Formation of the Industrial Police on the Territory of the Donetsk Coal-Mining Basin (Pre-Soviet Period)
Authors: Nebratenko G. G. , Studenikina S. V. 
Published: October 2024

Introduction. Development of the industrial production in the regions becomes possible on condition of attracting the labour resources and creating the appropriate socio-economic conditions, acceptable living, training and leisure opportunities for employees. Solving these tasks results in formation of the industrial clusters and development of the settlements with the city-forming industrial enterprises. The settlements that have emerged as an evidence of the technological progress and as a result of formation of the economic relationships differ from the settlements and cities formed under the dominating influence of the agricultural and commercial sectors. First of all, the differences refer to the intensity of migration flows, quick emergence of the agglomerations consisting of the class-homogeneous labour collectives represented by the proletariat (including the stratum of engineers and craftsmen). For this reason, during formation of the industrial sector in the Russian Empire in the second half of the XIX century, a special kind of internal affairs authorities called the “industrial police” had evolved, which were partly funded at the expense of the extrabudgetary funds of the served enterprises. These practices had spread throughout the Donetsk coal-mining basin, which included an immense territory from the city of Shakhty, Rostov region (former Aleksandrovsk-Grushevskii, Province of the Don Cossack Host) – in the east to the city of Donetsk, Donetsk People's Republic (former Yuzovka, Yekaterinoslav province) – in the west. Nowadays, a scientific study of the industrial police formation process on the territory of Donbass is relevant and especially valuable due to the fact that from 2022 the coal-mining basin has become an integral part of the Russian Federation and because it possesses the vast historical and industrial-production experience of joint development and cooperation of its constituent regions, including in the field of law enforcement activities. Therefore, the paper targets to investigate the process of formation of the industrial police on the territory of the Donetsk coal-mining basin (at the pre–Soviet period).

Materials and Methods. The objects of the study were the legal relations referring to the formation and development of the industrial police on the territory of the Donetsk coal-mining basin in the second half of the XIX – early XX centuries. The study was carried out based on the empirical analysis of the history of the law enforcement authorities on the territory of the Donetsk coal-mining basin. While preparing the article, the principle of historicism was applied, historicallegal, dogmatic legal and system-structural methods of scientific research were used. Along with the specific scientific methods of jurisprudence knowledge, the general scientific methods of synthesis, induction and deduction, as well as the comparative, systemic and cognitive methods were used.

Results. A scientific concept of the Donbass law enforcement system, which had existed at the turn of the XIX– XX centuries within the Province of the Don Cossack Host and had represented a specific subject of the Russian Empire in the pre-Soviet period, was formed. The regulatory legal acts, which had been the basis for the emergence and development of the industrial police, ensuring protection of the public order and safety, were identified and studied. The historically justified key dates of the Donbass industrial police formation were distinguished and might be used in the moral, psychological and memorial work, demonstrating the unity of the population living on the territory of the Donetsk coalmining basin in the past and future.

Discussion and Conclusion. Enforcement of the law is an important part of the law enforcement function of the state and is being ensured across the whole territory of the Russian Federation, including the “new regions” of Russia, which had been previously detached from it in 1991 due to undoing the USSR. Therefore, the research in the historical and legal development of the industrial police of the Donetsk coal-mining basin demonstrates the historical unity of the peoples of Donbass throughout the single state. The conclusions drawn by the authors upon the conducted research directly refer to ensuring the national ideological security of the Russian Federation.