Abstract: The 1920s faced the ideological pressure on the rural crime studying methodology as the peasant policy tightened. During the period of narrowing economic independence of peasants, all researches were marked as 'Marxist understanding of crime factors'. Collectivisation resulted in recognition of the 'anti-scientific nature' of the factors theory and reduction of rural crime researches. The object of this research is the social relations that relate to the existence of crime in the country-side and measures undertaken to prevent it during the first years of the Soviet regime. The purpose of the research is to discover criminological features of rural crime during the first years of the Soviet regime. The subject of the research includes the criminological features of rural crime; measures of overall social and special legal prevention of rural crime; and results of multi-year researches carried out by the authors. The research methods used by the authors included general research methods and special research methods such as logical, historical, comparative law, structured system and statistical methods. The methodological basis of the research implied the founding categories of the dialectical materialism such as negation of the negation, transition from quantity to quality, and others. The scientific novelty of the research is caused by the fact that for the first time in the academic literature the authors describe criminological features of rural crime and specific measures of prevention of this kind of crime as a result of their analysis of rural crime during the first years of the Soviet regime. The main conclusion of the research is that not only rural living conditions influenced the crime factors but so did repression and prohibition of crime studies in the USSR. 

Abstract: The article substantiates the topicality of the problem of studying crime in rural areas, which is defined, on one hand, by complicated character of criminal situation in villages, and topicality of problems of organizing countermeasures against crime and its prevention, and on the other hand, by the lack of studies of the criminological issues in the sphere of rural crime. The number of cases involving death or grievous harm to health of village people by criminal attacks is especially alarming to one studying rural crime.  The number of deaths of people due to crime in rural areas in Russia remains the same in last three years, and it is over two times larger than the same criterion for the city crime, and one and a half times larger for causing grievous harm to health of people. The authors of the article point out the complicated character of criminal situation in the villages. The tendency for the lesser registered crimes in the rural areas in 2009 to 2012 does not reflect the real situation, since it is artificially formed in last several years by lowering statistical data. In this article the authors analyze the situation and tendencies in rural crime. The methods employed include following from abstract to specific, systemic structural and comparative analysis, historic method, dynamic and statistical methods, as well as specific sociological methods for the evaluation of rural crime. The scientific novelty is due to establishing the fact that the level of rural crime is higher than city crime.  Additionally, the crimes in rural area become especially troublesome due to the scale and amount of deaths of village people and causing grievous harm to their health.  The number of deaths of people due to crime in rural areas in Russia remains the same in last three years, and it is over two times larger than the same criterion for the city crime, and one and a half times larger for causing grievous harm to health of people.