5 ms·

The Eastern Bloc had plenty of terrorism, as well as organized crime -- who do you think was supplying all those black markets? Being a police state is one thi

The Eastern Bloc had plenty of terrorism, as well as organized crime -- who do you think was supplying all those black markets? Being a police state is one thing; being an _effective_ police state is something else, much harder (at least in the pre-computer era). In the Soviet case, it didn't help that they didn't really care much about crime...

RogtamBar 11y ago
Plenty of terrorism? USSR funded and commited plenty of terrorism, but I've yet to hear of any terrorist incidents prior to the perestroila.. Soviets did have some organized crime, but they were well, Russians. GDR, Czechoslovakia, etc, somewhat less inept countries had very little crime and no organized crime to speak of.
- sirrocco 11y ago
  What was the cost of that "safety" ? There is no such thing as a free lunch it seems
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Plenty of terrorism? USSR funded and commited plenty of terrorism, but I've yet to hear of any terrorist incidents prior to the perestroila.. While the regime exercised strong control of information prior to glasnost, and had plenty of motive to repress information that would indicate weakness of the regime, there are numerous known hijackings, the 1977 Moscow bombings, and others. (While reliable information about responsibility for some, and any broader organizational responsibility that might be behind those clearly responsible for others, is hard to come by, there does seem to be a disproportionate link to Armenia among the known incidents, with some specifically linked to Armenian nationalists.)
abalashov 11y ago
Former Soviet national here... In the Soviet case, it didn't help that they didn't really care much about crime... What gives you that idea?
- clock_tower 11y ago
  Solzhenitsyn on Stalin, to be honest. _The First Circle_ is fiction, but I find it hard to imagine that he would have described Stalin as not caring about burglars unless that could be imagined of him... Solzhenitsyn in general gives a sense that the USSR wanted to keep things more or less held together, but wasn't that concerned about people who fell between the cracks.
  - abalashov 11y ago
    If you equate Stalin with "the USSR", you're wilfully excluding about 40 years of additional history--history that was very, very different after 1953, and certainly is not captured in gulag literature. What do you know about crime in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years? (A whopping 29 years combined.)

RogtamBar 11y ago

Plenty of terrorism? USSR funded and commited plenty of terrorism, but I've yet to hear of any terrorist incidents prior to the perestroila.. Soviets did have some organized crime, but they were well, Russians. GDR, Czechoslovakia, etc, somewhat less inept countries had very little crime and no organized crime to speak of.

sirrocco 11y ago
What was the cost of that "safety" ? There is no such thing as a free lunch it seems
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Plenty of terrorism? USSR funded and commited plenty of terrorism, but I've yet to hear of any terrorist incidents prior to the perestroila.. While the regime exercised strong control of information prior to glasnost, and had plenty of motive to repress information that would indicate weakness of the regime, there are numerous known hijackings, the 1977 Moscow bombings, and others. (While reliable information about responsibility for some, and any broader organizational responsibility that might be behind those clearly responsible for others, is hard to come by, there does seem to be a disproportionate link to Armenia among the known incidents, with some specifically linked to Armenian nationalists.)

abalashov 11y ago

Former Soviet national here... In the Soviet case, it didn't help that they didn't really care much about crime... What gives you that idea?

clock_tower 11y ago
Solzhenitsyn on Stalin, to be honest. _The First Circle_ is fiction, but I find it hard to imagine that he would have described Stalin as not caring about burglars unless that could be imagined of him... Solzhenitsyn in general gives a sense that the USSR wanted to keep things more or less held together, but wasn't that concerned about people who fell between the cracks.
- abalashov 11y ago
  If you equate Stalin with "the USSR", you're wilfully excluding about 40 years of additional history--history that was very, very different after 1953, and certainly is not captured in gulag literature. What do you know about crime in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years? (A whopping 29 years combined.)