1. This kind of social engineering project was not exclusive to the Soviet regime. There are a number of comparative studies devoted to inclusion/exclusion practices used by Stalin’s regime in the USSR and the Nazi regime in Germany: Fitzpatrick, Sheila and Lüdtke, Alf, “Energizing the Everyday: On the Breaking and Making of Social Bonds in Nazism and Stalinism,” in Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared, eds. Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 267–301 Google Scholar; Browning, Christopher R. and Siegelbaum, Lewis H., “Frameworks for Social Engineering: Stalinist Schema of the Identification and the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft ,” in Geyer, and Fitzpatrick, , Beyond Totalitarianism, 231-65 Google Scholar; and Peter Fritzsche and Jochen Hellbeck, “The New Man in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany,” ibid., 302-44.

2. “Kto byl nikem—tot stanet vsem” is a line from the Russian text of the “Internationale,” the official anthem of the Soviet Union until 1944.

3. One of the axes of the University of Trier’s project “Foreigners and the Poor: Changing Forms of Inclusion and Exclusion from Antiquity to Today” was dedicated to the problem of begging (nishchenstvo): see Althammer, Beate, ed., Bettler in der europäischen Stadt der Moderne: Zwischen Barmherzigkeit, Repression und Sozialreform (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2007 Google Scholar). Two articles on begging in Russia were published in this volume: Jahn, Hubertus, “Das St. Petersburger Bettlerkomitee, 1837-1917,” 91-112 Google Scholar and Kudrjavceva, Marija, “Bettler in St. Petersburg am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts. Einige Porträts,” 301–24 Google Scholar.

4. [Unlike other languages, in Russian there are two words for “begging”: nishchenstvo and poproshainichestvo. Poproshainichestvo comes from the verb “to ask/to beg” (e.g., to ask/ to beg for alms). Nishchentsvo refers to the reason for this situation—e.g., “extreme poverty/ misery” (to ask for alms due to extreme poverty). In English, both words are translated as “begging.” When relevant, the Russian is provided here for further context.—Trans.]

5. In the legislative documents of the 1920s, the term nishchenstvo was used. On August 26, 1929, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR published a decree “On Ways of Eradicating Misery (nishchenstvo) and Orphanages Among Adults.” In 1951, the ukase of the presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR “On the Means of Combatting Anti-Social Elements and Parasites,” targeted people found begging (poproshainichestvo).

6. The comments on article 209 of the 1960 Penal Code of the RSFSR give a definition of begging (poproshainichestvo) that, for the first time, classed it as a criminal activity: “Begging is the act of scrounging money, clothing, food, etc. from citizens or organizations (state, social or, for example, religious groups) by persons avoiding socially useful work and for whom begging is a means of either exclusive or complementary survival or by persons who have revenues from work (who receive retirement pensions or are dependent on their children, their parents, or the state) but who beg because of their penchant for alcohol, to save money, etc.” In cases of systematic begging, the law allowed for imprisonment of up to two years or correctional work for a period of six months to one year. See Beliaev, Nikolai and Shargorodskii, Mikhail, eds., Kommentarii k Ugolovnomu kodeksu RSFSR 1960 g. (Leningrad: Izd-vo Leningradskogo universiteta, 1962), 356 Google Scholar.

7. Althammer, Beate, “Einleitung,” in Althammer, Bettler in der europäischen Stadt, 3–22 Google Scholar, here 9.

8. Damaskin, Ioann, “Spekuliatsiia na chutkosti,” Literaturnaia gazeta, September 23, 1954, p. 2 Google Scholar.

9. For an overview of the historiography covering the problem of begging in prerevolutionary Russia, see: Jahn, , Armes Russland, 13-19 Google Scholar; Zubkova, Elena Yu., “S protianutoi rukoi. Nishchie i nishchenstvo v poslevoennom SSSR,” Cahiers du monde russe 49, no. 2/3 (2008): 442–45 Google Scholar.

