Abstract: This evaluation of the dissertation is dedicated to the analysis of organizational legal bases of the work of state security agencies in the Ural region during the period of 1934-1941. The state of knowledge on the state legal aspects of the history of establishment of the USSR state security agencies testifies that within the historical and juridical literature have been formed various and at times antipodal assessments of the work of this institution of the Soviet State. During the course of the dissertation, the author examines the peculiarities of the organization of the work of territorial branches basing on the intensity of manifestation of external and internal threats to state security; he also analyzes the system of normative acts that comprise the legal foundation of the work of the state security agencies. Despite of the existence of certain flaws noticed by the authors of this feedback, the dissertation of A. Gotsulenko represents an independent historical legal research, and the author deserves the conferment of a Ph.D. in Juridical Sciences on the specialty – theory and history of state and law; history of studied on law and state.