Global Gangs: Street Violence across the World

3. Capitalizing on Change: Gangs, Ideology, and the Transition to a Liberal Economy in the Russian Federation

65 3 Capitalizing on Change: Gangs, Ideology, and the Transition to a Liberal Economy in the Russian Federation Alexander L. Salagaev and Rustem R. Safin During the 1960s and early 1970s, youth crime rates in the Soviet Union were widely reported to be declining, alongside a general decrease in the number of crimes committed by organized delinquent groups. This trend led Soviet officials to formally proclaim the end of “banditry.” This situation did not last, however, and by the late 1970s, youth gangs had become quite widespread in the Soviet Union. Their spread was clearly linked to the gradual transformation that the USSR underwent from the 1970s onward. Most notably, the introduction of elements of a market economy by the Soviet government during this period created spaces for illegal economic activity, which helped the gangs institutionalize, to the extent that the youth gangs of the 1970s can in many ways be seen as the direct predecessors of contemporary Russian youth gangs.1 The latter emerged as major social actors following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the mid-­1990s and the wholesale introduction of free market economics in Russia. A new wave of youth gangs rapidly established themselves as powerful actors in a booming illegal economy, competing for control over economic resources and gradually dividing the illegal and semilegal spheres of the new post-­ Soviet economy among themselves. This chapter looks at the origins of youth gangs in both the Soviet and Russian contexts in an effort to better understand the driving forces behind gang formation and focuses in particular on the similarities and differences between the Soviet gangs of the 1970s and 66    alexander l. salagaev and rustem r. safin today’s Russian gangs. The first section focuses on the emergence of youth gangs in the Soviet period, whereas the second section addresses the development of youth gangs in the post-­Soviet, or Russian, period. The third section assesses the similarities and differences between gangs of these two eras. Although the emergence of gangs in both periods can be linked to economic transformation, it is clear that contemporary Russian youth gangs have become more professionalized and are increasingly being integrated into adult gangs. To this extent, the analysis presented in this chapter offers a strong case for considering economic factors as significant drivers of both gang formation and transformation. The Origins of Soviet Youth Gangs Prior to the 1970s, there only existed what one might call “proto-­gangs” in the Soviet Union. During the 1920s and 1930s, for example, there were frequent cases of group hooliganism, characterized by various degrees of delinquency and violence ranging from obscene language to group rapes and assaults, which operated mainly in the large cities of the USSR. These had mostly disbanded by the late 1930s, however, owing to strict measures taken by authorities (Stepakov 1998; Panin 2003). Another type of youth group that existed prior to the 1970s was the besprizorniki, groups of primarily homeless and unattended children and youngsters that emerged mainly during the Russian civil war (1917–­23) and in some regions during World War II. These groups, however, disappeared as soon as normal living conditions returned after these wars (Rudov 2002; Gizatulin 2008). Although there was some rise in juvenile delinquency following the 1953 political amnesty and in subsequent years, this generally remained rather unorganized, even if many of the antistate protests in the USSR during the 1950s and 1960s tended to involve youths under the age of twenty-­ five (Kozlov 2006, 97–­ 99). Increasing ideological disappointment with the Soviet regime and youth-­led social protest in the 1970s did, however, lead to the widespread emergence of neighborhood peer groups. One of the primary features of Soviet culture was ideological indoctrination. Children raised in Communist families were brought up in an atmosphere of constant ideologically correct education. The Soviet system consisted of nursery schools (up to age seven), primary schools (ages seven to ten), secondary schools (ages eleven to sixteen), and higher education in institutes and capitalizing on change    67 universities (age seventeen and older). With the exception of nursery school, youngsters were expected to join a Communist organization at each phase of their educational growth. They would be oktyabryata (in reference to the October 1917 revolution) in primary school, pionery (pioneers) and komsomoltsy (members of Komsomol, the Communist Union of Youth) in secondary school, and as youths, they generally faced the need to join the Communist...