Russia has vacillated in its use of the death penalty over the years. A number of attempts have been made to abolish or restrict capital punishment; and yet through most of its recorded history, capital punishment has been both legal and frequently used. During a large part of the Soviet period, open discussion in the official media on the merits of capital punishment was taboo. Only toward the end of the 1980s did the subject become an acceptable topic of debate. Since then, the discussion has been lively, stimulated recently by Russia's entry into the Council of Europe and the efforts of that body to encourage Russia to end capital punishment. Participants in the capital punishment debate in Russia have adhered to one of three positions: immediate and complete abolition (held by human rights activists, defense lawyers, and members of the intelligentsia); retention and possible increased use of the death penalty (held by members of the general public and a few politicians); and gradual abolition (held by law enforcement professionals, judicial personnel, and politicians). All three categories have legal scholars among their adherents. Russia has made progress in the direction of abolishing capital punishment -- reducing the number of capital offenses essentially to murder -- but it is also clear that significant segments of the relevant elites, as well as the public at large, believe that the time is not right (and may never by right) for the complete elimination of the death penalty. 81 footnotes