Some aspects of economic crime during the war (1941-1945) (on the example of the Kazakh SSR)

At present, scientists focus on the problems of social history, and psychology of the population as they create a holistic view of the social life of society, the system of labor organization, labor relations of workers as well as material and domestic conditions during the Great Patriotic War. At the same time, such aspects of social life as economic crime during the war received little or no attention in the sphere of special scientific research for a long time. The aim of this article is a comprehensive analysis of economic crime in the USSR by the example of Kazakhstan during the Great Patriotic War. Authors attempted to study economic crime during the war, features of labor motivation, collective psychology, and the inner world of ordinary Soviet citizens through the analysis of historical sources, which allows considering complex social roots of economic crime. The article identifies factors that influenced the growth of crime during the war years, such as the forced evacuation of the population; mobilization in the army; shortage of industrial and food essentials; introduction of card system; difficult working and living conditions of workers, improper work of internal bodies of the Soviet state. The most widespread types of law violations and the ways of their perpetration are revealed in the example of specific enterprises of the Kazakh SSR. The article presents the role of Soviet legislation and state bodies in solving this problem. This article is based on a new set of historical sources extracted from archives («Special Folders» of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, documents of the Party Control Commission, letters and complaints to the authorities, business correspondence, etc.).