The "socially friendly" (criminal) elements kept the soviet gulags under control.
"The state, in its Criminal Code, forbids citizens to have firearms or other weapons, but does not itself undertake to defend them! The state turns its citizens over to the power of the bandits -- and then through the press dares to summon them to 'social resistance' against these bandits..."
Solzhenitsyn, "Gulag Archipelago", Vol 3, Chapter 16