ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on efforts in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to move toward minimizing differing treatment of foreigners—both natural and juridical persons—on the one hand and Soviet nationals on the other. It examines three periods: that preceding perestroika, the initial phase of perestroika extending into 1990 and from the end of 1990 onward. The issue of whether the position of foreign legal persons under Soviet law was consistent with the norms and rules of a pravovoe gosudarstvo is a more complex one. As in most other areas of Soviet law, the policies of glasnost and perestroika mark a turning point in Soviet civil law in general and with respect to foreigners in particular. One of the first major policy change under perestroika in the general civil law field relating to foreigners, however, concerned foreign legal rather than natural persons.
