ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine militia operations in the USSR, including operational styles and methods, patrols, undercover work and variations in police behavior. It will also survey the changes in militia operations that resulted from perestroika and Gorbachev’s attempt to subordinate militia operations to the rule of law in the late 1980s. The four chapters that follow will focus on specific areas of militia operations: the policing of daily life, the deviant in Soviet society, crime and the political functions of the militia. Influenced by tsarist tradition, shaped by a system of centralized planning and directed by a single political party, Soviet militia operations reflected a distinct authoritarian style. Police activities in the USSR were far more encompassing, intrusive and freer of legal constraints than are police operations in democratic societies. In fact, many militia functions were governed by secret and unpublished laws-neither known nor accessible to the general population. Orchestrated campaigns against hooliganism, black marketeering and alcoholism formulated at the Politburo and Central Committee level of the Communist Party became the marching orders of the militia even in remote communities. Similarly, millions of citizens were mobilized countrywide to staff street patrols and assist in police investigations and crime prevention activities.
