On November 10, 1917, during the revolutionary events, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs issued a decree on the creation of the Workers' Militia.
origins
The concept of the militia appeared as early as 1903 in the program of the Bolshevik Party, and in March 1917, after the Provisional Government came to power, the policemen took the place of the tsarist police. These were ordinary workers who stood at the machine during the day, and in the evening with rifles went out into the streets to maintain order.
Even V. I. Lenin spoke about the need to create a "people's militia", which meant the full arming of the people.
The first militia of the USSR
In fact, the work of maintaining order was carried out by the Red Guards of the revolutionary guard. The authorities understood that a separate body should keep order within the country. In August 1918, a decision was made to create a militia. This new body lasted the entire period of Soviet power.
The militia became a worker-peasant militia and people over the age of 23 could serve there.
The tsarist police authorities simply had to be reorganized, because, according to F. Z. Dzerzhinsky, new people could not bring anything good to the former law enforcement agencies. But this ideology was ignored by the authorities, and the Soviet police of that time consisted of non-professionals.
In the turbulent post-revolutionary times, the history of the militia was written in blood. In the spring of 1918, the first policemen died in the fight against bandits.
The first weapon that the new law enforcement officers were armed with was a Mauser and a revolver. Mauser is a well-known powerful weapon that was in use almost until the 50s of the last century.
MUR
On October 5, 1918, the authorities issued a regulation on the creation of departments to combat criminal crime. under the tsarist regime, they were transformed into the MUR - the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department.
"Murovtsy" wore a special one on the lapels of their jackets - a crescent moon and "Murov's eye" - an all-seeing eye. Departmental distinction was issued for a certain time.
The main task of the MUR employees was the destruction of armed gangs, of which there were about 30 in Moscow alone.
Uniform and ranks
At first, they did not think much about external insignia. The policemen were in civilian clothes and wore only red bandages on their hands. In 1923, they reached the introduction of the form. The foot Soviet militia of that time had black uniforms, and the equestrian militia had dark blue. New insignia appeared almost every year. The colors of buttonholes, the signs themselves and their configuration changed.
In 1931, the uniform of the Soviet policeman became gray. The newly-minted law enforcement officers had no titles, only positions.
Along with the appearance of ranks in the army in 1936, ranks appeared among policemen. In addition to sergeants and lieutenants, police directors also appeared - the most important ranks. In 1943, shoulder straps were also introduced, and blue became the main color of the insignia.
In 1947, the cut of the uniform changed and red appeared. In the famous children's poem by Sergei Mikhalkov about Uncle Styopa, such a policeman is very clearly depicted, who is on duty.
On January 13, 1962, the story of a hero-policeman who, standing on duty, saved a woman and children from a drunken armed criminal, shocked. The policeman himself was mortally wounded and was posthumously awarded the title of hero.
USSR police and women
Women appeared in the ranks of the Soviet militia as early as 1919. Many representatives of the weaker sex worked during the Great Patriotic War. And in peacetime, almost a quarter of the employees successfully combined shoulder straps with a skirt.
In fact, women during critical situations act no worse than men. In addition, the peculiarities of psychology make them valuable employees of internal organs.
The famous writer served in the Soviet police for 20 years, analyzing criminal offenses. She became the most famous retired lieutenant colonel, writing a series of detective novels about the everyday life of internal affairs workers.
Personnel training
To solve the problems with personnel training, the authorities opened the USSR Police became more professional, thanks to permanent schools and advanced training courses for district police officers and guards. In order to get into the investigating authorities, it was necessary to graduate from the Higher Police School.
Positive image of a policeman
Since the mid-1960s, the state has constantly raised the prestige of the police in the eyes of the population. The media and creative intelligentsia worked to create a positive hero - a Soviet policeman. The police of the USSR became very popular among the people, thanks to exciting films.
Since 1962, a holiday has been officially introduced - Police Day in the USSR. The date of November 10 was celebrated before, but more locally. At the state level, on this day, officials and the best artists of the country congratulated the policemen.
The Soviet people sacredly believed and repeated the phrase, which became winged: "Our police protect us!".
Alexandrovich_2
09.03.2019
Already somewhere, where, but in Roskosmos there is money. Only they are somehow\"mysterious \" go the devil knows where. In the presence of a huge intellectual potential, one would expect a search for cheaper technologies and the production process of space technology. In fact, intellectual power is directed to come up with sophisticated schemes for stealing the allocated funds.
Alexandrovich_2
09.03.2019
The Pentagon announced the upcoming... (1)
Interesting. and homosexuals and other transgender people will be called up to serve in the American army? How, in connection with this, will the statutes change? You have to be ready to meet these enemies and know what position to put them in.
Pat Simmons
08.03.2019
The Communist Party defends the right of the people to... (4)
***The video... went viral on January 28th. In the first part of the video, Gorring yells at other players and also threatens a man who seems to have texted him the word "*****" (fuck) in the chat. “I, *****, I swear to you, *****, by my dear mother, I will really give you cancer if you “*****”, *****, write another word to me<...>I’m from a simple life, I’m among the lesson, *****, I grew up, I can filter, ”said the deputy head of Rosgeology.
In the next fragment, a top manager calls a woman who is behind the scenes to the microphone and asks to tell how he fired her (“executed”), and then hired her back. It follows from the conversation that he fired the employee after she took him plane tickets in business class instead of first class, and then hired him again and sent him to work "in the branch" - with a salary increase and the condition that she would report to him about happening there. Then Gorring, glancing at the camera, scolds the woman for talking with colleagues about who he slept with in the company, and then tells that he had "four princesses" there. At the end of the video, he mentions that he and his boss are going to meet with billionaire Leonid Mikhelson.***
MiklP
08.03.2019
The head of Roskosmos complained... (2)
On November 24, 2016, a new criminal case on theft was initiated at the Khrunichev Center. According to the investigation, in 2007-2014, Nesterov, Ostroverkh and Yakushin squandered over 368 million rubles, spending them on the services of an audit company. On December 5, 2016, on the property of the accused about fraud in the State Space Research and Production Center named after M.V. Khrunichev was arrested. On August 14, 2017, the Dorogomilovsky court returned to the prosecutor's office the case on embezzlement of more than 368 million rubles, but on August 15, the prosecutor's office protested the return of the case from the court.
And that's not all .... Just an episode!
And what more funding do you need? Whose pocket?
Alexander Kobelyatsky 08.03.2019
On November 10, Russia celebrates Police Day. Until recently, when the militia was renamed into the police, this significant date was called much more familiarly - Police Day. Indeed, on November 10, 1917, exactly 98 years ago, the decree “On the Workers' Militia” was adopted, which laid the foundation for the law enforcement system of Soviet Russia and the law enforcement agencies of the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation formed on its basis.
