Crime, Police, and Samosudy in Petrograd in the Russian Revolution and Sociological Theories of Anomie

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This article attempts to assess the importance of social breakdown in the Russian Revolution. It argues that Petrograd experienced an unprecedented rise in violent crime from March to October, which reduced the society to a state of anomie. The article introduces the sociological concepts of anomie developed by Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton. Introducing Durkheim’s theory that anomie results from the breakdown of “organic solidarity” that assures cohesion in an advanced society, and Merton’s theory that anomie arises when the cultural structures and the social structures break down, the article attempts to examine how these theories can be applicable to the reality of Petrograd during the revolution. Durkheim argues that when “organic solidarity” fails, “mechanical solidarity,” characterized by collective conscious, emotion, and violence, takes over. In this article this theory is applied to explain the violence in samosudy. The article further attempts to identify those who committed crime, who participated in samosudy, and where crime and samosudy took place. It argues that crime and samosudy took place in the central and southern districts of Petrograd with a mixed population of predominantly urban poor and the lower rung of the middle class, rather than in the working-class neighborhoods. It argues that samosudy were reflections of the frustrations of the urban poor, who achieved momentary empowerment by exerting violence against petty criminals. Popular violence committed by criminal acts and by samosudy provided an important background for the Bolshevik assumption of power.