitution by counties).
264. Constitution of the International Labor Organization, preamble, 15 U.N.T.S. 35, 40 (giving
amended text of Constitution, but no change in language cited) (the ILO consisted of the members of
the League of Nations, along with the United States and Brazil).
265. ANTONY ALCOCK. HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION 10 (1971) (stating
that Western governments were moved to establish the International Labor Organization in large part
out of fear of "the threat of social unrest").
those conditions is urgently required" and listed the prevention of unem-

ployment as a major aim.2"6
In Western Europe, the demand for a government obligation to ensure
employment was made by the social democracy movement, an outgrowth of
European Marxism. This factor too was a stimulus to national and interna-
tional protection of labor. In the late nineteenth century, "[tihe demands
for national legislation for the protection of the workers" increased.267
After World War II, legislation in Western Europe provided broad guar-
antees of social rights.2"' Social democrat and other leftist elements were
influential in this development, drawing their inspiration from the Marxist
analysis of capitalism."6 9 For a free-market state, ensuring employment was
difficult since the state does not control industry. Gradually, however, a
duty to make an effort to ensure full employment came to be accepted.
One manifestation was redundancy policy - state payments to workers
being dismissed in mass layoffs.27 0 This would give employers a financial
disincentive to conduct mass layoffs and would help workers until they se-
cured new employment.
At the same time, social rights obligations made their way into human
rights law. The western European countries, under pressure from domestic
leftists, adopted a treaty calling for a government commitment to promot-
ing economic equality. The European Social Charter borrowed from the
Soviet Russian notion of a government duty to the citizenry by requiring
states to assume "as one of their primary aims and responsibilities the
achievement and maintenance of as high and stable a level of employment
as possible, with a view to the attainment of full employment. 2 7 1
Similarly at the United Nations, treaty writers moved to ensure eco-
nomic rights. With intense Soviet lobbying, 272 the United Nations adopted
the text of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural
266. Constitution of the International Labor Organization, supra note 264.

267. GEORGE ALEXANDER JOHNSTON, THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION: ITS WORK FOR
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS 6 (1970).
268. Constitution of Italy, 1947, art. 4 (right to work). See also MARIO GHIDINI. DIRITTO DEL
LAVORO: CORSO Di LEZIONI UNIVERSITARIE 5-7 (1964) (stating that the right to work is ethical, not a
legal, norm); ALDO Bozzi. ISTITUZIONI DI DIRITTO PUBBLICO 405 (1966) (stating that the right to
work is to be assured by state by creating economic, social and juridical conditions to facilitate acquisi-
tion of jobs).
269. Lajos L6rincz, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL AND ADMINIS-
TRATIVE SCIENCES, HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, SOCIALIST CONCEPT OF HUMAN RIGHTS 199
(1966)); CARLO ESPOSITO. LA CONSTITUZIONE ITALIANA 12-15 (1954); MAURICE F. NEUFELD. LABOR
UNIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS IN ITALIAN INDUSTRIAL PLANTS 26-27 (1954).
270. Bob Fryer, State, Redundancy and the Law, in BOB FRYER. ALAN HUNT. DOREEN MCBARNET
& BERT MOORHOUSE. LAW, STATE AND SOCIETY 136-59 (1981).
271. European Social Charter, Oct. 18, 1961, art. I, 529 U.N.T.S. 89.
272. A. GLENN MOWER. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE: GLOBAL AND RE-
GIONAL PROTECTION OF ECONOMIC/SOCIAL RIGHTS 14 (1985).
Rights.7 Like the European Social Charter, the International Covenant

