Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  1228

  PRISONS

  Prisoners eating in a cafeteria, Norilsk, Russia, July 1991. © DAVID TURNLEY/CORBIS responsible for all questions of the Russian prison system. The suggestions of the Grot committee became law on February 27, 1879. At this time there were about seven hundred prisons with a capacity of 54,253 inmates, but actually 70,488 persons were housed there. In the next few decades, significant efforts were undertaken in the repair of old prisons and the construction of new ones. Between 1879 and 1905, the GTU succeeded in improving the conditions in the Russian prisons, during which time, in 1895, the GTU was transferred from the MVD to the Department of Justice. As a result of the waves of arrests after the revolution of 1905, the number of prisoners doubled from 1906 to 1908. After the February 1917 revolution the GTU was renamed the Main Administration of Places of Incarceration (GUMZ), and many prisoners who had been granted amnesty were re-arrested.

  In April 1918 the new People’s Commissioner’s Office for Justice (NKYu) dissolved the GUMZ and formed the Central Penal Department (TsKO). Soon there developed in parallel to the activity of the NKYu a system of places of incarceration of the VChK (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission on Struggle against Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation). In the prisons of the TsKO were housed the usual criminals; the VChK was responsible for putative and real opponents of the revolution. A principal purpose of prisons was the re-education of the delinquent; accordingly the TsKO was renamed the Central Working Improvement Department (TsITO) in October 1921. Hunger was common in TsITO facilities.

  In early 1922 the VChK was integrated into the People’s Commissioner’s Office for Internal Affairs (NKVD). On July 1, 1922, the handing over of all places of incarceration from the NKYu to the NKVD was effected and the prison management was reorganized in the Main administration of Places of Incarceration (GUMZ NKVD). Additionally, the secret police (United State Political Administration, OGPU) had prisons under its jurisdiction. In the time of the Big Terror many prisoners were in the gulag. Under the new people’s commissioner,

  1229

  PRISON SONGS

  Beriya, all prisoners able to work were removed from the prisons; in the Soviet Union after Stalin relatively few were incarcerated.

  On May 7, 1956, the MVD of the USSR issued regulations for inmates, distinguishing between a “general” and an “austere” regime, the latter for prison who systematically violated regulations. On October 8, 1997, the penal enforcement system was subordinated by an Ukas of the president of the Russian Federation, moving again to the Department of Justice, where a State Administration for the Penal Enforcement (GUIN) was founded. Regardless of jurisdiction, however, the prisons continue to receive inadequate funding and, as they were in 1850, continue to be overcrowded, with inmates often afflicted with communicable diseases. See also: GULAG; LEFORTOVO; LUBYANKA; STATE SECURITY, ORGANS OF

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Adams, Bruce F. (1996). The Politics of Punishment: Prison Reform in Russia 1863-1917. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.

  GEORG WURZER

  PRISON SONGS

  Given Russia’s vast prison population, prison songs always constituted a considerable part of popular culture. Interestingly enough, in contemporary Russian prisons themselves, prison songs are not as popular as is commonly thought. As experienced prisoners explain, if the person likes to sing, he or she may receive the nickname “Tape recorder” and may be “turned on” at any moment, meaning that anyone may ask him or her to sing at any moment for someone’s pleasure. This subordinate position brings down the status of the convict who thus cannot be very popular or prestigious. But in normal life outside of prison, these songs acquired tremendous popularity starting from the second half of the twentieth century.

  Contemporary prison songs originate from the older traditions of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, such as brigand songs of those in active opposition to the state and social authorities, drawling songs of hard-labor convicts, and thieves’ cant as a creature of urban environment closely related to the genre of city romance. The latter became widespread at the turn of the twentieth century due to rapid social changes and marginal-ization of Russian society in the years of the Revolution. The most popular song of the period, Murka, tells a dramatic story of an undercover policewoman killed by her criminal lover for her betrayal.

  From the second half of the twentieth century, prison songs occupied a leading position in Soviet underground culture. In the 1960s the most popular bards, such as Vladimir Vysotsky, Alexander Galich, and others, attracted intelligentsia by singing prison songs, thus giving a form of expression of hidden protest against the regime. In their songs prison is associated with the state as a whole; it is implied that under this regime everone is a convict, whether past, present, or future. Rich metaphorical content, antistate motivation, and strong heroic poetics made these songs the sign of the time when the truth about the regime became known with gulag prisoners first being rehabilitated after Stalin’s death. This tradition stems from the political, not the criminal, environment and was closely connected to the dissident movement of the time.

