Review – Comrade Criminal by Stephen Handelman (1994)

This is a useful book written by a western journalist who was based in Russia in the years either side of the collapse of Stalinism. The books main focus is on the spiralling crime that engulfed Russia and the rest of the CIS with the restoration of capitalism.

Handelman begins by tracing two main criminal groups in the Soviet Union. Firstly there were the bureaucrats who engaged in corruption and were subject to regular purges by other bureaucrats eager to maintain their positions. Secondly there was the Vor, the Theives Guild in effect the Russian Mafia to be, who at this time were concentrated in more small scale crime.

But it is the collapse of Stalinism that led to the creation of the ‘Comrade Criminals’ that the book is named after. He uses this to describe the former party and state bureaucrats who used their connections to plunder Russia’s resources and then maintain their position. He also describes how the Vor expanded their influence into smuggling all sorts of items, from people, to stolen raw materials and ancient artefacts. Indeed as Handelman goes on to note there becomes a convergence of the two as time goes on.

Handelman also discusses how investigations into organised crime are both commenced and curtailed as part of the battle between rival bureaucrats. He discusses how this frustration feeded into support for the political right for more draconian measures to tackle crime. Of course, the political right were led by just another set of ex-bureaucrats too, which Handleman picks up on when he discusses how the organised criminals saw themselves as the defenders of law and order.

One thread that runs though Handelman’s book, however, is that capitalist restoration was ‘derailed’ from the course it was supposed to take. If only the West had stepped in or the economic ‘entrepreneurs’ had seen the danger from the former state bureaucrats, he laments. Of course, despite the economic problems of the Soviet Union, it needed a section of the bureaucracy to lead it back to capitalism which had a stake in that capitalist future – hence China’s slow authoritarian march to capitalism and why sections of the Cuban bureaucracy are struggling in that direction given the existence of exiles who wish to stake their claim to such positions. Although his exposition of recent times in the Soviet Union is quite good, historically it is appalling equating Stalin with Lenin for example. It is to these mystic roots that he equates many of the problems, which I think is the fundamental weakness of this book which provides a lot of information about organised crime in the present.

Review – Social Democracy and The Wars of Intervention - By Leon Trotsky

I picked this book up second hand as it gave me the opportunity to study the Russian ‘civl war’ just after the Russian revolution. It also gave me the opportunity to compare the repression meted out by both sides during this time too.

The book itself is a defence of the Bolshevik’s attitude towards Georgia. The country had seceded from the Russian Federation in early 1918 (it ceded as part of Trans-Caucasia, which then split apart) under the leadership of the Menshevik who retained there a capitalist state. Subsequently, the Menshevik rulers sought support from the West and ended up supporting indirectly the war of intervention against Russia. Eventually after trying to live side by side, Russia was forced to invade to stop the continual attacks on itself. Throughout this whole period the remnants of the 2nd International supported Georgia as a ‘true’ socialist state against Bolshevik Russia – glossing over a whole load of unsavoury facts, which Trotsky exposes skilfully using the Menshevik’s own documents.

In interesting thing for me from a criminological perspective however is how Trotsky defends Russian actions in this situation. Unlike many human rights activists today, he acknowledges that rights depend on material factors; the conditions already existing somewhere limit them. In this instance, it is not a question of declaring universal rights for all time, but in trying to act in a manner that upholds the rights of as many people as possible. It is no good just having rights for one individual or small group when this means that the rights of many more are quashed.

To give an example from the book, discussing the famine on the Volga, Trotsky says, “In its present form of unprecedented calamity, this famine, at least half of it, is a result of the civil war raised on the Volga by the Czechoslovaks and Kolchak, that is, by the Anglo-American anf French capital which organised and sustained it. This drought fell upon a soil that had been already exhausted and ruined, denuded of working cattle, machinery and other stock. We, on the other hand, have cast into gaol some officers and lawyers (which we by no means hold up as an example of humanitarianism), and bourgeois Europe and America attempted then to picture the whole of Russia, with its hundred million inhabitants, as a vast hunger-prison. They encircled us with a wall of blockade, while their hired White Guard agents applied the bomb and torch to the destruction of our scanty supplies. If there is anyone who handles scales of pure morality, let him weigh up the severe measures that we are compelled to adopt in our life and death struggle against the whole world…”

And this is not the only example Trotsky gives like this. All in all, this book is well worth the read, even 85 years after it was written.