10. For example, see: Butovskaia, Marina L., D’iakonov, Ivan Yu., and Vanchatova, Marina A., Bredushchie sredi nas. Nishchie v Rossii i stranakh Evropy, istoriia i sovremennost’ (Moscow: Nauchnyi mir, 2007 Google Scholar); Likhodei, Olga A., Professional’noe nishchenstvo i brodiazhnichestvo kak sotsial’nyi fenomen (Saint Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskij univertsitet vodnykh kommunikatsii, 2004 Google Scholar); Braithwaite, Jeanine, “The Old and New Poor in Russia,” in Poverty in Russia: Public Policy and Private Responses, ed. Klugman, Jeni (Washington: The World Bank, 1997), 29–64 Google Scholar; and Jahn, Armes Russland.

11. Jahn, , Armes Russland, 19 and 140 Google Scholar.

12. Fieseler, Beate, “Arme Sieger: Die Invaliden des Großen Vaterländischen Krieges,” Osteuropa 55, no. 4/6 (2005): 207–18 Google Scholar; Fieseler, , “The Bitter Legacy of the ‘Great Patriotic War’: Red Army Disabled Soldiers Under Late Stalinism,” in Late Stalinist Russia: Society Between Reconstruction and Reinvention, ed. Fürst, Juliane (New York: Routledge, 2006), 46–61 Google Scholar; Fieseler, , “‘La protection sociale totale.’ Les hospices pour grands mutilés de guerre dans l’Union soviétique des années 1940,” Cahiers du monde russe 49, no. 2/3 (2008): 419–40 Google Scholar; Edele, Mark, Soviet Veterans of World War II: A Popular Movement in an Authoritarian Society, 1941-1991 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009 Google Scholar); and Dale, Robert, “Rats and Resentment: The Demobilization of the Red Army in Postwar Leningrad, 1945-1950,” Journal of Contemporary History 45, no. 1 (2010): 113–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. The most detailed analysis of the system of social welfare and the strategies of adaption adopted by disabled veterans is presented in the book taken from Beate Fieseler’s habilitation thesis: Fieseler, Beate, Arme Sieger: Die Invaliden des “Großen Vater-ländischen Krieges” der Sowjetunion 1941-1991 (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag Google Scholar, forthcoming). I would like to thank Beate Fieseler for allowing me to consult her habilitation thesis prior to publication: “Die Invaliden des ‘Großen Vaterländischen Krieges’ der Sowjet-union. Eine politische Sozialgeschichte, 1941-1991” (Dr. habil. thesis, University of Bochum, 2004).

14. Edele, , Soviet Veterans, 93-94 Google Scholar; Edele, , Stalinist Society: 1928-1953 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 Google Scholar).

15. Zezina, Maria P., “Sotsial’naia zashchita detei-sirot v poslevoennye gody,” Voprosy istorii 1 (1999): 127–36 Google Scholar; Zezina, , “Bez sem’i: siroty poslevoennoi pory,” Rodina 9 (2001): 82–87 Google Scholar; Boeckh, Katrin, Stalinismus in der Ukraine: Die Rekonstruktion des sowjetischen Systems nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007): 451–74 Google Scholar; Juliane Fürst, “Between Salvation and Liquidation: Homeless and Vagrant Children and the Reconstruction of Soviet Society,” The Slavonic and East European Review 86, no. 2 (2008): 232-58; Fürst, Stalin’s Last Generation: Soviet Postwar Youth and the Emergence of Mature Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Rachel F.Green, “‘There Will Not Be Orphans Among Us’: Soviet Orphanages, Foster Care, and Adoption, 1941-1956 (PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 2006); Ruth Kibelka, Wolfskinder: Grenzgänger an der Memel (Berlin: BasisDruck, 1996); and Olga Kucherenko, “Without a Family: Public Order, Social Welfare, and Street Children in the Wartime Soviet Union,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 58, no. 3 (2012): 421-36.

16. Fürst, , Stalin’s Last Generation, 37 Google Scholar.

17. Ruth Kibelka describes infantile begging practices in Wolfskinder, 39-45. On children begging in Leningrad during the blockade, see Sergei V. Iarov, Blokadnaia etika. Predstavleniia o morali v Leningrade v 1941-1942 gg. (Saint Petersburg: Nestor-istoriia, 2011), 218-221.

