SOVIET ADOPTION LAW 2

Laurie BernsteinRutgers University

Abstract3

"Soviet Adoption Law" traces the evolution of legislation affecting adoptiv erelationships in the USSR from the promulgation of adoption law in 1926 until its reformin 1968. I argue that reforms in adoption law and legal practice mirrored political andideological developments in Soviet history . Outlawed in 1918, adoption was reintroduce din 1926 as a stopgap response to the overwhelming problem of child homelessness, with th elaw taking shape in a climate hostile to the family . Consequently, adoption law did not eve nattempt to replicate biological relationships. Attitudes toward adoption changed in respons eto post-1936 pro-family policies, as well as in response to problems created by World Wa rII . By the time Soviet lawmakers revised the law in 1968, adoptive and biological familie shad been given legal equality .

The evolution of adoption law mirrored the evolution of Soviet society . Promulgatedjust prior to the collectivization of agriculture and the First Five Year Plan, its enactmen tstill reflected some of the revolution's initial radicalism : adoption was not meant to comfortthe childless or even provide unwanted and orphaned children with love, but to train youn gcitizens of the Soviet republic for "socially useful labor activities ." Accordingly, the la wgave authorities much leeway both in finalizing adoptions and revoking them . In the 1930s ,extreme flexibility with the concept of parental rights allowed adoption to provide car equietly for the children whose parents had been removed to parts unknown . During Worl dWar II, adoption finally hit its stride, gaining recognition as the selfless act of patrioti ccitizens . Adoption was already far from its roots in the postwar period . At that time ,lawmakers strove to put it on a par with biological parenting, promoting a form of adoptionthat not only looked like biological parenting, but rendered children's personal historie sinvisible to both the children and those around them . In the process . legal activists flexednew muscles acquired during the relative openness of deStalinization . Their efforts bore frui tin the legal decisions that increasingly stabilized adoptions and ultimately, ripened into th eFamily Code of 1968 .

Introductio n

On January 12, 1970 a nineteen-year-old unmarried student asked the Moldavian maternity

hospital at which she had recently given birth to keep her baby . Having been turned away by he r

parents, anticipating no help from the child's father, and living in a dormitory that did not allo w

children, "K" seemed to have no choice but to put her child in the care of the state . The hospita l

2This Report traces the evolution of Soviet adoption laws, from abolition of adoption in 1918 to the 1968 code, a swell as social causes which underlay it and the childhood of a substantial proportion of today's Russian adults . TheReport provides the historical background for Russia's New Adoption Laws (of December 1995) by the same author,distributed by the National Council on November 28, 1996 . (This footnote by NCSEER staff. )

3 Compiled in part by NCSEER staff .

1

administration agreed to take the infant on one condition : that "K" sign a document terminating he r

parental rights . She did so, but on the very same day she succeeded in obtaining special permissio n

from the dean of her institute to bring the baby to the dormitory . Yet when "K" returned for he r

baby on January 13, she was informed by the maternity hospital that the child had already bee n

adopted by an order of the local soviet of workers' deputies .

"K" sued the soviet in People's Court to have the adoption overturned, but she lost the case .

The Judicial Board for Civil Affairs of the Moldavian Supreme Court refused to overrule th e

People's Court . Though the public procurator appealed the case to the Presidium and Plenum of th e

Moldavian Supreme Court, the initial ruling was upheld . It took more than a year after the adoptio n

for the suit to reach the highest judicial organ in the Soviet Union . On March 12, 1971 the Supreme

Court of the USSR ruled that the adoption of "K'''s child needed to be reviewed because the soviet' s

order was dated January 14, a full day after "K" had tried to retrieve her baby . This represented a

clear violation of both the Moldavian and USSR Codes on Marriage and the Family, which gav e

biological parents the right to change their mind about relinquishing their child until the moment tha t

an adoption was finalized .' Moreover, the maternity hospital's contention that it could not keep th e

baby without having "K'''s signature on a document terminating her rights breached a July 1944

Supreme Soviet decree permitting single mothers to put their children in full-time state care withou t

endangering their parental rights . '

This case underscores both the worst and the best aspects of the Soviet system of family law .

Although a legal framework was in place to safeguard both "K"'s rights and the well-being of he r

child, it failed both of them until the case had traveled all the way to the USSR Supreme Court .

Justice ultimately prevailed, but only a full fourteen months after every court in Moldavia had made

rulings that violated established legislation . "K", the child, and the adoptive parents then had to cop e

with the emotional consequences of the court-ordered separations .

While ideological imperatives informed decisions about who was allowed to adopt and whos e

children could be taken away, a look at the practice of Soviet adoption law nevertheless confirm s

Harold Berman's assertion that the Soviets "do have a working legal system, founded on rathe r

definite principles of law and justice . " 3 In other words, we cannot dismiss all laws out of hand .

Although an extra-legal police and administrative apparatus made a mockery of rule of law, there

were nonetheless distinct civil procedures that operated to determine questions like child custody ,

inheritance, child support, and adoption . 4 Indeed, from their introduction in 1926 through thei r

revision in 1968, Soviet adoption laws by and large conformed to standards well in advance of mos t

Western nations . Most importantly, they kept the child's interests central to adoption proceedings . 5

In fact, Soviet adoption laws look so good on paper that one cannot help but be struck by th e

enormous contradiction between such enlightened, humane legislation and Soviet-era policies tha t

resulted in the creation of millions of orphans .

2

An examination of adoption law and the disposition of adoption cases opens a window to part s

of Soviet society that were largely unseen (and often unimagined) by the West . Descriptions o f

adoption cases draw for us a picture of a complex citizenry peopled with individuals who bore littl e

resemblance to steadfast, socialist heroes . Adoption cases demonstrate how various branches of th e

judicial system meted out justice, how conceptions of the family and gender were changing, and ho w

Soviet citizens carved out private lives in a public world . What is most striking about the

development of adoption legislation is the minor role of ideology, save the commendable desire t o

gear all laws to reflect what was understood as the child's best interest . At the time of the Octobe r

1917 Revolution, the more radical Bolsheviks had envisioned a socialist state that took responsibilit y

(and control) of the entire younger generation . The history of adoption law and its interpretation ,

however, reveals increased concerns for parental prerogatives and private resolutions of famil y

issues .

The task of charting the laws is complicated by the fact that all the relevant decisions wer e

never compiled in a single source . As Berman put it . "The state of Soviet legislation is appallingl y

chaotic," reminiscent of what Alexander I's deputy minister of justice faced in the early nineteent h

century when he attempted to codify the Russian Empire's obsolete laws, unsystematic rulings, an d

obscure decrees . 6 Adoption law was unwieldy, consisting of the basic legislation laid down in 192 6

supplemented by decrees of the Supreme Soviet, instructions and circulars from the commissariat s

(until 1946) and then ministries of justice, education, and health, and rulings at all levels of th e

judicial process . 7 Decentralization of the justice system meant that separate adoption laws and cour t

decisions in each Soviet republic further confounded this situation .

However, the effort to sift through the myriad rulings is worthwhile . As Soviet adoption law

evolved, it mirrored larger, identifiable trends in the history of the USSR . Like so many other

policies of the 1920s, adoption law tried to keep communist ideology center stage against a backdrop

of dire necessity . Decreed when the Soviet Union was flooded with millions of homeless children, i t

still reflected some of Marxism's rejection of marriage and the family . But the Soviet system' s

embrace of the family after the 1930s would pave the way for a legal acceptance of adoption ,

particularly after a new wave of child homelessness during the Second World War . The first Sovie t

adoption laws constructed a clear legal distance between adoptees and their new families, but over

time, adoption law would bridge that gap, affording adoptive families the same protections an d

obligations as biological ones . This article discusses the evolution and interpretation of Sovie t

adoption law, with particular focus on the legislation's most lively periods : its promulgation in 1926

and its reform after World War II .

3

Adoption Outcas t

Soviet Russia's Family Code of 1918 outlawed adoption . Like so much else in th e

revolutionary society, a combination of ideology and pragmatism inspired this prohibition .

Ideologically, adoption no longer made sense . Considerations of caste (soslovie), religion, and

inheritance had animated prerevolutionary adoption law, with adoption frequently serving as a mas k

for labor exploitation or as a means to safeguard property . 8 None of these things was expected to

have a place in the new society . The Bolsheviks believed that the world was infinitely malleable an d

that a good citizenry could be shaped at will . From the ashes of war-torn Russia, they planned t o

create a just society peopled with men and women trained in the spirit of revolutionary communism .

Although radical theorists debated the precise characteristics of these new men and women and th e

best ways to foster such worthy citizens, they were certain of one thing : proper upbringing

(vospitanie) and education were the keys to steering future generations in the right direction . Sovie t

pedagogues thus placed their faith in compulsory education at state schools that promoted collectivis t

behavior and socialist values .

The more utopian communist pedagogues proposed raising all children in institutions ("t o

nationalize them," as one optimist declared), the better to direct their development . 9 They looked

forward to the time when the state could indeed replace the individual home . But such "revolutionary

dreams" 10 would take years to fulfill, and it was not even clear that they enjoyed strong suppor t

among all Communists . In the meantime, who would be better suited to test this vision than childre n

who already were without parents? Free from the influence of "ignorant" peasants, orphans could b e

molded into solid Soviet citizens through proper rearing and schooling . 11 Nikolai Bukharin and

Evgenii Preobrazhenskii, for example, in the popular ABC of Communism, contemplated the

beautiful day when parents would no longer use possessive pronouns to refer to their offspring . 12

Adoption also made no sense in the light of other legal innovations . To combat class privilege

and private property, the Bolsheviks had, at first, outlawed, and then levied very strict restriction s

on inheritance . The architects of the 1918 Family Code feared that individuals would use adoption to

circumvent the anti-inheritance law by artificially broadening the narrow circle of eligible heirs .

