Activities of Krasnoyarsk Law School in 1937-1938

The research aim is to study the activities of Krasnoyarsk Law School on training of justice personnel during the period from its establishment in 1937 to the start of the Great Patriotic War in 1941. The research is performed on the basis of the documents of the State Archive of Krasnoyarsk Krai, the majority of which have been introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The author also uses academic monographs, articles and materials of periodicals. In the middle of the 1930s, the issue of training lawyers in the USSR was very acute. The majority of judges, prosecutors and investigators had no legal education. A network of law schools was established for accelerated training of justice personnel in the country. It was decided to open a law school in Krasnoyarsk in January 1937. The new School faced the problem of lack of a building that nearly led to the closure of the School by the decision of the People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR. This problem was resolved with a great difficulty, and the school continued its activities. At the end of the first academic year, 29 people graduated from the School. They were distributed to the judicial, prosecutor's, public defender's and notary's offices. Having trained the first group of specialists for authorities of justice of the region, the School started a new enrollment. On June 1, 1938 the newspaper Krasnoyarskiy Rabochiy published an announcement about enrollment to the School. The heads of the Regional Court and the Regional Prosecutor's Office also instructed people's judges and district prosecutors on the seconding of "persons from among the legal staff meeting the requirements of enrollment" to the School. The Regional Committee designated a certain number of positions for each district in the Law School and obligated regional party organizations to report on the implementation of this order. Classes in the 1938-1939 academic year began on September 1, 1938. The teaching staff consisted of teachers of the Russian language, mathematics, history of the USSR, history of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, criminal law, criminal procedure, civil law, civil procedure, judicial system, criminology, labor law, medical jurisprudence and psychiatry. The Resolution of the Bureau of the Regional Committee requiring the chairperson of the Regional Court and the regional prosecutor to send teachers of legal subjects from among practitioners of the court and of the Prosecutor's Office helped to provide the school with the teaching staff. The scope of knowledge of law school graduates did not meet the needs of judicial authorities. The quality of graduates' work showed that after one academic year they were unable to master the entire volume of knowledge required to become sound professionals. To overcome these disadvantages it was necessary to increase the period of study. According to the order of the People's Commissar of Justice of the USSR as of May 11, 1939 "On the transfer of legal schools to a biennial training period" some applicants in 1939 were enlisted for a one-year training period and the others for a biennial period. In 1940 there was the last class of graduates that studied for one year; in 1941 the first class of students that studied for two years graduated. The author comes to a conclusion that Krasnoyarsk Law School gave a low level of education the causes of which were the poor qualification of teachers, a shortage of textbooks, a short training period and the weak educational preparation of students.

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