Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of Peoples Commissars, The Distribution of Pornographic Works. October 17, 1935
This law, passed in 1934, is still part of the Russian Federation Criminal Code today, and has come into active use by prosecutors in recent years.
Original Source: Postanovlenie #2112335 (17 October 1935) in GARF, f. 5446, op. 16, d. 4002, l. 1.
The Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of Peoples Commissars of the USSR decree:
To advise the governments of the Union Republics to add to the criminal codes of the Union Republics a statute of the following content:
“The production, circulation, or advertising of pornographic works, printed publications, pictures, or any other articles [of a pornographic character], and also the trading therein or the possession thereof with the goal of sale or dissemination shall carry with it the deprivation of freedom for a term up to five years with the mandatory confiscation of the pornographic articles and the means of their production.”