Moreover, the authorities had not only enacted child labor legislation, but a law against hired labo r

in general . They not unreasonably suspected that peasants and artisans would attempt to outwit thes e

latest prohibitions by "adopting" children for the purpose of putting them to work on the land and i n

trades . Finally, in the past, adoption had been used to bestow legitimate status on illegitimat e

children . But this nicety had lost its raison d'etre in the revolutionary state : the 1918 Family Code

obliterated the legal distinction between children born in and out of wedlock . 13

Soviet authorities brought back legal adoption eight years later, with a ruling dated March 1 ,

1926 . 14 The Commissariat of Enlightenment publication that introduced and interpreted the new la w

accurately explained the reintroduction of adoption as having been necessitated by the struggl e

4

against child homelessness and the general desire to protect children . 15 At the same time, adoption's

legal status reflected more than necessity and concern for children's welfare . For one thing ,

enthusiasm for earlier goals of collective child-raising had waned ; the radicalism of the ABC of

Communism had few vocal supporters by 1926 . 16 For another, under the conditions of Lenin's New

Economic Policy, both inheritance and hired labor had resumed . Finally and most important ,

pragmatism had now triumphed over revolutionary fervor . An "instructional letter" to Sovie t

departments of education admitted that adoption would benefit hard-pressed state and local budgets .

This was followed with a caveat about how adoption was to be "permitted exclusively in the interest s

of the children," but the point about adoption's cost-saving advantages was clear . 17

What had changed since the heady days of the 1918 Family Code? Famine in 1921 had turne d

the child homelessness (besprizornost') that followed the First World War and the Russian Civil Wa r

into a phenomenon of staggering proportions . 18 Plagued by millions of homeless waifs and running

thousands of makeshift orphanages that were bursting at the seams, the state could not begin to fulfil l

its commitments to the next generation . 19 Soviet leaders feared that these children would grow up t o

be not just slackers and indifferent citizens, but criminals, degenerates, saboteurs, prostitutes . and

thieves . 2 0

When 400 starving children were evacuated from the famine-wracked Volga region to Irkuts k

in the winter of 1921, it was immediately seen necessary to find them homes with private

families . 21 In Petrograd in 1921 and 1922, foster care "spontaneously " emerged as an improvise d

solution to the flood of homeless children . These placements were mandatory and often had

disastrous results, but some nevertheless resulted in informal adoptions . 22 In Moscow between mid-

1924 and January 1927, some 800 abandoned and orphaned infants were distributed for foster care t o

predominantly urban families by the city's Department of Maternity and Childhood . 23 In 1926 ,

aware that subsidized private care cost less than institutionalization, central state authoritie s

championed a broad program of foster parentage (patronirovanie), offering privileges an d

inducements to citizens willing to raise and train homeless juveniles .24 Given earlier fears about th e

damage that peasant ignorance would do to children, this reversal spoke volumes about th e

government's plight . Essentially, ambitious plans to make good socialists out of infants had give n

way to a desperate attempt to keep them from dying . As for older orphans, it would suffice t o

accustom them to honest labor, rather than street crime . From the state's point of view, if privat e

citizens were willing to assume these obligations (and especially these costs) by taking a child into a

family permanently, all the better .

Public pressure also influenced the decision to permit adoption . Numerous requests came to

the authorities from citizens who wished to turn their relations with informally adopted children int o

legal and binding ones . 25 At the same time, many individuals willing to care for orphaned childre n

refused to do so without guarantees that they could cement the relationship through legal adoption . 2 6

5

In the words of the People's Commissar of Justice, there were a "considerable number" of appeal s

from people who wanted to give children legal status in their families . To him, the continue d

prohibition of adoption was "pointless ." Pavel Liublinskii, an eminent law professor and adoptio n

advocate who wrote the introduction to the new adoption law in 1926, argued that the ban puzzle d

Soviet citizens, given that they "knew that at the foundation of Soviet law there was care about th e

welfare of children and that in the field of marital rights actual, not formal, relations always guide d

matters ." Simple legal guardianship of orphaned and abandoned children did not suffice, because i t

doomed them to remain "outsiders " (chuzhie) and it meant that the children and their putativ e

parents had no legal protection . Even a ruling by the Commissariat of Justice's Higher Judicia l

Control which allowed families to petition to bestow their surname on children they had taken in an d

file suit in court to keep the children's biological parents from reclaiming them, did not suffice . In

good materialist tradition, the question of private property still remained . Families wanted to

guarantee that property could be legally bequeathed to children not legally theirs . As the pre-192 6

law stood, even if de facto adoptive parents had no biological children and even if their adopte d

child was too young to work (under sixteen), the child could not inherit from them . And the parents

could not expect support from the child in their old age . As Liublinskii put it, the resumption of

legal adoption was linked to "the requirements of life . " 2 7

To be sure, during the eight years of adoption's prohibition there had been rulings an d

pronouncements that suggested the ban might be short-lived . For example, adoption had never bee n

outlawed in the Ukrainian republic.28 According to a decision of the Ukrainian Supreme Court in

1920, adoption was neither in contradiction to socialist law nor to Soviet power .29 As early as

1922, participants in a Petrograd district conference on the legal protection of minors called fo r

reestablishing adoption . That same year, the NEP-inspired Peasant Land Code provided for non -

related persons (priimaki) to be taken into peasant families and given equal rights of propert y

inheritance with other members of the peasant household . 30 In 1922 as well, a Commissariat o f

Enlightenment agency contacted the Soviet of People's Commissars about permitting adoptions . 3 1

One jurist called for adoption's legalization as early as 1923, claiming that homeless children wer e

better off in private homes than in social institutions . 32 By 1924 a draft of the new law had already

made it into the proposed Family Code . 3 3

Though adoption was against the law, its practice had clearly continued, despite the lack o f

legal protection . In late 1924 the People's Court in the Sovmovskii region of Nizhegorodskai a

province ruled that a woman's absent husband had to support the eight-year-old child they had take n

in . 34 That same year, a childless peasant couple informally adopted their nephew, Vania . Three

years later, when the family tried to register Vania as part of their household, the local village sovie t

insisted that he was not part of their family . The family then formalized their ties through a (now

legal) adoption, only to be misinformed by the provincial land commission that the boy could not b e

6

counted as a member of their household without permission from the local land society . A court

ruling finally confirmed the adoption and overruled the land commission . 35 To settle the problem .

generally, of informal adoptions that had taken place since 1918, the March 1, 1926 decree gav e

these relationships legal status so long as they were registered . 3 6

By July 1, 1926 around 200 adoptions had already been carried out in Moscow .37 A

correspondent in another Soviet city noted how the problem of besprizornost' had subsided since th e

March 1 adoption law.38 In the Buriat city of Verkhneudinsk, there were twenty adoptions durin g

1926, twenty-one during 1927, and thirteen in the first half of 1928 . 39 As early as the middle of

1926, there had been fifty-four adoptions in Nizhegorodskaia province, and more than 100 adoptio n

cases were pending by the following year . 40 The annual report from the Commissariat o f

Enlightenment (published in 1927) referred to a strong response to adoption's reintroduction, callin g

it evidence of "the timeliness and vitality of the new law . "4 1

Adoption Unarme d

Changing priorities and exigencies in Soviet culture determined the nature and evolution o f

adoption law . Adoption's origin as a concession to reality revealed itself in the way the law focuse d

on securing support for orphaned and abandoned children . At first, the law made no effort to equat e

adoptive relationships with biological ones . In many ways, adoptive families had much in commo n

with foster ones from a legal standpoint, except for one important difference : most adoptive parents

did not receive government stipends for having relieved the state of one more financial burden . 4 2

Unlike adoption in "bourgeois" countries, Soviet adoption was not designed to assist childles s

families, nor was it a way to legitimize the illegitimate . The Soviet Union's first adoption laws mad e

no bones about adoption's main purpose : it was to be done exclusively in the interests of minors . 43

Because this was primarily understood in terms of economic maintenance and preparation for adul t

independence, the state imposed few restrictions on who could adopt, looking only for peopl e

unlikely to exploit, corrupt, or prejudice a budding Soviet citizen . According to the instruction s

issued by the Soviet of People's Commissars and the Central Executive Committee, any able-bodie d

individual over the age of eighteen could adopt, with the exception of monks, "servants of religiou s

cults of all creeds," former police agents, members of the tsar's family, the mentally ill and insane ,

people against whom there had been criminal judgments or court-ordered deprivation of parenta l

rights, and those whose interests conflicted with the adoptee's . 44 Though this narrowed the pool o f

potential adopters somewhat, we should note that these categories neither limited adoption t o

couples, prevented someone barely over the age of majority from adopting someone just under, no r

excluded adoptive parents on the basis of social class . 45 Adopters could give children their surname ,

but in instances where the child's birth parents were known for revolutionary deeds or importan t

scientific or artistic contributions, the name change was deemed "extremely undesirable ."46 The

7

instructions underscored the conception of adoption as an alternative form of maintenance for citizen s

too young to support themselves, rather than a way to cultivate nuclear families .

