SPECULATION IN THE USSR IN 1918 – 1945 AND THE FIGHT AGAINST IT (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF THE CENTRAL BLACK EARTH REGION)

The article examines such a type of peripheral crime as speculation (in the 1920s – early 1940s). The purpose of the research is to study speculative activity and counteraction to it in the Cen-tral Black Earth Region. The source of materials for the study is the state archives of Voronezh, Orel and Tambov. The objectives of the study are to identify the causes, objects and forms of speculation, and to assess the damage caused by speculative activity to public interests. The author uses historical-comparative, historical-legal and general scientific research methods. The presented article demon-strates the dual nature of speculation during the crisis of economic relations during the Civil War and the New Economic Policy, since speculators could act as a trade intermediary between the city and the countryside, offering, among other things, more favorable prices for bread than those set by the state. By the end of the 1920s, speculation began to be openly criminal in nature, being based on fraud and embezzlement of state property. During the Great Patriotic War, food became the main subject of speculation, and trade and distribution workers became the subjects. Accordingly, the methods of ob-taining products and goods by speculators changed – if during the 1920s these were mainly direct purchases from peasants, then later trade workers who resold goods obtained by fraud with account-ing documents to speculators came to the fore.