The penal system and penal military units: crime and expiation of guilt during the Great Patriotic War

We consider the little-studied aspects of the use of persons who committed criminal offences as fighters and junior commanders on the front lines of the Great Patriotic War. We show the change in law enforcement practice at the beginning of the war, which allowed for the extrajudicial release of persons sentenced to penalties related to imprisonment. The second important area of research was the coverage of events related to the establishment, formation and activities of penal companies and battalions. We substantiate the inadmissibility of unreliable images of these processes in literature and cinema. One of the main goals of the study is to increase the interest of the scientific community and ordinary readers to the problems of the relationship held in the military transformations period of the elements of corrective labor system, subordinated to the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the USSR and People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR. Attention is focused on the need for more detailed coverage of the activities of penal units and subdivisions. As a result of the analysis of archival materials, memoirs and publications in the mass media, we come to the conclusion that the practice of reducing the level of criminal responsibility for a number of crimes, combined with attracting convicts to direct participation in hostilities, played a positive role in the protection of the Fatherland.