The activities of police agencies within the executive power system of soviet state in 1917-1930: institutional and legal basis

The article deals with the political conditions and organizational basis of the formation of police agencies within the structure of executive power in the Soviet state in the period of 1917-1930. The author defines the stages in the development of the law enforcement system, analyzes the features of legal policy and assesses the major theoretical approaches to the change in the state-legal status of the police. The emphasis is made on the fact that during the named period and later the legal policy of the state was built solely around the principle of political expediency. Being a part of the state machine, the police not only accumulated the functions of supervision and coercion, but also exercised the power of suppressing the actions of existing political system opponents.