Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia
Defining, Policing, and Producing Deviance during the Thaw
- 264 pages
- English
- PDF
- Only available on web
Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia
Defining, Policing, and Producing Deviance during the Thaw
About This Book
Swearing, drunkenness, promiscuity, playing loud music, brawlingâin the Soviet Union these were not merely bad behavior, they were all forms of the crime of "hooliganism." Defined as "rudely violating public order and expressing clear disrespect for society, " hooliganism was one of the most common and confusing crimes in the world's first socialist state. Under its shifting, ambiguous, and elastic terms, millions of Soviet citizens were arrested and incarcerated for periods ranging from three days to five years and for everything from swearing at a wife to stabbing a complete stranger.Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia offers the first comprehensive study of how Soviet police, prosecutors, judges, and ordinary citizens during the Khrushchev era (1953â64) understood, fought against, or embraced this catch-all category of criminality. Using a wide range of newly opened archival sources, it portrays the Khrushchev periodâusually considered as a time of liberalizing reform and reduced repressionâas an era of renewed harassment against a wide range of state-defined undesirables and as a time when policing and persecution were expanded to encompass the mundane aspects of everyday life. In an atmosphere of Cold War competition, foreign cultural penetration, and transatlantic anxiety over "rebels without a cause, " hooliganism emerged as a vital tool that post-Stalinist elites used to civilize their uncultured working class, confirm their embattled cultural ideals, and create the right-thinking and right-acting socialist society of their dreams.
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Table of contents
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. A Portrait of Hooliganism and the Hooligan during the Khrushchev Period
- 2. Private Matters or Public Crimes? The Emergence of Domestic Hooliganism in Soviet Russia
- 3. Making Hooliganism on a Mass Scale: The Campaign against Petty Hooliganism
- 4. Empowering Public Activism:The Khrushchev-Era Campaign to Mobilize Obshchestvennostâ in the Fight against Hooliganism
- 5. The Rise and Fall of the Soft Line on Petty Crime
- Conclusion: Plus ça change, plus câest la mĂȘme chose: Hooliganism after Khrushchev
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index