Crime & Communism

Under Communism, crime was supposed to wither away as fast as the state. But last week the Soviet Union acknowledged its soaring crime rate by creating a new "Ministry for the Protection of Public Peace," which will nationalize the country's sorely beset police forces. While sharply boosting police powers and urging more prowl cars, the Kremlin freed Russians of any liability for injury done to a suspect in making a citizen's arrest.

Communist nations are plagued with just about all the crimes known to the West, and a few others besides. Crimes against "socialist property" cover all acts in which the state is the victim-anything from black-marketeering to wrecking a state-owned truck. About a third of all crimes in Eastern Europe are "economic crimes" that cost the state untold millions annually. In 1961 and 1962, the Soviet Union revived the death penalty for economic crimes, and roughly 200 offenders have since been sentenced to death.

Stoned Hooligans. Even so, many citizens seem unconvinced that they should keep their hands out of the state till. "People who steal private property are despised," said a Yugoslav radio commentator, "while embezzlers of public funds are admired and looked up to. They are asked how much they got and how they did it." He concluded dolefully: "This is not a proper attitude." A Pole commented: "Stealing from the state is like cheating customs. Everybody does it."

One specifically Communist crime is "hooliganism," a rubric that covers everything from horsing around in public to beating up policemen. Hooliganism is intimately associated with alcohol--fully 80% of arrested hooligans prove to be stoned on vodka or Georgian wine. Most of them regard the customary 15-day jail rap as a holiday from work. From now on, the fact that a man is drunk when he commits a crime is to be considered an aggravating rather than an extenuating circumstance.

Defiant Delinquents. Like the West, the East is having its problems with irrepressible youth. Last May ten young Hungarians, aged 17 to 20, were tried for almost everything in the book--rape, gambling, smuggling, drug pushing, currency violations, idolizing the West, anti-Semitism and hatred of visiting African students. The accused were all part of a 200-member gang that haunted downtown Budapest and augustly called itself the "Inner City Co."

During the trial, Gang Leader Gyoergy Szabo kept his cool. "You have called the Communists 'dirty Reds,' " fretted the judge. "Yes," said Szabo, "with my compliments." Since the defendant had praised Western prosperity, the judge asked if he had taken Hungary's wartime suffering into account. Szabo replied: "West Germany also suffered." What did he mean by knocking Hungarian "freedom"? Snapped Szabo: "I want Hungary to have full freedom, as in Austria or Switzerland."

The court lamented that none of the defendants were able to define fascism or capitalism. Worst of all, although the ten had been born and educated under Communism, not one could define Marxism. While jailing his nine pals for up to 31 years, the shocked court sentenced Gyoergy Szabo to a full five.

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