DECREE ON LAND SOCIALISATION
Of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates. (Promulgated on February 19, 1918).
PART I.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
Art. 1. All property in land, underground wealth, waters, forests and living natural forces on the territory of the Russian Federal Soviet Republic is hereby abolished for all time.
Art. 2. The land is hereby handed over for use to the entire labouring people without any, overt or covert, redemption fees.
Art. 3. The right to use the land belongs only to those who till it by their own labour, except in cases expressly provided by the present law.
Art. 4. The right to use the land shall not be restricted either by sex, religion, race or nationality (including foreign).
Art. 5. The right to use the subsoil wealth, forests, waters and natural forces is vested, in accordance with their respective importance, in District, Provincial, Regional or Federal Soviet State authority under the control of the latter. The mode of using and disposing of the sub-soil wealth, forests, waters, or the living forces of nature, is to be defined by a special law.
Art. 6. All private agricultural machinery and live stock on farms which are worked by hired labour pass, without compensation, to the Land Departments of the District, Provincial, Regional or Federal Soviets in accordance with the degree of their importance.
Art. 7. All buildings of farms, comprised in Art. 6, and agricultural industries attached to them are vested, without compensation, in the District, Provincial, Regional or Federal Soviets in accordance with their importance.
Art. 8. All non-able-bodied persons who are deprived of all their means of livelihood by the present law alienating their estates, forests, stocks and other properties on the said estates, may, pending the issue of a general law of insurance of non-able-bodied citizens, and on a certificate from the local courts and the Land Departments of the Soviets, draw a pension, equivalent to that received by soldiers, for the remaining period of their lives, or until the attainment of majority, as the case may be.
Art. 9. The distribution of agricultural land among the labouring population is vested in the Village, Cantonal, District, Provincial, Regional or Federal Land Departments of the Soviets in accordance with their importance.
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