The paper examines the theory of federalism in the political, administrative and territorial structure of the country. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s caused the inclusion of the principle of national unity in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The authors trace the dynamics of the division of powers between central and local authorities in Russia. The authors point out the importance of harmonizing the interests of the federal center and the regions, and the equal participation of all constituent entities of the Federation in state building as a guarantee of the unity of Russia. Building a competent balance in the distribution of powers between the federal center and the constituent entities of the Federation makes it possible to mitigate the contradictions that arise, which indicates the desire to ensure a balance of interests between the central government and the regions. The national authorities are working to increase the financial autonomy of the regions, giving them the right to exercise control over their funds. This approach, taking into account the differences in mentality, culture, and needs of the regions, allows for a flexible approach to the management of different constituent entities of the Federation. Increased attention to regional specifics is a vector of the policy of the modern Russian supreme power. The desire for a reasonable balance between the central government and the regions reflects the historical evolution of the Russian state structure towards genuine federalism.

The paper examines the current state of the theory of the state‑civilization, a new concept of the form of the state for both domestic and foreign historical and political science that is based not only and not so much on the legal recognition of its constitutional and legal status, but rather on the cultural identity of its founding community. The author analyzes the current ideas of Russian scholars and researchers regarding the main features of the state‑civilization, and compares them with the traditional concept of «national state.» Using the methodology of historical and cultural analysis, the author considers the stages of the Russian statehood formation. It is postulated that the State as a system of political institutions and management practices is one of the elements of civilization. The specifics of the system of state power and administration practices are the result of conscious human activity at a certain stage of the development of society on a par with other achievements of social and spiritual cultures. The conclusion is made about the variability of the form and content of the state in its political and legal meaning, which prevents the concept of the state‑civilization from being opposed to the concept of a national state, despite the existing views of a number of researchers on this subject. However, the author notes the immutability of such phenomena of civilization as space, people and culture, customs and traditions, ways and values, which suggests that the concept of «state‑civilization» should be considered in relation to the study of law and politics in its cultural significance.

The paper examines the provisions of the first Constitution of the USSR, approved in its final version on January 31, 1924, from the point of view of Marxist‑Leninist ideology. The author concludes that the basic law found the necessary balance between centralization, republican autonomy, and the principles of socialist federalism. Many provisions of the document can be called ideological. On the one hand, the law‑maker of the first Soviet years blames the camp of capitalist countries for national hostility or colonial slavery, chauvinism or imperialist atrocities. On the other hand, the Soviet government, which was international in its class nature, was supposed to be entrusted with the high mission of uniting fraternal peoples and restoring the national economy by the forces of a single socialist family under the banner of the proletarian dictatorship. The state aimed to unite the workers of various political and economic systems around the globe under the auspices of the world socialist Soviets. Numerous research publications of prominent Bolsheviks on the problems of the national question, based on the fundamental works by K. Marx, F. Engels, K. Kautsky, acted as the theoretical basis for the declarative provisions of the first Constitution of the USSR. Based on the protocol documents of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (b), the author notes the significant role of Stalin’s personal administrative hobby in the development of historical and legal events. Nevertheless, the General Secretary of the party did not dare to go against the principles of democratic centralism or the International supported by Vladimir Lenin. The development of the terminology of the nation and the advantages of various ways of voluntary unification of peoples, the comparison of models of cultural‑national or regional autonomizations in the works of the Bolsheviks play a great role.

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the role and status of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (CEC of the USSR) in the context of the dynamic constitutional, legal and institutional development of the Soviet Union. The author provides the reader with a deep dive into the essence of the CEC of the USSR, providing a brief but meaningful historiographical description of the collective body of state power. The main attention is paid to a detailed analysis of the status of the CEC of the USSR before and after the adoption of the Constitution of the USSR in 1924, to identify and highlight key differences in its structure and functioning due to innovations introduced with the adoption of this legislative act. The paper examines the key areas of activity of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR in detail both in the period before the adoption of the Constitution (1922–1925) and in the post‑constitutional period (1925–1938), forming a categorical layer of the problematic issue. The paper highlights and explains the stable position of the CEC of the USSR in the political sphere of the USSR and gives a brief assessment of its activities and development. The paper is of interest to researchers of the history and law of the Soviet period and is an important contribution to understanding the organizational and regulatory aspects of the functioning of the CEC of the USSR in the broad context of constitutional construction in the first decades of Soviet history. The main emphasis is placed on the formation of a comprehensive framework for the perception of the CEC of the USSR as a body that is simultaneously characterized by isolation in the system of state bodies of Soviet power and close connection with other such bodies. Such an emphasis allows the reader to form a wide categorical and conceptual spectrum of opinions & sententiae on the problem of defining and analyzing the legal nature of the CEC of the USSR, which is important for Russian historiography.

