Soviets OK Acquiring, Bequeathing Land

Legislators overwhelmingly approved a bill today that allows Soviets to acquire land and bequeath it to their children, a major modification of decades of state control of land.

The law, however, stops short of legalizing full private ownership of property by strictly forbidding the sale of land. Under the new law, plots can only be leased and the lease prices will be set by the state.

The measure was part of a comprehensive package designed to give the force of law to the economic and social reforms championed by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The official press agency Tass called it “a major legal document of Soviet economic reform.”

The law is to serve as the basis for further legislation by each republic to regulate land distribution.

State ownership of land, inscribed in the Soviet Constitution, has been a cornerstone of communism since the 1917 revolution. But reformers and economists repeatedly have called for allowing private ownership as a way of spurring growth in the troubled economy.

In a commentary in today’s edition of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, economist Pavel Voshchanov welcomed the reform as a first step toward reversing a situation in which the Soviet Union, with some of the richest farmland on earth, has become a net importer of food.

The Soviet Constitution says “the land, its minerals, waters and forests are the exclusive property of the state.” The Congress of People’s Deputies, the Supreme Soviet’s parent body, will be asked to change the Constitution when it meets March 12.

By altering the Constitution and allowing the roughly 23 million people employed on the 26,000 collective and 23,000 state farms to acquire plots, the Kremlin leadership hopes to raise farm productivity, which is notoriously low on those farms.

Individual rural families already produce one-fourth of the country’s gross agricultural production, including nearly 30% of the meat, milk and eggs on individual plots they are allowed to exploit.

In a poll published today in the newspaper Izvestia, 40% of those queried said they are eager to become individual farmers.

The Supreme Soviet legislature first voted separately on each chapter of the 52-article measure, then approved the entire law 349 to 7 with 12 abstentions. The full Congress of People’s Deputies must now approve it.

Today’s four-hour session was the third time the Supreme Soviet considered the proposed so-called Law on Land. During earlier debate, about 150 proposals and criticisms of the bill were made.

Alexander Nikonov, the president of the Soviet Agricultural Academy who submitted the bill, said about 40% of the original draft had been revised to accommodate the proposed changes.

The law states that land is the property of the people living on a given territory and that every Soviet citizen has the right to a piece of land.

According to the law, land can be distributed by the kolkhoz--a state collective farm--or by the local City Council in the case of city dwellers or others who desire to hold land. Religious groups also have the right to acquire land.

However, land is not actually purchased but leased, and is subject to taxes. Lease prices will be set by the state and sale of the plot will be strictly forbidden, the law says.

The land can be bequeathed to the holder’s children. But the children would not be allowed to divide the plot and the land can be revoked if the state determines that it has not been used in a “rational” way.