Militia (police) — the armed bodies for maintaining civil order in Nizhny Novgorod and the Nizhny Novgorod Region. In theory, the militia is an armed citizen levy; in practice, the domestic militia corresponds in its powers and duties to the Militia (police) of European countries — armed officials with special authority. In some constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the militia more closely resembles gendarmerie than police.
Nature of the phenomenon
In Russia and certain countries of the former socialist bloc, "militia" is a general term for various kinds of internal affairs bodies that, in practice and by their functions, are indistinguishable from police.
Historical background
The difference in names stems from anarchist-derived utopian ideas that the state is a dying form of community organization, whose primary function is precisely the application of violence. Together with the state itself, its core functions — carried out by the army and the police — would also wither away.
Criticism
The community of the future, which the Bolsheviks proclaimed their state to be, could not by definition have a police force.
In reality, history treated the fate of the state created — or rather modified — by the Bolsheviks with its customary irony. The RKKA, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and the Soviet militia became the organizations upon which virtually the entire domestic economy labored. Several theories have been put forward to explain this peculiar phenomenon in human history — ranging from the concept that our country was surrounded by countless external enemies while no less countless internal enemies gnawed at it from within, necessitating the concentration of all resources on matters of external and internal defense, to the concept that the Bolsheviks, and later the Communists, were attempting to conquer the entire world.
The reality probably lies somewhere in between: in order to retain their power, the Bolsheviks needed a powerful militarized security apparatus. However, they were unable to build a sufficiently developed economy capable of feeding and arming the various categories of enforcers through the production of surplus product. And so the Bolsheviks, interpreting the principle of "l'état, c'est moi" in a corporate sense, simply directed the entire Soviet economy toward the upkeep (and outfitting) of the "apparatus of violence."
Alternative names
Internal affairs bodies, Internal Troops, Coppers.
Practice
Serving society
In colloquial speech, the militia is invoked to conjure up the image of border sentinels guarding our world against chthonic chaos:
- "I'll call the militia right now…"
- "Report it to the militia!"
- "My militia protects me."
- "Just you wait… you'll end up in the militia's hands."
Certain shortcomings
The militia robs random passers-by who find themselves near the margins of social life — the homeless, alcoholics, people rushing through railway stations, and so on.