The institution of the national heritage takes an important place in the Soviet constitutional construction, in the history of legal science and in the practical construction of the planned economy — the most efficient economy in the world. Its introduction was dictated by the revolutionary conditions of 1917, passed all legislative levels of consolidation, served as the material for the work of the Gosplan of the USSR — the state body responsible for planning the development of the national economy of the USSR and monitoring planned implementation. It also was the foundation for the work of large‑scale state enterprises that create high income for the development of high rates of industrial economy and increase the standard of living of the population. The historical and legal research of the Institute of National Heritage, the experience of the development of a planned economy, should be conducted in the national interests of the Russian Federation. The institution of the national heritage, its constitutional consolidation and implementation have become a basic part of the socially oriented economic organization of the Russian statehood. The socially oriented economic organization of the State, in turn, is the target task of economic constitutionalization. 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the first Union Constitution of the USSR in 1924. It should be assumed that not only a historian or a lawyer, but also any person who is not professionally involved in the evolution of statehood, knows that the new constitution arises as a result of political, social, and economic transformations. There is a reason to recall the Soviet state‑building, its main motivational forces. There are epoch‑making constitutions adopted as a result of revolutions — in the Russian past, these were the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 and the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993. The Constitution of the USSR of 1924 would not have seen the light if there had not been the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918, which, in turn, the world would not have seen without the revolutionary events of 1917. The Constitutions of 1936 and 1977 were in progress. What is the legal idea that permeates the entire Soviet history? Let’s try to answer the question.

In this paper, the author explores the historical significance and complexity of legal customs in the formation of legal systems. The paper analyzes the evolution of a custom from the primary sources of law in ancient societies to its modern status, where their role, although important, is subject to certain limitations, is analyzed.

The paper highlights the understanding and application of the term «custom» in the context of modern civil legislation of the Russian Federation with an emphasis on the changes that occurred after the legislative reform of 2012. The study examines various fields of application of customs. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the role and place of international trade custom in civil law relations in the Russian Federation. Based on the opinions of experts and considering in detail the judicial practice of the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, the author concludes that international trade custom is a source of law, and it also falls under the concept of «custom» within the framework of Article 5 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The study emphasizes the oral nature of a custom as a source of law, while not neglecting the importance of informal written forms such as Incoterms and UNIDROIT, as well as standard contracts Special attention is paid to the debatable topic of the relationship of customs with imperative and dispositive norms of legislation, as well as their place in the structure of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The author highlights the problem of insufficient legislative regulation of customs and calls for their further research and systematization as a critically important element of the legal system.

The paper considers the main approaches to understanding the essence of the category of good faith in modern civil law of the Russian Federation. The emphasis is placed on the problem of the lack of a unified approach to understanding this category in modern civil law science. The author analyzes the historical course of the development and formation of good faith: it takes its origins from the category of bona fides of Roman private law, which clearly had a moral significance. The conclusion is formulated about the borrowing of such a meaning by the modern category of conscientiousness. Explaining the provisions of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on the category of good faith, the Plenum of the Supreme Court applied a broad interpretation and determined that its key feature is the coordination of its interests with the interests of other subjects of civil turnover. The paper examines the approaches of various scientists to understanding the category in question. Thus, according to E. E. Bogdanova, conscientiousness is a purely moral category and can be assessed only from the standpoint of the rules of morality. E. A. Sukhanov’s approach, on the contrary, considers good faith as the condition of a person who is unaware of facts entailing certain legal consequences and defines this category as «ethically indifferent». The position of I. B. Novitsky, who for the first time divided conscientiousness into objective and subjective categories, is noteworthy. Objective conscientiousness acts as an external measure of civil legal relations, while subjective conscientiousness is a person’s ignorance of circumstances important to the law. The author concludes on the flexibility of the category of good faith due to its ambiguous and ambivalent nature.

The features and problems of concluding a non‑retail purchase and sale agreement by remote means on the Avito online trading platform are very relevant, since after online retail trade, online trade in used goods began to gain momentum. Every second, more than 8 transactions are made through the Avito website, sellers add more than 900 thousand new ads daily, and the annual customer flow is more than 80 million people. This indicates the need to study the legal issues related to the implementation of transactions on the Avito online trading platform. The paper analyzes Avito’s own rules of the marketplace, through which it was established who are the parties to this agreement, who makes an offer and acceptance when concluding a non‑retail purchase and sale agreement with the condition of the transfer of goods through Avito delivery, who are the parties to this agreement. The author examines the form and content of a non‑retail purchase and sale agreement with a condition for the transfer of goods through Avito‑delivery. The author also focuses on the problem that the Avito website does not provide a technical opportunity for the implementation of the rights to claim provided for in paragraph 1 of Article 475 and paragraph 1 of Article 480 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation within the framework of a non‑retail purchase and sale agreement with a condition for the transfer of goods through Avito delivery. The paper proposes the ways of solving the indicated problem. The conclusions drawn in the paper are relevant not only for the Avito online trading platform, but also for other marketplaces in the secondary market of goods.

