Soloviev, V. V. Personnel Guarantees of Subdivisions of the NKVD of the RSFSR Performing Crime Investigation (1917 -1923)

Abstract: The death of the Russian Empire, followed by the epoch of cataclysms in domestic policies, caused significant changes in the life of the whole country. One of the most essential features of a new stage of development appeared to be the destruction of the state apparatus including the internal affairs authorities and subsequent rise in crime, the latter being one of the most important indicators of unhealthy society. Return to public order as an essential feature of a normal course of the country ’s population life and reconstruction of internal authorities were therefore the most important goals to be achieved by the new government. With this consideration in mind, we choose the NKVD of the RSFSR to be the object of our research, mostly militia and criminal investigation department. The subject of our research is the combination of legal standards established by legislative and other regulatory acts and organizational framework defining principles and procedures of acceptance for work and assignment for a certain position, service and dismissal and personal guarantees. The research has shown that the personal management at internal affairs agencies was of quite contradictory nature. From the one hand, it was quite obvious that they tried to find enough officials to be assigned for all required (and quite a limited number of ) positions. From the other hand, there were so called ‘cleaning up’ procedures that allowed to get rid of all the ‘undesired’ workers. At the same time, quite a spare number of officials had rather low professional requirements. Yet, even under such conditions the personal turnover and constant deficiency occurred.

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