Crime in the Soviet Union

This piece is a look at W. E. Butler’s article of the same title in the Spring 1992 British Journal of Criminology.

Discussing crime and the Soviet Union is quite a difficult proposition. Why? Because crime stats which are often the guide for discussing crime in many countries, and in the Soviet Union these were not available for many years. Butler, who has written the article under discussion is from his tone clearly no Marxist, and to that extent is ignorant of the difference between the first few years of the Russian Revolution and it’s development thereafter. Even so, he does comment that in the early years “it is certainly the case that data on the incidence of reported crime, criminal convictions, and sentencing policies were reported and discussed in the press and cumulated in annual statistical yearbooks”(pg.146). However, “from the early 1930s the reporting of this type of ‘negative phenomena’ was prohibited on grounds of official secrecy”(pg.146). He mainly puts this down to “the obvious ideological inconsistency between the declared achievement of socialism by Soviet society and the continued pervasiveness of criminality.”(p146). Obviously, decreeing socialism like Stalin did has nothing in common with real marxism and won’t make crime disappear. But Butler treats this as part of the development of communism rather than spotting the absolute break with marxism that Stalin’s coming to power represented.
One final point on this. Butler also says “Crime by definition was expected to die out, to disappear, under socialism and communism” (pg.146); this isn’t true. Marxists have always said that crime would be near negligible in a genuine communistic society – Lenin even discussed how crime would be dealth with to an extent in his State and Revolution.

The main piece of Butler’s analysis is of crime rates in the last few years of the Soviet Union (from 1987-89). He comments that “The year 1989 was by all accounts a deplorable one… registered crimes had increased by 31.8 per cent over 1988…”(pg.148) He also a bit later discusses the main decrease being in what he terms ‘economic crimes’, suggesting that this is because “the constituent elements of those offences were not consistent with the market economy ethos”.(pg.148) I would argue it is because the are all too consistent with the market that they simply stopped being investigated.

In the data on crimes, Russia and Ukraine within the USSR accounted for usually between 75 and 85 per cent of all crime. Somewhat surprisingly “Only 1-2 per cent of crimes in the USSR are classified as narcotics related.”(pg.154), however as if to make up for this “About one-third of all criminals acted in a state of intoxication…”(pg.155)
However, interestingly for us, he concludes the article with the following comment “Preliminary data released for 1990 showed a still rising crime rate: 2,786,605 crimes were committed, a 13.2 per cent increase over 1989.”(pg.159)

This is only a brief overview of the contents of this article which includes some more fascinating statistical data on crime rates in the various constituent parts of the USSR as well as who committed the crimes as well as some more commentary. Hopefully, I will be able to look again at Russia and the USSR in the near future. In particular interest to myself is both the transition from (well from semi-feudalism really!) and back to capitalism in that country. I would appreciate comments on this piece a lot, as I don't get many chances to talk about these issues.

Crime In Revolutionary Russia

– A Critical Review of Crime, Police and Mob Justice in Petrograd During the Russian Revolutions of 1917 by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
(This piece is taken from Wade, R. ed. (2004) Revolutionary Russia: New Approaches, Routledge: New York pg 46-71)

I recently read this piece, given it’s the only piece I’ve ever really come across to discuss crime during the Russia Revolution. Before I begin talking about it’s content there are some points I wish to make about how this piece is written.

Firstly, the writer seems to me to clearly be a bourgoise academic and the whole thrust of his piece is about what the Provisional Government did wrong to lose control of crime between February and October. Thus his essay is mostly about how the October revolution could have been be prevented. Second, the writer is clearly not a criminologist. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made assumptions like, for example, that the police massively reduce crime.

