Notes

• [1]
  From a large selection of works, see Ed A. Hewett, Reforming the Soviet economy: Equality versus efficiency (Washington: Brookings, 1988): chap.5; Peter Hauslohner, “Managing the Soviet labour market: Politics and policymaking under Brezhnev” (unpublished PhD thesis, Michigan, 1984).
• [2]
  According to Soviet usage, the militsiia, as a voluntary civil militia attached to local soviets, contrasted starkly with the coercive police forces which serve capitalist states. Soviet authorities thus spurned the term “police” as a translation of the militsiia. In practice, however the functions of the militsiia became virtually identical to those of police services elsewhere such that for the purposes of this paper the terms militsiia and police will be used interchangeably.
• [3]
  Vsegda na postu (iz opyta raboty uchastkovykh upolnomochennykh militsii) (Orenburg, 1962): 4.
• [4]
  For more on this, see V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki v SSSR pri Khrushcheve i Brezhneve (Novosibirsk : Sibirskii khronograph, 1999): 15, 18, 262, 264, 267, 277, 291, 337.
• [5]
  See Victor Zaslavsky, The neo-Stalinist state : Class, ethnicity and consensus in Soviet society (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 1982): 33-35, 58-59, 71, 76, 140-141, 152-153.
• [6]
  At the time of its inception in 1934 the MVD’s predecessor, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), had been endowed with a very broad range of functions, including protecting state security, guarding the Soviet Union’s borders, registering marriages, managing correctional labour camps, supervising motorways, firefighting and ensuring the accuracy of weights and measures ; the commissariat’s main subdivisions included administrations for the militsiia, state security, border and internal troops, firefighting and correctional-labour camps. M.I. Eropkin, Razvitie organov militsii v sovetskom gosudarstve (Moscow, 1967): 59-62.
• [7]
  A very useful description of the MVD’s structure on 1 September 1949 may be found in A.I. Kakurin and N.V. Petrov, Gulag, 1917-1960 (Moscow : MFD, 2000): 324-333.
• [8]
  M.I. Eropkin, Razvitie, op. cit.: 74.
• [9]
  Following a spate of uprisings in summer 1953 the Gulag was returned to the MVD in January 1954 and from that stage the camp system was gradually wound down, with the rate of dismemberment picking up following XX Party Congress in February 1956. For a description of uprisings in Norilsk and Vorkuta in June and July 1953, see A.I. Kakurin and N.V. Petrov, Gulag, op. cit.: 567-587; for more on the return of the Gulag to the MVD in January 1954, see ibid.: 372-373.
• [10]
  A. Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia : Kak eto bylo (Moscow : MFD, 2000): 69-70.
• [11]
  V.F. Nekrasov, “Nikolai Dudorov,” Sovetskaia militsiia, 6 (1990): 18.
• [12]
  V.F. Nekrasov, Na strazhe interesov sovetskogo gosudarstva (Moscow, 1983): 329-330. In addition, the main administration of internal and convoy guards had seen a fivefold reduction in troop numbers between 1945 and 1955. Ibid.: 112-113, 116, 331.
• [13]
  This follows M.I. Eropkin, “Organy okhrany obshchestvennogo poriadka v sovremennyi period,” in Organy sovetskogo gosudarstvennogo upravleniia v sovremennyi period (Moscow : Iuridicheskaia literatura, 1964): 202-204.
• [14]
  In Soviet parlance this was referred to as “administrative work” or “administrative supervision.” See M.I. Eropkin, “Organy,” art. cit.: 202-203; and F.S. Razarenov, Administrativnyi nadzor (Moscow, 1964).
• [15]
  The internal passport system had been introduced through two SNK regulations of 27 December 1932 and 14 January 1933 which had sought to curb peasant migration to the larger cities. By 1953 there were restrictions on 340 cities, settlements and rail junctions as well as on several border areas. In addition, released inmates from the camps were subject to passport restrictions. A Council of Ministers resolution of 21 May 1953, sponsored by Beriia, sought to lift most of these restrictions ; it was replaced, however, by resolution no.2666-1124 of 21 October 1953. See A. Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia, op. cit.: 45-48, 385 fn. 35.
