SOURCE: Loeber, Dietrich A. “Samizdat under Soviet Law.”¹ In Contemporary Soviet Law: Essays in Honor of John N. Hazard, edited by Donald D. Barry, William E. Butler, and George Ginsburgs, pp. 84-123. The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.

In the following essay, Loeber outlines in detail the procedure for publishing materials in the Soviet Union and then presents an account of the legal aspects of samizdat literature in this context, including excerpts from the Soviet constitution and copyright law.

Publishing is normally performed by state or cooperative agencies in the Soviet Union. Individual citizens are not supposed to engage in such activities. They are barred from acquiring duplicating facilities, from using printing equipment, and from running printing establishments. For persons wishing to reproduce and circulate literary works privately, only a few avenues are open, such as producing handwritten or typewritten copies and distributing them from hand to hand.

This...