ABSTRACT
Western observers of policing have suggested that the quality of a police department is dependent on the character of the individual police officer.2 The collectivist ideology of the Soviet state and the nature of communist policing precluded a focus on the individual: the militiaman was valued solely as one part of a state-organized institution. There was little concern for the professional development of the individual within the militia bureaucracy-individuals’ needs were addressed only when their neglect might impinge upon the effectiveness of law enforcement. Militiamen in the USSR were recruited not for their personal attributes, but their ability to conform to and execute the demands of the Soviet law enforcement apparatus. Obedience to superiors was the expectation within its militarized, hierarchical structure. Apart from the KGB, whose primary function was to protect state security, no alternatives to the militia existed for those who enjoyed law enforcement. Given the unified national structure of law enforcement in the USSR and the state’s monopoly of policing, those who sought promotion had to conform to the organizational objectives of the MVD. There was no possibility of obtaining alternative work experience in another police body-lateral movement existed only within the confines of the Party apparatus and its related law enforcement bodies.