• [16]
  Non-criminal public order violations and breaches of bye-laws (which could include swearing, fortune telling, littering the parks, trampling lawns, and ruining shrubs or flowers) were either subject to on the spot fines or treated through “administrative procedures” (i.e. outside the ordinary courts). Other tasks of this kind included ensuring compliance with road and motor regulations and enforcing the Soviet licensing system by which access to firearms, explosives, official seals, poisons and the means of printing and communication were regulated.
• [17]
  Whereas in the exercise of its duties as an agency of investigation the militsiia was bound by criminal procedural laws, as a search agency it was regulated by administrative orders from senior officials. Both functions were exercized by the main administration for criminal search and investigation (and its regional departments) and the OBKhSS (Otdely Bor´by s Khishcheniiami Sotsialisticheskoi Sobstvennosti i Spekuliatsiei : Departments for combating theft of socialist property and speculation). By contrast with the social control functions, searches and criminal inquiries were together known as the “operational services” of the militsiia and usually required more specialized and better educated staff.
• [18]
  Although not completely dissolved, the internal troops of the MVD, which continued to be administered in a separate division by the ministry, were also severely reduced. The number of MVD internal troops fell by 40,000 from 1953 to 1956, so that by November 1956 troop numbers stood at approximately 18,000. See V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 33.
• [19]
  This was part of a joint list of generals submitted to the Central Committee by Kruglov and the head of the KGB, Ivan Serov, in December 1954. V.F. Nekrasov, “Sergei Kruglov,” Sovetskaia militsiia, 5 (1990): 22.
• [20]
  For a detailed description of how Khrushchev arranged Kruglov’s dismissal, see V.F. Nekrasov, “Sergei Kruglov,” art. cit.:23-24. Kruglov was eventually expelled from the party for “violations of socialist legality” on 6 January 1960. On Dudorov’s background and his support of Khrushchev, especially in the leadership struggle with Malenkov, see V.F. Nekrasov, “Nikolai Dudorov,” art. cit.:18-22.
• [21]
  Rossiiskii Gosudarstvenyi Arkhiv Social´no-Politicheskoi Istorii -- RGASPI, f. 556, op. 23, d. 8, l. 73-74.
• [22]
  For more on the system of “dual subordination” of the 1920s, in which the militsiia had been answerable to local soviets as well as to the central internal affairs apparatus in Moscow, see M.I. Eropkin, Razvitie, op. cit.: 12-14, 18, 39; and R.S. Mulukaev, “Stanovlenie organizatsionno-pravovykh osnov militsii,” Trudy vysshei shkoly MVD, 27 (1971): 7. On the centralization of the 1930s, including the creation of the main all-union administration of the militsiia on 25 May 1931 and the effective disappearance of dual subordination in 1934, see M.I. Eropkin, Razvitie, op. cit.: 57-59; and Vysshie organy gosudarstvennoi vlasti i organy tsentral´nogo upravleniia RSFSR (1917-1967) (Moscow, 1971): 481-482.
• [23]
  The militsiia was now held accountable to regional and local soviets as well as to the next hierarchical instance of the MVD. It was thus hoped that regional and local soviets and executive committees would play a more active role in organizing the militsiia, discussing its affairs at their meetings, and mobilizing public support for its actions. M.I. Eropkin, Razvitie, op. cit.: 78-79; id., “Organy,” art. cit.: 195-196.
• [24]
  See Vadim Tikunov, “Na strazhe obshchestvennogo poriadka,” Partiinaia zhizn´, 20 (1965): 15-21; “Khrushchev protiv militsii ?,” Sovetskaia militsiia, 7 (1989): 37-38.
• [25]
  V.F. Nekrasov, “Nikolai Dudorov,” art. cit.: 24.
• [26]
  V.F. Nekrasov, “Nikolai Stakhanov,” Sovetskaia militsiia, 7 (1990): 26.
• [27]
  The RSFSR MVD gained three administrations (special militsiia, internal and convoy troops, and educational establishments) to add to the six that it had at its inception in 1955 (for the militsiia, correctional labour camps, fire-fighting, cadres, archive and administration). V.F. Nekrasov, “Nikolai Dudorov,” art. cit.: 24.
