Government of the Soviet Union

“ While we were abolishing the private right of inheritance, it was impossible not to take into account the existence of individual families and the fact that free education and maintenance of children by society has not yet been thoroughly accomplished, and that the social insurance of all persons incapable of work has not yet been secured. ”

“ The reformation of the divorce law was one of the revolutionary changes left for the Russian proletariat to accomplish. The marriage law as it stands in this code no doubt awaits revision in the light of experience gained in the new order. The framers of the law would claim no more than that by freeing both men and women from the oppressive tyranny of the old bourgeois and feudal concepts of the marriage relation, they have opened the way to further progress. ”

“ The proletarian government constructs its laws so that each day of their existence should make their continuance less necessary. ... For example, the Soviet Constitution, based upon the principle of the political supremacy and dictatorship of the proletariat, is so made that each day of its application, shattering the resistance and organization of the classes of the former oppressors and uniting the formerly oppressed, thus lessens the necessity for this form of constitution, for this forced political supremacy, and for compulsory political supremacy in general. ”

“ The right to establish the actual descent of a child is reserved to the interested parties, including the mother, even in cases when the persons registered as the parents of a child were, at the moment of its conception or birth, living in a registered marriage or in one of equal validity. ”

“ In case either of the married persons shall be in a state of want and shall be unable to work at the time when their marriage shall be terminated by death or by a judicial declaration that one of the parties to the said marriage shall be deemed to be dead, provision for the surviving party shall be made out of the property left by the deceased spouse. ”

“ In case the parties to a divorce come to an agreement on the question of support, the court, simultaneously with the rendering of a decision pertaining to the dissolution of marriage, shall determine the amount and form of the payment to be made by one spouse to another. ”

“ The right of inheritance, either by law or by will, was abolished by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 27, 1918. The provision within the present code for the distribution of a maintenance allowance out of the estate of the deceased to needy relatives who are incapable of work follows a similar provision in that decree and in no wise contravenes the revolutionary principle of the abolition of inheritance. ”

“ It is true, of course, that the collection of vital statistics is not in itself an innovation of the proletarian revolution. It has been practiced in varying degrees of thoroughness and sincerity in bourgeois states. ”

“ A marriage shall be void if contracted at a time when one of the parties thereto was already married, such previous marriage still continuing in force and not having been dissolved by the death of the former husband or wife, or by divorce. ”

“ On the dissolution of their marriage by divorce the parents shall determine by mutual agreement their respective responsibility for and the amount each of them shall contribute towards the maintenance and upbringing of their children. The court shall make the decision in this matter a part of the decree of divorce. In case such agreement between the parents is not to the benefit of the children, the children shall have the right to claim from either of the parents the maintenance they are entitled to by law. ”

“ If one of the parties to a marriage shall refuse to support the other in case of want and inability to work, the latter party shall have the right to apply to the Department of Social Welfare attached to the local Soviet in the place of residence of the defendant whether husband or wife, and request the same to compel the said defendant to provide such support. ”

“ The obligation of the parents for the care, education and maintenance of their minor children is accompanied by an equal obligation upon mature children for the maintenance of their parents if the latter are indigent and unable to work, provided the parents are not receiving support from the government (Section 163) . Beyond these mutual obligations for care and maintenance, however, there are no economic privileges established by descent. "Children have no right to the property of their parents, nor parents to the property of their children" (Section 160) . ”

“ Persons making deliberately false statements with a view to preventing the contracting of a marriage shall be liable to prosecution for perjury and to an action for damages caused by their interference. ”

“ No distinction is made, either in respect to parents or children, between the rights and duties assumed in marriage and those incurred by a union outside of marriage. The cruel discriminations against "illegitimate" children are swept away in one stroke. "Children descending from parents who are not married have equal rights with those descending from parents living in registered marriage" (Section 133) . This provision is made retroactive to restore their natural rights to children born out of marriage previous to the enactment of the code. ”

