Vladimir V. Khalepo

Fundamental changes in the social and state system after the revolutionary events of 1917 initiated a series of large-scale changes in social relations and legal institutions, which could not but affect the penal system inherited by Soviet Russia from the Russian Empire. In the first months after the establishment of Soviet power, continuity with the pre-revolutionary order of organizing places of detention was maintained, subsequently, as Soviet legislation developed and the penitentiary system was reformed, the Soviet penal system began to acquire its own characteristic features. The article analyzes the conditions and processes of formation and formation of the penitentiary system of the Soviet state with the involvement of archival materials, legal acts and scientific works, examines their organizational structure, the composition of the governing bodies and their interdepartmental struggle, as well as the types of places of detention, conditions of detention, rights and duties of prisoners. The relevance of the study of the Soviet system of execution of punishments lies in the consideration of the contradictions of its development in the light, on the one hand, of the features of the historically revolutionary character inherent in these events, and on the other hand, the identified need to inherit some of the institutions of this system that existed under previous governments. In the current conditions of the ongoing reorganization of the correctional system after the collapse of the USSR, taking into account such experience can also be relevant and useful for further reforms.