| Zusammenfassung: | Collaboration was more than a military challenge to the Soviet Union. From the point of view of the party leadership, entering the service of the enemy was treason against the Communist project and was thus a 'counterrevolutionary act'. When Stalin died his political heirs decided to take a critical (internal) approach towards the notion of "counterrevo - lution". For this purpose review commissions were set up all over the country, re-examining the criminal files of all political prisoners. The cases of convicted 'traitors' reveal that on the one hand commission officials exercised more judicial care, separating violent criminals from possible bystanders. On the other hand the commission members shrank from questioning the legal basis of the sentences to the final consequence. The overwhelming majority of the 'traitors', as all the other inmates, were not freed but received a reduced sentence. Viewed in this light, the re-evaluation of 'treason' (and therefore of past counter-revolutionary crimes in general) was a landmark for judicial professionalism but not a political landmark decision.
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