  In contrast to the dissident content of prison songs of the 1960s and 1970s, contemporary prison songs emphasize the criminal element more and are targeted at a specific audience with a clear criminal past and present. Recently these songs successfully entered the popular music industry. These songs are based on the most popular genre of contemporary prison folklore such as ballads. Most of them are “humble” songs: They aim at compassion for the lot of any marginal personality, such as thieves, prostitute, and social outcasts. Their subject is misery, tragic accident, or cruel destiny. Several verses of the ballad cover the entire life of the hero with its happiness, tears, love and betrayal, crime, and custody. Another type of song, by contrast, aims to unite people who share asocial values as a group claiming brotherhood and heroism of a few against conventional authorities. See also: DISSIDENT MOVEMENT; GULAG; PRISONS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Stites, Richard. (1992). Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  JULIA ULYANNIKOVA

  1230

  PRIVATIZATION

  PRIVATIZATION

  Privatization may be pursued with different aims in mind. The political aim is to break away from the past and create a new class of capitalists as quickly as possible. The efficiency aim is to create a better management system for the enterprises, and to set up a market environment. If this aim is dominant, it requires complex institution-building and thus precludes rapid completion of the process. Privatization may have a financial aim: in this case the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) should be sold at their highest value so as to bring revenues to the state. Finally, an equity aim may involve returning property to those who had been deprived of it by the nationalization process (an aim pursued in some Central European countries), giving priority to employees for buying shares in their enterprises, or even giving away state assets to the citizens.

  In Russia, privatization began in January 1992, together with the implementation of the stabilization program, and assumed the form of liberalization of small-scale trade (street vending). This “small privatization” was conducted at a quick pace in the services sector, which consisted of trade, catering, services to households, construction, individual transportation activities, and housing. It was often marred by racketeering and crime. The small-scale state enterprises (which had already been transferred to the local authorities in 1991) were sold to citizens, local entrepreneurs, and/or employees, basically through auctions. At the same time, as prices and individual activities were liberalized, it became immediately possible to create new, small-scale businesses, especially in fields where human capital was the main requirement, such as consulting, engineering, private teaching, and computer services. Actually, such activities were already privately conducted in the Soviet era within the shadow economy.

  The main challen
ge lay in the privatization of the big SOEs, or large-scale privatization. The Russian government was clearly privileging the political objective, and hence opted for a quick mass privatization scheme. It also favored equity considerations, so that the people would benefit from the divestment of the state. In June 1992, the mass privatization program was adopted, and in October the voucher system was launched. All Russian citizens received 10,000 rubles’ worth of privatization vouchers (equivalent then to 50 U.S. dollars), immediately redeemable in cash, or exchangeable against shares in the enterprises selected for privatization that had been transformed into joint stock companies. These enterprises were sold at direct public auctions. The staff (employees and management) could opt for three variants, of which the most popular was the allocation of 51 percent of the shares to the employees at a discounted price. Seventy percent of the enterprises were thus privatized by the end of June 1994; past this deadline the vouchers were no longer valid. The second wave of large-scale privatization proceeded much more slowly and was far from complete in 2002. It had to be based upon sales to foreigners or domestic buyers. It was slowed by several factors: the Russian financial crisis of 1998, which led to a collapse of the banking sector; the scandals linked with the outcomes of the first wave, when several notorious deals evidenced the dominant role of insiders who managed to acquire large assets with very little cash; and, finally, the enormous stakes of the second wave, which involved privatization of the energy sector (oil, gas, and electricity) and the telecommunications sector.

  Who owned the Russian enterprises? The most prominent owners were the oligarchs, who controlled the largest firms of the energy and raw materials sector, but who became less powerful after Boris Yeltsin’s resignation in 1999. More generally, the former nomenklatura of the Soviet system, along with a small number of newcomers, took advantage of a privatization process lacking transparency and clear legal rules. Restructuring of enterprises and improving of corporate governance did not proceed along with the change in ownership. Privatization was close to completion in Russia as of 2002, when 75 percent of the GDP was created by the private sector. However, the private sector had yet to function according to the rules of a transparent market. See also: ECONOMY, POST-SOVIET; LIBERALISM; SHOCK THERAPY; TRANSITION ECONOMIES.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Boycko, Maxim; Shlejfer, Andrei; and Vishny, Robert. (1995). Privatizing Russia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). (1999). Transition Report 1999: Ten Years of Transition. London: EBRD. Hedlund, Stefan. (2001). “Property Without Rights: Dimensions of Russian Privatisation.” Europe-Asia Studies 53(2):213-237.

  MARIE LAVIGNE

  1231

  PROCURACY

  PROCURACY

  The prosecutor’s office in the Russian Federation plays a pivotal role in law enforcement, including criminal investigations and prosecution, representation of the state’s interests in civil disputes, supervision of the functioning of prisons and places of detention, and investigation of citizens’ grievances.

  The Procuracy was introduced in 1722 by Peter the Great in an effort to create a public law system similar to those in Western Europe. However, in practice, the Procuracy focused primarily on supervising the prompt and full execution of the tsar’s edicts. Catherine II extended procuratorial supervision to regional and local levels, where procurators served as the “eyes of the tsar” in monitoring the activity of provincial governors and other officials. This function was widely resented by provincial governors and was eliminated by the legal reforms of 1864.