The official instructions called for controls over the adoption process, albeit without promise s

of funding to carry out these duties or provisions for overseeing their implementation . Basically, the

state vested already-existing guardianship and wardship agencies (organy opeki i popechitel'stva)

under local soviets with the power to determine whether or not an adoption should go through . These

organizations were not only supposed to find out about the potential adoptee in terms of the child' s

health, character, and abilities, but to clarify the adopters' motives, their ability to provide the chil d

with the "right" kind of upbringing, their state of health, their "cultural level," and how the chil d

would fit into existing families.47 Guardianship and wardship agencies were expected to use caution

when handling requests from large families because families with several children who adopted a

child often did so to use the adoptee as a nursemaid or servant.48 Nevertheless, the desire to utiliz e

an adopted child's labor was not viewed as reason enough to deny an adoption request . 49 State

interference and control did not end with an adoption's finalization. To make sure that children were

not being abused or exploited, agency representatives were required to investigate placements at leas t

once every six months at first, and then every two years . 50

But it is unlikely that local organs had the personnel, funds, or will to carry out all thes e

orders to the letter, either in regard to the preliminary investigation or the repeated follow-ups . The

instructions themselves suggested using not only workers experienced in matters of guardianship, bu t

students, members of organizations such as the Young Communist League and the Women's Section ,

and other individuals involved in the "struggle against besprizornost'."51 In other words, party

activists were being handed the power to decide these delicate questions . No doubt the principl e

about adoption as something to be done in the child's interests could be compromised by othe r

factors: the desire to get children off the local dole ; how an investigator viewed the adopters '

political reliability ; whether potential adopters could pay bribes or exert influence ; how carefully an

investigator carried out the work, etc . 52 Guidance for these weighty decisions was minimal . The

instructions simply defined suitable adopters as individuals who could provide a child wit h

"satisfactory support, labor training, and related preparation for socially useful labor activities ."53

While love and affection did not figure into the ideal, at least on paper the law attempted to creat e

receptive domestic situations that supplied children with maintenance and skills .

To protect adoptees, the law maintained a divide between birth and adoptive parents . 54 In the

first place, there were no legal obligations and rights among family members other than the adopters ,

their adopted children, and those children's offspring . Conversely, legal obligations and right s

between adoptees and their birth families endured . Though birth parents' rights and obligation s

ceased at the moment of adoption, certain legal connections remained intact . Underscoring ho w

adoption was by and large a means to secure support for a child was the provision allowing a n

8

adoptee to inherit from both the adopters directly and members of the birth family . 55 Lawmaker s

reasoned that since adoption had been designed to benefit the child, the fact of adoption should no t

serve to worsen the child's material situation . 56 Second, to prevent adoptions for mercenary

purposes, adopters functioned only as "legal guardians" of any property that belonged to thei r

adopted children. Unlike biological parents, they did not have the right to dispose of it as they saw

fit.57 Third, to distinguish between adoptive and biological families, adopters had no opportunity t o

appear as the parents of record of their adopted child . An Irkutsk couple even withdrew from thei r

adoption of an eight-year-old when they learned that his birth certificate would not list them as th e

child's parents . As a result, the boy was returned to an orphanage . 5 8

Finally and most significantly, there was always the chance that an adoption could b e

abrogated either by the courts or through an administrative hearing . Though this jeopardized th e

stability of the adoptive family, it left room for biological parents to resume responsibility for thei r

children and it gave the state sufficient authority to wrest adopted children from exploitative an d

abusive situations . A parent whose child was adopted without consent retained the right to appeal th e

adoption through a hearing with guardianship and wardship agencies . In cases where other parties

claimed that the adopter was not fulfilling the conditions of the adoption . the court system woul d

make a determination . 59 In legal practice, adoptive parents were held to more stringent standards o f

parental conduct, and thus more liable to have their children removed . 60

Just as the new laws allowed for flexibility in the adoptive relationship, they did not full y

protect the rights of birth parents . To ease children into adoptive homes, the law remained vagu e

about the conditions for parental consent to adoption . Though consent was required, it could be

waived if the biological parents were unavailable and their whereabouts unknown . When a child's

parents lived apart from the child and failed to provide support or upbringing, consent could also b e

waived . When two parents disagreed about consent, resolution of the matter was left not to th e

courts, but to guardianship and wardship agencies . 6 1

One of the first cases testing the new law reveals how easily local authorities could mak e

mistakes, as well as how adoption decisions were subject to change . It involved a woman who took

in a foster child in April 1927 . She attempted to adopt the child after a year, but the location of th e

child's father led to the denial of her request . When the father again disappeared, authorities

permitted the child's adoption -- but by a completely different family . The foster mother sued the

adoptive parents and the local department of health, winning custody because of evidence attesting t o

her love and devotion for the child . Yet a higher court overturned the decision on the grounds tha t

the foster mother was a pensioner . She protested this ruling to a higher court, which acknowledge d

that as a worker's widow, she had every right to the pension . This court heard the statements o f

witnesses who testified to the way the plaintiff seemed " like a birth mother " to the child . Mos t

decisive was damaging testimony from the would-be adoptive parents that revealed a wish to increas e

9

their land holdings by adding an extra member to their family . In mid-1929 this court ruled in favor

of adoption by the foster mother . 6 2

Though adoption had clearly won a place in Soviet society, many lawmakers and pedagogue s

remained ambivalent, with some still seeing adoption as a stopgap, rather than a permanent

institution. When the People's Commissar of Justice mentioned the proposal to reintroduce adoptio n

in 1925 to the Central Executive Committee, he allowed that the institution might only be restore d

"temporarily ."63 A begrudging, if not negative approach could still be seen in the jurist Iako v

Brandenburgskii's 1927 dismissal of adoption as "bourgeois individualism" in states that possesse d

the means to institutionalize unwanted and orphaned children . 64 Despite the fact that the Soviet

Union launched campaigns in the late 1920s to popularize foster care as a way to reduce chil d

homelessness, adoption was not the subject of such efforts until the Second World War . For

example, a three-year plan to "liquidate besprizornost'" devised by the State Planning Commission i n

1927, a full year after adoption was made legal, failed to mention adoption as a strategy . 65 In 1929

a Commissariat of Enlightenment worker stationed in Irkutsk complained that not enough work ha d

been done to propagandize and popularize adoption . 66 Despite the tens of thousands of children i n

orphanages, resolutions from two major conferences on child protection and besprizornost' in 1930

said nothing about promoting adoption . 67 As late as 1932, a Commissariat of Enlightenment lega l

work referred to children's need for parents "so long as the state cannot take upon itself the full car e

of children."68

We can characterize the 1930s as a transitional period for Soviet adoption policy and law . As

historians have pointed out, instead of the family "withering away" under socialism, it came to b e

lauded and bolstered by the Stalinist state . Consequently, socialist theories about the family' s

extinction fell from official favor . 69 Laws mirrored this adjustment by prohibiting abortion ,

complicating the divorce process, and holding parents and guardians liable for their children's

behavior . 70 Though adoption still did not receive a ringing endorsement, in 1934 the Commissariat s

of Enlightenment and Justice issued a critical joint ruling that established the precise conditions fo r

waiving parental consent . It specified that children whose parents' whereabouts were unknown fo r

one year, whose parents were under guardianship as a result of mental illness, or whose parents ha d

not inquired about them for a year could be adopted. If a child was in a state institution, the

administration was required to launch a search for the parents . But this course of action was no t

always pursued . 71 The 1934 ruling not only further eroded parental rights, but coincided wit h

official policies that turned countless children into pariahs and orphans .

Not surprisingly, and in marked contrast to the lively discussion of the previous decade, littl e

was published on adoption in the 1930s . A spotlight on adoption might illuminate how the growin g

socialist state had failed orphaned children, just as it might draw untoward attention to the million s

of children who had been orphaned because of collectivization, a devastating famine in Ukraine, an d

1 0

the purges . Although adoption remained legal, it would have been counter-productive to advocate i t

at a time when the state wished, in opposition to Marxist ideology, to promote biological familie s

and parental obligations . In the cautious language of 1939, foster families were needed for childre n

"who had lost [their] parents for one reason or another . " 72 A confidential report from a party

member investigating the progress of collectivization in the village of Fastovetskaia in 1932 mention s

the dire situation of children left orphaned and homeless after the arrest of their "kulak" parents . I t

describes how such children were sleeping outdoors and eating garbage . In one family with thre e

children, the six- and the four-year-old remained on the streets after their eleven-year-old brothe r

had hung himself in desperation . Not only were village and other family members afraid to shelter

these orphans, but local authorities feared that assistance to the children would bring down th e

charge of aiding counter-revolutionaries on their own heads . As for the orphanages, they wer e

full . 7 3

Adoption Arme d

It was not until the Second World War, a time when the orphaned millions could easily b e

blamed on circumstances beyond the Soviet state's control, that adoption assumed a more honore d

place. At the same time that the press lauded citizens who had demonstrated their "patriotism" b y

adopting war orphans, 74 adoption rules shifted to protect the adoptive relationship more fully and ,

eventually, place it on a footing approaching the biological one . In the postwar years, particularl y

during the initial phase of deStalinization, experts in family law strove to put adoptive and biologica l

parents on even more equal grounds .

Glorified during the Second World War, adoption had lost the stigma of the tsarist period an d

the revolution's first decade . 75 Fear that adoption would result in the exploitation of a child's labo r

had subsided now that NEP was a thing of the distant past. Child protection services had also grow n

more efficient and reliable than the makeshift networks of the 1920s . 76 Moreover, with the famil y

unequivocally a basic cell of socialist society, any hesitations about creating new ones ha d

vanished . 77 Once again, necessity played a role as well . The German attack and occupation of th e

western USSR separated millions of families and resulted in the orphaning of countless children .

Stable, permanent adoptions would help the Soviet population resurrect itself after the devastation o f

the war. At the same time, they would help forestall a repeat performance of the besprizornost' that

again threatened to rend the very fabric of society .

