Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 61 | Issue 3 Article 5 1971 A Selected Bibliography of Soviet Criminology Peter H. Jr. Solomon Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation Peter H. Jr. Solomon, A Selected Bibliography of Soviet Criminology, 61 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 393 (1970) This Criminology is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. Tim JouaTNAL o Cna.NAL Lw, CRIUMOLOoY Us PoLcE SCIENCE VoL 61, No. 3 Copyright a 1970 by Northwestern University School of Law Prined in U.S.A. A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOVIET CRIMINOLOGY PETER H. SOLOMON, JR. The author is a Ph.D. candidate at the Russian Institute of Columbia University. His selected bibliography of Soviet criminology was prepared during his study at the Institute of Criminology of the University of Cambridge. Professor Leon Radzinowicz, the Institute's director, recently issued it in mimeograph form for general distribution in England. The bibliography is published here because of its recognized quality and its usefulness to both the occasional as well as the serious student of Soviet criminology. Since Stalin's death in 1953, and especially since formity and contribution replaced debate and 1956, empirical social research in the Soviet Union speculation as the norms for academic and intel- has developed rapidly and dramatically. Soviet lectual behaviour. Now, judging criminology by political leaders have come to recognize the role rigid standards of social purpose and narrow defini- social science might play in the eradication of the tions of conformity, Soviet political leaders all but social problems in Soviet society. As a social eliminated empirical research.' According to their science with immediate practical relevance, crimi- definition, criminology was neither Marxist (espe- nology was among the areas of research which So- cially the biological research), nor did it square viet politicians accepted and encouraged. with a penal policy which had become punitive in word as well as in deed. In 1931 the State Institute HISTOPKCAL Oumum for the Study of Crime and the Criminal was closed. For criminology in Russia, this recent develop- Criminological research continued for a few more ment was not a beginning but a revival. Until the years under more controlled conditions (as in the early 1930s there had been a flourishing crimi- section on criminal policy in the reorganized nology in Russia. Beginning in Tsarist times, Communist Academy), but by the mid-1930's it lawyers and doctors studied crime and participated had stopped entirely. in international meetings on criminology and Late in the Second World War, some former penology. Then, after the Revolution and Civil Soviet criminologists (who since the 1930's had War, criminological study in the Soviet Union been studying the history of criminal law and penal expanded greatly. By the middle 1920s there were practice) decided that political conditions might more than a dozen institutes, centers, laboratories, be ripe for a reintroduction of criminological and clinics studying crime and the criminal. Most research, but they had misjudged the trends; the of these were supported by governmental organi- Stalinist system could end only with Stalin. 4 With zations, such as ministries of health, the courts, or Khrushchev's famous speech to'the 20th Congress the police. The research ranged widely from bio- of the C.P.S.U. in 1956 denouncing some negative psychological studies, heavily influenced by the aspects of the long rule of Stalin came the recogni- Italian positivist writings, to sociological-statistical tion that social research had a role to play and that studies; evaluation of penal measures was also its suppression could no longer be justified. Recog- covered.2 nition of the relevance of criminological research in At the end of the 1920s there was a perceptible particular was strengthened by the reevaluation of change in the socio-political conditions which had the aims of Soviet penal policy which took place in contributed to the success of criminology. The the late 1950s and resulted in reform of the crimi- industrialization and collectivization drives ushered nal law and the administration of criminal justice. 5 in a period of social reconstruction in which con- 1 ' See especially Grodzinskii: item C.7. See Ostroumov: item C.20, infra. 4 Gemet: item C.9; Goliakov: item C.11. 'Positivists' ideas influenced the new Soviet legal ' In 1960 new codes of criminal law and criminal system as well. In the 1924 Criminal Code "measures procedure were completed, reintroducing stricter stand- of social defence" took the place of punishments as the ards of criminal procedure; at the same time, new penal form of penal sanction. The change, however, was more institutions were created to take the place of the dis- in terminology than in substance. banded labor camps. See Berman: item Ac.2. PETER H. SOLOMON, JR. [Vol..61 As a result, criminological research revived, both required him to depend entirely upon his own inside government institutes and in the univer- samples. The second was the ban on the publica- sities. In 1963 the All-Union Institute for the tion of. criminal statistics, both official national Study of the Causes of Crime and the Elaboration ones and the local and sample data collected for of Preventive Measures was established under the research purposes. 0 Soviet researchers have Procuracy of the U.S.S.R. to unify and co-ordinate attempted to overcome the first of these difficulties much of the research.' Research in the mid-1960s by planning a reform of the official statistics which also extended to a number of centers: to univer- will introduce a single unified system of crime sities and institutes in, for example, Moscow, Lenin- reporting~l There are as yet, however, no indica- grad, Voronezh, Riga, Saratov and Kharkhov. tions that either these new official statistics or the statistics of particular research projects will be CONTEMPORARY SOVIET CPUINOLOGY published. In the Soviet Union of the 1960s the criminolo- By 1968 the topics of criminological research and gist is expected to participate in the prevention of the methods used in it have become more diversi- crime and to do research on timely practical ques- fied. Research topics now range from studies of tions within the contours of Soviet Marxian embezzlement and of criminal abortion to investi- assumptions about the nature and origins of crime. gations of the effectiveness of shortterm and As a professional dealing with crime, the Soviet suspended sentences 2 Research methods now criminologist keeps close contact with officials and embrace psychological study of offenders, social practitioners in the administration of justice and psychological study of the effects of informal social attends frequent interdisciplinary and inter-orga- groups on criminal behavior, and public opinion 13 nizational meetingsY In addition, he encourages research practitioners to help in research and to initiate The expansion of the range and methods of their own research projects, and he prepares man- research has proceeded within the limits defined uals for practitioners and for socially-minded citi- by the official theory of crime causation in the zens on the prevention of crime.8 U.S.S.R. Following the Marxian assumption that As a researcher, the Soviet criminologist of the crime, as a product of the bourgeois capitalist early 1960s concentrated his efforts on studies of social system, would disappear in communist the causes of crime, using social statistical tech- society, Soviet scholars have attributed the causes niques. Most of his research centered on offenders of crime in socialist society to the remnants of the who had committed crimes of violence (murder, previous capitalist system. These "remnants of the rape, "hooliganism"), or who were part of a past" they have so defined as to include not only special population-alcoholics, juveniles or recidi- the social conditions which might breed crime, but vists. Using questionnaires and interviews, the also the character traits of individual offenders, researcher would collect data on a special sample which these social conditions produced. Thus, to be of offenders. The data might describe particulars consistent with their Marxian assumptions, Soviet of the crime: social background characteristics of criminologists have been expected to view even the the offender, such as his educational attainment, psychological causes of crime as products of social family situation, work record, age, economic level, conditions which are temporary and not of inher- use of alcohol; and the record of crime prevention ited personality traits which are permanent. activities in the neighborhood of the crime. Often Despite this orthodoxy of definition, Soviet this research was carried out on the community authorities in the 1960s have been reluctant to level, on the assumption that once the specific encourage the revival of psychological research on causes of crime in a particular region were revealed, 0 they might be eliminated through local effort. 9 1 Generally, the data in published research reports The Soviet criminologist doing statistical re- are presented in percentage figures, with bases not indicated. One should also note that control group search in the 1960s faced two important obstacles. figures are not usually provided, although there is The first of these was the lack of a reliable central- evidence that Soviet criminologists in their own think- ing are making increasing use of them. ized system of official criminal statistics. This n Mflkailov and Kondrashkov: item F.21; Shlia- 6 pochnikov: item F.23. Kudriavtsev: item C.24.