The fate of the Petrozavodsk District People’s Court

The article restores the history of the establishment and activities of the District People’s Court in the Olonets Province during 1918 and 1919. It reveals that the court operated for just under six months (from 26 July 1918 to 15 January 1919), during which it only adjudicated 38 criminal cases. There were several main reasons for its ineffective operation: 1) the court’s composition was delayed significantly (taking from 15 March to 26 August 1918); 2) the preliminary investigation bodies performed unsatisfactorily; 3) the formation of lists of people’s assessors by the county councils took nearly four months (from 26 June to 18 October 1918), which prevented the court from proceeding with criminal and civil cases; 4) the absence of civil assessors at the court sessions hindered the resolution of any civil cases. However, we believe that the first reason cannot be solely attributed to the ideological rejection of the Soviet government by pre-revolutionary lawyers. Economic considerations also played a significant role: on the Murmansk Railway, lawyers dismissed under the First Decree on the Courts received higher salaries and food rations than they would have received in the court. Similarly, the third and fourth reasons cannot be solely attributed to public disapproval of the district court, which comprised the representatives of the class inherently alien to the Soviet regime. Both the county councils and the local population were primarily preoccupied with the severe food crisis and the escalating civil war.