Soviet Justice and the Fight Against Crime in the Context of the Transition to a New Economic Policy: Informational and Ideological Aspect (on the Example of Nizhny Novgorod)

Abstract

The new economic policy and overcoming the managerial crisis strengthened the educational value of the judicial system in the young Soviet state. On the way to the formation of a “revolutionary legal consciousness” in society, the authorities gradually overcame the negative attitude of the population towards the law enforcement system. By the beginning of the 1920s, an important role in improving the quality and efficiency of the judiciary was played by creating a positive image of Soviet justice through information and ideological support of the Soviet courts. This article discusses the problem of the decline in the authority of the judiciary in the post-revolutionary period through the prism of a local micro-historical approach to the application of historical and legal analysis on the example of the city of Nizhny Novgorod. The local newspaper publications serve as the empirical basis of the study. Chronologically, the study is limited to 1921, such a minimum temporal concentration allows us to trace the direct dynamics of substantive changes within the framework of the problem indicated in the article.