The department of People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR in the Stalingrad region: features of functioning before and during the battle of Stalingrad

The paper shows the main areas of work of the Department of justice in the Stalingrad region of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR in 1941-1942. These included the restructuring of the activities of the Department to the emergency regime, manpower policy, synthesis and analysis of judicial practice according to the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to strengthen labour discipline at enterprises, collective farms and state farms, to fight against speculation, embezzlement of socialist property, the failure of defense measures - blackout, passport regime, non-payment of fines and duties, taxation of public supplies. The research relevance is associated with the lack of works devoted to the People’s Courts in the period of the Great Patriotic War in the modern historiography. The Stalingrad region is illustrative in this aspect, since during the war it represented rear, frontline and front areas. It is noted that in the conditions of the rear region, the Department of People’s Commissariat for Justice and the people’s courts of the Stalingrad region performed their activities on a relatively stable basis. The directives and explanatory guidelines of the Department of People’s Commissariat for Justice of the USSR and the RSFSR were timely and helped toreorganize the work of the Department. In 1942 in the situation at the frontline and front areas the activities of the Department of People’s Commissariat for Justice and people’s courts was hampered. The evacuation led to a reduction in the number of judicial districts, separation of judicial practice from existing laws because of the lack of timely codification and the special literature. The Battle of Stalingrad caused the significant damage to the Department, both material and personnel. In 1943 the Department of People’s Commissariat for Justice was forced to start its activities with organizational issues.