required states to undertake "policies and techniques to achieve . . . full
and productive employment." 7 ' Employment for women was addressed in
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, which referred to "the right to work as an inalienable right of all
2 75
human beings.1
This obligation was wide-ranging. In order to ensure that women were
not driven to prostitution by poverty, a government was obligated to as-
sume a general responsibility to provide at least a safety net for those who
were otherwise unable to feed, house, and clothe themselves and their
families.
VIII. IMPLICATIONS FOR LAW AND POLICY
By the 1980's, many in the United States were calling for an end to the
criminalization of prostitution. American writers criticized all three systems
currently used in the world: criminalization, regulation, and decriminaliza-
tion.217 These existing methods did nothing to address the causes of
prostitution.
Many of the critics were drawn to the Marxist critique that women are
forced into prostitution by economic circumstance. They shared the view of
the French social theorist Simone de Beauvoir that a woman's decision to
engage in prostitution "condemns a society in which this occupation is still
one of those which seem the least repellent to many women.127 7 A body of
feminist-oriented literature appeared and portrayed the prostitute as vic-
tim. 2 78 This view gained increasing adherence as prostitution globalized and
third world countries became the prostitution venue for a clientele from the
developed world. The image of Japanese tour groups traveling to Bangkok,
where poor young Thai women were their prostitutes, dramatically rein-
273. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Dec. 16, 1966, 993 U.N.T.S.
3.
274. Id., art. 6.
275. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, supra note
261, art. 11.
276. See Pasqua Scibelli, Note, Empowering Prostitutes: A Proposalfor International Legal Re-
form, 10 HARV. WOMEN'S L. J. 117 (1987) (analyzing three dominant legal approaches to prostitution
and concluding that abolitionism is most effective regime).
277. SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, THE SECOND SEX 557 (H.M. Parshely ed. & trans., 1953).
278. BARRY, supra note 6, at 11-32. See, e.g., Jody Freeman, The Feminist Debate Over Prostitu-
tion Reform: Prostitutes' Rights Groups, Radical Feminists, and the (Im)possibility of Consent, 5
BERKELEY WOMEN'S L. J.75, 92-97 (1989-90)(analyzing radical feminist approach which portrays
women as victims and objects of a male-defined, male-dominated society that subordinates them and
prevents them from truly consenting to sexual activity); Mark Tushnet, Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll:
Some Conservative Reflections on Liberal Jurisprudence, 82 COLUM. L. REV. 1531, 1541 (1982) (re-
viewing DAVID A.J. RICHARDS. SEX. DRuGs, DEATH AND THE LAW (1982)) ("prostitution represents the
ultimate capitalist degradation of personal relationships").
forced this position. 7 9

Notwithstanding other factors involved, the lack of economic alternatives
for women would seem to be a significant factor in the decision of many
women to engage in prostitution. 8 0 In contemporary society, prostitution
28
sets a woman apart and subjects her to the negative opinions of others. 1
Most governments have not addressed these problems and have not made a
serious effort to remedy the social ills that facilitate prostitution.
"One approach that has been suggested, but not explored fully, is the
pro-
vision of services for women in prostitution to help them establish them-
selves through education, health services, drug counseling, job placement,
job training, or child care for their children. Proposals have been made for
the United States, along lines that parallel the Soviet Russian approach of
the 1920s. One writer calls for:
a large-scale network of support and services, a network which

recognizes the severity of the situation which women are leaving
or escaping and brings together a range of support to respond to
the needs of the whole person. Those needs will range from prac-
tical considerations like a meal and a place to sleep, to emotional
support and caring, to realistic analysis of economic alternatives
such as a job or educational program, to medical care, to inten-
sive personal counseling. A network providing these and many
other services would extend to many levels of operation, includ-
ing outreach teams or street workers, crisis hot lines and emer-
2 2
gency store-front shelters, and long-term live-in centers.
Few countries have moved in this direction.2 83 Sweden set up a program in

the 1970s to offer housing, jobs, and emotional counseling to prostitutes. 8 4
One factor that may make it difficult for a woman to leave prostitution
is a history of abuse in her upbringing. If she has been abused physically
or psychologically, or if she has been raised to think that she lacks self-
279. Fish, supra note 7, at 176.