February to October
Although the decree "On the workers' militia" was adopted after the October Revolution, the prehistory of the creation of the militia goes back to the period of the February Revolution of 1917. In the process of post-revolutionary transformations, the law enforcement system that existed before the February Revolution in the Russian Empire underwent cardinal changes. In accordance with the "Declaration of the Provisional Government on its composition and tasks" dated March 3, 1917, it was decided to replace the police with the people's militia. It was assumed that the people's militia would be subordinate to local governments, and leadership positions would become elective. However, despite the fact that the commanding staff in the militia was supposed to be chosen, the militia itself remained a regular unit with full-time positions. Thus, in fact, the renaming of the police into the militia was not associated with a fundamental change in the structure of the formation of a law enforcement agency. The police never became a "people's militia of law and order", in which all interested or specially delegated citizens could participate. It remained a professional body that performed police functions, although the cadre was significantly updated in the process of revolutionary changes. On March 6, 1917, the Provisional Government issued a decree on the liquidation of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, and on March 10, 1917, a decree on the dissolution of the Police Department. At the same time, mass attacks on police stations and institutions during the days of the February Revolution, during which revolutionary-minded citizens beat and disarmed the old tsarist police, became a serious problem. The interim government, in fact, failed to restore order in the field of law enforcement. Since the power in the country from March to October 1917 was in a state of crisis, there were constant changes in the composition of the government, including the ministers of the interior, the creation of new law enforcement agencies stalled. According to the memoirs of Lieutenant General Anton Ivanovich Denikin, in the process of the February Revolution, “The Ministry of Internal Affairs - once actually holding autocratic power in its hands and causing universal hatred - went to the other extreme: it essentially abolished itself. The functions of the department were actually transferred in a dispersed form to local self-proclaimed organizations ”(States and Laws of Russia: A Textbook for High Schools / Edited by S.A. Chibiryaev. - M., 1998). That is, in fact, the management of the police was decentralized and transferred to local Soviets. Law enforcement functions were performed by armed units under the local Soviets, which were called the militia. However, their activities, for the most part, were reduced only to the protection of the Soviets themselves. As for the fight against crime, it was actually reduced to a minimum, which led to an unprecedented increase in crime. Especially considering that during the days of the February Revolution, not only political prisoners of the tsarist regime were released from Russian prisons, but also a lot of criminals, many of whom pretended to be political prisoners in order to be released. Rampant crime on the streets of Russian cities and in the countryside forced the Provisional Government to seek an urgent way out of the situation. Shortly before the October Revolution, the Provisional Government tried to remedy the situation by involving army units in law enforcement, for which, on October 11, 1917, an order was issued to send the best officers and soldiers to the militia, primarily the Knights of St. George. But since the October Revolution took place two weeks later, the order of the Provisional Government was never put into practice.
Creation of the NKVD of the RSFSR and the workers' militia
The October Revolution liquidated the Provisional Government and local administrative structures subordinate to it, forming new authorities - the Soviets and the executive committees of the Soviets. On October 26 (November 8), 1917, the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets decided to establish the Council of People's Commissars, an executive body. The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR was created in its composition. Two main tasks were set before him - ensuring the process of Soviet construction and protecting the revolutionary order. That is, the NKVD was responsible for creating the structure of the Soviets on the ground and controlling their formation and activities, and for ensuring the protection of order and the fight against crime. Alexei Ivanovich Rykov (1881-1938), an old Bolshevik with pre-revolutionary experience, was appointed the first people's commissar of internal affairs, released from exile in the Narym Territory after the February Revolution and elected deputy chairman of the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies, then a member of the presidium of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies. However, Rykov stayed at the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR only for a short time. However, it was in the days of his leadership of the department that the NKVD decree "On the workers' militia" was issued. Since it was Rykov who signed the decree, he can rightfully be considered the actual "founding father" of the Soviet police. However, soon after his appointment as People's Commissar, Rykov went to work in the Moscow City Council. Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky (1878-1958), another prominent Bolshevik figure, also liberated by the February Revolution from his eternal settlement in Yakutia, became the new People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR. In the interrevolutionary months, Petrovsky led the Bolshevik organizations in the Donbass, and then, after the October Revolution, on November 17 (30), 1917, he headed the NKVD of the RSFSR and remained in the position of people's commissar until March 30, 1919. That is, it was during the years of the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of Petrovsky that the initial organizational structure of the Soviet police was directly formed, its staff was recruited and the first victories were made on the fronts of the fight against crime.
Initially, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs covered a number of little interconnected spheres of social activity. Thus, the competence of the NKVD of the RSFSR included: organization, selection of personnel and control over the activities of local Soviets; control over the execution of orders of the central authorities in the field; protecting the "revolutionary order" and ensuring the security of citizens; solution of financial and economic issues of the police and fire protection; public utilities management. As part of the NKVD, the following were created: the secretariat of the People's Commissariat, the board of the People's Commissariat (in addition to G.I. Petrovsky himself, it included F.E. Dzerzhinsky, M.Ya. Latsis, I.S. Unshlikht and M.S. Uritsky ), local government department, central statistical department, control and audit commission, medical management department, veterinary department, financial department, local economy department, refugee department, foreign department and press bureau. The leadership of the workers' and peasants' militia, created on November 10, 1917, was carried out by the department of local government. However, by the autumn of 1918, the structure of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs had undergone major changes. So, the Main Police Department of the NKVD of the RSFSR was created, in whose subordination from that time all the police of Soviet Russia were located. The creation of the Glavka was dictated by practical considerations and was associated with changes in the views of Soviet leaders on the features of the organization of the police.
