In the thirties, when the previous citizenship statute was promulgated, preambles to legislative acts were not in fashion and, true to pattern, the 1938 law did not feature an introductory statement. Today, of course, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and elaborate prefatory pronouncements are again in vogue. Accordingly, the present edition boasts a formal prologue declaring that the citizens of the USSR enjoy the totality of socio- economic, political, and personal rights and freedoms proclaimed and guaranteed by the USSR constitution and Soviet laws. The Soviet socialist all- people’s state, the preface continues, protects these rights and freedoms and ensures the rights of USSR citizens in all areas of economic, political, social and cultural life. The overture then sounds a theme borrowed from the 1977 constitution to the effect that every citizen of the USSR is obliged to observe the constitution and Soviet laws, bear with dignity the high calling of citizen of the USSR, safeguard the interests of the Soviet state, contribute to the enhancement of its power and authority, and be loyal to his socialist Motherland. The concept of the interdependence of the individual’s share of rights and duties, enunciated in the Fundamental Law, thus recurs, albeit in somewhat attenuated form, prompting speculation on whether failure to perform designated duties might, in the absence of any specific sanction, by itself serve as grounds for retaliation through curtailment of the “offending” party’s assorted rights. The answer is by no means clear at this juncture, except that most analysts have tended to conclude that the dictum formulates a moral/ political instead of a legal imperative. Worth noting, however, is the fact that public utterances on this occasion took a lot of care to emphasize the point of the indivisibility of rights and duties accorded a proper citizen in the conditions of the socialist system,1 which suggests that even if an organic linkage does not yet function, a scheme may be afoot to cultivate a popular climate which would make a positive move in that direction in the near future feasible.