How in the USSR they fought hooliganism and suppressed crime

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Today it is generally accepted that in the "totalitarian" Stalinist times, absolute order reigned in the USSR, and everyone kept pace. However, this is not the case. Not all citizens of a great country built, created, mined coal, smelted iron and steel, reaped crops, stood guard over state borders. There were also those who continued to "live by the standards", violate the law, commit criminal offenses, or even just hooligan.

80 years ago, on December 7, 1939, a resolution of the Presidium of the Moscow Council of People's Deputies was issued on punishment for petty hooliganism.

It, in particular, said: “Persons committing hooligan actions, such as: annoying molestation to citizens, swearing, singing obscene songs, sudden shouts to frighten others, deliberately pushing passers-by and other mischievous tricks on the streets, in places public use, hostels, barracks, apartments, etc., are subject to an administrative fine of up to 100 rubles. or corrective labor up to 30 days."

Before the war, almost every day in the newspapers there was information about hooligans who were detained by the police. Here is one of them, published in Pravda a few days before the start of the Great Patriotic War under the heading “Hooligan at the Zoo”: “On Sunday, June 15, the Moscow Zoo was filled with visitors. Many of them observed two giraffes walking in a clearing separated from the rest of the territory by a 3-meter lattice. Suddenly, one of the visitors began to quickly climb the lattice, jumped into the clearing and, shouting “I want to ride a giraffe,” rushed to the animals. Hooligan, who turned out to be an inspector of the transport office of the 1st Moscow trust of the bakery industry A. I. Kondratyev were immediately detained. Yesterday the people's court of the Sverdlovsk region, chaired by Comrade Ivanova examined the case. Kondratyev was sentenced to 1 year in prison."

Both laughter and sin.

Another example of the struggle for order. In December 1940, according to the decision of the Moscow City Council, it was forbidden to throw scraps, shells, cigarette butts, paper and other garbage on the streets, in lanes, parks, squares and other places. Violators were threatened with a fine of ten to twenty-five rubles. The janitors were instructed to "remove garbage and manure immediately during the day."

Of course, crimes were committed in the capital and much more serious. Dashing people pulled wallets from the pockets of citizens in trams and trolleybuses, robbed apartments, "cleaned" shops.

Walking the streets of Moscow in the evening was dangerous. Sokolniki, Maryina Roshcha, Presnya, and the vicinity of the Tishinsky market were notorious. But crime on the Arbat was zero. This could be considered not only an all-Union, but also an absolute world record

Why did the punks, thieves and bandits prefer to bypass the Arbat? It's simple - there was a government highway, nicknamed the "Georgian Military Highway" along which Stalin traveled almost every day from his "nearest" dacha in Kuntsevo to the Kremlin and back. The people who lived in the area were carefully screened. If the guests stayed overnight, the owners had to inform the manager of the house about it. All attics, which could theoretically become a sniper or bomb thrower hideout, were sealed, and the hostesses had nowhere to dry their clothes. The courtyards were also closely monitored by the military and police. On the street itself, there were "stompers" almost at every step. And the criminal people prudently avoided these places.

In Leningrad, the criminal situation was no less tense. Ligovka, the area near the pub on the corner of Shkapin Street and Obvodny Canal, the Gosnardom garden, the area of the Velikan cinema, Kirov Park enjoyed a bad reputation. The hooligans acted in small mobile groups - boldly, quickly. Those who resisted were beaten by knuckle dusters, cut with razors, and stabbed to death by the bandits.

The militiamen knocked off their feet trying to curb the criminals. On October 14, 1939, an order was issued by the head of the city administration of the NKVD, which ordered "the fight against all kinds of hooliganism to set one of the central and decisive tasks in the work, mobilizing the entire police force for this."

Leningrad law enforcement officers achieved some success, and in the summer of 1940, members of a criminal group operating in the Oktyabrsky, Primorsky and Vasileostrovsky districts were arrested, brought to trial and received various terms of imprisonment.

The townspeople demanded that the authorities restore order.

Local newspapers published demands on behalf of the workers addressed to the police officers: “An exemplary order should be established on the Soviet streets. Hooligans should be afraid of Soviet laws like fire, they should experience the cruel blows of Soviet justice on their own vile skin. Enough to be liberal with the hooligans! The city of Lenin, our glorious and beloved city, must be cleansed of this filth!"

Mikhail Zoshchenko has a story "On the Street", where he writes about "sad incongruity" - hooliganism and complains that the fight against him is "weakened". Why? Because: “There are few policemen on the streets. In addition, the police are on the avenues. And the small streets are empty. As for the wipers, some of them are shy. Just a little - they are hiding. So at night there is literally no one to pull the bully …"

When Zoshchenko was on the tram, the passer-by spat at him for no reason. The writer jumped off the footboard, grabbed the bully by the arm. He took him down the street, but the guards were nowhere to be found. As a result, the “camel” was never punished.