• [28]
  As reported at the time by the Presidium member, Frol Kozlov, to the then head of the administrative agencies department, Nikolai Mironov. Interview with S.I. Grachev, 18 April 1991.
• [29]
  781,968 former prisoners had been released by 10 June 1953. Of these 602,130 had been registered, of whom only 64.6 % were placed in officially recognized jobs. V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 189.
• [30]
  Iu.V. Aksiutin and A.V. Pyzhikov, Poststalinskoe obshchestvo : Problema liderstva i transformatsiia vlasti (Moscow : Nauchnaia kniga, 1999): 143.
• [31]
  A letter to the Central Committee from the Stavropol kraikom of 1 March 1957 attributed the recent settlement of 6,500 aliens in the resorts of the region to the amnesty and the removal of passport restrictions. A letter of 17 May 1957 attributed similar problems in Kaliningrad to the removal of passport restrictions in 1955. RGASPI, f.556, op.23, d.32 (see fn. 21). The regime’s reluctance to prosecute “violations of the passport regime” is evidenced by decline in criminal convictions for this offense from 19,704 in 1952 to 14,409 in 1953, 9,025 in 1954 and 7,485 in 1955. Gosudartsvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii -- GARF, f.9492, op.6, d.14, l.15.
• [32]
  Iu.V. Aksiutin and A.V. Pyzhikov, Poststalinskoe obshchestvo, op. cit.: 144.
• [33]
  V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: chaps. 1, 3 and 4.
• [34]
  GARF, f. 9492, op. 6, d. 14, l.14-16.
• [35]
  M.I. Eropkin, Razvitie, op. cit.: 72.
• [36]
  Kemerovo city party committee resolution on the militsiia of November 1956 in RGASPI, f. 556, op. 23, d. 8, l. 44-45.
• [37]
  V.F. Nekrasov, “Nikolai Dudorov,” art. cit.: 18. In some areas low educational levels were also evident in the managerial stratum. A memo from Kemerovo in mid-1956 reported that approximately half of the officer corps had attended less than seven years of school while only a third of operational workers had undergone specialist militsiia training. In the Mari ASSR only 30 of 58 line functionaries, 50 of 121 operational staff and three out of 71 ward plenipotentiaries had completed secondary school. RGASPI, f.556, op.23, d.8, l.44-45, 58-59.
• [38]
  Thus, for example, a resolution of the Novosibirsk obkom of 29 November 1956 ordered that 350 communists and komsomol members should be directed to the city militsiia within two months and a further hundred should be sent to district militsii. Similarly a resolution of the Penza obkom of 13 November 1956 directed 24 party and komsomol cadres to the local MVD, while a letter from the Briansk obkom to the Central Committee of 5 November announced that 80 “politically prepared and morally sound communists” were to be appointed to the local branch of the MVD. There were also similar rulings in Vladimir, Ivanovo, Ulianovsk, Arkhangelsk, Primorskii, and Kemerovo provinces. Auxiliary militsiia “brigades” were forerunners of the people’s guards (druzhiny) which were formally introduced in 1958. RGASPI, f.556, op.23, d.8, 26.
• [39]
  Such cases were heard under “administrative procedures” which were considered by a single judge in a summary hearing without right of appeal. Administrative hearings were normally grouped together by judges and processed quickly in sessions, which could typically take up one morning a week, and be heard either at court offices or at a local police station.
• [40]
  V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 185.
• [41]
  Ibid.: 38, 146, 151, 193, 201-205. For a case in July 1957 when two militsiia officials in Leningrad used guns in order to deal with a fight with 150 students, see RGASPI, f.556, op.23, d.32.
• [42]
  RGASPI, f.556, op.23, d.101, l.79-80. For an example of drunkenness among militsiia officials in the Mari region, see ibid., d. 8. There is a good discussion of the high rates of general disciplinary punishments and party reprimands against militsiia officials in Altai Krai in 1957 in ibid., d.56, l.46.
• [43]
  V.F. Nekrasov, “Nikolai Dudorov,” art. cit.: 18.
• [44]
  Cited in V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.:202.
• [45]
  Ibid.: 206.
• [46]
  RGASPI, f. 556, op. 23, d. 101, l.23.