18. Zima, Veniamin F., Golod v SSSR 1946-1947 godov: proiskhozhdenie i posledstviia (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii, Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk, 1996), 205–35 Google Scholar.

19. Filtzer, Donald A., Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Filtzer, , The Hazards of Urban Life in Late Stalinist Russia: Health, Hygiene, and Living Standards, 1943-1953 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009 Google Scholar).

20. Vasilii P. Popov, “Pasportnaia sistema v SSSR. 1932-1976,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 8 (1995): 3-14 and 9 (1995): 3-13; Nathalie Moine, “Système des passeports, marginaux et marginalisation en URSS, 1932-1953,” Communisme 70-71 (2003): 87-108; Moine, “Vnutrisoiuznye granitsy grazhdanstvennosti: territorial’noe vyrazhenie diskriminatsii v Sovetskom Soiuze cherez pasportnuiu sistemu,” in Rezhimnye liudi v SSSR, eds. T. S. Kondrat’eva and A. K. Sokolov (Moscow: ROSSPÈN, 2009), 257-76; and David R. Shearer, “Elements Near and Alien: Passportization, Policing, and Identity in the Stalinist State, 1932-1952,” The Journal of Modern History 76, no. 4 (2004): 835-81.

21. Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “Social Parasites: How Tramps, Idle Youth, and Busy Entrepreneurs Impeded the Soviet March to Communism,” Cahiers du monde russe 47, no. 1/2 (2006): 377–408 Google Scholar.

22. Zubkova, , “S protianutoi rukoi”; Zubkova, Elena Yu. and Zhukova, Tatiana Yu., eds., Na “kraiu” sovetskogo obshchestva. Sotsial’nye marginaly kak ob’’ekt gosudarstvennoi politiki, 1945-1960-e gg. (Moscow: ROSSPÈN, 2010 Google Scholar).

23. Among the measures of social protection against poverty, it is worth mentioning the retirement reform of 1956, as well as the increase in the minimum wage and the introduction of reductions for families with so-called “modest revenues” (tax exemptions, free school lunches, preferential enrollment in child daycare centers and kindergartens, etc.).

24. In 1960, an article making begging a penal offense was incorporated into the republican penal code. On May 4, 1961, a law appeared in the RSFSR against so-called “parasites,” among whom beggars were classified. Similar laws were enacted between 1957 and 1961 in the other republics of the USSR.

25. The most detailed research on begging in the 1920s is the work of the criminologist and legal scholar Alexei Gertsenzon. The 1926 census provided the documentary basis for his research: Gertsenzon, Alexei A., “Nishchenstvo i bor’ba s nim v usloviiakh perekhodnogo perioda,” in Nishchenstvo i besprizornost’, ed. Evgenii Konstantinovich Krasnushkin (Moscow: Izd-vo Moszdravotdela, 1929), 6–56 Google Scholar. On begging in the USSR in the 1920s, see also: Bordiugov, Gennadii A., “Sotsial’nyi parazitizm ili sotsial’nye anomalii? Iz istorii bor’by s alkogolizmom, nishchenstvom, prostitutsiei, brodiazhni-chestvom v 20-30-e gody,” Istoriia SSSR 1 (1989): 60–73 Google Scholar; Likhodei, Olga A., Professional’noe nishchenstvo i brodiazhnichestvo kak social’nyi fenomen rossiiskogo obshchestva (Saint Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskii univertsitet vodnykh kommunikatsii, 2004), 83–100 Google Scholar.

26. On children begging in the context of the fight against child vagrancy, see Ball, Alan M., And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918-1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 44–60 Google Scholar; Rozhkov, Aleksandr Yu., “Bor’ba s besprizornost’iu v pervoe sovetskoe desiatiletie,” Voprosy istorii 1 (2000): 134–39 Google Scholar; and Nataliia V. Riabinina, Detskaia besprizornost’ i prestupnost’ v 1920-e gg. (Yaroslavl: Iaroslavskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1999).

