2025 Issue №3

The article analyzes the development of the USSR maritime transport management sys­tem in the early 1930s using the case of the Vladivostok Commercial Port. This period was marked by large-scale reforms aimed at the centralization of management and the integration of transport infrastructure into the planned economy. The author examines the key stages of reorganization: the establishment of the People’s Commissariat of Water Transport, the for­mation of basin administrations, the introduction of cost-accounting mechanisms, and the specialization of port divisions. Particular attention is paid to the regional specifics of the Russian Far East, where the Vladivostok port, while maintaining the universality of its func­tions, faced problems of decentralization, staff shortages, low levels of mechanization, and inadequate social and living conditions for workers. The study is based on archival materials from the State Archive of Primorsky Krai and the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, many of which are introduced into scholarly circulation for the first time. The author shows how the policy of hyper-centralization of management was combined with attempts to adapt to regional conditions. Despite the decline in the port’s international role due to foreign policy changes, it retained the importance of a key transport hub ensuring the supply of re­mote territories and supporting the industrialization of the Far East. The main conclusion emphasizes that during the period under consideration in conditions of completion of the transition to sectoral centralization and the strengthening of state control, a multilevel man­agement system was formed. Despite its drawbacks, the system enabled the port to adapt to the tasks of the planned economy. The author stresses that the Vladivostok port, having lost its status as an international transit center, became the infrastructural foundation for the integration of the region into the all-Union economic space.

The tense geopolitical situation, the development of negationist tendencies, and the emer­gence over the past decade of numerous disputes regarding reparation claims by certain coun­tries make it relevant to study, from a scholarly perspective, the legitimacy of the actions of individual states during specific historical periods. Given that the Russian Federation is the successor state to the Soviet Union, there arises a justified necessity to examine certain ac­tions of the Soviet leadership and the conformity of the measures they adopted with interna­tional law of the corresponding period. By studying individual treaties concluded between the USSR and Germany in 1939—1941, analyzing the factual actions of the two powers in 1939—1945, other relevant circumstances, and the fundamental norms of international law of that period, and employing comparative and historical methods, the author addresses the issue of the legality of establishing Soviet occupation authorities on German territory after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The author demonstrates that the establishment of an occupa­tion regime by the Soviet Union in Germany not only fully complied with contemporary in­ternational law, but also proved to be the only available means of compensating for the dam­age inflicted by the Third Reich on the Soviet republics during nearly four years of active hos­tilities.

Based on materials from the State Archive of the Kaliningrad Region, in particular un­published meeting protocols, correspondence on industrial issues, reports and proposals of the Department of Light and Food Industry of the Regional Committee of the CPSU, decrees and directives of the Kaliningrad Council of National Economy, and decisions of the Kaliningrad Regional Executive Committee, the article examines the history and development of the man­agement of Soviet light industry enterprises in the Kaliningrad Region. The purpose of the study is to trace and assess the changes associated with the subordination of light industry enterprises in the Kaliningrad Region in the 1940s—1970s. Taking into account nationwide trends and reforms, the trajectory of light industry in the region is considered, from the for­mation of the region and the restoration of the economic potential of the new Soviet oblast in the second half of the 1940s to the stabilization of the administration of this sector in the 1970s after a series of economic reforms. Documents concerning the establishment and reor­ganization of agencies that controlled local light industry facilities were identified. On the basis of the analysis of the collected data, the specific features and outcomes of the subordina­tion of light industry enterprises in the Kaliningrad Region were determined. In particular, the problem of the contradictory relationship between local light industry enterprises and the Council of National Economy of the Lithuanian SSR is addressed. It is concluded that the reorganizations of light industry administration in the region did not interrupt the develop­ment of this sector in the Amber Region.