There is no need to explain to the older generation what DND is. But the younger one should decipher this abbreviation - voluntary people's squad. During the days of developed socialism, the members of this organization, whose distinctive mark was a red armband on the sleeve, were very feared by hooligans of all stripes. And Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev saw the institution of a communist society in the vigilantes.
People's guards were often the heroes of old films. Remember the Experienced from the comedy "Operation" Y … ", which Morgunov so convincingly portrayed? How proudly he showed off the bandage on his arm, thereby saying that he was a man in execution. Or the assertive manager of the house Varvara Ivy from "Diamond Hand", herding the apostate Semyon Gorbunkov?
Born by revolution
Soviet cinema also created the heroic image of the vigilante: in 1986, the film Plumbum, or Dangerous Game, was released, which won gold at the Venice Film Festival. The protagonist of the film, a 15-year-old teenager, was so obsessed with the idea of helping the police and "punishing evil" that he handed over to justice his own father, who was caught in poaching.
Which is not surprising. After all, people's vigilantes appeared in Russia at the end of the 19th century - first in Moscow, and then in the Kuban, where Cossacks began to gather in detachments of volunteers. In the Soviet Union, in 1926, the first commissions of public order were formed, and in 1928 the "osodmil" - a society for the assistance of the police - appeared.
But the official date of birth of the DND is considered March 1959, when a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the participation of workers in the maintenance of public order" was issued. The instigators of this truly nationwide movement were the Leningrad workers, who in 1958 formed the first DND detachments. Well, then, as usual, the initiative of the "cradle of three revolutions" began to be introduced in all cities and villages.
There was a clear hierarchy in the bowels of the organization. All actions of the people's guardians of order were strictly controlled by the leadership of administrations and party committees. In those organizations where more than 100 people were enrolled in the squad, headquarters of the DND were created, for the leadership of which the party already organized city and regional cells. Here are just premises for such assistants sorely lacked.
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An efficient and economical solution was found: in the USSR, the production of special metal "kiosks" with bars on the windows, officially called the support points of the DND, was launched. In post-Soviet times, their remains could still be seen in some small towns and villages.
If anything - whistle
The tasks of the vigilantes included, first of all, the prevention of violations of public order, educational work with the population and, of course, assistance to law enforcement agencies. They also maintained order in transport, provided assistance in case of accidents, fought against drunkenness and moonshine.
The benefits of such patrols were undoubtedly. Especially on holidays, when Soviet citizens, having taken it on their chests, organized mass fights. The guards could easily twist the rowdy and deliver him to the nearest police station. The only weapon of the volunteers was … a police whistle. This, of course, is not a club, but drunken brawlers feared its loud trill.
The attitude towards the vigilantes in society was, to put it mildly, ambiguous. After all, they caught, as a rule, small hooligans who drank alcohol on the playground. That is, even yesterday's colleagues and drinking companions.
Moreover, the next day the vigilante returned to normal life and himself turned into a potential "intruder."
And also in a country where millions of people have been in places of imprisonment, there was a stereotype that working “for the authorities” was not entirely proper. For example, the volunteer assistants of the traffic police inspectors (there were also such public special forces) were called “sixes” by the drivers, but they didn’t complain: thanks to special certificates, the traffic cops almost never fined them.
Ordinary heroes
But the widespread opinion that all vigilantes guarded public order solely by order of the leadership is not entirely true. Yes, there were those who put on a bandage just for the sake of 10 extra days of rest for the next vacation. But there were also those who really wanted to make their city or village safer. By the way, over 800 warriors were awarded state orders and medals. Some are posthumous.
Thus, Sergei Gaifullin's squad helped to detain Boris Serebryakov, the Samara Chikatilo, who in the late 1960s - early 1970s killed entire families, raped the corpses of women and, leaving, set fire to their houses. He deftly eluded the police, but could not escape the squad.
In 1963, in Krasnoyarsk, during the arrest of recidivist thieves, an employee of the DND, a member of the Komsomol Vladislav Kornetov, was mortally wounded; in the Chelyabinsk region, a year later, a heroic act was committed by a projectionist of the state farm Mikhail Rodkin, who risked single-handedly attacking three store robbers.
In Yekaterinburg, they still remember the feat of Pyotr Korepin, who in 1965, hearing a cry for help, without hesitation rushed at a drunk who was waving a "rose" in the street. For this feat, the head of the technical bureau of the turbomotor plant was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star.
In November 1962, in Vitebsk, two vigilantes were not afraid to detain three brawlers in the factory canteen. During the ensuing fight, Vasily Rybkin received five knife wounds, but still managed to keep the enemy until the arrival of help. As it turned out later, he was a war criminal who went over to the side of the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. The traitor was arrested, and the vigilante survived and was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
While performing the duties of a vigilante in the mid-1960s, the life of Stephan Laptiev, an employee of the Makhachkala fish cannery, was cut short. Late in the evening, he saw six young men trying to drag two girls into the depths of the park, and boldly threw himself into a fight. The perpetrators stabbed him 11 times, but he was able to free the girls and call the police.
Collapse after collapse
By the 1970s, there were already 100 thousand people's guards in the USSR, and at the beginning of 1972 the number of guards in our country reached seven million people. It was in the 1970s that operational Komsomol squads of vigilantes (OKOD) were added to the well-ordered ranks of the DND. Before the "Komsa" (as they were disparagingly called among the people) were no longer just law enforcement, but ideological tasks - to fight with all their might against alien elements: dudes, hippies, just idly staggering young people.
In the mid-1980s, when the country had already begun to fever, about 400,000 volunteers were on duty every day. But by the beginning of the 1990s, the traditional forms of combating crime had become ineffective. And the hooligans are not what they used to be. It was no longer possible to scare them with a police whistle. Instead of drunks and long-haired youths, unprincipled, pumped-up thugs crawled out into the streets, against whom even seasoned policemen with weapons went out with caution. And with the collapse of the USSR, the DND movement collapsed altogether.
Elena SADOVAYA