The purpose of the study is devoted to a retrospective analysis of the Soviet legislation on legal entities in the 30s, namely the peculiarities of the termination of Soviet organizations, including in the form of «cleansing from unprofitable and unnecessary enterprises» in those pre-war years. Carrying out this procedure in relation to state enterprises, trusts and collective farms (artels) in the context of the impending World War II. In the present work, a theoretical analysis and generalization of the literature, monitoring of Internet sites, search and analysis of information on the issues of termination and liquidation of legal entities in the Soviet Union in the 1930s are carried out. It should be noted that the Soviet legislation in the 30s, in terms of the termination of organizations, is conditionally characterized by the fact that during the years of the first five-year plan (1928-1933), the institution of insolvency, provided for by the norms of civil procedural law, was still operating. However, during the years of the second five-year plan (1933-1937) there was a sharp curtailment, insolvency was not applied. Enterprises, industrial and agricultural artels (collective farms) began to be integrated into the administrative-planned Soviet economy, reorganized in the management systems of the Soviet economy and trusts, or liquidated in a permissive manner at the direction of state departments or by decision of workers’ councils. The method of comparative law, the method of system analysis, the analysis of Soviet and Russian normative legal acts were used. The article suggests ways of reforming modern legislation in the field of termination of legal entities, especially unitary enterprises.