Below the radar of legal code. Extra-judicial, administrative punishment for social and political deviance in Soviet Union 1917-1953.

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Marc Junge
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 401774175

The goal is to bring to proof, that the Bolsheviks sought new forms of social discipline and social defense (Défense Sociale) beyond the law, trials, sentences and punishment. They gave unprecedented attention to the area of social milieu and structural control of potentially political resistant and socially deviant sections of the population under the radar of legal code: In 1922 with the Special Assembly a new extra-judicial, administrative state body was created. This new body did not supplement the legal code or circumvent it on the same level, but instead operated below its radar. A special, broad-based extra-judicial system developed from this. With the beginning of collectivisation and then again in the Great Terror, other special bodies with extended or limited powers were grouped around the Special Assembly, depending on need, situation and politics: The various Troikas of 1929-1936 and then the so-called Kulak Troikas (order № 00447), National Troikas, Police Troikas, and Dvoikas of 1937-1938. The focus on milieu and structural control was not intended to moderate power or to protect or supplement the codified socialist legal system. On the contrary, in the name of social defense and loyalty-building, it was about a systematic expansion of state intervention powers beyond areas of criminal law on the basis of a purely administrative act, which was characterized by the principle of “in case of doubt against the accused.” The aim was – so the thesis – to create a set of instruments with which to build up sovereign power over an area of society which had never before been penetrated to the extent and in the form organized by the state. Prophylaxis advanced to become a means of power. It was a question of a new technology of punishment, which would have prevented any tendencies to establish "traitors" who would strike their blows from within society (Foucault). Loyalty generation and not the fight against illegitimacy was in the foreground. The structure, functioning and transition of this extra-judicial, administrative system from 1917 to 1953 is the object of the research project. A monography about this issue is planed.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants