Parasitism

Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996), a Russian Nobel laureate in Literature who was convicted to confinement and banishment for social parasitism

Social parasitism (Russian: тунея́дство) is a criminal prosecution of individuals on the grounds that they allegedly refuse to work^[1].

In the Soviet Union, which declared itself to be a workers' state, every adult able-bodied person was expected to work until official retirement. Thus unemployment was officially and theoretically eliminated; those who refused to work or otherwise did not work, study or serve, risked being criminally charged with social parasitism. 130 thousand people were evicted with confiscation of their property and otherwise persecuted in 1961 for "social parasitism" ^[2]

Charges of parasitism were frequently applied to dissidents and refuseniks, many of whom were intellectuals. Since their writings were considered against the regime, the state prevented them from obtaining employment. To avoid trials for parasitism, many of them took unskilled (but not especially time-consuming) jobs (street sweepers, fire-keepers, etc.) which allowed them to continue their literary or research work.

The list of those arrested and charged with the crime of social parasitism contains notable names, such as the poet Joseph Brodsky, who was sentenced in 1964 to five years of banishment from Leningrad to Arkhangelsk Oblast. In 1987 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The text of The Internationale, the famous socialist song, later adopted as the hymn of the Soviet Union (from 1917 to 1941) contains lines that refer to parasites. ^[3]

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