Indirect causation in Soviet criminal law

In this article, the authors attempt to trace the development of the norm of indirect causation in Soviet criminal legislation and law. They conclude that in the early years of the Soviet state and law, the norm of indirect causation saw virtually no development due to a number of factors: the lack of legislative codification, the rejection of the "bourgeois" legal heritage, and the political strengthening of the punitive component of the institution of complicity. Subsequently, the norm of indirect causation gradually regained scholarly interest. Until the 1960s, references to indirect causation were fragmentary and unsystematic. Only beginning with the research of M. I. Kovalev did indirect causation begin to be perceived again as a legal construct requiring its own definition, characterization, the identification of types based on various grounds for division, and the determination of place (location) in the doctrine of joint commission of a crime. Some of the grounds for indirect causation have generated considerable debate among researchers. These include, in particular, the reckless form of guilt, which is used to intentionally commit a crime, and the involvement of a general subject in the execution of the objective element of the crime by a special subject. In the 1980s, indirect causation began to be differentiated from the doctrine of complicity in the theoretical developments of Soviet scholars, acquiring the status of a legal phenomenon fundamentally different from complicity