Socialist Legality after Stalin

Abstract

The chapter reveals how Stalin’s successors enabled the procuracy to become the key institution for the transformation of the Soviet dictatorship during de-Stalinization. It demonstrates how under the slogan of ‘socialist legality’ the collective leadership around Nikita Khrushchev paved the way for the prosecution of low-ranking police and Gulag officials, therefore empowering the procuracy to enforce discipline in the Soviet police apparatus. The chapter shows how prosecutors in Molotov maintained and even increased the quality of their investigative work when prosecuting hardened and/or juvenile criminals but also prosecuted abusive or sloppily working policemen, while also initiating criminal cases between Gulag inmates and against camp guards. Prosecutors now had the authority to enforce discipline on a broader scale, creating an atmosphere of accountability and predictability in society and even in the Gulag, paving the way for transforming the Stalinist police state into a ‘disciplined dictatorship’ after 1953.