Central Executive Committee, Abolition of Private Real Estate. August 20, 1918
Original Source: Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii raboche-krestian’skogo pravitel’stva, 1918, No. 62, pp. 744-46.
1. The right to own a tract of land … within a city is abolished without exception.
2. The right to own buildings located in cities with a population of ten thousand or over and having… a value… in excess of the amount fixed by local authorities is abolished.
Note 1. This law applies also to buildings on leased land.
Note 2. The local authorities of any city have the right to fix rentals on tracts of land remaining in the use of private individuals or organizations…
Note 3. If, as provided in this Article, a building in a given estate remains the private property of an individual, all land attached to it which exceeds the norm fixed by local authorities is transferred to the general land fund.
Note 4. The local authorities have the right to lower by special decree the original valuation… of real estate remaining in private ownership …
4. This decree does not apply to buildings which form an essential part of industrial plants…
5. All city buildings and plots on which property rights have been abolished in accordance with this decree shall be turned over to the local authorities.
6. The right to erect new buildings in cities with a population of ten thousand or over belongs exclusively to the local authorities. In cities with a smaller population this right may be given … to private individuals…
9. All mortgages of ten thousand rubles or over on confiscated lands and buildings are annulled. Mortgages of less than ten thousand rubles become state loans subject to regulations of the decree annulling state loans. (SUR, No. 27, Chap. 353.)
10. Former owners of real estate must pay rentals on the same terms as other tenants…
11. In case of inability to work and the absence of other means of subsistence, former owners of real estate are entitled to receive from the local authorities a sum of not more than ten thousand rubles.
12. The local authorities are entitled to use… one-third of the net profit from real estate for local needs.. One-tenth of the profits is to go to the general building fund of the state … for the construction of new cities;… the rest of the net profit … >will go to the local building fund to be used for buildings, construction, repairs, street improvements, etc…
Ia. Sverdlov
Chairman of the Central Executive Committee
Source: James Bunyan, ed., Intervention, Civil War, and Communism in Russia, April-December 1918 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936), pp. 426-427.