LIBRARY HOOLIGANS AND OTHERS - LAW, ORDER, AND STUDENT CULTURE IN LENINGRAD, 1924-38

This article examines the presentation by the Communist Party of the S oviet Union of idealized standards of social and political conduct for students in Leningrad in the 1920s and 1930s, the anathematization of deviance and 'anti-Soviet' attitudes among students, and the response s of students to this broad program of social engineering, The state's delineation of appropriate 'socialist virtues' for the student commun ity was achieved both through coercion and the use of incentives. Disc iplinary measures and political repression combined with suggestive op portunities for-social status and professional advancement as the mech anisms for socialization under the Communist system. However, students also accommodated and resisted state policies through a complex and ' unofficial' culture of their own. The student culture countered and ac commodated 'official' socialist culture with its own private rituals a nd discourse. At the same time, a number of students felt irreconcilab le alienation from the state and from the Communist system. Using prev iously inaccessible and unused archival materials and student newspape rs, this articles examines how students-attempted to accommodate, conf orm to and resist the cultural maxims constructed by the Soviet state.