Why the Bolsheviks did not eliminate inheritance law in Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

100 years ago, the Bolsheviks adopted a decree "On the abolition of inheritance", which deprived the inhabitants of Soviet Russia of one of the fundamental rights - to dispose of the fate of property. According to this standard, after the death of a Soviet citizen, his property was transferred to the state, and disabled relatives of the deceased received “maintenance” at the expense of this.

The document became an important milestone in the development of the domestic legal system, but it failed to eradicate the centuries-old tradition of property relations with the help of it.

From Oleg to Nikolay

The problem of inheritance arose almost simultaneously with the concept of private property. The need for legal regulation of this area became obvious already in Ancient Rus. Even Prince Oleg, dictating the conditions of peaceful coexistence to Constantinople, separately stipulated the procedure for transferring the property of the Russians who died on the territory of the Byzantine Empire to the banks of the Dnieper.

Yaroslav the Wise and his descendants, who codified Old Russian legislation in Russkaya Pravda, established the following inheritance procedure for the people: after the death of the head of the family, movable property was divided between the children, the house went to the youngest son, who was obliged to support his mother, the land remained in communal ownership. As for the nobility, the princely warriors could transfer the estate to the children of the deceased only if the suzerain stipulated that it was issued for eternal possession, and not for "feeding" during the service.

Over time, Russian inheritance law became more and more complicated. Almost every ruler had new laws. For example, Ivan IV deprived married women of the right to dispose of their own property.

Under Peter I, inheritance law became another sphere of life in Russian society, which had to be rebuilt in a European way. The king forbade the division of any immovable inheritance between the children of the deceased and ordered the complete transfer of estates, houses and businesses to the eldest sons. Thus, the monarch tried to prevent the fragmentation of farms and a decrease in the standard of living of their owners.

However, in fact, even before the beginning of the reign of Peter, many representatives of the noble class did not want to go to military or government service, preferring to idly spend time in their parental estates, even small ones. Peter's initiative was supposed to force the younger offspring of noble families to achieve a position in society on their own in the ranks of the military, officials or scientists. But the initiative of the monarch turned out to be unproductive, in reality it only led to a wave of fratricides in order to possess the inheritance.

Anna Ioannovna canceled the Peter's decision, establishing the right to divide the property between the heirs. This order was maintained by Catherine II, who believed that thousands of subjects with a modest guaranteed income is better than the concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of several hundred aristocrats.

In the 19th century, in the lands under the rule of the Russian emperors, several independent systems of inheritance were operating at once. Finland, Poland, Georgia and even Little Russia had their own rules. People dissatisfied with the way the local court divided the inheritance could appeal to St. Petersburg, where their case was considered according to completely different rules.

Tsarist Russia, like many other countries of that era, due to property litigation, was mired in family conflicts and endless legal proceedings that could last for decades.

Remnant of capitalism

After the 1917 revolution, the young Soviet government continued to be guided by the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, abolishing only class privileges and equalizing women in rights with men.

However, soon the government in this area also began to implement the ideas of Karl Marx, who, although he recognized the need for the very institution of inheritance, but considered, for example, wills as arbitrary and superstitious, and also wrote that the transfer of property by inheritance must be driven into a rigid framework.

On April 27, 1918, a sharp turn was made in the development of domestic civil law - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR issued a decree "On the abolition of inheritance", which began like this: "Inheritance is canceled both by law and by will."

According to this normative act, after the death of any citizen of the Russian Republic, his property was transferred to the state, and disabled relatives of the deceased received “maintenance” at the expense of this property. If the property was not enough, then in the first place they were endowed with the most needy heirs.

However, the decree still contained an essential clause:

"If the property of the deceased does not exceed ten thousand rubles, in particular, consists of the estate, home environment and the means of production of labor in the city or village, then it goes into the direct management and disposal of the available spouse and relatives."

Thus, the family of the deceased was allowed to continue to use his home, backyard, furniture and household items.

At the same time, the decree abolished the institution of the will itself, as such, inheritance was now allowed exclusively in accordance with current legislation.

“The marginal value of property that could be inherited was introduced. At the same time, the decree established the fundamental principles of the future Soviet inheritance law: vesting the right to inheritance of dependents, recognizing the spouse's inheritance rights the same as those of children, equalizing the inheritance rights of men and women, said the candidate of legal sciences in an interview with RT. lawyer Vladimir Komarov.

In August 1918, the People's Commissariat of Justice issued a clarification to the decree, which emphasized that officially even the property of the deceased worth less than ten thousand rubles is considered the property not of his relatives, but of the RSFSR.

"The decree" On the abolition of inheritance "was issued in order to weaken the positions of the previously ruling classes," said in an interview with RT, Doctor of Law, head of the Department of History of State and Law at Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, professor Vladimir Tomsinov.

According to the expert, this fully corresponded to the spirit of the policy pursued by the Soviet government in 1918. It was believed that the very fact of receiving "unearned income", even in the form of inheritance, contradicts the essence of the proletarian state.

Historians to this day argue as to whether it is correct to talk about a complete ban in 1918 of inheritance and its replacement with some kind of surrogate for social security, or the right to manage and dispose of the property of the deceased worth up to ten thousand rubles can still be considered a hidden form of inheritance. In any case, the decree did not lead to any revolutionary changes in people's lives.

“This document practically did not work. After all, the nationalization of large property complexes has already passed, and it was impossible to inherit them,”Tomsinov said.

Sometimes it was very problematic to confiscate the personal property of the deceased from a technical point of view - for this it was necessary to know what kind of property he had at all, because no one was making an inventory at that time.

“History shows that legal norms that contradict human nature will not be valid for any length of time. In 1922, the decree was completely canceled, it turned out to be impossible to destroy such a "vestige of capitalism" as inheritance law, "Komarov noted.

The decree ceased to operate in connection with the adoption of the Civil Code of the RSFSR, in which, although with significant restrictions (for example, in terms of the amount of money), the institution of inheritance was restored.

According to Tomsinov, after the creation of the USSR, the bureaucratic apparatus of the state began to actively form, whose representatives realized the inevitability of a certain inequality in society.

“The state began to think not in proletarian but national categories,” the expert noted.

In his opinion, Vladimir Lenin initially tried to reject everything private, but time has shown that the leader was mistaken, it is impossible to completely suppress private life.

With the development of the Soviet legal sphere, the institution of private property became one of the central concepts of property legislation, and the procedure for inheritance became more complicated from year to year.

Thus, the 1964 Civil Code returned Soviet citizens the right to leave their property to any person, and Article 13 of the 1977 Constitution stipulated that personal property and the right to inherit in the USSR are protected by the state.

“The repeal of the 1918 decree led to the official restoration of justice. The state took the path of rejection of legislative excesses, and this, without a doubt, was a positive phenomenon, Tomsinov summed up.