Introduction

Abstract

After November 1982, when Andropov took over as leader of the Soviet communist party, the Soviet authorities and media devoted a great deal of attention to the problem of social order and discipline in the USSR. It was insistently suggested that the current level of lawlessness and disorder in social life should no longer be tolerated. Soviet citizens must learn to work in a disciplined way, public order must be improved, and officials at all levels must observe the law and not use their positions in the pursuit of personal and local ends. The beginning of the law and order campaign was signalled by Andropov at a meeting of the party central committee in November 1982, when he appealed to the party and to the people as a whole to ‘carry out a more decisive struggle against all violations of party, state and labour discipline’.1 The campaign was accompanied by much comment in the press from Soviet citizens, expressing great concern about the state of public order, discipline and legality.KeywordsPublic OrderPolitical ControlStable RuleSoviet SocietyIllegal PracticeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.