No longer encumbered by anti-family ideology, the state did what it could to encourag e

adoption . In the fall of 1943 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ruled that adoptive parents could give

children their surnames and patronymics, and be listed on the children's birth certificates . 78 This

demonstrated an important adjustment in official attitudes ; no longer was adoption simply a

necessary evil realized in response to massive besprizornost' and the government's inability t o

1 1

provide children with care . During wartime it had been legitimized as a means to create and recreat e

families . 7 9

Pro-adoption rulings continued in the postwar period, at first to cement the integration of wa r

orphans into new families and, ultimately, to reflect pressures from the legal profession . Whereas th e

first adoption laws kept the fact of a child's adoption central to how a family would be treated, th e

postwar rulings strove to make adoption both invisible and binding . The most significant decision

came in 1950, when the USSR Supreme Court ruled that all legal ties between adoptees and birt h

parents ceased from the moment an adoption was finalized . That closed the door to adopted

children's previous rights of inheritance from their biological parents, just as it opened the door to

putting adoptive and biological families on an identical legal foundation . 80 A ruling further along

this road was made in June 1956, when the Soviet of Ministers allowed adopted children to b e

counted when calculating a mother's state subsidy . 81 On similar lines, in May 1960 the ministries o f

Justice and Enlightenment ruled that adoptive parents could alter the birth date of a child for up t o

three months before and six months after the actual one . 82

In 1948 the Judicial Board for Civil Affairs of the USSR Supreme Court issued a ruling tha t

reflected the general postwar trend of strengthening and upholding adoptive family relationships .

When a couple divorced in 1948, the husband asked to have the 1942 adoption of his eight-year-ol d

stepson annulled on the grounds that he had tried to create a solid family with the adoption, but no w

he wanted no responsibility for his former wife's child . The Judicial Board ruled that the adoption

was irrelevant to the plaintiff's relationship with his former wife, decreeing that guardianship and

wardship agencies make a determination based on the boy's best interests . 83 The Russian Suprem e

Court rejected the suit of a woman who sued her estranged husband for support of their adopted wa r

orphan; it turned out that she alone had adopted the girl in 1944 . When this matter went to th e

USSR Supreme Court, however, the decision was reversed on the grounds that the husband had

indeed treated the child as his own (as was evinced by the 700 rubles he sent her each month unti l

1946) and had even attempted to adopt her legally . 84 In a comparable case, a man in Leningra d

adopted the two-year-old daughter from his wife's first marriage in 1944. In 1953 he went for a

vacation in Kislovodsk and did not return . He sued for divorce the following year, and then, in 195 5

attempted to have the adoption invalidated . The Leningrad People's Court ruled against him ,

asserting that the dissolution of a marriage was not grounds for dissolving an adoption that had laste d

for more than ten years . It cited the "great trauma" that the revocation would have for th e

daughter . 85

Nevertheless, out of fairness to families who had lost touch during the war and in accord wit h

the belief that "parental love" stemming from biology provided the optimal family glue, high cour t

rulings gave precedence to birth relationships when ruling on custody battles between adoptive o r

foster parents and biological parents who had resurfaced and hoped to recover their children . 86 Just

1 2

prior to the war, the Fridval'd couple left their two-year-old daughter, Mariia, with he r

grandparents, who were killed when the Germans invaded . At that time another family took in th e

child . When the mother returned after the area was liberated, several courts, all the way up to the

Supreme Court of Ukraine, ruled that Mariia should remain with her new family . But the USS R

Supreme Court found in favor of Fridval'd, ruling that the adoption had been "happenstance," an d

that there were no grounds to keep the child from her birth mother . So long as there were n o

compelling reasons to suspect that a biological parent was unable to provide the child with a prope r

upbringing, there was no basis for upholding the adoptions of children whose biological parents wer e

alive . 87

Yet there was no question that adoption had been transformed . Images of adoption had finall y

caught up to the way the Soviet family had been reconstituted in the 1930s . No longer was adoptio n

simply a means for maintaining an orphaned or abandoned minor ; it had become valid in its own

right. Whereas adoption literature of the 1920s spoke of adoption as something designed fo r

children, not the childless . adoption was now recognized as serving the needs of both children an d

adoptive parents . 88 More and more typical were remarks like those of the lawyer Aleksandra

Pergament in 1949: while social vospitanie remained vital for a growing child, it was also necessar y

"to be in a family, where [the child] is surrounded by parental love, affection and care ."89 Another

legal scholar noted how adoption satisfied the "natural" desire of citizens who wanted to raise a

child, allowing that children could strengthen and fulfill a couple's marriage . 90

The criteria for permitting adoptions reflected these trends after the initial postwar era, wit h

the two-parent model increasingly the norm . Despite the fact that there was no ruling to this effect ,

authorities began discouraging adoptions by one individual . When one member of a couple attempte d

to adopt, guardianship and wardship agencies tried to ascertain the cause of the spouse's reticence ,

advising that both husband and wife adopt the child . 91 As a 1951 work put it . adoption by couple s

created "more normal conditions of vospitanie in the family . " 92 By 1959 it was rare for authoritie s

to finalize single-parent adoptions, unless the adopter was a relative or had demonstrated a

commitment to working with children (e .g., by teaching) . 93 Similarly, clearly defined gender roles

were part and parcel of the idealized postwar Soviet family . 94 For example, an article about a boy

who was adopted by his aunt and uncle hailed the adoptive mother for scheduling her job during th e

hours the boy was at school . "Such work gives her the opportunity to be with her son all day ." 95

Central to the changed vision of adoptive families after the war was the sense that adopte d

children should regard their parents as biological ones . As the author of a postwar (1948) wor k

asserted, "An overwhelming number of parents who have taken children at an early age for

upbringing believe that one of the conditions for the happy childhood and spiritual peace of a n

adopted child is the absence of any doubt that the family in which he lives is his birth family, an d

that papa and mama are his birth parents . "96 She described with approval a successful ploy carrie d

1 3

out by a middle-aged woman who lost two sons in the war . In June 1943 this woman went to a

children's home in Moscow and was charmed by a little boy named Vova, who, along with hi s

infant brother, wound up in state care after their mother was killed . The woman went up to him an d

asked whether his mother had died . He nodded his head. She corrected him : "It was your aunt who

died . I'm your mother ." When she returned for him in a couple of days, he announced to a nurse a t

the home, "Mama and I are going to Moscow, home . " 97

Children could have memories of their past, but those memories were expected to fade

"because they do not find themselves reinforced by reality ."98 For example, a woman who adopted

a sickly five-year-old rescued from the occupied zone, was happy to see that Kolia seemed to recal l

nothing of his earlier life . When, after several months, Kolia started making remarks that suggeste d

otherwise, the new mother simply insinuated herself into these memories . She surmised that a query

about whether she remembered running with him after the cart referred to the time the child and hi s

parents had been evacuated . So she cleverly answered yes, improvising that she remembered how h e

was crying and asking for her hand . 99 The fact that Freud's notions of the strength of childhoo d

impressions and" the influence of early memories had no place in Soviet psychological thought mad e

such simplistic approaches to complex issues relatively easy to swallow . 10 0

Adoption Recas t

In this new climate, legal observers were quick to point out the shortcomings of adoption law ,

with notions of fairness and justice permeating the literature . The first target of judicial criticism wa s

the adopted child's lack of legal connections with relatives other than the adoptive parents . The lega l

scholar Grigorii Sverdlov launched an initial challenge to the law even prior to Russia's involvement

in the war . At the same time that he praised Soviet adoption law in contrast to "bourgeois "

legislation, he admitted that a "serious defect" had been "borrowed" from the bourgeoisie -- the fac t

that the rights and obligations of adopted children extended only to the adopters . Such a situation ,

cautioned Sverdlov, left the Soviet Union vulnerable to charges that socialist law did not endo w

citizens with full rights and limited a child's "legal assimilation into the family ."101 Virtually every

article on adoption thereafter singled out the child's legal alienation from adoptive siblings an d

grandparents as a problem . 10 2

Criticism picked up during the years following Stalin's death . Practitioners of family law wer e

an integral part of the civil society that was emerging undetected by Western eyes from the year s

following the death of Stalin to the rise of Gorbachev . 103 A review of the post-1956 literatur e

supports Berman's observation about the renewal of controversy in the legal profession and the

increase in popular participation in the making of Soviet law . 104 By registering their dissatisfaction

with adoption laws, legal authors gained the opportunity to criticize certain broader aspects of Sovie t

society. As one author who argued for more specific adoption law requirements put it in 1963 ,

14

"remnants" (perezhitki) of the past necessitate more stringent regulations . 105 Adultery, avarice .

fraud, and child abuse appear repeatedly in adoption cases, revealing the way "perezhitki" continued

to bubble below the surface calm of Soviet society .

In the late 1950s several jurists attacked the ease with which the decree of 1934 enable d

biological parental consent to be bypassed during an adoption procedure . A senior consultant for the

Soviet of Ministers' judicial commission argued that the 1934 decree not only violated adoption laws ,

but also Article 12 of the Russian Federation Civil Code which provided that death alone terminate d

a citizen's personal and property rights . He maintained that mental illness should also not serve a s

grounds for depriving a citizen of parental rights, since there was always the possibility that the

mentally ill could get well . This author recommended using more caution when depriving a

biological parent of rights who failed to take part in a child's upbringing or support . After all, the

parent could be suffering from a long illness that made it impossible to care for the child . 106 (In

other circumstances, he might have added something on parents who had been incarcerated .) The

author of a second article also raised cautious examples of situations when the 1934 ruling woul d

prove too vague . What, for example, of parents who had been unable to take part in raising a child?