The police become established
Before the October Revolution, the leadership of the Bolshevik Party did not see the need to create a full-time, regular militia, since it adhered to the concept of replacing the regular armed forces and law enforcement agencies with the armed people. Therefore, the resolution of the NKVD "On the workers' militia" did not talk about the regular structure of the militia. The Soviet leaders saw the police as a voluntary workers' formation, and in the first months of Soviet power, the police units were actually mass amateur organizations, devoid of a clear structure and developed responsibilities. But such formations could solve the tasks of combating crime with difficulty. Therefore, in the process of observing the experience of building a workers' militia, the Soviet leadership came to the conclusion that it was necessary to transfer law enforcement agencies to a full-time basis. On May 10, 1918, the Collegium of the NKVD adopted an order to form the militia as a full-time organization, performing clear duties, separated from the functions assigned to the Red Army. On May 15, 1918, the text of this order was sent throughout the country, and on June 5, 1918, the draft Regulations on the People's Workers' and Peasants' Protection (police) were published. The revision of the project into an official instruction began after the relevant order issued on August 21, 1918 by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and the People's Commissariat of Justice. On October 21, 1918, the joint Instruction of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR "On the organization of the Soviet workers' and peasants' militia" was approved. In accordance with this instruction, the leadership of the militia was entrusted to the Main Directorate of Militia. In his subordination were the territorial divisions of the GUM NKVD - provincial and district departments. In large urban centers, their own militia organizations were created. The lowest levels of the police system were also created - sections headed by the district chief, who was subordinate to senior policemen and policemen. In December 1918, several more instructions were approved - already by the Main Police Department. These were: General instructions for policemen, Instructions for senior and duty policemen in the district, Instructions for district chiefs and their assistants, Instructions for use. In accordance with the orders of that time, the adopted instructions received the mandatory approval of the First All-Russian Congress of the heads of the provincial and city police departments. Gradually, the militia acquired the features of a rigidly structured formation with military discipline. The "militaryization" of the NKVD of the RSFSR was also manifested in the appointment of a new people's commissar of internal affairs. In March 1919, instead of Petrovsky, he was appointed chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926) - a politician who needs no introduction. Under his leadership, the further organization of the official, political, and educational activities of the Soviet police took place.
On April 3, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR published a decree "On the Soviet Workers' and Peasants' Militia", which made some adjustments and changes to the activities of the country's militia. Thus, in accordance with this resolution, police officers were exempted from being drafted into the Red Army and were considered seconded employees of the departments of the executive committees of the Soviets. Thus, the state emphasized the importance of law enforcement even in the conditions of the Civil War, when every bayonet was dear to the fighting Red Army. Military discipline and compulsory military training were introduced for militiamen, and militia units operating in combat areas could be transferred to the command of the Red Army commanders and perform combat missions. During 1918-1919. further changes were introduced in the organizational structure of the militia. So, in addition to the general militia, concentrated in the counties and provinces and performing the main functions of combating crime in the field, special militia were created. Back in July 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree "On the Establishment of the River Police", then - in February 1919 - a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR "On the Organization of the Railway Police and Railway Guards" was adopted. In April 1919, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was adopted on the creation of the Soviet river worker-peasant militia. In the autumn of 1919, a decision was made to create an industrial militia to protect state enterprises and combat the theft of socialist property. If initially the railway and river militia were formed and operated according to the territorial principle, then they were transferred to the linear principle of work and were created at the railways and on waterways.
The difficult situation in the field of combating crime required the creation of detective units that conduct operational-search activities. This is how the Soviet criminal investigation department appeared, which required an appropriate delimitation of powers between the criminal investigation department of the police and the Cheka. Since the Chekists already had rich experience in operational-search activities, the heads of the criminal-search departments were seconded from the ranks of the Cheka to the police. In turn, the criminal investigation officers working in the linear police departments on waterways and railways were transferred to the subordination of the Cheka. Criminal investigation departments were opened in large cities of the country, and, if necessary, in small towns, if the operational situation required it. In 1919-1920. employees of the criminal investigation department, in addition to operational-search activities, were also engaged in conducting inquiries and preliminary investigations. Despite the fact that the October Revolution proclaimed the complete overthrow of the previous order and, accordingly, the system of organizing law enforcement agencies, two years after the revolution, the new government realized the need to use the experience of the tsarist law enforcement system. Without this experience, a full-fledged fight against crime and its prevention were not possible. In February 1919, the Collegium of the NKVD decided to create a forensic examination office, a registration office, a fingerprinting office and a museum. By October 1920, the structure of the Main Police Department of the NKVD of the RSFSR was also changed. The Glavka included eight departments: 1) general police (county-city), 2) industrial police, 3) railway police, 4) water police, 5) investigation and search police, 6) inspection department, 7) supply department, 8 ) secretariat. The police were entrusted with the functions of maintaining order and tranquility in the country, monitoring the execution of decisions and orders of the central and local authorities; protection of civil institutions and structures of national and exceptional importance, which included the telegraph, telephone, post office, water supply, factories, plants and mines; camp security; maintaining order and tranquility on the routes of communication of the RSFSR and escorting transported goods and valuables; assistance to the bodies of all departments in the performance of the tasks assigned to them.
The first three years of the existence of the Soviet militia had not only its formation as a new law enforcement agency, but also the most difficult and bloody fight against crime. Under the conditions of the Civil War and the chaos of social and political life in a number of regions of Soviet Russia, the criminogenic situation aggravated, armed gangs arose that terrorized the local population. The number of gangs could reach several tens or even hundreds of people, so the police attracted military units and the forces of the Cheka to fight them. Crime raged in the countryside and in the cities. It was difficult to cope with the gangs - firstly, because of their large number, secondly - the total armament of weapons no worse than that of policemen, and thirdly - because of the low level of training and experience of the policemen themselves, among whom most were yesterday's civilians without special skills. Therefore, the losses in the ranks of the Soviet militia in the first years of its existence were very high.
The robbery of Lenin and the "matter of honor" of the Moscow police
The scale of rampant crime in the first post-revolutionary years is also evidenced by such a well-known fact as the attack of Moscow bandits on the car of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself. On January 6, 1919, on Christmas Eve, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin finished his working day by 4 p.m. and decided to go to the Forest School to congratulate the children on the holiday. At about half past five, he left the Kremlin Palace, accompanied by the driver Stepan Gil, security guard Ivan Chabanov and sister Maria Ulyanova. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was already waiting for him at the Forest School. The road lay in Sokolniki. Despite the unstable times and the Civil War, Lenin did not travel with an escort, but limited himself to one car and one guard.
At that time, many gangs were operating in Moscow, consisting of both former criminals from the pre-revolutionary era, and deserters, declassed elements, former tsarist military personnel and policemen. One of these gangs was a group of a certain Yakov Koshelkov, who traded in robberies. Yakov Koshelkov himself, a hereditary criminal and burglar thief, despite his young years (he was born in 1890), by 1917 had ten convictions - even under the "old regime". 
