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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2017
No nation succeeds fully in anticipating the effects of war. Certainly, this is true insofar as the recent war effected the housing law of the Soviet Union. When war came on June 22, 1941, there instantly arose the necessity of removing all manner of industrial plants and cultural institutions eastward away from the endangered areas. The employees of these factories and institutions were transported to the new sites. Numbers of key personnel, specialists, and highlyskilled workers were individually ordered eastward to work in the relocated plants. Moreover, numbers of individuals who played only a passive role in the war effort—housewives, families of workers and military personnel, invalids—were allowed and encouraged to travel away from the more active war areas. This mass migration of citizens produced unprecedented questions of housing rights.
1 G. N. Amfiteatrov, “Èvakuacija i voprosy ziliačnogo prava,” Ucenye zapiski, No. 76 (December, 1944), pp. 77–78. This assumption of legislative powers by the courts is in no way extra-legal, inasmuch as the courts are always conceived of as political arms of the government. While they could never be permitted the power of judicial review, judges are expected to render decisions in accordance with their inner convictions based on socialist conscience. Thus the provisions of a law would be ignored where they were at cross purposes with socialist necessity conditioned by a new situation unforeseen when the law was drafted.
2 Law of October 17, 1937, Art. 34, Sobranie zakonov S.S.S.R., No. 69 (314), 1937.
3 There existed something of a precedent, unnoticed by Soviet jurists, in an instruction of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. of December, 1940 which gave an interpretation of the provisions of the normative housing law of 1937 as they pertained to the temporary absence of a lessee. The problem under consideration was that developing out of a lessee's becoming involved in a criminal proceeding. The lower courts were advised that a lessee who departed from his dwelling space because of involvement in a criminal suit must have this space reserved for him during the whole period of his absence. In the event of a termination of the prosecution during the preliminary inquiry or the handing down of a suspended sentence, dwelling space withdrawn from the lessee was subject to return. Demand for the return of such space had to be made to a court within six months of the person's release; suits not undertaken within this period were not to be settled in the plaintiff's favor since he would then have lost all right to the space in accordance with the 1937 law. “Protocol of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, U.S.S.R.,” No. 46/23/U, dated December 12, 1940; published in Žiliščnye zakony, ed., T. D. Alekseev (Moscow, 1947), pp. 114—19. Involuntary absence of the lessee is involved both here and in evacuation regardless of the fact that the necessity of his absence arises from very different causes in the two cases.
4 Law of February 16, 1942. hvestija Sovetov deputatov trudjasščkhsja, S.S.S.R. (February 17, 1942).
5 Circular letter of the Chief Administration of Housing Economy of the People's Commissariat of Finance, R.S.F.S.R., March 26, 1942, Alekseev, op. cit., pp. 135–36.
6 “Protocol of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, U.S.S.R.,” No. 19/D23/U., November 12, 1942, Alekseev, op. cit., p. 137.
7 Amfiteatrov, op. cit., p. 80.
8 Ibid. Individuals who evacuated themselves in violation of labor discipline were, of course, beyond the pale and without provision for safeguarding their housing rights.
9 Ibid., p. 81.
10 Sudebnaja praktika verkhovrwgo suda S.S.S.R., 1944, Vol. Ill (IX) (Moscow, 1944), Decision No. 242.
11 Law of February 16, 1942, op. cit., supra, note 4.
12 Ibid.
13 Amfiteatrov, op. cit., pp. 82–83.
14 Ibid., p. 82. The decree was shortly revoked, but the requirement of notification was renewed in a Protocol of the Supreme Court, U.S.S.R., November 12, 1942, op. cit., supra, note 6.
15 Sudebnaja praktika … , 1944, op. cit., Vol. VI (XII), Decision of June 1, 1944.
16 Ibid., Vol. III(IX), Decision of January 6, 1944.
17 Amfiteatrov, op. cit., p. 83.
18 Ibid., pp. 83–84. See also Hazard, John N., Soviet Housing Law (New Haven, Conn., 1939), pp. 79–83.Google Scholar
19 “If the lessee's dwelling space was only slightly damaged and to bring it into good condition current and capital repairs are needed, then the lessee of the space has the right to secure the space he earlier occupied in that house, provided he does not demand the right to this on any other basis.” Protocol of the Supreme Court, U.S.S.R., No. 1/2/U, January 12, 1945, Alekseev, op. cit., pp. 138–39.
20 Sudebnaja praktika … , 1944, op. cit,, Vol. VI(XII), Decision of April 13, 1944. See also Protocol of the Supreme Court, U.S.S.R., No. 46/23/U, December 12, 1940, Alekseev, op. cit., pp. 114–19.
21 Protocol of the Supreme Court, U.S.S.R., No. 1/2/U, January 12, 1945, Alekseev, op. cit., pp. 138–39.
22 Sudebnaja praktika … , 1948, op. cit., Vol. I, Decision No. 807.