27. Bordiugov, “Sotsial’nyi parazitizm,” 64.

28. On the history and meaning of the term “social parasitism” and Soviet practices for combatting this phenomenon, see Fitzpatrick, “Social Parasites.”

29. Bordiugov, , “Sotsial’nyi parazitizm,” 64–65 Google Scholar.

30. Ibid., 65.

31. Sobranie uzakonenii RSFSR, 6, 1929, art. 659.

32. For further details, see Bordiugov, “Sotsial’nyi parazitizm,” 66-67.

33. On the discriminatory practices concerning the “former people,” see Smirnova, Tatiana M., “Byvshie liudi” Sovetskoi Rossii. Strategii vyzhivaniia i puti integratsii. 1917-1936 gody (Moscow: “Mir istorii,” 2003 Google Scholar).

34. Viktor V. Kondrashin, Golod 1932-1933 godov: Tragediia rossiiskoj derevni (Moscow: ROSSPÈN, 2008), 208-12.

35. On the passport system in the USSR, see Moine, “Système des passeports”; Shearer, “Elements Near and Alien”; and Popov, “Pasportnaia.”

36. Popov, “Pasportnaia,” 4.

37. The sphere of “socially useful” work can be defined using a textual analysis of later legislative texts. Thus, in the proposed law on the fight against “people living a parasitic lifestyle,” the types of activities considered “socially useful” were evoked in this form: “Soviet citizens ... work in factories, on production lines, in mines, in transport, on building sites, kolkhozes, sovkhozes, machine and tractor stations, in offices, or have a socially useful job in their families,” Sovetskaia Rossiia 197, August 21, 1957.

38. In the 1920s, representatives of formerly privileged groups—nobles, former civil servants, businessmen, and members of the clergy—were classed in this category along with social deviants. In 1948, the kolkhozniks were accused of avoiding socially useful work (i.e., not working productively on collective farms). At the end of the 1950s, entrepreneurs, independent artists, and young people also found themselves in this category.

39. Stalin, Iosif V., “O proekte novoi konstitutsii SSSR. Doklad na Chrezvychainom 8 s’’ezde Sovetov, November 25, 1936,” in Sochineniia (Moscow: “Pisatel” Editions, 1997), 14:126–27 Google Scholar.

40. Shearer, David R., “Social Disorder, Mass Repression, and the NKVD during the 1930s,” Cahiers du monde russe 42, no. 2/3/4 (2001): 523–24 Google ScholarPubMed; Paul M. Hagenloh, Stalin’s Police: Public Order and Mass Repression in the USSR, 1926-1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 202-9.

41. According to Shearer, however, the official rhetoric was considerably altered in 1937, compared with 1935, along with the repressive practices directed at deviant groups. These changes not only included the enlargement of the contingent of anti-social elements defined as targets for repression, but also the fact that the repression campaign of 1937-1938 took place in the countryside, whereas the displacement of anti-social elements had essentially affected cities in 1935. Shearer, “Social Disorder,” 529-32.

42. Ibid.

43. Under decree no. 00447, a total of 767,397 people were arrested, 127,967 of which were criminals. Repression of the criminal world reached a peak in 1937: 111,993 people who had committed crimes under the Penal Code were sentenced; 36,063 of them were sentenced to be shot, and 75,930 were sent to prison camps. See Marc Junge and Rolf Binner, Kak terror stal “Bol’shim. Sekretnyi prikaz n^o 00447 i tekhnologiia ego ispolneniia” (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 2003), 217; Rolf Binner et al., “Vertikal’ bol’shogo terrora,” Novaia gazeta, August 5, 2007.

44. This gap can be explained by the fact that the police arrested the beggars, whereas social services were responsible for their fate (either placing them in homes for the disabled or finding them work, allocating them retirement pensions or returning them to the care of their families). Thus social services reduced the number of people requiring social assistance. Police statistics can be considered the most reliable.

