August 20: Decree on the abolition of private property ownership in cities
On August 20, 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree abolishing "private ownership of real estate in cities." For the next 70 years of the USSR's existence, such ownership ceased. The decree marked the next stage of nationalization on the eve of the declaration of the "Red Terror."
The right of private ownership to all land plots, both built-up and undeveloped, belonging to private individuals and industrial enterprises, as well as departments and institutions, is abolished.
How did they approach the destruction of private property?
By that time, industrial enterprises, land, and banks had already been expropriated in the RSFSR.
The abolition of private property was approached gradually. From the very first days after the October Revolution, the poor were housed in "rich" apartments—any apartment in which the number of rooms equaled or exceeded the number of occupants.
But the young Soviet government had neither the mechanisms nor the personnel to manage the large mass of confiscated houses and land.
In December 1917, a ban on real estate transactions was introduced, and in April 1918, a ban on inheritance was introduced. The draft decree abolishing private property lay dormant for six months.
Why was the decree adopted in the summer of 1918?
By the summer of 1918, a full-scale civil war had broken out in the country, and hundreds of thousands of refugees had flooded into major cities. A mechanism was needed to forcibly "consolidate" the bourgeoisie and deprive the anti-Bolshevik forces of their resources.
According to the new decree, private property was transferred to the state or local councils.
In urban settlements with a population of over 10,000, the right of private ownership of all buildings that, together with the land, have a value or profitability exceeding the limit established by local authorities is abolished.
A mocking formulation for small towns
In small towns with populations of up to 10, property rights were formally retained. But with a derisive formulation: "as long as its value does not exceed the limit established by local authorities." The authorities, in turn, could impose any norms and limits established for larger cities, including lowering the maximum value or profitability of properties in order to seize more property.
The owners' financial situation was irrelevant: property was confiscated from both the "bourgeoisie" and the working class. Dacha plots were initially left untouched, but later they, too, were requisitioned into a separate fund. Debts over 10 rubles, which hung on the confiscated property, were cancelled.
Inheritance was abolished. The exception was if the property belonged to a single person and its value did not exceed 10 rubles: then it was transferred to the "temporary use" of children and relatives.
The expropriation was carried out without any compensation—payments were made only to cultural, educational, and charitable organizations. If property was confiscated from a disabled person, a symbolic one-time compensation payment might be made.
House committees of the poor and the collapse of public utilities
From now on, all housing stock was managed by house committees of the poor; they had almost unlimited power: they could evict any tenant and move in someone they liked.
Already in the first winter months it became clear that the public utilities were falling apart.
The building has already seen its third manager, but none of them are up to the task. For two weeks now, the stoves and ranges have been out of order due to a lack of firewood, and during these days, residents are doomed to sit hungry and cold in unheated rooms, wearing coats, hats, and mittens; they even go to bed like this. This is where typhus and all sorts of other diseases come from. The plumbing is faulty, the communal toilets are unsanitary, the gas barely flickers, resulting in darkness in the stairways, communal kitchens, hallways, and rooms, which has repeatedly been exploited by thieves and robbers; the roofs leak, dampness spreads from floor to floor, and water drips from the walls. We and our children live in such conditions.
A letter from readers in one of the Soviet newspapers
In 1921, the NKVD of the RSFSR established the State Committee for Housing and Communal Services (GUKH) for centralized management of the industry—the future People's Commissariat of Housing and Communal Services.
After the collapse of the USSR, the issue of restitution was not raised at the state level.
