Everything and everybody else is a crime unless they say it's otherwise

aka "nulla crimen sine lege"

In Russia the principle was abolished during the Russian Revolution. According to the earliest Communist decrees, criminal courts were to render judgment on the basis of ‘revolutionary legal spirit’ (revolutionäres Rechtsbewusstsein). The Soviet Penal Codes of 1922 and 1926 permitted the criminalization of ‘socially dangerous acts’ through far-fetched reasoning by analogy. The nullum crimen principle was formally reintroduced in 1958 (Art. 6 Fundamental Principles of Criminal Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics) but still remained inapplicable in practice for minor offences treated by non-professional Comrades' Courts. Today, the principle of legality is guaranteed in Art. 54 Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993.