"The ranks of the brigadmil are strengthening": the role of the public in protection of law and order in the 1940-60s.

Abstract

   The article analyzes the role militia assistance brigades and people’s squads played in the preservation  of  social  order  and  in  anti-crime  campaigns  in  the  1940s-1960s. The author investigates archival materials and militia-issued newspapers. The author maintains that during the investigated period, the authorities did their best to encourage community to main-tain law and order, which was necessitated by staff shortages. The analysis of historical documents enables the author to identify a whole number of tasks performed by militia assistance brigades such as street patrolling, crime prevention, criminal detention. The article shows what propaganda tools were used by Soviet militia officers to involve Soviet community groups in the preservation of law and order. The author focuses on the transformation of people’s squads and their tasks and maintains that militia assistance brigades gradually grew inefficient because of bureaucracy.