He continued his criminal path after the October Revolution, moving from thefts in houses to robbery attacks. When the car with the leader of Soviet Russia was moving to the appointed place, the bandits were just about to rob the passage on the Lubyanka. To do this, they needed a car, so it was decided to go outside and grab the first car that came across. In addition to the leader of the gang, Yakov Koshelkov, Vasily Zaitsev (“Hare”), Fedor Alekseev (“Frog”), Alexei Kirillov (“Lenka Shoemaker”), Ivan Volkov (“Konyok”) and Vasily Mikhailov went to attack the car. To his misfortune, it was at this unfortunate time and in the wrong place that Lenin himself rode. The driver of Vladimir Ilyich, Stepan Gil (by the way, a professional driver of high-ranking people - he served before the revolution in the Imperial Garage, and after the death of Lenin drove Mikoyan and Vyshinsky), seeing armed people on the road, asked the "boss" for further instructions. Lenin, thinking that he was dealing with a Red Guard patrol, ordered the driver to stop. The leader of the Wallets gang, in turn, demanded that Lenin and his companions leave the car. Vladimir Ilyich, naming himself, showed a certificate, but the bandit, who heard not Lenin, but Levin, was not impressed by the words of the Bolshevik leader. “You never know how many Nepmen drive around here,” thought Koshelkov, and his bandits took a car, pistols and an identity card from Lenin and his companions. When Koshelkov drove off in a stolen car, he nevertheless looked at the selected certificate ... and was taken aback, thinking about how much money the Soviet government could pay for the release of Lenin. The bandit rushed back, trying to find the travelers, but it was too late - they left the scene. According to another version, Koshelkov was going to capture Lenin in order to exchange him for the arrested accomplices who were in Butyrka. At the very least, it is unlikely that a hardened criminal, who was only interested in material gain, would be guided by political motives.
However, the adventures of Lenin and his companions did not end there - the sentry guarding the premises of the Sokolniki District Council refused to let them through, where the travelers who lost their car and documents hurried to. The sentry did not recognize Lenin, nor did the officer on duty at the district council. The chairman of the district council, who approached the leader, did not recognize Vladimir Ilyich, and spoke with the leader in a very impudent tone. Only when Lenin and his companions managed to get to the telephone and call Peters to the Cheka did the chairman of the district council change his tone and stir. Two cars with armed Red Guards and a spare car for Lenin urgently arrived from the Kremlin. By the way, despite the fact that that evening Lenin was on the verge of death, he did not refuse the plan of a trip to Sokolniki and nevertheless came to the children.
Naturally, the emergency with Lenin forced the Moscow police and the Cheka to intensify the fight against Moscow crime. Not knowing which of the gangs attacked the Soviet leader, the Moscow police set about a large-scale "cleansing" of the criminal world of the capital. In response, the bandits declared a real war on the police. On January 24, 1919, one of the gangs, led by a certain Safonov, nicknamed "Saban", drove around the capital in a car and shot police officers from the car. 16 policemen became victims of "Sabanovites". On the night of January 25, a similar scenario was used by Koshelkov's people. By car, they drove up to the police posts and blew the whistle, calling the guard. The last one came out, thinking that it was the inspector with an inspection, and they immediately shot him. In one night, 22 policemen were killed in Moscow. The murder of almost four dozen policemen during the day, the police and Chekist authorities could not get away with the Moscow bandits. The Chekists managed to quickly detain most of the bandits from the Koshelkov group. So, on February 3, they arrested a certain Pavlov - "Kozulya", who testified against other members of the gang. Soon five bandits were detained, including participants in the attack on Lenin's car. They were shot on February 10th. However, Koshelkov remained at large and committed further crimes. He killed the security officer Vedernikov, then the security officers Karavaev and Zuster, who were watching his apartment, and hid in the village of Novogireevo with his friend Klinkin, nicknamed "Efimych". Klinkin was calculated and arrested, but by this time Purses had managed to leave his shelter. On May 1, he robbed the participants of the May Day demonstration and shot dead three policemen, and on May 10 he staged a shootout in a coffee shop, where visitors identified him and called the Chekists. On May 19, in Konyushkovsky Lane, they again tried to take him. Three bandits died, but Koshelkov again managed to outwit the policemen and escape. It seemed that the Moscow police would be looking for Yakov Koshelkov for a very long time - this professional criminal turned out to be too lucky. But, in the end, fortune stopped smiling at the twenty-nine-year-old robber.
On July 26, 1919, Koshelkov, along with bandits Emelyanov and Seryozhka Barin, was ambushed on Bozhedomka Street. His companions were shot, and Koshelkov was mortally wounded by a carbine and died at the scene. They found identity cards of the murdered Chekists and a Browning - the same one that the bandit took from Lenin during the robbery of his car. As for Safonov - "Saban", the police also managed to destroy or catch most of his group. But the ringleader, like Koshelkov, managed to escape. He settled in his sister's house in the town of Lebedyan. Although the sister sheltered her brother, he killed her and the entire family of eight, after which he fought with the policemen who surrounded the house. Although Safonov fired back with two pistols and even threw several hand bombs at the policemen, they managed to take him alive. Residents of Lebedyan, for the massacre of the family, demanded that Safonov be shot, which was carried out by representatives of the Soviet authorities. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself mentioned an incident that happened to him in his work “Children's disease of “leftism” in communism”: “Imagine that your car was stopped by armed bandits. You give them money, a passport, a revolver, a car. You get rid of a pleasant neighborhood with bandits. There is a compromise, no doubt. “Do ut des” (“I give” you money, weapons, a car, “so that you give” me the opportunity to leave in a good way). But it is difficult to find a person who has not gone mad who would declare such a compromise “fundamentally unacceptable”... Our compromise with the bandits of German imperialism was similar to such a compromise.” The operation to defeat the Moscow gangs and destroy Koshelkov became a "matter of honor" for the Moscow police and security officers, which, as we see, they fulfilled with honor.
Fighting crime in the regions of Russia
During the years of the Civil War, the Soviet militia waged a tense fight against crime throughout Russia. But not only to fulfill their direct duties of searching for and detaining criminals, protecting public order, the first Soviet policemen had to. Sometimes they also entered into hostilities with the "whites", performing the functions of ordinary army units. In the spring of 1919, when the troops of General Yudenich were stationed near Petrograd, seven detachments with a total number of 1,500 bayonets were formed from among the employees of the Petrograd police. Soviet policemen fought on the fronts of the Civil War in the Urals and the Volga region, in the North Caucasus, and in other regions of Russia. So, the Orenburg police in full strength participated in the battles with the “whites” in April-May 1919. The police also carried out tasks to suppress anti-Soviet uprisings that were raised across the country by peasants dissatisfied with the Soviet regime. Without going into discussions about whether the policy of the Bolsheviks in the countryside was fair and justified, it should be noted that the policemen simply carried out their task, which the Soviet government set for them, as servicemen. During the suppression of anti-Soviet protests, the police suffered numerous losses, and not in all cases was it possible to quickly restore their numbers, especially at the expense of trained personnel. The policemen had no experience of serving in law enforcement agencies before the revolution, therefore, they had to learn both operational-search activities and the protection of public order already in the process of serving. Not only the elimination of armed gangs, but also the protection of the life and property of citizens in these troubled years for Russia became the main task of the new law enforcement structure. So, on April 4, 1918, Moscow bandits tried to rob citizens' apartments. Yesterday's workers entered the battle with them, and after the revolution, policemen - Yegor Shvyrkov and Semyon Pekalov. The militiamen managed to destroy several bandits, the rest fled. Policeman Shvyrkov died in a shootout, the second policeman Pekalov was mortally wounded. However, not a single apartment was robbed, and the civilians living in them remained alive and unharmed - at the cost of the lives of the dead policemen. One of the first heroes of the Soviet militia, Yegor Shvyrkov and Semyon Pekalov, were buried near the Kremlin wall.