280. DE BEAUVOIR, supra note 277, at 556; Freeman, supra, note 278, at 91. See also Belinda M.
M. Cheney, Prostitution: A Feminist JurisprudentialPerspective, 18 VICTORIA U. OF WELLINGTON L.
REV. 239, 242 (1988) ("Prostitution, in most countries, is the only occupation in which women can
earn, on average, more than men."); Fish, supra note 7, at 175 ("Women in developing countries work
as prostitutes, because the income is better than in other jobs or because there are no other jobs availa-
ble"); 2 Pornography and Prostitution in Canada: Report of the Special Committee on Pornography
and Prostitution 353 (1983) [hereinafter Fraser Report].
281. But see Shrage, supra note 5, at 349-51 (noting that prostitution has not in all times and
societies resulted in stigmatization).
282. BARRY, supra note 6, at 272.
283. CHALEIL, supra note 10, at 429 (listing Hungary, Poland, Viet Nam, People's Republic of
China, Bulgaria, and Norway as countries which have support services for former prostitutes).
284. Fraser Report, supra note 280, at 502-06.
worth, she may not possess the self-confidence to take the risk of change. 8
Counseling coupled with other services may be needed.
Beyond factors specific to a particular woman, a societal attitude that
denigrates the value of women's labor and of women's worth in general
may contribute to a woman's willingness to engage in prostitution. This
attitude may also foster society's willingness to allow prostitution and
forego reforms that would free women from prostitution. 86
Soviet Russia introduced a new analysis of prostitution, arguing that the
prostitute was a victim of economic circumstance and that prostitution
could be eradicated by socio-economic reform. It put that theory into prac-
tice by eliminating the tsarist system of government-regulated brothels, es-
tablishing institutions to help prostitutes into a new life, and ensuring full
employment for women.
Soviet Russia certainly did not eradicate prostitution, a fact cited to dis-
pute the Marxist analysis of the causes of prostitution. 87 Yet the lack of
success in eradicating prostitution in Soviet Russia does not necessarily dis-
prove the Marxist thesis. There was, as indicated, some success in Soviet
Russia, but the country did not achieve the economic progress it sought.
Although the Soviet Russian approach of eradicating prostitution by at-
tacking its causes has exercised considerable influence abroad, to date,
most governments typically view prostitution as inevitable, and decide what
penal or administrative policy to adopt to limit it.
The Soviet Russian approach still has much to recommend it. Govern-
ments that do nothing about the many women with no alternative to prosti-
tution fail in their duty, as defined by contemporary human rights stan-
dards. While the enormity of the task may deter many governments, in a
society that values human rights, it is not an unrealistic expectation for the
government to ensure that no woman need engage in prostitution to provide
a living for herself or her dependents.
The Soviet Russian approach may be as important for showing the enor-
mity of the task as it is for specific solutions. Perhaps the most important
lesson is that the various legislative techniques used to regulate prostitution
are not likely to eliminate it or even reduce its occurrence.
The overall solution that would seem most acceptable for the phenome-
non of prostitution would run as follows. First, a society provides full em-
ployment, thereby ensuring that a woman has a choice of professions. Sec-
285. See BARRY, supra note 6, at 101-02 (prostitutes who are abused by those closest to them come
to believe they deserve that kind of treatment and may not resist the "slavery" of prostitution).
286. Id. at 8-9.
287. Lars 0. Ericsson, Charges Against Prostitution: An Attempt at a PhilosophicalAssessment, 90
ETHiCS 335, 346 (1980) ("Nor is it true that harlotry 'falls' with the abolition of private property, as
the evidence from countries with socialist economies clearly shows").
ond, it eliminates the social attitude that stigmatizes women who engage in
prostitution, even if they later enter other work. 28 8 Third, society changes
the commonly held negative attitude about prostitutes so that they are not
seen as easy targets for violence and so that police deal more seriously with
crimes of violence against them. Finally, in order to help women who want
to leave prostitution, social services are made available.289
If all of this were done, women would not be forced into prostitution. In
this construct, there would be no need for criminal laws against the acts of
the prostitute, the client, the procurer, or the brothel keeper, because their
conduct would produce no significant social harm.
These goals may appear utopian. However, the difficulty of achieving
perfection in social policy is no reason to forego the attempt. If the sug-
gested ideal future situation is not achieved, perhaps something approxi-
mating it can be reached. Unless far-sighted goals are kept in view, public
policy on prostitution will only produce results that will continue to draw
justified criticism. The Soviet Russian government may not have found a
solution, but it did identify the issues.
288. See FLEXNER, supra note 25, at 104 ("For the most part, the attitude is indulgent towards the
man, severe towards the woman.
289. Cf. id. at 365-66 (positing conditions for what he terms "sound prostitution" in society). It is
hard to conceive this solution working absent the achievement of general gender equality so that women
participate equally with men in all phases of society. Unless and until that occurs, the negative male
attitude towards prostitution is likely to persist.

