Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia: Defining, Policing, and Producing Deviance during the Thaw

1. A Portrait of Hooliganism and the Hooligan during the Khrushchev Period

17 1 A Portrait of Hooliganism and the Hooligan during the Khrushchev Period Hooliganism had risen to high levels several times in the Stalin era. However in the mid-1950s, conviction rates for this crime rose to unprecedented post-WWII heights, making it a critical problem for the young socialist state as it sought to win the Cold War and construct communism. In tandem with soaring statistical indicators, Soviet citizens’ anxiety over the increasing problem of deviance swelled. Although it had always been an ugly part of everyday life in the workers’ state, hooliganism, by 1958, presented an unique problem that had, as a man from Riazan’ wrote to Pravda, “surpassed all previous bounds.”1 Compared with the past, “there has never been such a problem with hooliganism as there is now,” concerned citizens pointed out.2 Wherever Soviet citizens looked, they saw, as a resident of the Sverdlovsk region noted, “hooliganism . . . fourishing everywhere.”3 They were, a man from Gor’kii commented, “the everyday eyewitnesses of hooligan acts.”4 Supposedly the favored sons of the socialist state, workers “were laboring for the good of the Motherland, but [they] lived in fear,” as a letter writer from the Ivanovo region complained.5 When the sun went down in some cities, women and children stayed indoors and workers on the night shift slept on the shop foor rather than braving dark and deserted streets.6 18 Hooliganism and the Hooligan during the Khrushchev Period These concerned citizens wanted to live what they saw as the Soviet good life: to work, to rest, and to raise their families. But the ever-present and persistent problem of hooliganism haunted their neighborhoods and spoiled their daily routines. “Hooliganism has grown to such an extent,” a railroad worker complained, “that if you want to relax, then you better stay at home because the hooligans in the park and in the movie theaters always spoil your mood.”7 “I can’t even remember the last time I went to the park with my daughter since there is so much hooliganism there,” a man regretfully told his colleagues at an anti-crime assembly.8 Table 1. Number of Courtroom Convictions for Malicious and Simple Hooliganism in the USSR and the Russian Republic (RSFSR), 1945–1965 Number of Hooligan Number of Hooligan Year Convictions in USSR Convictions in RSFSR 1945 40,092 30,683 1946 69,789 51,906 1947 40,133 27,908 1948 45,024 30,628 1949 70,425 51,515 1950 71,907 51,086 1951 85,741 62,687 1952 103,897 74,353 1953 116,592 86,213 1954 126,832 91,219 1955 126,772 92,324 1956 196,558 143,924 1957 185,035 128,672 1958 207,587 145,180 1959 152,612 108,255 1960 82,430 55,168 1961 181,318 123,911 1962 173,659 123,113 1963 115,678 81,244 1964 100,682 71,347 1965 110,654 — Sources: GARF, f. 8131, op. 32, d. 5682, l. 44. Data on USSR convictions before 1945 and after 1957 are taken from GARF, f. 9492, op. 6, d. 95, l. 1; and GARF, f. 9492, op. 6, d. 228, l. 147. For data on RSFSR convictions until 1957, see GARF, f. 8131, op. 32, d. 5681, l. 65. For data on RSFSR convictions after 1957, see GARF, f. A-428, op. 3, d. 474, l. 2. Hooliganism and the Hooligan during the Khrushchev Period 19 Like the letters of concerned Soviet citizens, statistics showed that the mid-1950s were a boom time for hooliganism in the post-WWII period. Collectively, they painted a bleak picture of an ever-expanding hooliganism that seemed to be spiraling out of control. Courtroom convictions for hooliganism in the USSR rose 417 percent from a postwar low of 40,133 in 1947 to a high of 207,587 in 1958. During the postwar period, the Russian Republic (RSFSR) experienced similar strong growth with hooligan convictions rates climbing 420 percent from 1947 to 1958 (see table 1). As the statistics make clear, the Khrushchev period may have been an era of de-Stalinization and cultural thaw, but it was also the beginning of the golden age of Soviet hooliganism. Questioning the Causes of the Crime Boom How could hooliganism exist, and even increase, in this, the best of all possible worlds? That was the question that troubled Soviet leaders, law...