Moreover, did not the decree contradict the July 1944 assurance to single mothers that they migh t

keep their children in state care indefinitely? 107 The Plenum of the Russian Federation's Suprem e

Court joined the fray when it complained in 1968 that a study of legal practice revealed man y

"errors" in deciding questions of children 's interests and parental rights .'108

The dual procedures for reversing adoptions also met with criticism . Until 1968 guardianship

and wardship agencies conducted the hearings initiated by biological parents, and the courts ruled o n

other suits . To counter the potential for arbitrary and unlawful reversals of adoptions, jurist s

recommended a judicial process for all cases . Sverdlov had targeted the dual procedure i n 1940.109

Aleksandra Pergament seconded him in 1949, arguing that one procedure -- a judicial one -- woul d

best protect the biological parents' rights . 110 Commentators ventured further in the period afte r

Stalin 's death, with several praising the Georgian republic, which allowed only court procedures, a s

an example worth following . 111 One author proposed eliminating annulments altogether ; for

parity ' s sake, adoptive parents who proved unfit should simply have been liable to court deprivatio n

of parenta l rights.112

Adoption ' s revised status received legal confirmation in the Family Code of 1968 . Most

significantly, 1968 adoption was finally placed on a par with biological parenting . 113 The 1968

Family Code heeded the repeated calls to make the adoptee a part of the adopters' entire family .

Article 25 stated once and for all that adoptees and their descendants had the same personal right s

and obligations as any blood relatives in the adopters' family . Moreover, the new law provided fo r

only one procedure -- a judicial one -- for the revocation of an adoption. At an adoptive parent' s

request, the birth information of a child could now be altered to reflect a date six months from th e

1 5

actual birth . This reinforced and expanded the 1960 ruling which allowed adoptive parents, withi n

limits, to make a child's birth date suit the birth story of their own making for the purpose of hidin g

a child's biological roots not only from the adoptee, but from friends and family . Finally, the Famil y

Code of 1968 enshrined confidentiality by adding a statute which protected "the secret of adoption . "

Criminal penalties awaited anyone who revealed adoption information . 114 Most significantly, all of

these standards conformed with what was then the current wisdom about adopted children's bes t

interests . 115

Of course, other imperatives still guided Soviet adoption practice . 116 An emigre describe d

how a barber and his wife who had lost their only son attempted to adopt a two-year-old, only t o

have their adoption request turned down . One of the barber's customers, a deputy to the USS R

Supreme Soviet, investigated the refusal, only to hear that the couple had been denied the chil d

because of their age . Since this sounded absurd, the deputy probed further, learning that the barber' s

Jewish nationality was the real problem : a "secret instruction" from the Ministry of Internal Affair s

forbade Jews from adopting for fear that they would emigrate with the child. 117 In 1968 the

Department of Education in Saratov won a suit to deny the guardianship of an eleven-year-old girl t o

her grandmother because the latter was religious .' 118 It has also been alleged that parents could b e

deprived of parental rights for refusing to give their children a solid communist upbringing, as wel l

as for seeing to their children's religious education . 119 Cherviakov, Ustanovlenie i prekrashchenie

roditel'skikh prav i obiazannostei, p. 71 . 3 However, most Soviet adoption practice stayed faithful t o

adoption's origins, struggling to base decisions on what was perceived as best for the children . 120

When a couple attempted to adopt an eight-year-old boy from a children's home, their request wa s

turned down because the boy had a six-year-old sister, and the Municipal Executive Committe e

feared that the children's separation "could traumatize" both children. 12 1

Soviet adoption law, as it was reconstituted in the Family Code of 1968, was far from perfect .

Yet, in comparison with adoption laws in United States and Europe, it had come as close as possibl e

to guarding a child's interests, protecting the rights of biological parents, securing confidentiality ,

and providing adoptive families with the opportunity to establish normal, stable, and permanen t

relationships . From its reluctant beginnings as a way to lessen the numbers of children in state

institutions, adoption had become an accepted, if not praiseworthy, way of creating a family . The

evolution of adoption law mirrored the evolution of Soviet society . Promulgated just prior to th e

collectivization of agriculture and the First Five Year Plan, its enactment still reflected some of th e

revolution's initial radicalism : adoption was not meant to comfort the childless or even provid e

unwanted and orphaned children with love, but to train young citizens of the Soviet republic fo r

"socially useful labor activities ." Accordingly, the law gave authorities much leeway both i n

1 6

finalizing adoptions and revoking them . In the 1930s, extreme flexibility with the concept of parenta l

rights allowed adoption to provide care quietly for the children whose parents had been removed t o

parts unknown . During World War II, adoption finally hit its stride, gaining recognition as th e

selfless act of patriotic citizens . Adoption was already far from its roots in the postwar period . At

that time, lawmakers strove to put it on a par with biological parenting, promoting a form o f

adoption that not only looked like biological parenting, but rendered children's personal historie s

invisible to both the children and those around them . In the process, legal activists flexed ne w

muscles acquired during the relative openness of deStalinization . Their efforts bore fruit in the lega l

decisions that increasingly stabilized adoptions and ultimately, ripened into the Family Code of 1968 .

ENDNOTES1 .This case is referred to in several sources, but the best overview is in Biulleten' Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR no . 3

(1971) : 12-13 . See also Konstantin K . Cherviakov, Ustanovolenie i prekrashchenie roditel'skikh pray i obiazannoste i

(Moscow: Iuridicheskaia literatura, 1975), pp . 83-84; S .I . Gusev, editor, Sbornik postanovlenii Plenuma i opredeleni i

Sudebnoi kollegii po grazhdanskim delam Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR (1962-19782g .) (Moscow: luridicheskai a

literatura, 1980), pp . 265-266 .

2 .Aleksandra I . Pergament, "Nekotorye voprosy usynovleniia ." in Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost' no . 2 (February

1949) : 23 ; Nataliia M. Ershova, Pravovye voprosy vospitaniia detei v sem'e (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Nauka," 1971) ,

pp . 74-75. If the mother, however, did not display any concern for the child (by visiting, writing letters, keeping th e

child apprised of her whereabouts, etc .), the child could be adopted without her permission . Mania M. Kliachko ,

Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu (Moscow : Gosiurizdat, 1963), p . 21 ; Z.A . Oshlakova, Usynovlenie detei ranneg o

vozrasta (Alma-Ata, 1969), p . 9 .

3 .Harold J . Berman, Justice in the U .S .S .R . : An Interpretation of Soviet Law (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University

Press, 1963), p . 8 .

4 .The Soviet prosecutor Andrei Vyshinskii explained the coexistence of law and terror as stemming from the absenc e

of worldwide communism . Until communism triumphed, the law only covered certain sectors of society . Quoted i n

Berman, Justice in the U .S .S .R., p . 57 .

5 .From the very start, Soviet adoption laws compared favorably with the basic criteria for adoption that wer e

established by a United Nations survey in 1952 . See Comparative Analysis of Adoption Laws (New York: United

Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 1956) . Their post-1968 laws adhered to seven standards outlined

in a 1994 study of contemporary adoption law and practice : (1) informed and voluntary parental consent ; (2) emphasis

on the child's best interests ; (3) substituting the biological family for the adoptive one; (4) confidentiality ; (5 )

permanence; (6) "the donative non-contractual nature" of the process ; and (7) the importance of early-age placements .

Joan H . Hollinger, "Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," in Adoption Law and Practice I (Albany, NY :

Matthew Bender, 1994), p . 1 .

6 .Berman argues that no one attempted to recodify Soviet legislation both for technical and political reasons :

technically, the laws were nearly impossible to integrate, and politically, there was the fear of Stalin's disapproval .

Berman, Justice in the U .S .S .R., pp . 235-236 .

7 .Nataliia M . Ershova, "Opeka (popechitel'stvo) i usynovlenie (udocherenie)," in Sovetskaia iustitsiia no . 1 (Januar y

1969): 18 .

1 7

8 .On orphans in the Imperial period, see David L . Ransel, Mothers of Misery : Child Abandonment in Russi a

(Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1988) . Bernice Madison called the ban a "reaction to the failure of man y

adoptive homes to provide good care in tsarist times ." Bernice Q . Madison, Social Welfare in the Soviet Unio n

(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), p . 36 .

9 .So spoke Zlata Lilina, head of the Petrograd Department of Education and wife of the Bolshevik leader Zinoviev, a t

an 1918 conference . Quoted in James Bowen, Soviet Education : Anton Makarenko and the Years of Experiment

(Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962), p . 36 .

10 .For a discussion of radical visions, see Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams : Utopian Vision and Experimenta l

Life in the Russian Revolution (New York and Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1989) .

11 .Soviet theorists were actually operating in the tradition of those pre-revolutionary philanthropists and social activist s

who displayed a marked "preference for the public upbringing of children." See Adele Lindenmeyr, "Maternalism an d

Child Welfare in Late Imperial Russia," in Journal of Women's History V, no . 2 (Fall 1993) : 123 .

12 .N. Bukharin and E . Preobrazhensky, The ABC of Communism: A Popular Explanation of the Program of th e

Communist Party of Russia (Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press, 1966), pp. 233-234. Ironically ,Bukharin's own son, Iurii, received a cruel taste of his father's optimistic medicine when he was raised in orphanagesand foster homes, not knowing that "his" father was Bukharin and not even learning that "his" mother was alive unti l

he was twenty .