• [47]
  V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 206.
• [48]
  RGASPI, f. 556, op. 23, d. 119, l. 34-35.
• [49]
  V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 202-204.
• [50]
  A party resolution “On raising the role of the public in the struggle with criminality and with violations of public order” had been adopted on 5 November 1958. That month, people’s guards were set up on an experimental basis in Leningrad. Use of the people’s guards was generalized following the joint resolution of the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of 2 March 1959 “On participation by workers in the protection of public order.” In addition to the ordinary druzhiny (people’s guards), of whom there were 2 million (24,000 units) in 1959, the latter resolution gave a strong impetus to lay assistants across the range of functions carried out by the militsiia, including non-staff ward plenipotentiaries, vehicle inspectors, passport inspectors, social investigators and assistants within specialized branches of the militsiia such as the OBKhSS.
• [51]
  GARF, f. 8131, op. 32, d. 6748, l.85-96.
• [52]
  Being outside the ring also meant that food was harder to come by than in the showpiece capital. V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 258.
• [53]
  Ibid.: 243-244, 250, 260.
• [54]
  Ibid.: 261-263, 277, 289-291, 297. Kozlov [267] notes that a feature of the Murom riot was the fact that it was “almost exclusively directed at workers of the militsiia.”
• [55]
  RGASPI, f. 556, op. 23, d. 141.
• [56]
  Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta SSSR, 8 (1962): 83; 14 (1962): 148.
• [57]
  Interview with S.I. Grachev, 18 April 1991.
• [58]
  V.F. Nekrasov, “Vadim Tikunov,” Sovetskaia militsiia, 8 (1990): 21.
• [59]
  S.I. Grachev, the deputy head of the administrative agencies department, was told this at the time by his immediate boss, Mironov. Interview with S.I. Grachev, 18 April 1991.
• [60]
  For a description of these events, see Samuel Baron, Bloody Saturday (New Haven : Yale University Press, 2000).
• [61]
  V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 303, 307, 310, 316, 348.
• [62]
  Ibid.: 230-234, 305-307.
• [63]
  This is described in ibid.: 302, 366-374.
• [64]
  Ibid.: 305, 323, 350, 357, 374. Other mass disorders to have elicited some reaction -- albeit more limited -- from the Moscow leadership were the riots in Georgia in 1956 and in Groznyi in 1958. See ibid.: 153-154, 182.
• [65]
  V.F. Nekrasov, “Vadim Tikunov,” art. cit.: 21.
• [66]
  Ibid.: 22.
• [67]
  M.I. Eropkin, “Organy,” art. cit.: 183 fn. 2, 184.
• [68]
  Pravda (27 September 1962).
• [69]
  V. Shiriaev, Moia militsiia (Iaroslavl´, 1962); V.N. Liakin, Vrag ne dostignet tseli (Moscow, 1962); Vsegda na postu (Orenburg, 1962); Klimenko, Protiv khuliganov i tuneiadtsev -- gnev i silu obshchestvennosti (Petropavlovsk, 1962). On the militsiia films, see V.F. Nekrasov, “Vadim Tikunov,” art. cit.: 22.
• [70]
  See V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 384; R.G. Pikhoia, Sovetskii soiuz : istoriia vlasti, 1945-1991 (Moscow, 1998):245.
• [71]
  V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 405.
• [72]
  The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet of 26 July 1966 allowed the head of the militsiia to decide within 24 hours of arrest of a petty hooligan whether to hand him over to a people’s court, a comrades’ court or a social organization. He could also now fine a petty hooligan on the spot without referring him to a court. Procedures for court hearings were simplified and detention for petty hooliganism was raised from a range of three to five, to ten to fifteen days, with a supplementary fine to cover food and lodging. See Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta SSSR, 30 (1966): 595; for corresponding changes to the RSFSR codes see Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta RSFSR, 32 (1962): 769.
• [73]
  The new ministry had four main administrations (militsiia, places of confinement, internal troops and fire-fighting) and a number of ordinary administrations (e.g. an investigation administration). Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta SSSR, 30 (1966): 594.
• [74]
  V.A. Kozlov, Massovye besporiadki, op. cit.: 229, 402, 406.