Demographic Policy of the Soviet State during the Great Patriotic War: Legal Novels and their Social Consequences

The adoption of the Fundamentals of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values and the restoration of the title “Mother Heroine” in the Russian state award system testifies to the state’s concern about the problem of a strong and large family, makes us turn to the Soviet experience in solving the demographic problem that arose during the Great Patriotic war. The purpose of the work is to assess the impact on society of legislative decisions taken to improve the demographic situation in the conditions of the Great Patriotic War. The objectives of the study are: to describe and characterize new legal measures in the field of demography, to establish the impact of legislative decisions on family values, to determine the prospects for using individual measures to improve the demographic situation in modern Russia. The work uses historical-legal, formal-dogmatic, statistical and comparative research methods. The measures taken aimed at stimulating the birth rate are analyzed: 1) material support for large families and single mothers; 2) the abolition of the right to claim for establishing paternity; 3) complicating the divorce procedure; 4) moral encouragement of motherhood. Statistical data on the cost of food are given, indicating that the material support of motherhood by the state (payment of benefits) could not have a significant positive impact on the birth rate. The Soviet state resorted to stimulating demographic processes on the basis of existing ideas about the system of human needs, but the approach used turned out to be fraught with serious social problems. The change in public morality – the manifestation of tolerance towards men who are indifferent to the fate of their offspring, which led to the aggravation of the problem of fatherlessness – was a “side effect” of the radical novelization of family law and changes in the norms on the social security of citizens. In the Soviet and modern period, the need to recognize the merits of fathers with many children who conscientiously fulfill their maintenance and upbringing duties to their children remained out of sight of the legislator.