13 .On reasons for adoption's prohibition, see Pavel I . Liublinskii, "Ob usynovlenii," in Drug detei no . 1 (January

1925); 8-11 ; Pavel I . Liublinskii, "Novyi zakon ob usynovlenii, " in Ob usynovlenii detei i podrostkov (Moscow :

Izdanie Detkomissii VTsIK, 1926), pp . 1, 22-23 ; Dmitrii I . Kurskii, Proekt Kodeksa zakonov o brake, sem'e i opek a

1925 goda (Moscow: Iuridicheskoe izdatel'stvo NKIu RSFSR, 1926), p . 7 ; Evgenii I . Dombrovskii, "Usynovlenie i

opeka po deistvuiushchemu zakonu i po proektu Kodeksa zakonov o brake, sem'e i opeke," in Sbornik stateii

materialov po brachnomu i semeinomu pravu, edited by Dmitrii I . Kurskii (Moscow : luridicheskoe izdatel'stvo NKIu

RSFSR, 1926), pp . 71-72; "Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii'," in Ob usynovlenii detei i podrostkov, p . 60 ; Pave l

V. Gidulianov, Brak, razvod, otyskanie ottsovstva i usynovlenie (Moscow: Iuridicheskoe izdatel'stvo NKIu RSFSR ,

1926), p . 51; Iakov N. Brandenburgskii, Semeinoe, brachnoe i opekunskoe pravo RSFSR (Moscow : Iuridicheskoe

izdatel'stvo NKIu RSFSR, 1927), pp. 65-66 ; P . Stuchka, "Usynovlenie," in Entsiklopediia gosudarstva i prava II ,

edited by P . Stuchka (Moscow : Izdatel'stvo kommunisticheskoi akademii, 1925-1927), pp . 1388-1389. Wend yGoldman attributes the ban to "the belief that the state would be a better guardian for an orphan than an individua lfamily" and the fear that "adoption would allow peasants to exploit children as unpaid labor ." Wendy Z . Goldman ,Women, the State and Revolution : Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936 (Cambridge : Cambridge

University Press, 1993), p . 52 .

14 .Adoption was also prohibited in England until 1926 . Hollinger attributes the reluctance to codify adoption in Grea tBritain to the "traditional English commitment to blood lineage as a basis for class and status differentiation, alon g

with hostility towards illegitimacy." Hollinger, "Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," p . 19. See also

Comparative Analysis of Adoption Laws, p . 3 .

15 .Ob usynovlenii detei i podrostkov, p . iii . For debates on the proposed adoption law, see "Stenograficheskii otche tzasedanii 2 sessii Vserossiiskogo Tsentral'nogo Ispolnitel'nogo Komiteta XII sozyva 17 i 19 oktiabria 1925 goda poproektu Kodeksa zakonov o brake, sem'e i opeka," in Sbornik statei i materialov po brachnomu i semeinomu pravu .

16 .Pavel I . Liublinskii, "Opeka i detskaia besprizomost'," in Vestnik prosveshcheniia no . 4 (1923) : 196, 200. In thelegal profession, notable exceptions were lakov Brandenburgskii, who in 1927 still called state-controlled child-raisin g"unquestionably better" than adoption, and L . Azov who, as late as 1928 referred to adoption as a "temporary "measure that would exist until the state could care for all children in need. See Brandenburgskii, Semeinoe, brachnoe ,

i opekunskoe pravo RSFSR, p. 66; L. Azov, "Usynovlenie i priimachestvo," in Krest'ianskii iurist no . 16 (1928) : 13 .

17 ."Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii'," p . 62. See also Sergei I . Raevich, "Brachnoe, semeinoe i opekunskoe

pravo v usloviiakh NEPa," in Vlast' sovetov no. 3 (March 1923) : 49 . In the blunt words of a recent adoption study ,

adoption means that "[s]tate and local governments are spared the costs of caring for unwanted, mistreated o rimpoverished children ." Hollinger, "Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," p . 7 .

1 8

18 .On besprizornost', see Alan M . Ball, And Now My Soul Is Hardened : Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918 -

1930 (Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1994) .

19 .On the horrible conditions in Soviet orphanages, see Ball, And Now My Soul Is Hardened, pp . 108-126 .

20 .See, for example, statements by Anatolii Lunacharskii, the People's Commissar of Enlightenment, in Narodnoe

prosveshchenie v RSFSR k 1924/25 uchebnomu godu (Moscow, 1925), p . 78 ; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR k

1925/26 uchebnomu godu (Moscow, 1926), p . 63 .

21 .Vlast' truda (December 11, 1921), printed in Spasennye revoliutsiei . Bor'ba s besprizornost'iu v Irkutskoi gubernii i

okruge (1920-1931 gg .) (Irkutsk: Vostochno-Sibirskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1977), pp . 39-40 .

22 .M. Ustvol'skii, "K voprosu o peredache besprizornykh v krest'ianskie sem'i," in Leningradskaia oblast' no . 4

(1928) : 112; E. Rozenblium, "0 podkidyshakh, " in Drug detei no . 2 (1926) : 5 ; S . Zarechnaia, "Vtoraia sem'ia," in

Drug detei no . 4 (April 1928) : 15 ; Pravovoe polozhenie rebenka v sem'e, edited by Ia .A. Perel' and A .A. Liubimov a

(Moscow/Leningrad : Narkompros RSFSR - Uchpedgiz, 1932), p . 126 ; O.P. Nogina, Mother and Child Care in the

U .S .S .R . (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950), p . 30 .

23.0. Nogina, "Kak my boretsia s podkidyvaniem," in Drug detei no . 1 (January 1927) : 12 . The program's

promising results were reported in V.A . Pavlovskii, "Opyt otdachi detei v patronat v gor . Moskve," in Okhrana

materinstva i mladenchestva no. 2 (1925) : 118-124. See also M .S . Kokoshko, "K voprosu o znachenii konsul'tatsii i

patronata v dele bor'by s detskoi smertnost'iu," in Zhurnal po izhucheniiu rannego detskogo vozrasta no . 5 (1924) : 62 -

70 .

24 .On the campaign to encourage patronirovanie, see M .S . Serebrianyi, L'goty krest'ianam za vospitani e

besprizornykh (Moscow and Leningrad : Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1927) . See also Ball, And Now My Soul I s

Hardened, pp . 144-149 . Goldman describes patronirovanie in Women, the State and Revolution, pp . 97-99, 307-308 ,

but there is some conflation between it and the related, but separate, adoption policy .

25 .B . Orlovskii, "Bor'ba s detskoi besprizornost'iu v Nizhegorodskoi gubernii," in Shkola i zhizn' no . 11 (November

1926): 37 ; Kliachko, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, p. 8 ; Ia.R. Vebers, "Sushchnost' usynovleniia i ego pravovy e

posledstviia," in Pravovedenie no . 4 (1966) : 53 . For an official who frankly characterized the 1926 adoption law as

having been made in response to public pressure from the peasantry, see P .S . Gilev, Detskaia besprizornost' i bor'bas

nei v Buriatii za poslednie piat' let (Verkhneudinsk : Izdanie Detskoi komissii pri BurTsIK'e, 1928), p . 19 .

26 ."Stenograficheskii otchet zasedanii 2 sessii Vserossiiskogo Tsentral'nogo Ispolnitel'nogo Komiteta XII sozyva," p .

121 .

27 .Liublinskii, "Ob usynovlenii," pp . 8-9; Liublinskii, "Novyi zakon ob usynovlenii, " pp . 1-2; G . Safonov, "Shkola i

detskaia besprizornost'," in Shkola i zhizn' no . 8 (August 1927) : 82 .

28 .Liublinskii, "Ob usynovlenii," p . 8 ; Vladimir I . Boshko, Ocherki sovetskogo semeinogo prava (Kiev :

Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury USSR, 1952), pp . 292-293 .

29 .Brak, sem'ia i deti (Kharkov : Narkomiust USSR, 1925) : 65-66, cited in Liublinskii, "Novyi zakon ob usynovlenii, "

p . 3 .

30 .According to Article 66 of the Land Code of the RSFSR, a household consisted of any members who participated i n

its upkeep . This included anyone who joined the household by the practice of priimachestvo . Quoted in Ob

usynovlenii detei i podrostkov, p . 103 . See also John N . Hazard, "The Child under Soviet Law," in The University o f

Chicago Law Review V (1937-38) : 430. As several authors pointed out, priimaki differed from adopted children inthat the former tended to be adults who had been taken into the peasant household because of their labor capabilities .

See for example, Azov, "Usynovlenie i priimachestvo," pp . 11-13 . The Land Code also permitted some hiring o fagricultural labor, thereby eliminating the danger that adoption would be used to evade the prohibition on hired hands .

31 .Liublinskii, "Ob usynovlenii," p . 10 .

32 .Raevich, "Brachnoe, semeinoe i opekunskoe pravo v usloviiakh NEPa," p . 49 .

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33 .Ezhenedel'nik sovetskoi iustitsii no . 48 (1924), cited in Gidulianov, Brak, razvod, otyskanie ottsovstvai

usynovienie, p . 52 .

34 .A. Genkin, S . Kishkin, and A . Rodnianskii, Kodeks zakonov o brake, sem'e i opeke s postateino-sistematizirovannvrni materialami (Moscow : Iuridicheskoe izdatel'stvo NKIu RSFSR, 1929), pp . 84-85 .

35 .I . Rostovskii, "Na strazhe interesov rebenka," in Krest'ianskii iurist no . 13 (1928) : 12 .

36 .See "Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii'," pp . 76-77 .

37 .Most of the children either were taken from infants' homes or were already under foster care with their adoptiv e

parents . Vasil'ev, "Rabota Moskovskoi opeki," in Drug detei no. 5 (August-September 1926) : 15 .

38.Drug detei nos . 6-7 (June-July 1927) : 36 .

