So, that thing I'm working on for another thread has stalled, so I'll work on a short piece to get the juices flowing. Actually, the conversation @Bulldoggus just had resurrected this idea, since I had started and deleted it earlier.
Excerpt from the introduction to "Lest the Heavens Fall: The Secretariat of Public Safety in the Second Cultural Revolution" by Sean Gurstmann, 2008
".... The idea of 'economic criminality' was one that grew directly from socialist thinking. Poverty and the stress of working under capitalism forced people to go through desperate measures in order to survive or to live comfortably. Crime was only the expression of this desperation, and the only real way to eliminate violent crimes was to eliminate poverty and the stresses of capitalism. Even if there are criminals left after the revolution, they were likely capitalist holdovers: victims unable to let go or bourgeois profiteers from the old system. Hoover had structured SecPubSafe towards fighting such holdovers, whether they be reactionaries misled by old American capitalism like the Sons of Liberty or bourgeois profiteers like organized crime. Even street level crime were regarded as a capitalistic holdover, though those were delegated to local militias.
That is not to say that psychology or psychiatry had no role whatsoever. However, these fields were heavily influenced by the ideology of the time. Mental illness was an expression of the stresses of capitalism affecting the human mind. Such illnesses would likely disappear with the arrival of full communism. This thinking was in the background of many early cases. One of the biggest non-Revolution related trials of the 30's was of Albert Fish, "The Brooklyn Vampire", who killed at least 5 children (and possibly at least 3 more. He claimed to have killed hundreds). While the trial featured psychologists attesting to his perverted sense of right and wrong and various fetishes, there was some focus on his low station, and whether it amplified his feelings. Ultimately, he was convicted and executed for his crimes. Still, a killer like that was considered merely a product of a decadent capitalist system, and anti-social traits were grafted on. They were considered loners, rarely participating in civil society, selfish, angry.
During the Second Cultural Revolution, several what are now called serial killers[1] did fit parts of this profile. Ed Gein lived a solitary life, even as his family farm was inaugurated into a cooperative and never participated, which was brought to light after his 1956 arrest and conviction for the murders of 4 women in Plainfield, Wisconsin, and his grave robbing. [2] Andrew Venkman of San Francisco was also anti-social and mostly kept to himself. It surprised many acquaintances , then, when in 1964, he took to a tower, and shot at random pedestrians walking by, killing ten people, and wounding sixteen.
However, as the Revolution moved further and further in the past, this model and the idea that mental illness was symptom of capitalism began to crumble. Psychologists and psychiatrists began the fight to separate political ideology from the science of the brain, and SecPubSafe conception of serial murders was rocked by many cases to the contrary. Between 1967-1970, Carmen O'Hara, a well-liked teacher and community leader, killed almost 30 young boys around Des Moines. In the summer of 1972, several women in Cleveland were killed by a mysterious assailant. A year later, the murders continued, and the murderers actually sent a letter to the Plains-Dealer, tainting them. Signed "Z", the murderer was termed by the press and official releases as the "Z-Murderer" Eventually, through analysis of the letters, they found the murderer to be a 34 year old Health Service bureaucrat named Zubalon Cronk. A young man who had never known capitalism. Cronk said a voice in his radio told him to commit these murders. John Mayfield was the leader of a prominent automobile factory- the forest behind which he hid the bodies of various men he had tricked and killed. And the most famous was Herbert Koehler, the Colorado River Killer. A prominent politician and union leader in Haywood City, who between 1967-1978, murdered over 34 women.
In all cases, either the local militas or SecPubSafe originally attributed the crimes to people that fit the anti-social mode, most of whom turned out to be false. The old model was shown to be inapplicable and often, even counterintuitive to the pursuit of criminals of this ilk.
SecPubSafe, which had been geared towards safeguarding the revolution, now had to separate the ideology from the people. They began to remove the ideological aspect to many of these cases, and focus on other developmental factors (family, environment, health). This new focus on psychology would help SecPubSafe adapt to a new climate of instability and fear..."
[1] The term has a storied history, but it's popular use is mostly modern.