Detachment to combat banditry of the Don Cheka
In very difficult conditions, the Don militia had to act. In addition to local criminal gangs and the remnants of white and green detachments, the real problem for the Don policemen was the attacks of gangs that were raiding from the territory of neighboring Ukraine. So, in May-October 1921, gangs that attacked the Don region became more active. They burned wagons, robbed peasants, killed the inhabitants of labor communes, including infants. In May 1921, a gang of up to two hundred robbers appeared in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Ilinskaya and Glebovskaya volosts of the Rostov District (now the territory of the Kushchevsky District of the Krasnodar Territory). The bandits felt so at ease that they were preparing an attack on the headquarters of the 8th district of the Rostov district police, located in the village of Ilyinka. But the chief of police, K. Shevela, knew in advance about the impending raid. The policemen, together with the Red Army workers' battalion stationed at state farm No. 7, decided to meet the bandits and prevent them from attacking the village. Despite the fact that there were much more bandits, and they had better weapons, the courage and selflessness of the policemen and the Red Army did their job - they managed to detain the gang near the village. During this time, reinforcements from the Rostov District Military Commissariat arrived in time to help the fighting policemen and Red Army soldiers, after which the attacking gang was destroyed. In September 1921, a major clash with the gang took place in the area of the Nesvetaevskaya volost of the Rostov district. There, 80 cavalry bandits with two machine guns attacked a group of police intelligence, and then - in the area of the General Volost - a detachment to combat banditry. Eight policemen died in the battle with the bandits, but the detachment managed to push the bandits out of the Don region. In October 1921, the village of Ilyinka was attacked by a large gang of up to five hundred people, commanded by a certain Dubina. The gang had fifty carts with machine guns, two cars and a bomb launcher. In the village of Ilyinka, the bandits began robbing the civilian population and killing Soviet workers. Only after the approach of the detachment of the Rostov district police and the cavalry regiment of the special brigade of the First Cavalry Army, it was possible to surround and destroy the Dubina bandits. In addition to such large gangs, which operated not only on the basis of the desire for profit, but also on the basis of the ideological rejection of Soviet power, smaller criminal groups operated in the Don region, hunting for robberies, thefts, and hooligan attacks on defenseless people.
By the way, it was very difficult to resist the bandits of the Soviet police in the first years of its existence. Sometimes the policemen did not even have firearms and bladed weapons, and they had to go to detain dangerous criminals, armed with ordinary sticks. There were serious problems with uniforms and shoes, often the policemen were given bast shoes, wooden shoes. In addition, it was necessary to resolve issues with the training of personnel. Many police officers, especially those from rural areas, were illiterate, so in 1921 educational courses were organized to teach policemen to read, write and count. Thanks to the courses, it was possible to eliminate illiteracy among Soviet policemen, and already in 1923 a decision was made to ban the recruitment of illiterate citizens to serve in the police. Only by learning to read and write could a citizen worthy of other indicators count on being accepted into the service of the Soviet police. After the end of the Civil War, there was a replenishment of the militia personnel with former Red Army soldiers. The arrival of people who went through the war and were distinguished by great personal courage and good military training to serve in the militia played a very positive role in strengthening the Soviet militia. First of all, the quality of service and combat training of police officers has improved, which immediately affected the effectiveness of ongoing operations to search for and detain dangerous gangs. Transferred to the police and the Chekists, who also passed the Civil.
On the Don they remember the name of Ivan Nikitovich Khudozhnikov. A native of Lugansk, he was born in 1890 into a working-class family, and after graduating from a four-year school in 1905, he entered an apprenticeship at a locomotive building plant. It was there that Khudozhnikov met the Bolsheviks. On May 1, 1917, a young man joined the ranks of the Bolshevik Party. Until 1919, he continued to work at the factory, and then went to the committees of the peasant poor. Served in the Cheka. After the release of Rostov, Khudozhnikov was offered to go to work in the police and head the criminal-investigative sub-department of the Revolutionary Committee of Rostov and Nakhichevan. After a short time, Ivan Nikitovich headed the Rostov District Criminal Investigation Department. It is the merit of Khudozhnikov that not only delivers a serious blow to the underworld, but also restores order in the criminal investigation itself. Before Khudozhnikov came to the department, many of his employees were drinking, taking bribes and discrediting the title of Soviet policemen in every possible way. Having asked the party authorities to send several experienced communists to help, Khudozhnikov quickly freed the Don criminal investigation department from dubious personnel and set it up to work. Thanks to joint activities with the Chekists, the criminal investigation department launched an active work to eliminate bandits and criminals operating in the Rostov District. In most cases, Khudozhnikov personally supervised the ongoing arrests of bandits. So, at the end of the winter of 1922, a dangerous gang appeared in Rostov-on-Don under the leadership of Vasily Govorov, “Vasya Kotelka,” as his accomplices called him. Bandits traded in robberies and murders, acting with amazing cruelty. So, the Kotelkovites gouged out the eyes of their victims. They brutally killed two operatives who tracked down the gang. Finally, Khudozhnikov and his colleagues managed to track down the bandits. They were in a brothel in nearby Novocherkassk. The assault on the "raspberry" lasted almost 12 hours. But, despite the desperate resistance of the bandits, who perfectly understood their fate in the event of detention, the operatives managed to take alive the leader of the gang - Vasya Kotelok himself, as well as six of his accomplices. All of them were sentenced to death and shot.
