Comparative analysis of normative legal acts on the execution of criminal penalties in the initial stage of the formation of the Russian state for the implementation of equality principle before the law

The object of the study is the implementation of equality principle before the law by fixing equal rights and obligations of prisoners in the normative legal acts of the Soviet state. The subject of research: provisions of normative legal acts of the Provisional Government, departmental normative acts of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR and People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the RSFSR. As a methodological basis for cognition, general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction are used, which allow us to investigate aspects of legal reality directly related to the implementation of the principles of penal enforcement (correctional labor) legislation, to formulate reasonable conclusions. Private scientific methods: formal-legal and comparative-legal – allow us to identify differences in the legal regulation of the legal status of prisoners in the pre-war period. As a result of the conducted research, we make a reasonable conclusion that the principle of equality before the law, although it was not enshrined in specific norms regulating the procedure for the execution and serving of imprisonment, however, was manifested in the provisions regulating the legal status of persons deprived of liberty. The notions of equality before the law of both citizens in general and prisoners in particular were not the fundamental basis of the legislation of the Soviet State. Prisoners were differentiated on the basis of social affiliation, due to: 1) the principle of class approach proclaimed by the Constitution of the RSFSR; 2) the functioning of two systems of places of deprivation of liberty for prisoners with different social status; 3) regulating the execution (serving) of sentences in the form of deprivation of liberty by various regulatory legal acts.