Martial Law as a Legal Phenomenon of the Great Patriotic War

The article attempts to give an objective assessment of the state wartime policy aimed at regulating public relations during the Great Patriotic War, to qualify the activities of the military authorities, the USSR NKVD troops and bodies as subjects of legal relations developed in the sphere of functioning of the legal regime of that time. The relevance of the research of the mentioned problems is conditioned by the urgent need to strengthen the confrontation with the ongoing attempts to rewrite the history and neutralize the significance of the USSR’s victory over Nazi Germany. From the standpoint of the principle of historicism, the article reveals the legal structure of the martial law regime as a wartime integral legal phenomenon. The specific historical reasons for the establishment of an emergency legal regime in the frontline zone, its content as a kind of martial law regime, the specificity of the troops and bodies activities of the USSR NKVD to ensure the legal regime of the frontline zone are also shown. Based on archival and other historical sources, the article substantiates the conclusion that the scope of powers of the military authorities, troops and law enforcement agencies directly depended on the severity degree of the legal regime, which, in its turn, determined the restriction degree of the rights and freedoms of the population living in the areas of the emergency legal provisions action. Recommendations for the application of emergency legal mechanisms aimed at ensuring state and public security, taking into account the interests of the state and society, are formulated in the conclusion.