of the Communist principle, the Code admits of rather sharp expressions 
of State predominance with regard to all land relations in general. All 
land is nationalised. Even if it is not in the immediate possession of the 
State, but is tenanted free of charge and without any time limit by the 
peasants, it is nevertheless subordinated to a fairly marked State control. 
Positively, this State predominance is expressed in the right of control over 
all land tenants through the land organs, and the natural channel of this 
control, responsible for the correct utilisation of land, is the rural 
community*). Negatively, this State predominance finds its expression in the 
fact that land is exempted from all civil transactions, both as regards its 
alienation during the lifetime of the owner, and its transmission by will. 
From this brief characteristic of the egalitarian and plan tendencies of 
lhe Code it may be already gathered that the individual ownership tendency 
of the Code can be spoken of only as something very precarious and limited. 
However, the historical significance of the Code lies precisely in the 
admission and consecration of private land tenure. The Code puts decisively 
an end to inter-village equalisation. It opens the way to a settlement of 
intra-village land relations: the village community is free to choose any of 
the recognised forms of land tenure — community, single holding or 
“artel”’. The de facto working land tenure is safeguarded by the Code; 
the land tenant is entitled to cultivate his holding according to the method 
he chooses, and to erect necessary buildings, and constructions; in case of 
violation of his rights, the land tenant has the right of possessory action, 
in case of expropriation he receives compensation. As a general rule, “the 
title for land has no term, and may cease only on the grounds referred 
to in the law”. This last, 11th article of the Code is, of course, its pivot. 
It would be, however, wrong to think that what is meant here Is 
essentially individual ownership, however limited. The Code knows no 
such, what it means is always only family, or household tenure. The Code 
revives that family-working collective of the land law (“dvor” — household) 
which under the old regime had been established by the practice of the 
Senate and was abolished only on the eve of the revolution, by the Stolipin’s 
legislation in favour of individual or personal ownership. Generally 
speaking, it is necessary to emphasise that the Soviet Land Code of 1922 
represents to a large degree a revival of the land law of the so-called period 
of reaction under the reign of Alexander III: we find in it the same 
‘dvor” as a primary unit of the peasants’ economic life, the same exempt- 
ion of land from all transactions, the same regulation of family partitions, 
and land redistributions... What is new is the free choice of the forms 
of land tenure, and thereby the opportunity given to the peasants to 
*) Meant in the administrative sense. 
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