Abstract The development of criminal law in the Russian Federation has been an expression of the democratization of post-Soviet Russia and of challenging policy choices between a more humanistic attitude towards criminal behaviour and the need to cope with increasing rates of criminality and an expansion of the role of organized crime and corruption. The Soviet Government inherited in October 1917 an Imperial Russian Criminal Code of 1903 that technically speaking was among the most advanced in Europe. That Imperial Code was not immediately repealed by the Soviet authorities. Rather, the local courts were directed to decide ‘cases in the name of the Russian Republic and be guided in their decisions and judgments by laws of the overthrown governments only insofar as these have not been repealed by the revolution and are not contrary to the revolutionary conscience and revolutionary.