?
Советская юстиция в период Великой Отечественной войны: историография вопроса
A historical study on the Soviet system of justice as a central tool of social regulation during the Great Patriotic war allows to analyze the transformation of Stalinism in extreme circumstances. It also gives an opportunity to examine everyday life of the Soviet population, which had been forced to survive in new socio-economic and political conditions. Until the early 1990s, the issue of functioning of justice in 1941-1945 was not a subject of the particular interest neither among the Soviet scholars, nor among the foreign ones. It was caused by the absence of access to the Soviet archives. In this period, Western scholars regarded law enforcement practices as a part of broader repressive mechanisms of Stalinism. Few Soviet papers adhered to an ideological setting of continuous and strict observance of ‘socialist legality’ even during the wartime. Only after the collapse of the USSR, historians managed to receive an access to archival materials of the Soviet courts and other justice bodies. However, the majority the Russian and foreign historical works are still devoted only to distinct social and institutional aspects of the Soviet justice during and after the war: struggle against labor and political crimes, persecutions of collaborators, and interactions between different justice bodies. Despite the growing interest in the functioning of the Soviet system of justice in the 1930-1950s, the war period remains rather obscure. Nevertheless, it should be noted that new archival materials related to the topic are being actively introduced by contemporary Russian regional researchers in their numerous articles on regional aspects of legal proceedings during the war. The present article is devoted to the most significant studies which could be applied for understanding the features of the Soviet system of justice in the wartime period.