The decree of the Peoples’ Commissariat for Internal Affairs of RSFSR “On working police” adopted

After the October revolution, the state police, formed by the Provisional government, was abolished. However the detachments of working police continued to function. It was necessary to provide a legal basis for their activity.

On October 28 (November 10) 1917 the Peoples’ Commissar for Internal Affairs of RSFSR A.N. Rykov signed the decree “On working police”. Under this decree all the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies established the working police that was completely and exclusively under their authority. All the civil and military powers had to assist to the armament of the working police, up to providing it with public arms.

The decree had become a legal basis for creating a local police, but for all that the police bodies did not have staff structure. Usually the detachments of the working police were formed of volunteers. But on May 15, 1918 the Peoples’ Commissariat for Internal Affairs sent by telegraph the instruction on re-creation of the police as a state organization with its proper staff to all the provincial Executive Committees of the Soviets.

On July 30 – August 1, 1918 the First All-Russian congress of the Presidents of provincial Executive Committees and the heads of administration divisions of the Executive Committees “recognizing it impossible to arm the entire population at the moment of the extreme worsening of the class struggle both in cities and villages, and due to the necessity of a permanent body that would maintain the revolutionary order, protect the Soviet rule and stand up for dear achievements of the revolution” acknowledged it indispensable to organize the Soviet workers’ and peasants’ police.

On August 1, 1918, as a part of the Department of local administration of the Peoples’ Commissariat for Internal Affairs of RSFSR, there was formed the Department of the Soviet Workers’ and Peasants’ police. A.M. Dizhbit became its first head. And on October 12, 1918 the Peoples’ Commissariat for Internal Affairs and the Peoples’ Commissariat for Justice approved the Instruction “On organizing the Soviet Workers’ and Peasants’ police”. It had legally fixed the creation of the staff professional police in RSFSR as “an executive body of the workers’ and peasants’ central power in the field that was under the authority of local Soviets and reported to the general leaders of the Peoples’ Commissariat for Internal Affairs”.

The decree of 1917 afforded a basis for establishing the Day of the Soviet police on November 10. The first celebration took place already in 1918 on the grounds of the instruction of the Peoples’ Commissariat for Internal Affairs of RSFSR to the police bodies “to hold on November 10, in the evening, in out-of-office hours, the solemn meetings, sessions of the Party’s cells of policemen with the involvement of the representatives of local committees of the Russian Communist Party”.

Lit.: История советской милиции: в 2 т. М., 1977; История МВД. 1917—1931 [Электронный ресурс] // Министерство внутренних дел Российской Федерации. 2011. URL: http://www.mvd.ru/mvd/history/show_117/?-1329; Постановление НКВД РСФР «О рабочей милиции» // Собрание узаконений и распоряжений рабочего и крестьянского правительства. 1917. 1 дек. (№ 1); Советская милиция: история и современность, 1917—1987. М., 1987.

Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:

Дисциплинарный устав Рабоче-крестьянской красной милиции. 1923.