The institute of confiscation of property serves as a historically integral tool, known since ancient times, to fight crime. The contradictory legal nature and ambiguous nature have led to a trend of variability of its legal status in the domestic criminal law system. An objective assessment of the role and place of confiscation of property in modern Russia requires consideration of the rich historical experience of the formation and development of this institution, which is the purpose of this work. The methodological basis of the study is represented by a number of traditional, general scientific (analysis, synthesis, comparison, forecasting) and private scientific methods of cognition. Among them, the most common were the historical method, which made it possible to trace the specifics of the formation of the institution of confiscation in domestic criminal law, the comparative legal method, with the help of which it was possible to compare the norms of different historical eras that regulate the legal status of confiscation. The formal legal method made it possible to prove the expediency of maintaining the legal status of confiscation in the Russian legal system. As a result of the study, the features of the criminal law regulation and application of property confiscation in the pre-revolutionary and Soviet state are considered in detail. The relationship between the economic needs of the country and the regulation, content and procedure for the execution of property confiscation is substantiated. The author's position on the need to preserve confiscation as another measure of a criminal law nature is argued. The results obtained can be used in the process of further theoretical understanding of the institution of property confiscation.