Almost a century has passed since the events described, but on Police Day, which almost everyone habitually calls "Police Day", one cannot but remind modern law enforcement officers and young people who are just choosing the life path of a policeman for themselves about the exploits of their colleagues in the distant years Civil War. At that time, "Born by the Revolution", although it faced numerous problems - both financial, and personnel, and organizational, but even in these difficult conditions, managed to fulfill the main task - to significantly reduce the merciless rampant crime. There is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of people serve in the modern Russian police and other power structures, whose courage and sincerity make them worthy successors to their predecessors. It remains to wish the soldiers of law and order not to disappoint their fellow citizens, to fulfill their duties with honor and do without losses.
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In the USSR, about 85% of crimes were solved. All these "singed" and "smoked", known to the townsfolk from Soviet detectives, and in reality after some kind of robbery of a savings bank, ended up in places not so remote for a long time, and for a long time.
Meanwhile, the Soviet militia in the mid-1950s experienced a deep crisis. It was connected with the fact that the law enforcement system of the Soviet Union was seriously reformed after Stalin's death, in fact, dividing the Ministry of Internal Affairs into several structures (MOOP, ORUD, etc.). In addition, after those very famous decisions of the 20th Congress, serving in the law enforcement system became a non-prestigious occupation. The policemen staunchly began to be associated among the people with the "black funnels" from the 37th year, although the police themselves did not participate in the organization of the repressions. This was done by completely different departments in the NKVD. At the same time, a huge mass of people with “front-line” experience came to the internal affairs bodies. Of course, not all of them were "Volodya Sharapovs" from the "Era of Mercy" by the Weiners. Rather, they resembled the Zheglovs, and sometimes in the worst possible way. The situation turned into a serious conflict between society and the law enforcement system, which sometimes led to mass riots, which literally strewn the entire period of the second half of the 50s and early 60s. And very often they began with the erroneous actions of police officers, as in the case of the riots in Aleksandrov and Murom
Under these conditions, in the USSR, they practically carried out an imperceptible, but at the same time, a complete reform of the police recruitment system. Because it became clear that without professionalism and selection of personnel in law enforcement agencies - the entire system - is simply doomed. It was not promoted in the same way as "renaming the police into the police" with re-certification and dressing in a new uniform, did not involve huge staffs of psychologists in its implementation, did not test employees on polygraphs. But from this, the reform was not less effective, but very much the opposite.
In the early 60s, an absolutely new and in its own way unique system of recruiting personnel for service in law enforcement agencies was created in the USSR.
It was impossible to get into the police school in the USSR after the 10th grade of the school. The police officers in the USSR went through a multi-stage selection system.
First you had to serve in the army. Moreover, they served very well, since they were sent to work in the police then only on the basis of the recommendations and characteristics of the military registration and enlistment offices and from the place of service. But it was also impossible to immediately get to study at the police school after the army. It was necessary to serve for some time in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the positions of an ordinary or junior commanding staff. And only after that, on the recommendation of the management, it was possible to apply for admission.
There was also a system of targeted recruitment to the police along the Komsomol and party lines. Moreover, they took not those who were eager to work in the police, but those who, in the opinion of personnel officers, were suitable for this work. The selected candidates were checked for a long time and given time to think. Many refused, but many agreed.
In principle, the system of selection for the militia in the USSR was partly similar to the principles used for recruiting state security agencies, only somewhat simplified and with somewhat reduced requirements. By the way, a candidate for police service in the Soviet Union, not only had to already have basic operational and service skills (to be able to shoot and master hand-to-hand combat techniques acquired while serving in the army), but also to be morally stable, not to have offenses be fit for military service. The undersized and physically undeveloped were not taken to the police. In addition, the operational-combat training in the police was such that an employee with a "beer belly" simply could not appear in her personnel as a phenomenon.
There were also unwritten rules for appointment to leadership positions. In order to take the position of head of the Internal Affairs Directorate, for example, an employee had to work for a certain time in the operational staff and have the appropriate education. With all this, work in the police was not very prestigious in the USSR, but therefore there were practically no "thieves" or "vertebral" - those who got into the authorities on someone's call. Unlike trade, where it was possible to "grab" something, it was customary in the Soviet police to serve honestly. Of course, there were rumors about bribery of GAI officers and OBKhSS officers, but corruption in law enforcement agencies did not carry a mass phenomenon. There were isolated cases, which, however, were often detected and such persons were also immediately removed from the system. Sometimes their path ran right away - to places not so remote, which was a very demonstrative "science" for the rest of the employees. But policemen were rarely imprisoned. It didn't come to that. The people were different and worked mainly for the "idea" and not "loot". In addition, a significant mass of romantics went to the police, who were determined not to receive profits from the "protection" of crime, but just to fight it.
This, of course, was ensured by a whole system of control over the work of the Soviet police by the prosecutor's office, the KGB of the USSR and party structures. Educational work among police officers was also not carried out for the sake of a "tick". The police, as well as the army, had their own political officers, who not only carried out watered information about the role and place of the CPSU, but also instructed the policemen on the right path. Drunkards, brawlers, lovers of "resolving issues" using their official position were immediately fired from the authorities. The situation "a police officer arranged an accident while intoxicated" - in the Soviet police was simply impossible. Not to mention the supermarket shooting.
There were, of course, violations. But strict checks were always carried out on them, and not only their direct culprits, but also the leadership of a particular ATC or department, often fell under the dismissal. Yes if we recall the “case on Zhdanovskaya”, wild by Soviet standards, - after all, the matter was not limited there to the fact that the employees who killed and robbed were put on trial and the subsequent sentence in the form of VMN. According to the results of the audit, the entire management of the Internal Affairs Directorate at the Moscow Metro was fired (due to discrediting circumstances, without benefits and pensions), and almost all (!) Personnel were fired next. Over 200 people! Only for the fact that "they heard about the facts, but were silent." Fair? Instructive for others? I think so.
There were also social benefits. A police officer could get housing faster than ordinary people, could rest in the sanatoriums of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, had the right after retirement to use departmental medicine. Of course, they still exist today, but in the conditions of the USSR they meant much more than in modern Russia. As a result, employees valued their service and lost it because of some momentary "profit" - in most cases they did not risk it. Being a pensioner of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the USSR was much more prestigious than a simple pensioner.
Unfortunately, this system began to break down from the end of the 80s, when law enforcement agencies in the USSR, thanks to the policy of M.S. Gorbachev began to be "weakened from above", beaten on the hands when solving crimes related to organized crime. In the late 80s, in a number of regions, the police were completely disarmed. This led to the fact that at the end of the existence of the USSR, the police could no longer cope with their tasks. For example, there was a case in the late 80s when police officers absurdly died trying to stop armed criminals with some PR-73 "batons" ...