Zoshchenko cited yet another case: in a dacha village, near the booth where the alcohol was sold, drunks were completely out of their grip. They pestered passers-by, demanded money, and one of the hooligans lay down on the ground and grabbed people by the legs.

However, the policemen pretended that nothing was happening. And then the writer advised the head of the local office to put on a civilian suit and cap and walk incognito through his possessions. He took the advice. And Zoshchenko began to expect "some changes on the front of hooliganism."

However, it was rather naive of him. Moreover, the people did not want to be re-educated, and the law enforcement officers, to put it mildly, were not so reverent about their duties. Unable to cope with the influx of punks and hooligans, the Leningrad authorities came up with an innovation - "the watch cameras of the people's courts." They were used to send people detained by the police. The trial took place right there. But what a! Without preliminary investigation, in fact, so to speak. The guilt was established from the words of witnesses, if they were present. If not, they did without them, and a few minutes later the verdict was announced.

Group criminal acts were classified as banditry. In this case, the perpetrators could be subjected to the most severe punishment, up to and including execution.

After the war in Moscow and Leningrad, the criminal situation worsened significantly. There was no time for hooligans spitting at passers-by and throwing garbage. Ruthless gangs of raiders and murderers became more active, especially since after the Great Patriotic War it was not difficult to get weapons

On December 1, 1945, at a meeting in the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the head of the UNKVD of the Moscow Region, Lieutenant-General of State Security Mikhail Zhuravlev, reported: “Recently, to the Moscow Committee, the Moscow City Council, central party and Soviet organizations, as well as in the editorial office of newspapers from residents of the city Moscow receives numerous letters and statements in which Muscovites complain that criminal crime in Moscow is increasing, that the criminal element is terrorizing the population, and does not allow workers to work and rest in peace.

These letters cite facts when Muscovites, going to work or returning from work at night, are attacked by hooligans. Muscovites write that they are not sure that during their absence the apartment will not be robbed, that it has become dangerous to walk in Moscow at night, as they can undress or even kill …"

Moore got down to business. The capital's operatives managed to defeat the gangs that kept the townspeople at bay. For example, the militiamen destroyed a whole criminal squad, which was led by Pavel Andreev, nicknamed Pashka America.

The operatives liquidated Ivan Mitin's gang, which included, among other things, Komsomol members, the foremost workers who worked at the Krasnogorsk mechanical plant. The community of thieves and murderers was called "Black Cat". But this story has nothing to do with the famous TV series "The meeting place cannot be changed."

One of the heroes of that film was a former front-line soldier named Levchenko - the one who served with Sharapov and saved him from the bandits. He got into the gang because after the war he turned out to be restless, useless to anyone …

The same bitter fate awaited other front-line soldiers who joined the ranks of the crime. The poor fellows whiled away the time in pubs, where with the same former military men they recalled how they fought at the walls of Stalingrad, on the Kursk Bulge, near Konigsberg, and complained about their current life. Thieves and bandits dropped in there, too. They looked out for those who were younger, stronger, generously treated, struck up a conversation, offered a "profitable business." And some front-line soldiers, out of despair or drunkenness, agreed. As the saying goes, if the claw is stuck, the whole bird is gone …

The writer Eduard Khrutsky in his book "Criminal Moscow" told about the gang that operated in the capital after the war. It consisted of young, healthy guys, some of them were scouts, went behind the front line, took languages. These people pretended to be police officers. In the language of the thieves, they were called "accelerators."

They met in restaurants with rich dishonest people, trade workers, speculators, underground shopkeepers. We learned their addresses and came to visit. They showed false certificates, the same search warrants and got down to business - they took money, jewelry, antiques.

Their victims were already preparing for the worst and packing up suitcases of linen for the prison. However, the "police", having drawn up a "protocol", unexpectedly allowed the owners, who had been robbed to the skin, to spend the night at home for the last time, and tomorrow morning to appear in the formidable building on Petrovka, 38.

The "razgonschiki" understood that no one would go to the police, and the robbed would immediately run wherever they looked and try to hide in some other city. This usually happened. But once…

One of the victims turned out to be an informant for the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department and came to Petrovka. He said that he was "pinched" and was very offended - they say, after all, I serve honestly, and you … Operatives became interested in his story and asked to describe the appearance of "colleagues".

They hunted for the "accelerators" and spotted them in an old house in Stoleshnikov Lane, on which a memorial plaque in honor of the writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky hangs today. They took three, but one - a former lieutenant from an army reconnaissance company, a desperate fellow, rip his head off - jumped out of the window of the third (!) Floor, landed successfully, jumped to his feet, ran across the courtyard and disappeared into the labyrinths of other walk-through courtyards of Stoleshnikov and nearby Petrovka.

What happened to him, you ask? Almost half a century later, this man brought Khrutsky to that courtyard and showed the window from which he leapt, fleeing from the police. And then he led him along that saving route, through the surviving courtyards and entrances - "drafts".

Khrutsky wrote that the "accelerator" had become a respected cinematographer in the country. But the writer, of course, did not give his surname …