The paper describes the process of formation and functioning of a specialized forensic service in the Urals in order to successfully combat crime during a diffi-cult unstable transition period for the country. The authors put museum information resources and archival documents as the substantive foundation of the paper. It is emphasized that the formation of the service begins with the relocation of specialists who organize this work to Sverdlovsk from Ufa. It is noted that in the 1920s there was an urgent need for personnel training for this type of activity, in connection with which courses for the training of forensic and technical experts at the Criminal Investigation Department of the NKVD were actively developing. Attention is focused on the importance of the issue of methodological support. In the 1920s the first textbook on forensic expertise appeared in Russia. During the study period, along with the need to work with traditional traces found at the scene, there was a need to detect and remove traces and objects during research that required the use of physico‑chemical methods in laboratories, in connection with which physicists and chemical experts appeared. Thus, the use of special research methods for objects seized from accident sites began in the late 1920s. In their conclusions, the authors note that the formation of an expert forensic service was carried out on the basis of scientific justification and methodological support of methods to combat unsolved crimes.

The article examines the role of legal values in the social identification of citizens in a transitive society. Based on the analysis of the value foundations of legislation and its role in the construction of social identification, a conclusion is made about the primacy of the axiological level of legal reality over ontological ones in a transitive society. The constitutional identification of a person in these conditions is determined not by belonging to a certain nation and the implementation of the rules developed by it, but by positioning identification with the community on value grounds. Often, such identification is not so much an identification as an imitation, since it involves only articulating compliance with the rules, and not following them. Based on this, identification in a transitive society is situational and fragmented. In these conditions, the role of legislation in social identification is changing. It becomes a tool that the addressee of communication uses to broadcast to the addressee a system of values that ensure not only the identification of citizens, but also lawful behavior. At the same time, legislation, due to its instrumental features, is able to overcome transitivity and bring society to stable development and functioning.

The paper examines the role of artificial intelligence in modern technological processes. The active introduction of artificial intelligence into various spheres of society leads to increased production efficiency through the use of neural networks. At the moment, there are numerous examples of the introduction and operation of artificial intelligence. In this regard, a global expert group has conducted numerous studies in the field of digital technologies, which makes very reasonable forecasts of productivity improvement and positive impact on the economy through the use of innovative technologies. The paper pays special attention to generative artificial intelligence that creates new content based on the provided data and deep learning methods. Generative artificial intelligence has features that distinguish it from artificial intelligence in general. The paper analyzes the EU law on artificial intelligence, as well as the standing of the European Parliament and the International Commission for Harmonization on the relationship between artificial intelligence and intellectual property law. The author notes the lack of a unified approach in determining the legal status of a work created by generative artificial intelligence. In the context of this issue, the author examines the cases of creating a work entirely or partially by generative artificial intelligence. The issue of identifying criteria for recognizing a work as creative is emphasized. The ambiguity of using copyrighted data to train generative artificial intelligence requires special attention. Judicial practice in foreign countries underlines the relevance of these issues. In general, the apaper is a comprehensive study of the legal status of works created by generative artificial intelligence from the point of view of copyright. The work contains various approaches, and such an ambiguous legal position of such objects indicates legal gaps in this area.

It is believed that students engaged in law enforcement activities are more inclined to dogmatic methodology than students involved in civil law specialties. This is explained by the fact that a career in law enforcement attracts people who are authoritarian or dogmatic. The paper aims to question the role of criminal justice and criminal law in structuring dogmatism as the dominant structure of law enforcement thinking. Not only punitive justice and criminology are conditioned by dogmatic thinking. Even natural law is forced to construct a normative system, which is the only means of consolidating both punitive logic and usnaturalism. In addition, it should be noted that in the context of the imperatives of manageability of society, dogmatism is in demand in the penitentiary field, as well as in the broader legal field. Civil courts, administrative law, tax law, military law — all these subsystems depend on consensus in dogmatism to be effective, because law in its anthropological phenomenology is made by people. There is something deontically important about the participation of science in law. This is because our science and technology are embedded in the innovation mechanism of industrial society, while law remains one of the archaic tools born in the cliodynamics of myth, morality and religion. Dogmatism acts as an epistemic perspective, with the help of which law is presented in the purest possible form; its ability to express deontic truth is revealed. The hermeneutical approach to law without taking into account basic deontology is to work with specific cases, and not with what is the essence of law.