As a result, the situation went downhill. The militia was discredited in the eyes of citizens, not selected candidates began to go to work there, but any people from the street.
From the beginning of the 90s, they began to accept police schools right from school, and often 19-year-old junior lieutenants were released into the service, since there was a terrible personnel shortage. It was already possible to join the police instead of serving in the army, and there was no question of any selection - the military registration and enlistment offices usually offered this option to everyone who somehow met the requirements, for example, had a higher education. Of course, there was no "multi-stage" selection and close. They turned a blind eye to moral character, coupled with physical and mental health. As a result, in the middle of the "zero" I had to disentangle the situation with the "Yevsyukovs" on an industrial scale ...
(This is not my personal opinion. This was all somehow told to me by a veteran of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who left the service back in the 90s.)
From an article by Artem Krechetnikov and others.
Perhaps not a single Soviet department has experienced as many reorganizations, divisions and mergers as the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With two exceptions, both of which occurred in the 1990s (Viktor Yerin and Vladimir Rushailo), the police have never been led by professionals.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs was headed either by Chekists (Yagoda, Beria, Kruglov, Fedorchuk, Nurgaliyev) or by political appointees (Yezhov, Dudorov, Shchelokov, Vlasov, Bakatin, Pugo, Stepashin, Gryzlov).
Anatoly Kulikov came to the post of minister in 1995 from the post of commander of the internal troops, and did not hide the fact that he considers himself, first of all, the "Minister for Chechnya Affairs", and delegated police issues to deputies.
The police and the KGB were compared with the king's musketeers and the cardinal's guards, and after the release of "Seventeen Moments of Spring" - with the departments of Muller and Schellenberg. The difference was that the rivals from the novels of Dumas and Yulian Semyonov were in approximately the same position, while the KGB was always clearly superior.
Stepashin.
There was an unspoken but steadfastly observed rule: a person who worked at least for a short time in the police was never taken into the KGB cadres. There were transitions in the opposite direction, but, as a rule, to a large increase.
The most common word in the lexicon of KGB officers, when it came to police work, was the word "get dirty." They considered policemen ignorant, rude and dishonest, their policemen - snobs and white-handed people.
The load on the KGB operatives and investigators was much less, and they did not deal with representatives of the social bottom, but with the intelligentsia and foreigners.
In the pre-perestroika era, only the KGB had the technical equipment for surveillance. If the police needed someone to "listen" to (most often, when investigating cases of large shadow business and corruption), they had to ask colleagues for help. They either made an important appearance and made them wait, or they themselves used the information received and reaped all the laurels.
Kulikov.
Nurgaliev.
The police did not like the party nomenklatura either, but for a different reason. High-ranking apparatchiks were constantly appointed to the police for general positions, counting their experience of Komsomol and party work in officer length of service.
After working out for five years in "general leadership", they left with a high pension, and because of this competition, it became almost impossible for professionals to "wait for a hopeless life" (that is, generals' epaulettes without longitudinal stripes, called "gaps").
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were more sympathizers, first to Gorbachev and then to Yeltsin, in the police than in other law enforcement agencies - not because of a commitment to democracy, but because of the old hostility towards "partocrats" and "committees" .
The opinion about the corruption of the police was formed back in the 1960s and significantly increased in the 1990s, when, according to the policemen themselves, they "stopped paying their salaries, leaving pistols and IDs to feed themselves."
The most innocuous form of "conflict of interest" was earning money as private security guards and couriers in official uniform and with service weapons. It was officially allowed.
Once upon a time, the dream of almost every policeman "from the ground" was to get into the transcendental central apparatus of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then the ministerial personnel officers began to fill the vacancies with great difficulty: there were no people willing to go even with a promotion to a place where they could take home only a stack of writing paper.
At the dawn of Russian reforms, businessmen willingly hired former policemen, believing that they might not invent gunpowder, but they are disciplined, reliable and honest people. Now this opinion has changed to the opposite.
Of course, in the Soviet era, many policemen, especially from the OBKhSS and the traffic police, did not live on a salary, but still they did not build three-story mansions and did not drive jeeps.
The stories about corruption of those years sometimes sound like Christmas stories. In the 1970s, the case of a traffic cop who was regularly on duty at a busy exit from the city made a lot of noise in Kyiv. Rumors reached the authorities that he was dishonest. The employee decided to check.
The plainclothes operative broke the rules and offered to "negotiate". The policeman was indignant: “How can you, I don’t take it! Well, except perhaps ... See the “glass” opposite? Treat me with cognac, otherwise it’s a cool day.”
Further observation showed that the policeman drank this about twenty times during his shift and should have been lying on the ground for a long time, but he had not one eye!
In the end, it turned out that he was in cahoots with the bartender, who poured him tea from a special bottle, and they shared the money for paid, but not drunk cognac. They say that today smart policemen also do not take cash, but prefer shares in the business.
The most radical attempt to fight police corruption was made in 1982-1985 by Shchelokov's successor, Chekist Vitaly Fedorchuk. According to informed people, Andropov admonished him with the words: "A lot of rot has spread in the Ministry of Internal Affairs - it needs to be cleaned!"
In a little over two years, Fedorchuk expelled about 90 thousand people without a pension (according to other sources - 220 thousand, but this number, apparently, includes those dismissed due to age and illness).
The tactics used were simple: according to the authorities, you live beyond your means - write a letter of resignation! If you persist, referring to the presumption of innocence, we will deal with it in detail, and then the case will most likely end in a prison term. Almost no one tried to argue.
Fedorchuk.
All regional police departments received a secret order "to carry out work to identify employees who own dachas and cars registered in the name of relatives" - as if this in itself was a crime!
Before Fedorchuk, the militia, along with party organs, was the only part of society that was not under the control of the KGB. The new minister legalized KGB surveillance of subordinates. Under him, denunciations, including anonymous ones, and wiretapping flourished.
Fedorchuk especially disliked scientific and analytical departments, which he considered a haven for highly paid loafers. All managers and teachers of educational institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the ranks up to lieutenant colonel, and in Moscow up to colonel inclusive, he forced to patrol the streets in their free time as ordinary policemen.
The minister's favorite phrase was: "We must create tension in the work!". To the general, who obligingly opened the door for him, he threw in front of everyone: "For the first time I see a porter in a general's uniform!"
The debate about Fedorchuk's methods continues to this day. Some argue that this is the only way to fight corruption, others say that he grossly violated human rights, dispersed experienced professionals and generally did more harm than good. Needless to say, in the militia itself, he was the most unpopular leader in its entire history.
Criminal statistics in the USSR was classified. When the data began to be published, it turned out that since the mid-1960s, crime began to rise steadily, having approximately tripled in 20 years.
