Historical and Legal Aspects of Creation of Penitentiary Courts in 1934

The article analyzes the process of creating penitentiary (camp) courts during 1934. The article is based on previously unpublished documents stored in the Russian State Archive of Modern History. The work is based on the concept of A.Ya. Kodintsev, according to which the justice bodies are considered as a counterweight to the internal affairs bodies, and the interaction between them is presented as a kind of competition. The author points out a number of objective and subjective factors that influenced the formation of penitentiary courts. Among them are the difficult situation in places of detention and the presence of elements of apparatus struggle in the country’s leadership. In the apparatus struggle, confrontation can be traced at two levels: between the justice bodies and the NKVD and within the justice bodies between the leaders and their deputies. As a result, the creation of penitentiary (camp) justice bodies in 1934 can be presented as the achievement of a kind of compromise between the leadership of the justice bodies and the NKVD.