ON THE EVE OF THE GULAG: A CHRONICLE OF THE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL ABOVE PENITENTIARY INSTITUTIONS
Introduction: The history of the formation and development of the Soviet penitentiary system in the 1920s-1930s has always aroused great interest among both domestic and foreign researchers. At the same time, a relatively poorly studied aspect of the issue under consideration is theoretical discussions and interdepartmental management struggle for the control over penitentiary institutions that took place in 1927-1930. In fact, they served as the impetus for the liquidation of the NKVD of the RSFSR and the transfer from it of places of detention to the People’s Commissariat of Justice and, ultimately, the OGPU under the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR. And this, in its turn, contributed to the transformation of the Soviet punitive system of the prison type into a system of colonies and camps, which retains its main features up to the present day. Aim: Based on the analysis of the printed works of the heads and key functionaries of the departments participating in the discussion, to add and detail the current picture of the theoretical discussion and interdepartmental struggle for the control in the sphere of the execution of criminal punishments in the USSR at the turn of 1920-1930. Methods: The research is based on a set of theoretical methods of scientific knowledge. Results: It was found that the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR (represented by N.M. Janson, N.V. Krylenko, F.K. Traskovich) tried to use the situation of overpopulation of prisoners which emerged in 1927-1928 in institutions subordinated to the NKVD, in order to weaken the positions of its leadership (V.N. Tomachev, E.G. Shirvindt). In the context of the growth of the crime rate that began in 1928 (as a consequence of the beginning of collectivization) and the increase in the number of prisoners, the leadership of the People’s Commissariat of Justice demanded that the NKVD unswervingly comply with all the requirements established by the Criminal Correctional Code of 1924, which in those conditions was deliberately unfeasible. All this ultimately led to the liquidation of the NKVD in December 1930 and the reassignment of places of detention to the People’s Commissariat of Justice and the OGPU. Conclusions: The transformation of the Soviet system of places of detention into the “GULAG” was an inevitable consequence of the political regime of the Stalinist dictatorship established in the USSR. One of its inalienable elements was massive repression, which multiplied the number of prisoners. For reasons of expediency, the political leadership of the country considered it optimal to keep them in the system of colonies intended for the pioneering development of the resource potential of remote and (or) hard-to-reach regions of the country.