ABSTRACT
Political functions of the militia were an integral part of law enforcement in the USSR. Until perestroika, neither the Soviet law enforcement bureaucracy nor individual militiamen questioned this element of their mandate. For most of the Soviet period, the sheer number of regular policemen and their proximity to the population made it possible to effectively monitor and control the political activity of Soviet citizens, usually in conjunction with the security police. Joint militia-KGB control meant that most subversive political activity in the USSR was prevented before it could escalate to the level of overt political conflict. Since political tasks and undercover activity were central elements of Soviet policing, militiamen were, in the words of Jean-Paul Brodeur, “more deeply involved in crime management than in crime repression.”2
