Evolution of the State-Legal Foundations of the Soviet Agrarian System in the 20s of the XX Century
Authors: Berlyavsky L. G. 
Published: March 2024

Introduction. The history of the Soviet state law is of great interest to the modern researchers. A number of aspects of the New Economic Policy development and implementation in Russia are presented in the works of historical, economic and political science scholars. However, in our opinion, the number of research referring to the 20s of the XX century conducted by the legal science scholars is definitely not enough. The article investigates the evolution of the state-legal foundations of the Soviet agrarian system as reflected in the USSR Constitution of 1924, the RSFSR Constitution of 1925, the RSFSR Land Code of 1922, the USSR General Principles of Land Use and Land Management of 1928, and in a number of decrees and other normative legal acts.

   The relevance of this topic is induced by the theoretical and practical significance of the legal regulation of the agrarian sphere of the society and the reform of the agrarian policy of the modern Russia.

   On the one hand, the relevance of the topic lies in the need to study the transitional state of the Soviet agrarian legislation, since, according to V. I. Lenin, the New Economic Policy (NEP) implied “transition from the civil war to civil peace”. On the other hand, in the late 20s of the XX century the Soviet leadership had abandoned many of the NEP legislation principles. However, six decades later they were successfully revived and developed in the People's Republic of China during the economic reform.

   The aim of this study is to reveal the evolution features of the Soviet agrarian system state-legal foundations of the 20s of the XX century.

   Materials and Methods. The research methodology comprises the general scientific and specific juridical methods, including the historical-legal and legalistic (dogmatic) methods. Due to the rapidly changing attitude towards these methods in the scientific community, the priority in the research has been given to the modern sources. The authors' concept statements have been analysed, which, in synthesis with the authors' empirical background, made it possible to formulate a number of new provisions.

   Results. The main acts that had legally formalized the state-legal foundations of the Soviet agrarian system in the 20s of the XX century were studied. The huge number of the agricultural laws is explained by the decision of the Soviet party and state leadership of the early 20s to start the recovery of economics with the agrarian sector — the backbone of the national economy of that period. The features of the NEP are elucidated not only as the change of the economic policy, but as the integrated legal policy, being a combination of the public and private law regulation upon absolute predominance of the public principles. It has been substantiated that transition to the NEP entailed the abolishment of the agrarian laws of the times of “war communism” and return to the principles of the peasant Mandate of 1917 — the most important element of the Decree on Land. Deep controversy of the agricultural legislation of the NEP period has been established, which in no way should be defined as a time of abandoning the concept and practice of the collectivization of agriculture. The party and state leadership continued to consider the individual peasant land use as having no economical prospect and dangerous for building socialism.

   Discussion and Conclusion. The evolution features and distinctions of the Soviet agrarian system state-legal foundations of the 20s of the XX century have been revealed. In normative legal acts and party-state documents of the studied period, the preference continued to be given to the collective farms with the various degree of land and means of production collectivization. Communes and the state-owned agricultural enterprises, sovkhozs (Soviet farms), were considered the most desirable farms, as the ones most closely corresponding to the socialist ideal. The agricultural cooperation, whichhighest form were the kolkhozs (collective farms), was also appreciated by the authorities.

   The theoretical significance of the conducted research lies in the fact that the state-legal foundations of the socialist agrarian system had been set in the studied period, when the policy of collectivization and public agriculture was stipulated in the Soviet legislation, the rules and norms for creation, organization and operation of the various forms of collective farms were developed, wherein the agricultural commune was considered the form closest to the socialist ideals.

   Taking into account all the above, further investigation of the process of developing the model Charters of communes, artels and partnerships for joint cultivation of land seems a forward-looking objective.