The criminal situation in Ukraine during the NEP

The purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the measures taken by the relevant Soviet authorities in the USSR during the period of the new economic policy (NEP) in order to eliminate the manifestations of organized crime. Objectives of the study: to determine the main causes of banditry and its manifestations in Soviet Ukraine in the NEP; to explore the ways and methods of struggle of the Soviet power against it. The methodological basis of the study are general scientific (logical, comparative), and special historical methods (problem-chronological). They allowed to determine this period, in which the problem of organized crime is studied specifically, in chronological and logical order. Comparative analysis was used to study individual phenomena of this process. The study is also based on the principles of scientificity, historicism and objectivity. The scientific novelty of the study is that for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the manifestations of organized crime in Soviet Ukraine in 1921-1928 and ways to combat them was carried out. New archival documents on this issue and materials of periodicals of those years were put into scientific circulation. An attempt has been made to give an objective, unbiased assessment of these phenomena and the actions of the Soviet authorities in those years. The new economic policy of the Soviet state during the 1920's was implemented against the background of increasing manifestations of various social anomalies. The struggle against them took place in a difficult socio-economic situation in which the society found itself after the First World War. According to the analysis of the archival sources, the Soviet authorities attached great importance to these measures, and first of all to their termination. These problems were caused by various factors, but primarily by the destructive processes in society itself and the struggle of the Bolsheviks for the establishment of their power. This also applies to the events of the recent Civil War in the former Russian Empire and the state liberation struggle in Ukraine in 1917-1921. One of the main reasons for the growth of organized crime was a difficult economic situation caused by the effects of military communism. In the period under study, namely in the first half of the 1920's, the process of formation of the law enforcement system of the Soviet power took place. The main burden of responsibility for the state of the criminogenic situation in the country rested with the local police.

Source: Bondarchuk M. (2021). The criminal situation in Ukraine during the NEP. Intermarum: istoriya, polityka, kulʹtura. №9: 81-104

Source web-site: http://intermarum.zu.edu.ua/article/view/249147/246441