Rowdytum im Staatssozialismus: Ein Feindbild aus der Sowjetunion by Kotalík Matěj (review)

Abstract

SEER, 98, 4, OCTOBER 2020 792 Kotalík, Matěj. Rowdytum im Staatssozialismus: Ein Feindbild aus der Sowjetunion.KommunismusundGesellschaft.ReihedesLeibniz-Zentrums für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam, 10. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2019. 399 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. €50.00 (paperback). The Czech scholar Matěj Kotalík has set himself a challenging task in this detailed new study, based on his 2017 PhD thesis at the University of Potsdam. His aim is to trace the ‘geobiography’ of the Russian concept of khuliganstvo (itself a term adapted from the English word ‘hooliganism’) as it travelled across borders of time and space from late tsarist-era St Petersburg through the USSR of the Lenin, Stalin and early Khrushchev eras, and on to post-1956 Communist Czechoslovakia and East Germany. This is a story that cannot be told in straightforward linear terms, for as the author readily concedes, khuliganstvo had multiple, contested meanings in the political, judicial and social spheres. Furthermore, the Communist satellite states had their own terms for it: výtržnictví in the Czechoslovak case, and Rowdytum (another borrowing from the English language) in the East German case. In all three countries, popular perceptions of ‘hooliganism’ rarely matched the definitions underpinning official crime statistics, while even the basic distinction used to exclude deeds motivated by personal economic gain, revenge or jealousy from the realm of khuliganstvo, namely that the latter had to involve an element of ‘pointless’ violation of social norms, often proved unworkable in practice. In spite of these difficulties, Kotalík makes a strong case for seeing the management of khuliganstvo in the years 1956 to 1979 as a good example of the ‘social practice of rule’ (Herrschaft als soziale Praxis) in the post-Stalinist ČS(S) R and GDR. Applying theoretical approaches developed by Alf Lüdtke, among others, regarding the ‘permeated’ (durchherrschte) nature of Communist societies, he argues that a rough consensus emerged between ruling parties, mass organizations, the police and criminal justice systems and the population in general that there was a problem with ‘hooliganism’ which needed to be addressed in a coordinated way. As the 1960s continued, the notion that this was at heart an ideological issue involving Western penetration of young minds was quietly put to one side, and instead a more sociological approach was taken, based on the perceived need to understand the ‘hooligan’ in the context of changing family structures, evolving technologies and new leisure opportunities as socialist societies developed. Greater care was also taken to differentiate between ‘serious’ and ‘trivial’ forms of ‘hooliganism’, to educate parents, teachers and employers, and to persuade all adults that they were collectively responsible for helping young people to manage their free time in a constructive way. However, this consensus was fragile, and became more so in the 1970s. In post-1969 Czechoslovakia ‘normalization’ brought with it a ‘(re-)ideologization’ REVIEWS 793 (p. 263) of approaches to ‘hooliganism’, symbolized above all by the prosecution of members of the rock group Plastic People of the Universe for the offence of výtržnictví in 1976. Ordinary Czechoslovaks were hardly moved by this event, but objected loudly whenever the authorities took actions that singled out members of their own families as ‘hooligans’. In Honecker’s East Germany, especially after the signing of the Helsinki agreements in 1975, the regular police (Volkspolizei) came to resent the new expectation that they avoid heavyhanded tactics in situations where the Western media might be present. They also complained about the lack of ‘civil courage’ among ordinary citizens, who often failed to intervene against anti-social behaviour. Yet citizens could be equally critical of the Volkspolizei and its Czechoslovak equivalent, the VB (Veřejná bezpečnost), either for being too tough or not tough enough. Interestingly, against the background of riotous youth demonstrations in East Berlin on the twenty-eighth anniversary of the GDR’s founding in October 1977, Kotalík uncovers evidence of Vopos beating up and arresting innocent bystanders in side-streets. Here, the police developed their own form of defiance (Eigen-Sinn) in reaction to the ‘restraint’ they had to show towards the active ‘Rowdys’ on Alexanderplatz. Problems like this grew worse in the 1980s, but Kotal...