[2] OTL Gein, despite his reputation, was not technically a serial killer, since he was only convicted for the murders of two people (though he was suspected in several other cases)
---------
That was still a little difficult to write. But, I managed.
Excerpt from the introduction to "Lest the Heavens Fall: The Secretariat of Public Safety in the Second Cultural Revolution" by Sean Gurstmann, 2008
".... The idea of 'economic criminality' was one that grew directly from socialist thinking. Poverty and the stress of working under capitalism forced people to go through desperate measures in order to survive or to live comfortably. Crime was only the expression of this desperation, and the only real way to eliminate violent crimes was to eliminate poverty and the stresses of capitalism. Even if there are criminals left after the revolution, they were likely capitalist holdovers: victims unable to let go or bourgeois profiteers from the old system. Hoover had structured SecPubSafe towards fighting such holdovers, whether they be reactionaries misled by old American capitalism like the Sons of Liberty or bourgeois profiteers like organized crime. Even street level crime were regarded as a capitalistic holdover, though those were delegated to local militias.
That is not to say that psychology or psychiatry had no role whatsoever. However, these fields were heavily influenced by the ideology of the time. Mental illness was an expression of the stresses of capitalism affecting the human mind. Such illnesses would likely disappear with the arrival of full communism. This thinking was in the background of many early cases. One of the biggest non-Revolution related trials of the 30's was of Albert Fish, "The Brooklyn Vampire", who killed at least 5 children (and possibly at least 3 more. He claimed to have killed hundreds). While the trial featured psychologists attesting to his perverted sense of right and wrong and various fetishes, there was some focus on his low station, and whether it amplified his feelings. Ultimately, he was convicted and executed for his crimes. Still, a killer like that was considered merely a product of a decadent capitalist system, and anti-social traits were grafted on. They were considered loners, rarely participating in civil society, selfish, angry.
During the Second Cultural Revolution, several what are now called serial killers[1] did fit parts of this profile. Ed Gein lived a solitary life, even as his family farm was inaugurated into a cooperative and never participated, which was brought to light after his 1956 arrest and conviction for the murders of 4 women in Plainfield, Wisconsin, and his grave robbing. [2] Andrew Venkman of San Francisco was also anti-social and mostly kept to himself. It surprised many acquaintances , then, when in 1964, he took to a tower, and shot at random pedestrians walking by, killing ten people, and wounding sixteen.
However, as the Revolution moved further and further in the past, this model and the idea that mental illness was symptom of capitalism began to crumble. Psychologists and psychiatrists began the fight to separate political ideology from the science of the brain, and SecPubSafe conception of serial murders was rocked by many cases to the contrary. Between 1967-1970, Carmen O'Hara, a well-liked teacher and community leader, killed almost 30 young boys around Des Moines. In the summer of 1972, several women in Cleveland were killed by a mysterious assailant. A year later, the murders continued, and the murderers actually sent a letter to the Plains-Dealer, tainting them. Signed "Z", the murderer was termed by the press and official releases as the "Z-Murderer" Eventually, through analysis of the letters, they found the murderer to be a 34 year old Health Service bureaucrat named Zubalon Cronk. A young man who had never known capitalism. Cronk said a voice in his radio told him to commit these murders. John Mayfield was the leader of a prominent automobile factory- the forest behind which he hid the bodies of various men he had tricked and killed. And the most famous was Herbert Koehler, the Colorado River Killer. A prominent politician and union leader in Haywood City, who between 1967-1978, murdered over 34 women.
In all cases, either the local militas or SecPubSafe originally attributed the crimes to people that fit the anti-social mode, most of whom turned out to be false. The old model was shown to be inapplicable and often, even counterintuitive to the pursuit of criminals of this ilk.
SecPubSafe, which had been geared towards safeguarding the revolution, now had to separate the ideology from the people. They began to remove the ideological aspect to many of these cases, and focus on other developmental factors (family, environment, health). This new focus on psychology would help SecPubSafe adapt to a new climate of instability and fear..."
[1] The term has a storied history, but it's popular use is mostly modern.
[2] OTL Gein, despite his reputation, was not technically a serial killer, since he was only convicted for the murders of two people (though he was suspected in several other cases)
---------
That was still a little difficult to write. But, I managed.