45. Glukhov to Malenkov on begging in the town of Yaroslavl, 22 August 1952, State Archive of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, hereafter “GARF”), Moscow, collection 5446 (fond, hereafter “f.”), inventory 86a (opis’, hereafter “op.”), file 8052 (delo, hereafter “d.”), pages 2-3 (list, hereafter “l.”).

46. This was the July 19, 1951 ordinance of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (“Concerning the measures to eradicate begging in Moscow and the region around Moscow and to reinforce the battle against antisocial and parasitic elements,”) and the July 23, 1951 ukase of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, (“Concerning measures for combatting anti-social and parasitic elements”). The text of the ukase is published in Zubkova and Zhukova, Na “kraiu” sovetskogo obshchestva, 61.

47. According to Veniamin Zima, the 1951 ukase had a political purpose and was less directed to the town beggars and vagabonds than to those who “did not agree with the regime” (Zima, Golod v SSSR, 217). This interpretation does not really hold if we compare it with the practices implemented by the ukase. Indeed, the “nets” set up by the police caught not only beggars and vagrants, but also “occasional” people who did not have documents proving registration at their place of residence (propiska) or who were temporarily unemployed. However, such events, which were widespread, were the result of public servants’ habitual arbitrariness as well as the legislation’s imperfect nature, lacking a clear definition of begging and vagrancy. During the verifications conducted by the State’s Attorney (Prokuratura), the excessively broad interpretation and application of the ukase and the ruling of 1951 was considered a direct offense. The object of the 1951 legislative acts concerning begging and vagrancy clearly set them apart from the new republican ukases which appeared between 1957 and 1961 and were directed against “parasites.” These were, in fact, used to fight against dissenting elements.

48. These figures reflect not so much the true scale of begging as the dynamic of the campaign against it. Many beggars were arrested several times by the militia, some as many as thirty times. All of these arrests were included in the statistics. Moreover, the campaign does not adequately reflect the geography of begging, given that it was essentially practiced in the major towns (Moscow, Leningrad, and the capitals of the federal republics).

49. Note by the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR on begging in the Republic, August 30, 1954, GARF, f. 8131, op. 32, d. 3282, l. 166.

50. By way of comparison, in the Russian Empire in 1877, 293,445 people were registered as practicing beggars. According to the 1926 census, there were 133,118 in the RSFSR, and 162,815 if Ukraine and Belarus are taken into account. See: Avgust A. Levenstim, “Professional’noe nishchenstvo. Ego prichiny i formy (1900 g.),” in Nishchenstvo. Retrospektiva problemy, ed. B. P. Milovidov (Saint Petersburg: Kriga, 2004), 18-92, particularly 19; Alexei A. Gertsenzon “Nishchenstvo i bor’ba s nim v usloviiakh perekhodnogo perioda,” in Antologia sotsial’noi raboty, ed. M. Firsov (Moscow: Svarog), 2: 68-89, here 69.

51. Decree by the Minister for State Control of the USSR no. 3519, “On the organization and verification of the state of the combat against begging and parasitic anti-social elements,” September 28, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 92, ll. 1-6.

52. Most of the documentation produced during the 1954 verification is composed of reports and notes on the state of begging in different towns and regions of the USSR, as well as preparatory documents: notes on arrests for begging, questionnaires submitted to beggars, reports on individuals practicing begging, notes on the state of “disabled homes” and the attribution of retirement or employment pensions, etc. In addition to the summary data on towns, regions, and republics, the reports contain concrete examples of cases involving begging. While generally brief, the information on these individual cases are complemented by summary data and conclusions by experts, providing a glimpse of the motivations behind begging and what caused it to spread, in addition to sketching the various social types of beggars and their backgrounds.

53. Beggars who are “on tour” are individuals who travel from town to town to beg.

54. Memo on the measures for combatting begging in the Kaluga region, October 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2, d. 1396, ll. 2-6.

