ABSTRACT
This chapter presents reports on several criminal cases whose coverage in the press was dictated by “social direction.” It looks at the absurdities of the command-planning system. It features alluring slogans about real equality, mainly economic equality, and social justice. The whole political and ideological apparatus focused on the issues, placing them beyond the law, even if the economic or entrepreneurial activity in question brought obvious economic gain to society. All financial and economic questions were decided by the authorized representatives of the shareholder organizations, and all acts of the director were sanctioned by the administration of the cooperative. The fall of Khrushchev and the coming to power of Brezhnev were accompanied by the announcement of economic reforms—within the framework of socialist property relationships and communist ideology, of course. These were at the basis of everything, and any attack on them would be punished by the full might of the repressive apparatus.
