Советское уголовное законодательство по трудовым преступлениям и особенности его правоприменения (1940–1956)

Российская история. 2024. № 1. С. 161–183.

Khatanzeiskaia E.

The article follows the evolution of the law enforcement practices of the wartime period in relation to the workers and employees who were assigned to the industrial enterprises by the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from June 26, 1940 and December 26, 1941. The norms of these decrees were extended to the most industrial enterprises and institutions during the Second World war and functioned for a long time after the war. The violations of the labor discipline, according to the norms of these Decrees, entailed real terms of imprisonment or forced labor camp. The sentences of the Soviet courts based on the above-mentioned decrees accounted for more than 50% of the sentences for criminal offenses of the war and post-war period. The disproportion between of the severity of punishment to the offenses committed and the mass character of sentences for labor crimes provided by Decrees, caused an equally massive practice escapes of workers and employees from Soviet enterprises. As a result, the criminal prosecution of workers and employees for their lateness, absenteeism and unauthorized leaving enterprises became one more form of mass repressions in the USSR. 

Keywords: трудовое законодательство, Вторая мировая война, советская повседневность, массовые репрессии, history of the Second World War, labor legislation, Сталинизм и война, Stalinism and War, Soviet Everyday Life, Soviet repressions

Publication based on the results of: Soviet Economic Policy: normative models and implementation practices (2024)