“ The code is a superb rebuke to those psychopathically afflicted persons who spread the sickly tattle about "nationalization of women." The laws are perhaps distinguished above all else by their recognition of the rightful social function and economic status of women. They may be searched from beginning to end without disclosing any trace of the old economic, political and legal discriminations between the sexes. ”

“ In marriage and divorce and with respect to children, the code establishes equal and mutual rights and obligations' for men and women. The woman's economic rights and her private possessions are carefully protected against any operation of bourgeois and feudal discriminations and usurpations. "Marriage does not establish community of property between the married persons" (Section 105) . ”

“ The costs incurred in the examination of an insane person and the institution of a guardianship shall be borne by the said person, provided that in cases when the latter is indigent the costs shall be borne by the State in the budget of the Medical Department.
Note. The cost incurred by the examination of a person who shall be found by the said examination to be sane shall be borne by the petitioners for the examination.
14. Persons deliberately giving false testimony with a view to obtaining a declaration of a person's insanity, shall be held guilty of perjury. ”

“ The right of a spouse to maintenance in case of indigence and inability to work shall not be affected by a dissolution of the marriage by divorce until such time as a change in the conditions entitling to maintenance have occurred (Section 107 above.) ”

“ Only civil marriage registered with the Bureau of Vital Statistics shall create the rights and duties of husband and wife as provided in the present title. A marriage contracted by a religious present title. A marriage contracted by a ceremony performed by a clergyman shall create no rights or duties for the parties to such marriage unless the same shall be registered according to law. ”

“ An appointment of a guardian may be revoked by a decree of the Department of Social Welfare in those instances when the said guardian shall be found guilty of neglect or abuse in the execution of his duties, and powers, or when the said guardian shall fulfill the duties of his office in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the ward. ”

“ The rights of children of unmarried parents are safeguarded by the provision of a special register for recording parentage in such cases. Full obligation is imposed upon the unmarried father for his equal share with the mother in the expenses connected with the gestation, delivery, and subsequent maintenance of the child (Sections 140–144) .
The law at every stage gives careful attention to the protection of the children in their personal and economic rights. ”

“ Persons bound to provide maintenance jointly shall bear the responsibility for it in equal proportions, unless the court, on taking due notice of the variance in the means of the said persons or the absence of one of them or on some other worthy consideration, shall decide that they shall participate in the provision of the maintenance in proportion other than that prescribed herein. ”

“ For this reason, until these measures of social security have been realized, there has been preserved a certain form of succession, purely fortuitous and practical, intended to secure the well-being of the spouse and near relatives of the deceased, in so far as they may be in need and unable to work. ”

“ In cases when the court has deprived the parents of their parental rights, the court shall permit the parents to visit their children provided that such visits shall not have a harmful and prejudicial effect upon the children. ”

“ If the Court shall have no information of the locality wherein the person presumed to be dead was registered, or if such person was registered in the offices of localities which do not at the present time form part of the Russian Republic, the Court shall notify of its decision the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the locality which was the last place of residence of the person presumed to be dead. ”

“ In case the person dead or judicially declared to be dead or absent shall be the owner of a trading or an industrial enterprise, the survivor, shall be entitled to support derived from the income of the said enterprise, which shall be managed thenceforth by the local Soviet. ”

“ The Medical Commission in determining the normality of the person under examination shall be entitled to use all the methods approved by medical science for the determination of insanity. The Medical Commission shall have the right in special cases when it shall appear impossible to come to a definite conclusion after the first examination to make a second examination within a certain period of time, or to place the person under examination in a special medical institution for supervision for a period deemed necessary by the Medical Commission. ”

“ In case the total estate of the deceased shall not exceed in value 10,000 rubles and shall consist of a house, furniture and working implements for agricultural or trade purposes, the said estate shall be delivered for administration to the surviving spouse who shall dispose of the estate in equal share with the relatives entitled to share in the estate of the deceased. ”

“ In the absence of an entry of the parents of a child or in case of an entry which is incorrect or incomplete, the interested parties have the right to establish their paternity and maternity respectively by court procedure. ”