ABSTRACT
"Asia" was probably a euphemism for "Russia" where executions for economic crimes are common. When the new Fundamentals of Criminal Legislation were enacted in 1958, after intensive debate about liberalizing Stalinist practices, the death penalty was not listed among the forms of criminal punishment. The imposition of the death penalty for the noncapital offenses strikes most Westerners as cruel and inhuman. The Soviet public was far less concerned by the new decrees, even by the executions, than many Western observers. Even Soviet jurists are quiet about the extension of the death penalty. A clique centered in Moscow established a sprawling network for speculating in gold and foreign currency. An illegal clique of "businessmen" turned a Moscow mental asylum into a secret knitwear factory of remarkable proportions: fifty-eight machines produced fashionable sweaters from 460 tons of wool.
