The Passport Society: Controlling Movement In Russia and the USSR

by Mervyn Matthews

In this analysis of Russia's systems for controlling the movement and residence patterns of its citizens, the author examines the social, political and economic purposes and effects of the internal passport and residence permit as used by the centralized Russian and Communist governments.

119 pages, Hardcover

Published November 17, 1993

About the author

William Haydn Mervyn Matthews was a British expert on Soviet society, writer, and broadcaster. His star-crossed love affair with a Russian woman became a cause célèbre in Anglo-Soviet relations in the 1960s; their story was later told by their son, Owen, in a bestselling family memoir, "Stalin’s Children" (2012), and by Matthews himself in "Mila and Mervusya: A Russian Wedding" (1999).

His early years are described in his 2002 memoir "Mervyn's Lot". He took a degree in Russian at Manchester University, then moved to St Catherine's College, Oxford, then St Antony's College for work on his Ph.D.

He was accepted as a research fellow at Moscow University, but expelled from the Soviet Union in 1964 for "anti-Soviet propaganda and speculation". St Antony's College annulled his research fellowship for political troublemaking, after which he moved to Nottingham University. He eventually settled as reader in the University of Surrey's linguistic and regional studies department.