Stealing Socialism? Economic Crime & Punishment in the Khrushchev Period

press release: A lecture by James Heinzen, Professor of History, Rowan University

When: Thursday, September 22, 4:00 PM (refreshments starting at 3:45)

Where: Room 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive

About the talk:

In 1961 and 1962, the USSR unexpectedly introduced the death penalty for theft of state property, bribery, and currency speculation. Nikita S. Khrushchev received withering international criticism for these highly publicized decrees. The new laws, which struck some observers as disturbing echoes of Stalinist excesses, placed hundreds of people who had committed relatively benign “economic crimes” in front of the firing squad. What accounts for this apparent about-face in progress toward restoring “socialist legality?” This paper will examine this question by focusing on the most important—and most famous–corruption and bribery case of the Khrushchev era, one that exposed a massive underground economic scheme. What can this case—and the trial that accompanied it—tell us about the growing illegal economy, the informal relationships that grew around it, and the response of the ruling party to a seeming epidemic of economic crime in the second half of the Khrushchev period?

About the speaker:

James Heinzen teaches at Rowan University where he specializes in the history of modern Russia and the Soviet Union. His research interests include the social political history of the Soviet Union, Stalinism, crime and corruption, and everyday life. His second book, “The Art of the Bribe: Corruption under Stalin, 1943-1953,” is forthcoming in November 2016 (Yale University Press). A native of Minnesota, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. from Trinity College (Hartford, CT).