John Quigley, The Dilemma of Prostitution Law Reform. Lessons From The Soviet Russian Experiment

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

John Quigley, The Dilemma of Prostitution Law Reform. Lessons From The Soviet Russian Experiment

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

+(,121/,1(

Citation: 29 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1197 1991-1992

Content downloaded/printed from

-- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance

-- The search text of this PDF is generated from

-- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope

I. INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1197

Legislative policy on prostitution is a matter of continuing debate, a re-

revolution, the Soviet Russian government's policy towards prostitution was

II. MARXIST ANALYSIS OF PROSTITUTION

The Soviet Russian policy towards prostitution derived from an analysis

Because of the higher status accorded to men in capitalist society, the

[Bly transforming by far the greater portion, at any rate, of the

13. Id. at 138.

sures on women to become prostitutes:

17. Id. at 160.

exploitation of labour by capital. When a woman's wages are in-

23. Id. at 345.

Russia, said Kollontai, came from the lower classes. 1

31. Id. at 265.

elaborated the thesis more comprehensively.

III. THE AIM OF ERADICATING PROSTITUTION IN SOVIET RUSSIA

In tsarist Russia, the Bolsheviks found a situation that seemed to confirm

of the status of the sexes.47

The People's Commissar of Health, N. Semashko, attributed the increase

prostitution frequently developed problems with alcohol abuse.18 They also

finally eliminated," Kollontai wrote:

IV. THE ELIMINATION OF REGULATED PROSTITUTION

As of 1917, two models for dealing with prostitution were available. In

79. Id. at 270.

the woman's ordinary identification document. 5 She was not allowed to

92. BEBEL, supra note 15, at 152.

would have to be punished for not engaging in social production. 10 1

101. Kollontai, supra note 27, at 271.

Strogovich reported, however, that a few prosecutors and judges used

I10. Strogovich, supra note 84, at 1213.

were to close brothels, they were to treat the prostitutes as victims:

117. HALLE, supra note 33, at 227-28.

V. ANTI-PROSTITUTION PROGRAMS IN SOVIET RUSSIA

122. Id. at 231-32.

Within the Communist party, a women's section (zhenotdel) was estab-

131. STITES, supra note 42, at 341.

existing job-training programs.1" 6 They sought special consideration for

Women typically entered Soviet prophylactoria on referral from a social

VI. PROSTITUTION AS A PUBLIC ORDER VIOLATION

immediate end to it was impossible. During the first years of the

duty for able-bodied adults.2 08

useful labor" and that "[florms of non-labor income, the acquisition of

mentality made them view prostitution as a commercial exchange and not

229. Gabiani & Manuil'skii, supra note 220, at 62-64.

against it today. ' 24 0 Danger of the spread of AIDS through prostitution

the 1980s, prostitutes lacking a residence permit could be expelled from a

VII. THE INTERNATIONAL IMPACT OF THE SOVIET RUSSIAN APPROACH

The Soviet Russian approach of eradicating prostitution by social reform

248. STERN & STERN, supra note 203, at 161.

vided by any other occupation."O

those conditions is urgently required" and listed the prevention of unem-

266. Constitution of the International Labor Organization, supra note 264.

Rights.7 Like the European Social Charter, the International Covenant

VIII. IMPLICATIONS FOR LAW AND POLICY

forced this position. 7 9

a large-scale network of support and services, a network which

Few countries have moved in this direction.2 83 Sweden set up a program in