Law of Spikelets
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
The Law of Spikelets or Law of Three Spikelets (Template:Lang-ru) was a law in the Soviet Union to protect state property of kolkhozes (Soviet collective farms)—especially the grain they produced—from theft. Although the formal name of the law was longer, the common names Law of Spikelets or Law of Three Spikelets came into use because the law was used to prosecute both real thieves (such as corrupt officials) and also those who gleaned as little as a handful of grain or spikelets left behind in the fields after the entire harvest was officially collected and counted. It meant that during the Soviet famine of 1932–33, no one could take grain left in state farms without being qualified as a thief of state food in the government's view.
The law was based on the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, "About protection of the property of state enterprises, kolkhozes and cooperatives, and strengthening of the public (socialist) property", dated 7 August 1932.
