Introduction. The article of E.V. Berdnikova is devoted to the historical analysis of features of a constitutional and legal regulation of public control in the Soviet system of public administration. Object. The main object of the work is to study the specificity of social control as the constitutional and legal institute of the Soviet legal system. Results. The author analyzes the regulatory framework, which laid the basis for the organization of the system of public control over the activities of public authorities in Soviet Russia. The paper shows that social control is only a tool, which the Soviet government skilfully used in the ideological and organizational direction, turning it against unwanted new mode of social subjects, forming the basis for the so-called principle of democratic centralism, a closed totalitarian system of government decision-making. Conclusions. In the conclusion the author deduces about the feature of the formation of people’s control of the USSR, their functioning and accountability predetermined by the fact that the mechanism of social control was offset by a control state. When the external effect of a democratic socialist system of public control of the workers are not given the role of managers but the managed. The formality of the idea of Soviet democracy Deterministic practical essence of people’s control as one of the activities of the legislature.