AN INTERDEPARTMENTAL STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OVER PLACES OF THE DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY IN SOVIET RUSSIA IN THE EARLY 1920 'S
in the article on the basis of previously unpublished archival sources the subject of interdepartmental competition for all places of deprivation of liberty in one department is considered, that began in the early 1920 's, between the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR. The uniqueness of the situation in the early 1920 's is emphasized, which was that the two agencies already had in parallel the existing systems of places of deprivation of liberty. One was subordinated to the Central Penitentiary Division (former Central Punitive Department) of the people's Commissariat of Justice, and the other General Administration of Forced Labor the people's Commissariat of internal affairs. In this connection, the question of concentration of all places of detention under a single office is treated as a decisive for the further development of the penal correction system of the RSFSR. The existence of the two departments of the competing systems, as well as the sets of arguments in the dispute over their Union transferred the problem of the choice of formal affiliation into choosing one model for further development of labour policy. Based on historical documentary sources, the author concludes that State for a long time could not make this choice that only exacerbated the interdepartmental struggle. The article examines in detail the provisions of the two alternative projects to focus on places of imprisonment in one Department, the People's Commissariat of Justice and PCIA and submitted for the consideration of the Council of People's Commissars, held July 25, 1922, by Decree, decided the dispute in favor of the PCIA. However, the author does not consider this decision as a complete defeat of the People's Commissariat of Justice. The article provides evidence that the subsequent implementation of CPC on July 25, 1922 had not completed an interdepartmental struggle, during which the apparatus of the former Central Correctional Labour Department of the People's Commissariat of Justice, indeed, "squashed" leadership and organizational structure of the General Directorate of the Forced Labour, becoming the nucleus of a new body - the General Directorate of Imprisonment Places of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Article prepared with the financial support of the Russian humanitarian scientific foundation and the Government of the Ryazan region, project № 13-11-62002.