55. The 1954 study showed that begging was a profitable activity. According to the beggars, their “takings” could be between 20 and 100 rubles per day depending on the region, the season, and the day of the week. Their profits were better in larger towns, in the summer, and on Sundays. By way of comparison, the minimum retirement pension for city-dwellers until 1956 was 74 rubles per month. Beggars were often arrested with large sums of money, sometimes several thousand rubles. The study also found that a number of people who were systematic beggars had a house, land, livestock, etc.

56. On the problems and difficulties that former detainees faced adapting to “normal” life and social integration, see: Miriam Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform after Stalin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009); Marc Élie, “Les politiques à l’égard des libérés du Goulag. Amnistiés et réhabilités dans la région de Novosibirsk, 1953-1960,” Cahiers du monde russe 47, no. 1/2 (2006), 327-47; and Mirjam Sprau, “Leben nach dem GULAG. Petitionen ehemaliger Häftlinge als Quelle,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 60, no. 1 (2012): 93-110.

57. For example, see the report on the results of the investigation into the fight against begging in RSFSR, October 27, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 93, ll. 168-87.

58. Statistical data from the Minister of the Interior of the USSR on the number of beggars on August 1, 1954, GARF, f. 9415, op. 3, d. 255, l. 261.

59. Report on the results of the verification of the state of the fight against begging in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus, October 27, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 92, ll. 144-45.

60. Statistical data from the Minister of the Interior of the USSR on the number of beggars on August 1, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 92, l. 261.

61. It is worth noting that the “minimum level of subsistence” (also called the “guaranteed minimum”) was a not very precise notion in the Soviet Union, above all because of a lack of reliable data on the revenues and consumption of the population. It was only in the 1960s that experts calculated a minimum subsistence level, but they did not publish this information. The minimum for subsistence was officially set for the first time in 1992. In the 1960s, the Soviet experts evaluated the “minimum for material comfort,” a revenue below which the population was unable to reproduce normally. According to Nataliya Rimashevskaya’s data, this level was equal to 40 rubles per month in 1965 and 50 rubles in 1975. Depending on the value of the ruble before the 1961 reform when it was divided by ten, this level was somewhere between 400 and 500 rubles. For more details on the evaluation of poverty and the minimum subsistence level in the USSR, see: Alastair McAuley, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union: Poverty, Living Standards, and Inequality (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979); Pavel Stiller, Sozialpolitik in der UdSSR 1950-1980: Eine Analyse der quantitativen und qualitativen Zusammenhänge (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1983); Mozhina, Marina et al., eds., Bednost’: al’ternativnye podkhody k opredeleniiu i izmereniiu (Moscow: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998 Google Scholar); Braithwaite, , “The Old and New Poor,”Google Scholar; Rimashevskaya, Nataliya, “Poverty Trends in Russia: A Russian Perspective,” in Klugman, Poverty in Russia, 119–32 Google Scholar; and Rimashevskaya, “Bednost’ i marginalizatsiia naseleniia,” SOTSIS 4 (2004): 33-43.

62. According to the 1959 census, the kolkhoznik peasants represented one-third (31.4%) of the population of the USSR: see Narodnoe hoziaistvo SSSR v 1982 godu. Statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1983), 7. Until 1964, the solidarity funds between kolkhozniks (previously social solidarity funds, created in 1921) were the only kind of social assistance for this category of the population. These funds were based on the tradition of solidarity that existed in peasant communities in prerevolutionary Russia. However, because of the very low revenues of the kolkhozniks, these funds were purely abstract in most kolkhozes. State retirement pensions for kolkhozniks were not introduced until 1964. For more details, see Tatiana M. Dimoni, “Sotsial’noe obespechenie kolkhoznikov Evropeiskogo Severa Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XX veka,” in Severnaia derevnia v XX veke: aktual’nye problemy istorii, 3^rd ed. (Vologda: Legiia, 2002), 115-34.

63. Report on the results of the verification of the state of the fight against begging in the RSFSR, October 27, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 92, ll. 186-87.

64. Report on the results of the verification of the state of the fight against begging in Rostov-on-Don, October 15, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2, d. 1401, l. 41.

