Introduction. At present, an obvious scientific interest in the Soviet historical experience of constructing political institutions and organizing public administration is growing. In this context, there is an urgent need to compare and identify the generic qualities of people’s control in the USSR and public control in the Russian Federation, to clarify the general and specific patterns of their development, to conduct a comparative analysis of the ideological, conceptual, regulatory, legal, and organizational and institutional characteristics of the phenomena under consideration. Theoretical analysis. People’s control in the USSR and public control in the Russian Federation have a lot in common, especially in the context of assessing their social nature and essence. Theoretically, both phenomena characterize the content of the democratic foundations of the constitutional system and are considered the most important guarantee and condition for the implementation of democracy in a political system of a certain type. The authors also single out separate content aspects that characterize the authenticity of both types of control, which are manifested to a greater extent in their essential definition and intended purpose. Public control is an integral feature and, at the same time, a function of civil society - the sphere of self-organization and activity of free citizens and their associations. The theoretical and methodological configuration of people’s control was based on considering it as an auxiliary control function for the state, not of society, but of the people as a political community of all citizens of the USSR. Empirical analysis. It was revealed that people’s control in the USSR and public control in the Russian Federation are characterized by a high degree of legal regulation. The authors highlight the main differences of both types of control. These differences are of an organizational and institutional nature and refer to features of the subject-object composition, forms and results of activities. Results. The retrospective study of the genesis of public control and the practical implementation of the conceptual paradigm at the present stage of the development of the Russian Federation allows us to defi ne it as the result of the institutional historical succession of the forms of democracy that developed during the Soviet period of the functioning of the national political system.