The Church has been separated from the State and the School from the Church, but the right of religious or anti-religious propaganda is accorded to every citizen. The government press has been freed from all dependence upon capital in the form of advertising, and all the technical and material means for publication, as well as for the publication of books and pamphlets are free. Furnished halls, with heating and lighting free, are given to the poorest peasantry for meeting-places.
[A]. There have been some modifications of this regulation recently. I have heard since my return to America that clergymen are given the right to vote provided they are supported by the workers and not from endowments.
LAND NATIONALIZATION
The brief Land Decree of November 7, 1917, was replaced in September, 1918, by “The Fundamental Law of Socialization of the Land,” which has already been enforced throughout the country except in the cases of land owned by peasants and worked by the owner and his family. This land decree has been enforced gradually, and perhaps less completely than any other of the Soviet decrees, first because the energies of the Government were diverted to a war of defence, and secondly, because the land question would naturally take the longest to settle even in times of peace.
The land decree provides that all property rights in land, minerals, oil, gas, peat, medicinal springs, waters, timber and other natural resources be abolished and the land given to the use of the entire laboring population, without open or secret compensation to former owners. The right to use this land belongs to those who till it by their own labor, and is not restricted by sex, religion, nationality, or foreign citizenship. Under-surface deposits, timber, etc., are at the disposal of the Soviet powers, local or federal, and all live stock and agricultural implements are to be taken over without indemnification by the land departments of the Soviets. Infants, or minors, cripples, invalids, or aged persons who would be deprived of their means of subsistence by the enforcement of this decree are pensioned either for life or until they attain their majority. Minors are given the same pension as soldiers.
Land may be used for cultural and educational purposes; for agricultural purposes, communities, associations, village organizations, individuals and families; and for industrial, commercial and transportation enterprises under the control of the Soviet power. It is given to those who wish to work it for themselves, to local agricultural workers whose plots are now too small, or who have been employed by land owners, and to immigrants who come from towns or cities in order to work on the land.
When the land was turned over to the peasants each one seized the opportunity to establish his own little homestead. Since that time the peasants have discovered the benefits of cooperative agricultural production, and have established their own agricultural communes all over the country.