The USSR was characterized by violent crime "on a domestic basis", generated by drunkenness, anger and bad manners. With the beginning of market reforms, typically "capitalist" crimes, motivated by big money, were added to it.
The work of the police in the USSR and Russia has always been evaluated either by the number of crimes committed, or by the level of their detection. Both criteria - the first directly, the second indirectly - encourage police officers not to register crimes, so that there are fewer of them.
In any police unit there has always been an opera, famous for its ability not to reveal, but to hide crimes. This is a delicate matter, requiring knowledge of psychology, combined with outstanding impudence.
In the 1970s, a certain sailor of the fishing fleet, who earned good money at that time, was traveling from Murmansk on vacation with a change at the Kazansky railway station in Moscow. While waiting for the train, he drank, dozed off in the waiting room, and when he woke up, he discovered the loss of his wallet with all its contents, including a ticket for the next journey.
The policemen immediately realized that looking for a pickpocket was a disastrous business, and they called for help the best specialist in concealing crimes. He quickly figured out what kind of person was in front of him, hugged him by the shoulders, surrounded him with sympathy, inspired that the money would not be returned, and that the victim himself was to blame - he had to drink less and take better care of his things.
He took me to a friend of the director of the station restaurant ("A comrade is in trouble, he needs to be fed, and 150 grams to relieve stress!"). He put me on a train with a friend, the foreman, agreed with the director of the dining car about food on the road.
Having reached the house and regained consciousness, the fisherman wrote a letter to Brezhnev: “I always thought badly about the police, but now I see that I was mistaken. did not!"
From the Central Committee, the letter was forwarded to Shchelokov's secretariat, who instructed the personnel inspectorate to check the facts and encourage a good employee. It immediately became clear that no theft of the wallet appeared in the incident log on the indicated day, and the captain received a reprimand instead of gratitude.
Attempts to raise the prestige of the police began under Minister Nikolai Shchelokov, who set a record tenure in this post - from 1966 to 1982. Shchelokov is the highest-ranking of the exposed corrupt officials of the Soviet period. He, according to many veterans of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was the best minister in modern history.
Shchelokov significantly increased the salaries of employees, built many buildings, including the current headquarters of the ministry on Zhitnaya Street, started "investigator's suitcases" that allowed them to competently inspect the crime scene, and a new uniform, abandoning the blue color associated with the Stalinist NKVD.
Shchelokov.
Shchelokov, creating authority for police officers, and in this respect he was a bright and gifted person, transformed the ministry. He, knowing about the execution of workers in Novocherkassk at the direction of Khrushchev, about the events in Temirtau, in Karaganda, in Chimkent, about mass riots that arose to one degree or another, convinced Brezhnev of the need to create internal troops in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, equipped with the latest technology. .
Shchelokov was well aware that it was not advisable to suppress unrest within the country by the forces of the Ministry of Defense, as it happened in many cases, this could cause sharp discontent in the West. Having received the go-ahead from Brezhnev, he began to create very powerful internal troops.
Immediately after his appointment to the post of minister, Shchelokov appointed a very gifted and prominent scientist, Sergei Mikhailovich Krylov, who possessed fundamental legal knowledge, a man of the highest personal decency, as head of the organizational inspectorate department.
After some time, on the initiative of Shchelokov, Krylov headed the newly created headquarters of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, developed many plans to restore order in the country. After the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR was created on the initiative of Shchelokov to train leadership personnel, Shchelokov appointed Krylov the head of this academy and awarded him the rank of lieutenant general.
Around the same period, he appointed a very talented and prominent scientist in the field of criminal law and criminology, Doctor of Law Igor Ivanovich Karpets, to the post of head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, who was awarded the rank of lieutenant general.
Shchelokov ordered for himself translations of articles about the methods of foreign police, issued orders and instructions on the cultural treatment of citizens, demanded that ordinary policemen read at least newspapers, valued employees with academic degrees, and was friends with the creative intelligentsia.
Through the efforts of Shchelokov, the annual concerts in honor of the Police Day, in which pop "stars" and famous humorists were invited to participate, became popular with Soviet viewers who were not spoiled by entertainment on a par with New Year's "lights", and the detective genre flourished in literature and cinema.
At the same time, the minister and his people made sure that in no book or film did the hero-policeman drink, run after other people's wives, and even more so, he himself did not turn out to be a criminal.
By the standards of the Soviet nomenklatura, Shchelokov was a liberal. When the question of Solzhenitsyn's expulsion was being decided, he alone said that "we must not execute enemies, but strangle them in our arms," and even wrote to Brezhnev on this issue, although the matter did not directly concern him.
However, at the same time, Shchelokov did not refuse anything to himself or those close to him. The head of the OBKhSS Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Lieutenant-General Perevoznik, whom Shchelokov had unlimited trust, said that after Shchelokov became the Minister of the Interior, he literally delivered food products from Moldova to Moscow in wagons, which were packaged in the capital and delivered to the right people.
Knowing this, Perevoznik warned Shchelokov, noting that the offerings had become too large-scale and sooner or later someone might start talking about them. And those people whom Shchelokov gifts, in the end, too, may someday make an official statement about his abuses.
Shchelokov laughed and replied to Perevoznik that no one had ever refused these gift offerings. So he worries in vain.
The scandals surrounding Shchelokov and his first deputy, Brezhnev's son-in-law Yuri Churbanov, who was sentenced in 1988 to 12 years in prison for accepting bribes and offerings, greatly undermined the prestige of the police. Some modern historians see parallels between the Shchelokov and Churbanov cases and the "YUKOS case."
According to them, high-ranking generals were, of course, to blame, but there were clearly political motives and an accusatory bias in their persecution. Shchelokov was ruined by Yuri Andropov's personal dislike of him for many years, which amounted to hatred, and Churbanov - by the fact that he was too arrogant, turned out to be too visible and became a living personification of "stagnation".
The first secretary of the Krasnodar Territory Committee of the CPSU, Medunov, whose claims were much more serious than Shchelokov, and who was expelled from the Central Committee of the CPSU on the same day as the former minister, calmly retired, retaining even the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor, and lived until the 1990s when the local communists made an icon out of him.
Churbanov.
History often repeats itself. The construction of the "vertical of power" under Vladimir Putin led to the revival of the division of society, traditional for Russia, into two main classes - the service class and the taxable class, with the former standing unambiguously higher.
Russia is a capitalist country, but in any regional center the main people are not local entrepreneurs, but the prosecutor and the police chief. The Russian "siloviki" know very well who they owe.
