On the Issue of the Activities of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Court in the Context of the Introduction of Criminal Liability for Violations of Labor Discipline in the Pre-War Period (Based on the Materials of the Middle Volga Region)

Abstract

Introduction. The study of the activities of the prosecutor’s office and the court to maintain labor discipline is important for understanding the mechanisms of preparation of the USSR for the war of 1941–1945. The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the processes that took place in the judicial and investigative bodies of the Middle Volga region in the light of the joint resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions of December 28, 1939 “On strengthening labor discipline” and the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 26, 1940. “On the transition to an eight-hour working day, to a seven-day working week and on the prohibition of unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions”. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the analysis of documentary complexes of party organizations, prosecutor’s offices and courts from the funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and three regional archives, which predetermined the use of concrete historical methods necessary for a detailed study of the interrelated processes of the emergence of new judicial practices during the transition of acts from the sphere of administrative to the sphere of criminal law. Results. Despite the tendencies of tightening the consequences of violations of labor regulations observed in the party-state policy of the USSR in the late 1930s, the organs of the court and prosecutor’s office of the Middle Volga region were not prepared for its implementation. Since July 1940, due to the receipt of criminal cases under the Decree of June 26, 1940, the volume of work of the people’s courts has increased by an average of 6 times. The low legal culture of the heads of enterprises and institutions led to careless registration of documents for violators, which required high-quality preliminary investigation from the staff of the prosecutor’s office and the court. At the same time, the Kuibyshev Department of the People’s Commissariat of Justice has not sent any explanations to the judges for several months, solely demanding compliance with the five-day deadline for the consideration of cases. In fact, people’s judges were left to themselves, did not have a generalized practice of trials, which is why sentences and measures of criminal prosecution for the same type of crimes differed. Discussion and Conclusions. Both in the Middle Volga region and on the scale of the USSR, absenteeism and unauthorized abandonment of a place of work have become the most widespread criminal offense. On average, in the USSR, the share of these crimes in the second half of 1940 accounted for over 60 % of convicts, in the Middle Volga region, which had a fairly high share of industry – more than 75 %. The result of the lack of preparatory work was the forced refusal of a preliminary investigation, and then of an in-person court session, which led to a decrease in the quality of work of courts in the territory of the Middle Volga region.