The Smolensk Provincial Prosecutor's Office in the Fightagainst «The Right Deviation» and the Consequencesof the «Smolensk Scandal» in 1928

Directives of the XV party congress and resolutions of C.P.S.U. (B) «About the circumstances of Smolensk organization» 9th of May, 1928, raised a whole series of exceptional, in their political importance, questions for Smolensk provincial prosecutor's office: Restoring prosecution's reputation as a «legal authority of the revolution», removal from the judicial investigative and prosecutorial apparatus «decaying and alien elements» and recruitment of party-loyal workers, mobilization of the juidicial authorities to ensure swift and correct investigations on the cases in connection with «Smolenk Scandal», attack on capitalist elements both within the city and in the countryside, on kulaks that are becoming increasingly more active, and on «criminal perversions in fields of land, tax, and financial activities both in provincial and lower-body authorities». Due to the absolute deplorable conditions that the prosecution office was in (that were caused by the Scandal), its workers were not ready to rise to those challenges. Torn by the inner purge Smolensk Prosecutor's office tried to fulfill task set both by the party and higher leadership, facing much resistance and difficulties with each step.