Third are the sources the writer used. There are two main ones, one of which is what he terms ‘the boulevard papers’, which from his description seems to be today’s tabloids – which to me is like looking at The Sun or The Daily Mail and expecting to get an accurate picture of crime in Britain! (or for my readers in the US substitute this for Fox News and you get the picture) The other is the diary of the ex-head of the tsarist secret police. At times he does concede that these may be biased slightly, but for most of the piece he takes these sources at face value.

So what does this writer say? His main thesis is that after the February revolution crime soared and the Provisional Government handicapped the criminal justice system so that they couldn’t do anything about it. This in turn led to the development of mob justice in parts of Petrograd as well as strengthening the workers militias and Red Guards role in resolving disputes and contributed to societal breakdown that led to the October revolution.

The evidence the author presents to suggest crime rates soared does seem fairly plausible, although we have to be cautious about it for two reasons. Firstly, the figures the writer presents seem to show an increase in crime (likely to be precipitated by food shortages etc.), although he fails to note that an increase in crimes reported might just mean that people are reporting crimes more often rather than there being more crime. Given the huge social changes occurring people may have felt more confident that something might be done if they reported crime to the newly created militias than the old tsarist police. I would speculate that both reporting and actual crime were increasing together though.

Secondly, the papers he uses as sources would no doubt report such things as expropriations as thefts or robberies. No doubt there would be, as the author suggests, some who may use this as an excuse to rob people, but then the lack of redistribution of wealth in Russia was one of the failings of the Provisional Government (who due to representing the interests of capitalists weren’t exactly going to expropriate themselves).

He then goes on to argue how the criminal justice system was handicapped by the Provisional Government (particularly Kerensky). Firstly the writer criticises the policies towards prisons, were the government replaced the tsarist prison guards and wardens, and then released or reduced the sentences of a large number of prisoners, which they say led to the release of large numbers of criminals on to the streets. Whilst I agree that security at prisons was pathetic, it is hardly suprising given the conditions in Russia at that time which necessitated crap pay and conditions for all workers. Secondly he criticises the replacement of the old tsarist courts with a multi-class temporary court (which featured a magistrate, a workers representative and a peasant representative) and also the ineffectiveness of the militia in preventing crime which the writer puts down to lack of training as police officers, which later the Ministry of Justice attempted to face by instituting a Criminal Militia made up of former members of the tsarist police’s Criminal Division.

The whole thrust of the writers argument is that the destruction of the tsarist criminal justice system was unnecessary and made it ineffective. However, I would argue that it did not go far enough. The attempts at class compromise throughout it, such as the multi-class temporary courts and city militias, moreover there was a lack of democracy too in some of these bodies that were controlled directly by the Ministry of Justice. Indeed, due to deteriorating working conditions and pay, amongst other things city militia units sought affiliation to the Petrograd Soviet! The more democratic workers militia organised and controlled by the Soviets was much more effective, particularly in working class areas.

The writer then goes on to describe the acts of mob justice that occur in Petrograd, many of them horrific with lynchings for just petty offences. In the main it was the middle classes and lumpenproletariat that took part in such acts. I agree with the author that the Provisional Government failed these people, but I’d argue that it was always going to due to its class conciliation. The working class organisations should have orientated themselves to draw in the support of these layers (at least at a passive level) behind them. The writer also discusses some attempts at crime prevention in terms of making housing more secure from occupiers organising a watch and pass system to get in (lower classes) to some residents hiring ex-soldiers to guard their premises (upper classes). Unbelievably, the Petrograd City Administration spent more time arming these private guards than their own militia – possibly I would suggest because the feared they would lose control of the militia (as they did) to the soviets.

Finally the writer discusses who were the in the main the victims of crime. Using the papers as sources he reports that it was the middle classes and lower class outside the organised proletariat. However, he notes that as these papers were orientated towards those classes they were bound to report these more. Moreover, I would add these papers were probably anti-revolutionary and in particular anti-working class and their reporting would also be biased because of that.

In conclusion, this is a useful piece because of the content it discusses, but quite biased and it needs to be used very carefully.