65. On the condition of “homes for wounded veterans” see Fieseler, “‘La protection sociale totale.’”

66. Report on the results of the study on the state of the fight against begging in Leningrad, October 1, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 93, l. 142.

67. Report on the results of the study on the state of the fight against begging in Moscow, October 27, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 93, l. 158.

68. Those disabled from birth only obtained the right to a pension in 1967.

69. Memo on those who practiced begging and lived in the Moskvoretsky neighborhood of Moscow, October 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2, d. 1399, ll. 46-47.

70. On the situation of orphaned children in the postwar USSR, see Zezina, “Sotsial’naia zashchita”; Zezina, “Bez sem’i: siroty poslevoennoi pory,” Rodina 9 (2001): 82-87; Boeckh, Stalinismus in der Ukraine, 451-74; Fürst, “Between Salvation and Liquidation”; Green, “‘There Will Not Be Orphans Among Us’”; Kibelka, Wolfskinder.

71. Note on the report on the results of the study on the state of the fight against poverty in Rostov-on-Don, October 26, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2a, d. 98, l. 132.

72. Extract from the interrogation of persons arrested for begging in the October Railway sector by the Leningrad militia, October 22, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2, f. 1397, l. 46.

73. Note on the results of the study on the state of the fight against begging in the RSFSR October 27, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2, d. 1397, ll. 178 and 180.

74. Extract from the interrogation of people arrested for begging in the October Railway sector by the Leningrad militia, October 22, 1954, GARF, f. 8300, op. 2, d. 1397, ll. 49-50.

75. Statistical data from the Minister of the Interior of the USSR pertaining to the number of people found begging on August 1, 1954: see Zubkova and Zhukova, Na “kraiu” sovetskogo obshchestva, 261.

76. Nikolaichuk to Khrushchev, Voroshilov and Zhukov, 8 June 1956, GARF, f. 7523, op. 45, d. 53, ll. 208-9.

77. Damaskin, “Spekuliatsiia na chutkosti”.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. On the policy concerning those wounded in the war after 1945, see Fieseler, , “Arme Sieger”Google Scholar; Zubkova and Zhukova, Na “kraiu” sovetskogo obshchestva, 363-405.

81. Damaskin, “Spekuliatsiia na chutkosti”.

82. “This is a necessity for thousands of people in capitalist countries where unemployment and hunger reign, and deprivation pushes them into the streets, where no one will help them, ‘so that they die of exhaustion.’” Ibid.

83. “In our country, where unemployment and exploitation do not exist, there is no justification for begging (nishchenstvo).” Ibid.

84. “This is the most destructive residue of the past, which enables lazy people, drunkards, and adventurers to lead an easy life.” Ibid.

85. Ibid.

86. Note from the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR concerning the state of begging in the Republic, August 30, 1954, GARF, f. 8131, op. 32, d. 3282, l. 166.

87. Ibid., pp. 166-75.

88. In the first edition (1956), the objectives of the new version of the journal were stated as follows: “The journal Sotsial’noe obespechenie aims to shed light on general questions concerning pensions, workplace medicine, professional training, integration through work and in the daily lives of the disabled.”

89. Zarakhovich, Iakov, Orlenok (Riga: Latgosizdat, 1954 Google Scholar); Kuzmenko, Stepan, Snova v stroiu (Chkalov: Zhblatnoe izd-vo, 1954 Google Scholar; 2nd ed. Moscow: Pravda, 1955); and Viktor Nekrasov, V rodnom gorode (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1956).

