The Soviet period of development of legal regulation of the civil service grade structure

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of approaches towards creation and regulation of the civil service grade structure in the Soviet Unions. The author describes the logically differentiated stages, as well as the general provisions of the approaches, namely the refusal to separate the official of the state apparatus from all employees of the sectors of the national economy, and simultaneous substitution of the state apparatus for the party apparatus. The author outlines the trajectories of development of the civil service system as a whole and the state civil service as its part. Special attention is given to the attempts of creating a hierarchical system of personal ranks. The development of the institution of nomenclature is reviewed separately. The conclusion is made on underdevelopment of the administrative legal institution of the civil service in the Soviet Union, due to the absence of uniform approach towards regulation of the civil service grade structure. The attempt to create the civil service grade structure were unsystematic, did not distinguish between the officials of the state apparatus and the servants employed in the national economy; there were also no fundamentally different approached towards understanding the grade structure – on various stages, the base unit of building a hierarchical system were the categories “post” and “personal rank/title”. The author indicates no correlation between  the personal ranks, military ranks, and ranks of the internal affairs bodies.