Communist Custodial Contests: Adoption Rulings in the USSR after the Second World War

This article examines how higher courts in the Soviet Union adjudicated adoption contests after the Second World War. It argues that in the higher organs of the Soviet civil judiciary, justices acted in both the spirit and letter of the law, issuing rulings that were strikingly free of communist imperatives and that sincerely attempted to address the best interests of children. During the period from the end of the war until the fall of Khrushchev, these interests were defined as honoring biological connections whenever feasible, upholding adoptions when biological connections had been legally and justifiably severed, and keeping children in loving families. Not only does this suggest that we can speak of a genuine legal culture in some sectors of the Soviet judiciary, it also evinces the rejection of a revolutionary-era commitment to collectivized child raising.