Historical, legal, ideological and political prerequisites for the formation and development of the institution of people’s control in the USSR

Abstract

Introduction. The controversial nature of most of the aspects related to the content and essence of people’s control, the assessment of its historical role and significance in the system of state administration of the Soviet period, the effectiveness of legal regulation and the political problems of its implementation still arouses a genuine interest of the scientific community in the study of this phenomenon. Theoretical analysis. People’s control in the USSR was both a developed ideological and political concept and a real political and legal institution. The founder of the concept of people’s control was V. I. Lenin, who, in his numerous works, described a clear justification of its relevance in the conditions of socialist democracy. Empirical analysis. It was revealed that the process of development of the institution of people’s control in Soviet Russia was largely influenced by the worldview of the country’s top leadership, which demonstrated polymorphism of opinions on the role and significance of popular control in the system of socialist governance. There are three stages of formation and functioning of the system of people’s control in Soviet Russia, which had their organizational and institutional features. Results. The study of the ideological, political and historical and legal prerequisites for formation of popular control led to the conclusion that popular control was a specific institution characteristic of the socialist type of government. It passed a rather difficult historical path: from workers’ control in the first years of Soviet power to a very complex organizational and institutional system of state and public control in the last decades of the existence of the USSR.