Annotation

The article is devoted to a historical and legal analysis of law-enforcement activity as a specific form of the exercise of state power in the USSR during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945). The relevance of the study is determined by the need to comprehend the historical experience of the functioning of the state under emergency conditions in order to develop effective strategies for responding to contemporary challenges to national security. On the basis of the systemic and formal-legal methods, the author examines the transformation of law-enforcement mechanisms in wartime. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of the State Defense Committee (SDC), whose acts possessed the highest legal force, and to the adaptation of the activity of authorities to the conditions of total mobilization. It is proven that law enforcement in the period under consideration was characterized by unprecedented centralization, promptness and the merging of legal and organizational forms of administration.