  A decree of November 24, 1917, of the Council of People’s Commissars abolished the Procuracy and all other tsarist legal institutions in favor of more informal control mechanisms. In 1922 the Bolshevik government reestablished the Procuracy to serve as the “eyes of the state,” insuring full and complete cooperation in executing the policies of the state and the Communist Party.

  During the Stalin era the Procuracy, under the leadership of Procurator-General Andrei Vyshin-sky, aggressively pursued suspected opponents of Stalin’s regime and secured their speedy imprisonment or execution. The Procuracy’s jurisdiction was also extended to non-legal matters, such as overseeing the successful implementation of industrialization and collectivization.

  After Stalin’s death in 1953, the Procuracy shifted its emphasis from coercion and repression to prosecuting ordinary criminals and supervising legality in the operations of various governmental agencies. The Procuracy grew in power and prestige during the post-Stalin period. By the 1980s it employed more than 18,000 lawyers and supervised an additional 18,000 criminal investigators; together they comprised more than one-quarter of the Soviet Union’s legal profession.

  Prosecutors were slow in responding to Gorbachev’s reforms, viewing them as a threat to their wide-ranging authority. The Procuracy managed to defend its privileged position in the Russian legal system even after the demise of the USSR. A new “Law on the Procuracy of the Russian Federation” was enacted in 1995. The law enshrined the Procuracy as a single, unified, and centralized institution charged with “supervising the implementation of laws by local legislative and executive bodies, administrative control organs, legal entities, public organizations, and officials, as well as the lawfulness of their acts.” While the Procuracy’s jurisdiction remained broad, it lost power to supervise the operation of the courts, which was transferred to the Ministry of Justice.

  The powers of the Procuracy have been further restricted by the new criminal procedure code, which was enacted in July 2002. According to the code, prosecutors may no longer issue search warrants or order suspects to be detained. In addition, prosecutors must appear in court to present the state’s case, rather than rely on an extensive dossier compiled during the preliminary investigation. These and other restrictions were undertaken to limit the Procuracy’s privileged status in criminal prosecutions, engender a more adversarial process, and elevate the status and independence of the courts. See also: LEGAL SYSTEMS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Mikhailovskaya, Inga. (1999). “The Procuracy and Its Problems.” East European Constitutional Review 11:1-2. Smith, Gordon B. (1978). The Soviet Procuracy and the Supervision of Administration. Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands: Sijthoff amp; Noordhoff. Smith, Gordon B. (1996). Reforming the Russian Legal System. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  GORDON B. SMITH

  PRODNALOG

  “Food Tax.”

  The word prodnalog comes from the nouns “food” (prodovolstvie) and “tax” (nalog). It is translated as “food tax,” or “tax in kind.” The food tax was an instrument of state policy to collect food and was used twice during the Soviet period. The first introduction of the food tax was in 1921, during the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP). During the period of war communism (1918-1921), the Soviet state used forced requisitions to confis1232

  PRODRAZVERSTKA

  cate food from peasant households. As a result of forced requisitions, peasants reduced the acreage they cultivated and the volume of food they produced. The food they produced was often hidden from the state, so the net result was national famine and starvation in the cities, which in turn led to massive de-urbanization from 1918 to 1920.

  In March 1921, with the introduction of the New Economic Plan (NEP), the Communist Party changed its strategy toward the peasantry and adopted a food tax, replacing food requisitions. The food tax specified target quotas of food that were to be delivered to the state. After the delivery quota was met, any food grown by the peasantry could be used as desired-for sale through legalized private channels, for livestock, or for consumption. Delivery quotas for the food tax were established well below the levels of forced confiscation, thereby lessening the burden on peasants, providing them stability in their calculations, and giving them incentives to produce as much as they could. The result was a rebound in agricultural production by the mid-1920s. In 1924 the food tax was replaced by a monetary tax on peasant households.


  The second usage of the food tax occurred in 1991. Once again, the stimulus was the state’s inability to obtain sufficient food for the urban population. In 1991 the government of the Russian Republic adopted a food tax that was to be fulfilled in addition to the state order (goszakaz). The size of the state order averaged around 30 percent of production, and the food tax added another 40 percent. The tax was assessed on state and collective farms and other agricultural enterprises. Newly created peasant farms were exempt from the food tax. In order to enforce this tax, penalties for non-compliance consisted of monetary fines, or the withholding of fuel, machinery, and other needed inputs. However, as Communist Party strength diminished in the countryside and throughout society in 1991, penalties for noncompliance were often absent, and the food tax was not successful. It was abolished in 1992. See also: AGRICULTURE; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY; PRO-DRAZVERSTKA