Abstract: The article discusses the issues of organizing assistance to Soviet families during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). In wartime conditions, accompanied by economic instability for the state, families with children, including military families, were in a difficult situation. Taking care of the Soviet family and the younger generation became the basis of the course of social policy, but the state could not always provide targeted assistance in time. That is why an important element of the organization of conditions for a stable situation of the population has become the involvement of collective farms, industrial and commercial enterprises, as well as individuals to assist families with children. The scientific novelty of the article consists in attracting a wide range of sources from the archives of the Republic of Buryatia and the Irkutsk region. Analysis of the documents showed that during the Great Patriotic War, the population helped those in need in various forms. In difficult times, the people acted unanimously and created various aid organizations: red Cross societies, charitable foundations, maternity and childhood committees. The population also helped those in need by accepting orphans, evacuated citizens and refugees for temporary residence. The enterprises did not stand aside. For the Baikal region, these measures were as important as for the rest of the USSR.

Abstract: The article examines the legal framework of the USSR of the period 1936-1953, regulating the sphere of family relations, the institution of marriage, motherhood and childhood. The consistent emergence of new measures of support and protection of families in the pre-war, war and post-war period in the state is analyzed. Based on the materials of regional archives and periodicals, ideas were formed about the implementation of social support measures in the Irkutsk region and the BMASSR, the main directions of social policy and the effectiveness of their implementation on the ground were determined. The author presents an analysis of the main measures to support families with children, as well as the distinctive features of the implementation of these measures in the regional aspect. The author's special contribution to the study is the analysis of unpublished sources, including archival documents and data from local newspapers covering the problems of motherhood and childhood in the region. The scientific novelty lies in the author's use of a regional source base, which allowed him to draw conclusions about the peculiarities of the implementation of social policy in relation to the Soviet family during the period under study. The conducted research allowed us to conclude that the experience of Soviet social policy has become a vivid example of how the foundation of social support measures laid down by the USSR Constitution of 1936 made it possible to create a bulwark for the further development of the country.