DOI 10.46726/H.2026.3.14
In honor of the 100th anniversary of the 1926 Criminal Code of the RSFSR, the authors of this article conducted a historical and legal analysis of the second codified criminal law in the history of our country. Based on a study of regulatory documents, published materials, and transcripts from the 1920s, as well as contemporary literature, the political, socioeconomic, ideological, and legal reasons and prerequisites for the adoption of this code are identified. The article provides a brief description of the conceptual provisions that influenced the content of the 1926 Criminal Code of the RSFSR and describes the process of its development and adoption. The authors conclude that the assessment of this historical document is quite contradictory. On the one hand, it had obvious negative features: it was excessively ideological, aimed at implementing a class-differentiated criminal policy; it allowed for the application of the law by analogy; it rejected traditional concepts of guilt and punishment; and it considered liability based not only on the commission of a crime, but also on a dangerous state of the individual. All this created the legal basis for the political repressions of the 1930s. On the other hand, the criminal code's undeniable merits are acknowledged: the modernization of legislative technique, the progressive nature of its provisions on the insignificance of an act, self-defense, mitigating and aggravating circumstances, the protection of women's rights, and others. The significant significance of the 1926 Criminal Code of the RSFSR for the establishment and development of Soviet criminal
legislation is noted.
For citation: Stepanova I.B., Sokolova O.V. Evolution of domestic criminal legislation in the 1920s (on the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the criminal code of the RSFSR in 1926), Bulletin of Ivanovo State University. Series: Humanities, 2026, iss. 3, pp. 122—135.