Distinction of instigation and public calls to commit crimes in the Criminal Law of Russia XX–XXI centuries

Abstract

Throughout the XX–XXI centuries, the Russian criminal legislation, along with traditional provisions on instigation, contains norms that provide for independent (outside the framework of complicity) responsibility for public calls for the implementation of criminal activity. The article analyzes the views of the Russian theory of criminal law on the correlation of instigation with public incitement to commit specific criminal acts in the Criminal Code of 1903, counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda provided for by Soviet criminal laws, as well as public calls for criminal activity in the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The existence of these norms in different historical periods is explained primarily by the actual limits (to a greater or lesser extent) of complicity and inchoate crimes. The expansion of the range of punishable acts primarily pursues the goal to protect the existing state system, public order and security. At the same time, the limits of such criminalization and the distinction between incitement and public appeals cannot be determined by a simple technical opposition of their features, but must be established by understanding the very concept of public appeals to commit certain criminal acts. The difficulties observed today in their differentiation are not in the least connected with the changing legislative constructions throughout the century, which predetermines the interest in their historical analysis.

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