Status of executive bodies of local self-government in the last years of "perestroika"

"Perestroika", which began in 1985 and was initiated by the new General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M.S. Gorbachev, affected almost all spheres of the socio-political and socio-economic life of the Soviet state. Of significant importance was the transformation of public-power structures, which was carried out on the basis of such perestroika principles and slogans as democracy, glasnost, initiative, etc. The article examines the features of the change in the status of local Councils of People's Deputies during the perestroika years, with an emphasis on the executive bodies of local Councils of People's Deputies (executive committees), given that during the years of the USSR, it was the executive bodies that actually exercised public power at the local level. The relevant normative legal acts regulating the functions and powers of the executive committees of local Councils of People's Deputies are analyzed, including a comparison of the Union Law "On the General Principles of Local Self-Government and Local Economy in the USSR" adopted in 1990 and the Law of the RSFSR "On Local Self-Government in the RSFSR" adopted in 1991. Documents of the party structures of the CPSU and scientific publications that address this issue are also taken into account. It is noted, in particular, that by the end of perestroika it became clear that the local public system that had been in effect for several decades was not being written off as part of the country's new development vector.