90. Kuz’min, N., “Na blago cheloveka,” Sotsial’noe obespechenie 2 (1956): 7 Google Scholar.

91. Karabishcher, L., “Zolotye ruki,” Sotsial’noe obespechenie 5-6 (1956): 51–52 Google Scholar.

92. Sokolovskaia, N., “Nastoiashchii chelovek,” Sotsial’noe obespechenie 11 (1956): 41–43 Google Scholar.

93. Vasiliev, V., “Kniga o muzhestvennykh liudiakh,” Literaturnaia gazeta, April 12, 1955, p. 2 Google Scholar.

94. Novikov, A., “Vozvrashchenie k zhizni,” Sotsial’noe obespechenie 3 (1956): 58–60 Google Scholar (author’s emphasis).

95. Ibid., 60.

96. On the pension reform of 1956, see: Madison, Bernice Q., Social Welfare in the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968 Google ScholarPubMed); Degtiarev, Grigorii P., Pensionnye reformy v Rossii (Moscow: Izd-vo “Akademiia,” 2003 Google Scholar); and Ivanova, Galina M., Na poroge “gosudarstva vseobshchego blagosostoianiia.” Sotsial’naia politika v SSSR (seredina 1950-hnachalo 1970-h godov) (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2011 Google Scholar).

97. For example, it was the title of the editorial published in the journal Trud on May 9, 1956.

98. Shibanov to Pravda, 11 October 1956, GARF, f. 7523, op. 45, d. 201, l. 26.

99. Iarysh to Khrushchev, 1956, GARF, f. 7523, op. 45, d. 55, ll. 151-52.

100. Shibanov to Pravda, 11 October 1956, GARF, f. 7523, op. 45, d. 201, l. 26. The author of the letter recalled the repressive campaign organized in response to NKVD order no. 00192 of May 9, 1935.

101. Iarysh to Khrushchev, 1956, GARF, f. 7523, op. 45, d. 55, l. 151.

102. Ibid.

103. Nikolaichuk to Khrushchev, Voroshilov and Zhukov, 8 June 1956, GARF, f. 7523, op. 45, d. 53, l. 208.

104. Ibid.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid.

107. Ibid., l. 209.

108. For more details on the development of laws against “parasites,” see: Fitzpatrick, “Social Parasites”; Zubkova, “S protianutoi rukoi.”

109. The introduction of an article on begging into the new Penal Code in 1960 has a considerable history. Up until then, begging was not considered an act covered by penal law and was subject to administrative measures, such as the violation of the passport regime. In the 1930s, beggars were the object of extra-judicial repression. In 1951, a decree against begging and vagrancy was adopted, which allowed for an extra-judicial procedure to pronounce sentence, via the Special Council of the Ministry for State Security of the USSR. In the context of the political process of “re-establishing legality” in the mid-1950s, the legislative basis was revised. The norms of responsibility for begging were initially discussed as part of the proposed law on “people leading an anti-social lifestyle” (1955-1957). The procedure for the judgment of these people was transferred to the “social tribunal” (sud obshchestvennosti): in other words, it was once again excluded from the jurisdiction of the “normal” tribunals. Legal experts were opposed to this way of dealing with begging and vagrancy because it was contradictory to the approach of re-establishing legality. Their principal argument was related to the incompetence of the “social tribunal” because, in reality, the new modalities would have meant the anchorage of the former extra-judicial procedure. The result was that this type of infraction was first reported at the jurisdiction of ordinary tribunals, but then a specific norm appeared in the penal legislation. In compliance with article 209 of the RSFSR Penal Code, systematic vagrancy and begging were punishable by either imprisonment for a maximum period of two years or correctional labor for a period of six months to one year. The notion of “systematic” begging, in fact, only covered professional begging. For more details on the evolution of the legal norms concerning begging, see Zubkova, “S protianutoi rukoi,” 454-69.

110. On begging as a specific occupation, see: Dean, Hartley and Melrose, Margaret, “Easy Pickings or Hard Profession?” in Begging Questions: Street Level Economic Activity and Social Policy Failure, ed. Dean, Hartley (Bristol: Policy Press, 1999), 83–100 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 84; Butovskaia, Marina L., Diakonov, Ivan Yu., and Vanchatova, Marina A., Bredushchie sredinas. Nishchie v Rossii i stranakh Evropy: istoriia i sovremennost’ (Moscow: Nauchnyi mir, 2007), 11 Google Scholar; and Il’iasov, Farkhad N. and Plotnikova, Olga A., “Nishchie v Moskve letom 1993 goda,” Sotsiologicheskii zhurnal 1 (1994): 150–56 Google Scholar, here 150.