39 .Gilev, Detskaia besprizornost' i bor'ba s nei v Buriatii, p . 19 .

40 .B. Orlovskii, "Desist' let bor'by s detskoi besprizornost'iu," in Shkola i zhizn' no . 10 (October 1927) : 62-63 .

41 .Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR k 1926/27 uchebnomu godu (Moscow-Leningrad : Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo ,

1927), p . 61 .

42 .Peasant families who adopted children they had initially taken in under the foster care program were permitted t o

keep the tax break and extra land plot that accompanied patronirovanie . See "Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii', "

P . 77 .

43 .If a child was over the age of ten, the child had to consent to the adoption . For concerns over whether ten-year -olds were sufficiently competent to decide their future, see Dombrovskii, "Usynovlenie i opeka po deistvuiushchemuzakonu i po proektu Kodeksa zakonov o brake, sem'e i opeke," pp . 77-79; and comments by Central Committe emember Chernysheva recorded in "Stenograficheskii otchet zasedanii 2 sessii Vserossiiskogo Tsentral'nog oIspolnitel'nogo Komiteta XII sozyva," pp . 181-182 .

44 .See "Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii'," p . 65 .

45 .Despite the assertion in a 1940 source that there were still "class enemies" in the 1920s who had to be kept fro madopting children, class status was not automatic grounds for exclusion . Grigorii M . Sverdlov, "Usynovlenie po

sovetskomu pravu," in Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost' no . 1 (1940) : 31 .

46 .On rules, see "Instruktivnoe pis'mo `ob usynovlenii'," pp . 64-67, 81 . Children over the age of ten had to consen t

to the transfer of surnames in any case .

47 .Nursing infants were not supposed to be placed for adoption until it was clear whether they were free of syphilis ,tuberculosis, epilepsy, or physical and mental defects . Authorities expected that babies who turned out to be ill o r

handicapped would be returned to state institutions . Pravovoe polozhenie rebenka v sem'e, p . 125 . Liublinski irecommended that all potential adoptees be tested for syphilis and tuberculosis, and that adoptive parents be full y

informed of the adoptee's condition, because "[p]laying hide-and-seek here is completely inappropriate ." Liublinskii ,"Novyi zakon ob usynovlenii," pp . 34-35 .

48 ."Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii'," p . 72.

49 .Liublinskii, "Novyi zakon ob usynovlenii'," p . 34 .

50. " Instruktivnoe pis'mo `ob usynovlenii'," p . 83 .

51 ."Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii'," pp . 73-74 .

52 .In Alma-Ata a council was formed in 1928 for the purpose of deciding issues relating to children under the age o f

three . It gave itself the broad right to turn down an adoption if "in their opinion adoption in a given case does no t

address the interests of the child ." It also considered it within its rights to revoke an adoption if this ruling suited th e

child's interests . Oshlakova, Usynovlenie detei rannego vozrasta, pp . 10-12 .

53 . "Instruktivnoe pis'mo 'ob usynovlenii'," p . 62 .

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54 .The concept of adoption as contingent and impermanent is in contradiction to current wisdom about adoption a s"forever ." Given the potential for the abuse of adoptees, particularly in light of the leeway in the guidelines, th eprovisions for reversals were supposed to protect, rather than hurt, adopted children .

55 .In the 1930s approximately half the states in the United States also left open "the possibility that destitute adoptiv eparents and the state could hold an adoptee's biological parents contingently liable for child support ." Hollinger ,"Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," p . 35 .

56 .For a 1926 ruling obligating a child's birth father to pay child support, even though the child had been legall yadopted by the stepfather, see Genkin, Kishkin, and Rodnianskii, Kodeks zakonov o brake, sem'e i opeke spostateinosistematizirovannymi materialami, p . 117 ; Pravovoe polozhenie rebenka v sem'e, p . 69 .

57 ."Instruktivnoe pis'mo `ob usynovlenii'," p . 74 ; Grigorii M. Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu (Moscow :Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo iuridicheskoi literatury, 1951), pp . 28-29 .

58 .Gl . Protasov, "Iz praktiki po delam ob usynovlenii (po povodu odnogo nabolevshego voprosa," in Detskii dom no .7 (1929) : 78-79 .

59 ."Instruktivnoe pis'mo `ob usynovlenii'," pp . 84-85 .

60 .Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, p . 26 . United States law also undermined the permanence o fadoption. For example, until 1974 in New York an adoption could be abrogated for "any misdemeanor or il lbehavior" by the child . Hollinger, "Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," p . 39 .

61 ."Instruktivnoe pis'mo `ob usynovlenii'," pp . 64-65 .

62 .GKK Verkhsuda po delam No . 32627, described in Pravovoe polozhenie rebenka v sem'e, pp . 134-135 .

63 . "Stenograficheskii otchet zasedanii 2 sessii Vserossiiskogo Tsentral'nogo Ispolnitel'nogo Komiteta XII sozyva," p .122 .

64 . Brandenburgskii , Semeinoe, brachnoe i opekunskoe pravo, p . 66 .

65 .See Trekhletnii plan bor'by s detskoi besprizornost' (Moscow: Rabochii Leninets, 1927) .

66 .He attributed this to claims of overwork and understaffing of other agency employees . See Protasov, "Iz praktik ipo delam ob usynovlenii," pp . 78-79 .

67 .Rezoliutsii 3-co Vserossiiskogo s"ezda no okhrane detstva, 25-30 maia 1930 g . i 1-go Vserossiisko go soveshchanii apo bor'be s detskoi besprizornost'iu i beznadzornost'iu,7-codekabria 1930c . (Moscow: Izdatel'skaia chast 'Narkomprosa, 1931) .

68 .See Pravovoe polozhenie rebenka v sem'e, p . 4 ; Sverdlov, "Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu," p . 30 .

69 .On this shift, see for example, Gail Warshofsky Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society : Equality, Development, an dSocial Chance (Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1978), pp . 110-119 ; Richard Stites, TheWomen's Liberation Movement in Russia : Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860-1930 (Princeton, NJ : Princeto nUniversity Press, 1978), pp . 376-391 ; Goldman, Women, the State and Revolution, pp . 296-336 .

70 .See Madison, Social Welfare in the Soviet Union, p . 43 ; Robert W. Thurston, "The Soviet Family During th eGreat Terror, 1935-1941," in Soviet Studies XLIII no . 3 (1991) : 553-74 ; Goldman, Women, the State and Revolution ,pp 323-327 .

71 .The absence of a requirement until 1968 for court verification of the search for a parent left much room for abuseof this provision . Ershova, Pravovye voprosy vospitaniia detei v sem'e, pp . 71-72 .

72 .B .R. Rodman, "Zadachi patronata," in Voprosy materinstva i mladenchestva nos . 2-3 (1939) : 31 . Similarly, in1940 Grigorii Sverdlov referred to children without parents and children who "for one vital circumstance or anotherhave been deprived of the possibility of living with their parents ." See Sverdlov, "Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, "pp . 30-31 . (The italics are mine .)

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73 .From Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, fond 1235, opis' 2 . delo 1348, listy l-2, in Rapports Secret s

Sovietiques : La societe russe dans les documents confidentiels, 1921-1991 (Editions Gallimard, 1994), pp . 148-149 .

74 .See, for example, Elena Kononenko, "Ty ne sirota, malysh!" in Pravda no . 31 (January 31, 1942) : 3 ; "Sirotyvospityvaiutsia v sem'iakh trudiashchikhsia," in Pravda no. 256 (October 26, 1945) : l ; Anna I . Dovgalevskaia ,"Priemnye deti," in Sem'ia i shkola no. 6 (1946) : 6 ; Anna I . Dovgalevskaia, Semeinoe vospitanie priemnykh detei(Moscow : Gosudarstvennoe uchebno -pedagogicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1948), pp . 53-54; A.N. Sinitsin, "Zabota obeznadzornykh i besprizornykh detiakh v SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny," in Voprosy istorii no . 6(1969): 27 .

75 .According to one estimate, some 200,000 children were adopted between 1941 and 1945 . A. Vaksberg ,

"Usynovlenie," in Sem'ia i shkola no. 11 (November 1956) : 27 ; Madison, Social Welfare in the Soviet Union, p . 45 .

76 .See, for example , Instruktivno-metodicheskoe pis'mo o rabote no okhrane pray detstva (Kishinev : Otdel shkol-internatov, detskikh domov i doshkol'nykh uzhrezhdenii Ministerstva prosveshcheniia MSSR i Otdel uchashcheisi amolodezhi TsK LKSM Moldavii, 1959) .

77 .No doubt Anton Makarenko's popular theories about how to foster collectivity within the family unit hastened thi salong . For a discussion of Makarenko's ideas, see Bowen, Soviet Education ; Frederic Lilge, Anton SemyonovitchMakarenko : An Analysis of his Educational Ideas in the Context of Soviet Society (Berkeley, CA: University o fCalifornia Press, 1958) .

78 .Anna M . Beliakova and Evgenii M . Vorozheikin, Sovetskoe semeinoe pravo (Moscow : Iuridicheskaia literatura .1974), pp . 269-270; Ershova, Pravovye voprosyvospitaniiadetei v sem'e, p . 60 .

79 .Boshko, Ocherki sovetskogo semeinogo prava, p . 293 .

80 .In Sudebnaia praktika no. 12 (1950) : 7 . Quoted in Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, p . 38; Vebers ,"Sushchnost' usynovleniia i ego pravovye posledstviia," p . 57 .

