The RSFSR Land Code of 1922 in the Context of Solving the Agrarian Issue in Russia

Abstract

The author analyzes the legal genesis and main provisions of the RSFSR Land Code of 1922 in the context of the ideological and political struggle on the agrarian issue. In the mid 1900’s - early 1920’s several models of agricultural reform took place in Russia, each of which corresponded to the basic legal acts. The main objective of the agrarian reform of 1906-1914 was the elimination of communal land tenure and capitalization of the agrarian sys-tem (Stolypin’s agrarian legislation). In October 1917 began to implement the socialization program of the SR on the basis of the equalization of labor land use (the «Peasant Edict», «Law on Socialization»). In 1919 the Bolsheviks at-tempted a transition to socialist forms of organization of agricultural produc-tion («Regulations on Socialist Land Management»). Resistance of the peasant-ry forced them to abandon the experiment and convert to the New Economic Policy. The ideological basis of the state agrarian policy wasthe neo-peasant concept. It was reproduced in the Land Code, which consolidated the commu-nal land use and outlined the mechanisms of its rationalization. At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s the New Economic Policy was curtailed and the commu-nal land tenure was abolished.