Property Law Under the Civil Code of the RSFSR 1922

The article presents the author’s interpretation of the peculiarities of property law regulation in the Civil Code of the RSFSR of 1922. The specifics of property law regulation consisted in the transitional nature of the code itself and in the absence of sufficient practice and Soviet regulatory framework. To regulate the restored market relations, the “old”, bourgeois law was necessary due to the fact that it was intended to regulate such relations. Due to the elements of the “old” law of the RSFSR Civil Code of 1922, Soviet and Russian researches often called this code “reception of bourgeois law.” Soviet legal scholars had humble experience in codifying law. The drafts of the “Code of Laws on Obligations Arising from Contracts” and “Provisions on Obligations Arising from Contracts and Bills of Exchange” and one Decree “On Basic Private Property Rights Recognized by the RSFSR, protected by its Laws and by the Courts of the RSFSR” were not put into effect. An important factor in determining the reasons for the peculiarities of regulation is the fact that the civil law code was created at an accelerated pace, since the Bolsheviks during the NEP period, when commodity-money relations were actively revived, were interested in establishing a mechanism for regulating market relations at the legal level as soon as possible in order to preserve the dominance of the public sector in the economy and prevent a strong property stratification, which can lead to an increase in social tension and cause political instability in the country. The Soviet government imposed a number of restrictions on private individuals and legal entities and prevented the full development of commodity-money relations, which was reflected directly in property law. Accelerated development and lack of experience led to the presence of large changes in the code and, as a consequence, a low level of legal technology. However, it is worth noting that in the Civil Code of the RSFSR of 1922 there are certain novelties and such norms that indicate a high level of legal culture of Soviet legal scholars and the inconsistency of the code of laws itself.

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