81 .A decade later the law allowed an adoptive mother to be eligible for disability leave for the first fifty-six days afte ran adopted child's birth . If a child was adopted after some time had passed, the mother could still receive leave . SeeErshova, Pravovye voprosy vospitaniia detei v sem'e, pp . 61-62 ; Iuridicheskii spravochnik dlia naseleniia (Moscow :luridicheskaia literatura, 1968), p . 465 . In 1956 there were some 3,750,000 single mothers with children under twelv ereceiving government subsidies . Bernice Madison, "Russia's Illegitimate Children Before and After the Revolution, "in Slavic Review XXII, no . 1 (March 1963) : 91 .

82 .Oshlakova, Usynovlenie detei rannego vozrasta, p . 7 .

83 .Described in Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, p . 15 .

84 .Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, pp . 22-24 .

85 .Cited in E .A. Posse, "Osnovnye voprosy usynovleniia," in Ocherki po grazhdanskomu pravu . Sbornik state i(Leningrad : Izdatel'stvo Leningradskogo universiteta, 1957), p . 261 .

86 .Aleksandra I . Pergament, Praktika Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR po voprosam semeinogo prava (Moscow :Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo iuridicheskoi literatury, 1949), pp . 40-44 .

87 .Pergament, Praktika Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR po voprosam semeinogo prava, pp . 40-41 . For other examples o fpostwar reversals, see the cases described in Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, pp . 18-22 .

88 .Mikhail A . Ivanov and Rimma F . Kallistratova, Sem'ia . Obshchestvo . Zakon . (Moscow : Izdatel'stvo"Iuridicheskaia literatura," 1980), p . 212 .

89 .Pergament, "Nekotorye voprosy usynovleniia,"p . 21 . By 1980 there was no longer even lip service to socialize dchild rearing : "there's not one children's institution, even the most perfect, that will be able to give [a child] as muc hlove and warmth as can a family ." See Ivanov and Kallistratova, Sem'ia . Obshchestvo . Zakon ., p . 210 .

90 .Posse, "Osnovnye voprosy usynovleniia," p . 244 .

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91 .Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, pp . 12-13 .

92 .Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu, p . 12.

93 ."Eshche ob usynovlenii," in Sem'ia i shkola no . 7 (July 1959) : 14 . By the mid-1970s adoption by one member o fa couple had become rare . Beliakova and Vorozheikin, Sovetskoe semeinoe pravo, p . 274 .

94 .On this issue, see Lynne Attwood, The New Soviet Man and Woman : Sex-Role Socialization in the USS R(Bloomington and Indiana : Indiana University Press, 1990) .

95 . The adoptive father's work as factory foreman was not questioned . See Iu. Dobrolenskaia, "Roma i eg ovospitateli," in Sem'ia i shkola no . 10 (October 1947) : 16 .

96 .Dovgalevskaia , Semeinoe vospitanie priemnykh detei, p . 90 .

97 .Apparently, she left his brother behind . See Dovgalevskaia, Semeinoe vospitanie priemnykh detei, pp . 67-68 .

98 .Dovgalevskaia , Semeinoe vospitanie priemnykh detei, p . 71 .

99 .Dovgalevskaia , Semeinoe vospitanie priemnykh detei, pp . 71-72 .

100 .Madison summed up Khrushchev-era Soviet psychology as relying on "reason," rather than instincts or th esubconscious . Madison, Social Welfare in the Soviet Union, pp . 28-29 .

101 .Sverdlov, "Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu," pp. 32-36. Sverdlov nevertheless wanted to see legal relationsmaintained with the birth family, so that they could be liable for maintenance payments should the adopted chil dencounter financial 'difficulties . Though he admitted that continued obligations involving the biological family coul dundermine the adoption, he believed that this was necessary in the interests of the child's well-being .

102.See for example, Posse, "Osnovnye voprosy usynovleniia," pp . 253-254; Boshko, Ocherki sovetskogo semeinog oprava, pp . 298-299 ; N.V. Rabinovich, "Semeinoe pravo," in Sorok let sovetskogo prava, 1917-1957 tom 2(Leningrad : Izdatel'stvo Leningradskogo universiteta), pp . 299-300; K. Kolibab, "Usilit' okhranu pray roditelei iusynovitelei," in Sovetskaia iustitsiia no . 8 (1957) : 38 ; Iu . Iurburgskii, "Usynovlenie po sovetskomu semeinom upravu ," in Sovetskaiaiustitsiia no . 12 (1963) : 7; Vebers, "Sushchnost' usynovleniia i ego pravovye posledstviia," pp .54-56 .

103 .For a discussion of structural changes in post-Stalinist Soviet society, see Moshe Lewin, The Gorbache vPhenomenon: A Historical Interpretation (Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1988) .

104 .Berman, Justice in the U .S .S .R., pp . 79-82 .

105 .He referred to a man whose attempted adoption of his orphaned nephew was revealed to be a ruse to acquire th eboy's property . See Iurburgskii, "Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu," p . 5 . This case is also mentioned in Ivanovand Kallistratova, Sem'ia . Obshchestvo. Zakon., p . 215 .

106 .Kolibab, "Usilit' okhranu pray roditelei i usynovitelei," pp . 34-37 .

107 .Posse, "Osnovnye voprosy usynovleniia," pp. 250-252 .

108.Sbornik postanovlenii plenum Verkhovnogo suda RSFSR, 1961-1971, edited by L .N. Smirnov (Moscow :Iuridicheskaia literatura, 1972), p . 41 .

109.Sverdlov, "Usnovlenie po sovetskomu pravu," pp . 36-37 .

110 .Pergament, Praktika Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR po voprosam semeinogo prava, pp . 42-43 .

111 .See Sverdlov, "Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu," pp . 36-37 ; Kolibab, "Usilit' okhranu pray roditelei iusynovitelei," p. 38; Irma M . II'inskaia, Sudebnoe rassmotrenie sporov o prave na vospitanie detei (Moscow :Gosiurizdat, 1960), pp . 33-35; Posse, "Osnovnye voprosy usynovleniia," pp. 262-263 ; Iurburgskii, "Usynovlenie p osovetskomu pravu," p . 6 .

112 .Kolibab, "Usilit' okhranu pray roditelei i usynovitelei," p . 38 .

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113.A recent study of adoption law in the United States asserts that it is only in the last twenty years that "an adopte dchild's support, succession and other property rights have truly become in all respects' equivalent to the rights of abiological child ." Hollinger, "Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," p . 37 .

114 .Cherviakov, Ustanovlenie i prekrashchenie roditel'skikh prav i obiazannostei, p . 71 . At present, authorities onadoption in the United States tend to agree that an adopted child's origins should not be kept secret from the child .For example, see Lois Ruskai Melina, Making Sense of Adoption : A Parent's Guide (New York : Harper and Row ,1989), pp . 227-236; Hollinger, "Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," pp . 13-14 .

115.See Hollinger, "Introduction to Adoption Law and Practice," for comparison .

116.On how some custodial decisions were made, see 0 rabote obshchestvennogo inspektora po okhrane detstva :Metodicheskoe pis'mo (Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1955) .

117 . Unfortunately , there is no date for this anecdote . From Olimpiad S. Ioffe, Soviet Law and Soviet Realit y(Dordrecht, Boston, and Lancaster : Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985), p . 29 .

118 .Sovetskaia iustitsiia no . 2 (1968) : ii, cited in Yuri I . Luryi, Soviet Family Law (Buffalo, NY : William S . Hein &Company , 1980), p . 75 .

119 .Luryi, Soviet Family Law, pp . 78-79 . In 1960 Komsomol'skaia pravda reported an incident involving theguardian of two children who beat the little boy because he refused to pray . See "Ravnodushie k detiam neterpimo, "in Komsomol'skaia pravda no. 177 (July 28, 1960) : 1 .

120.For typical postwar decisions, see E . Arlazorova, "Usynovlenie," in Sem'ia i shkola no. 1 (January 1959) : 17-19 ;Biulleten' Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR no. 3 (1971) : 12-13 ; Cherviakov, Ustanovlenie i prekrashchenie roditel'skikh pray ,pp. 71-86; Ershova, Pravovye voprosy vospitaniia detei v sem'e, pp . 60-81 ; Gusev, Sbornik postanovlepii Plenuma iopredelenii Sudebnoi kollegii po grazhdanskim delam Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR (1962-1978 gg .), pp . 265-266 ;

Il'inskaia, Sudebnoe rassmotrenie sporov o prave na vospitanie detei, pp . 32-40; lurburgskii, "Usynovlenie posovetskomu pravu," pp . 4-6; Ivanov and Kallistratova, Sem'ia . Obshchestvo . Zakon ., pp . 210-220; Kliachko ,Usynovlenie po sovetskomu semeinomu pravu ; Gennadii K. Matveev, Sovetskoe semeinoe pravo (Moscow :Iuridicheskaia literatura, 1985), pp . 183-190 ; Raufa F . Mazhitova, Vzyskanie alimentov (Moscow: Gosiurizdat, 1960) ,pp . 33-36 ; Pergament, Praktika Verkhovnogo Suda SSSR po voprosam semeinogo prava, pp . 40-44; Posse, "Osnovnyevoprosy usynovleniia," pp . 244-264 ; Sverdlov, Sovetskoe semeinoe pravo (Moscow : Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvoiuridicheskoi literatury, 1958), pp . 247-253 ; Sverdlov, Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu ; Vaksberg, "Usynovlenie, "pp . 27-28; Vebers, "Sushchnost' usynovleniia i ego pravovye posledstviia," pp . 53-59 .

121 .Iurburgskii, "Usynovlenie po sovetskomu pravu ." pp . 4-5 . This stands in contrast to the above-described adoptio nof Vova in June 1943, whose infant brother's fate did not figure into any recorded considerations of the children's bes tinterests .

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