Law of Spikelets

Law of Spikelets or Law of Three Spikelets (Russian: Закон о трёх колосках) was a common name of the Soviet law to protect state property of kolkhozes. The common name came into use because the law was used to prosecute not only property thieves but also anyone who collected as little as a handful of grain or "spikelets" left behind in the fields after the entire harvest was officially collected and counted.

The law was based on the decree of Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom 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.

The law was also known as the "Seven Eighths Law" (Закон 'семь восьмых', Zakon “sem’ vos’mykh”“), because the date in Russian is filled into forms as 7/8/1932.^[1]

• The preamble stated that the communal property (state, kolkhoz, or cooperative property) is fundamental for the Soviet social order, therefore people who try to appropriate it must be treated as enemies of the people.
• Section I covers theft at railroad and water communications.
• Section II covers theft of kolkhoz and cooperative property.
• Section III of the law covers violence, threats and intimidation of kolkhozniks. The punishment was 5 to 10 years of prison camp time.

The primary punishment for theft according to this law was execution by shooting. Under extenuating circumstances the punishment was at least 10 years of imprisonment. In all cases convicts' personal property was to be confiscated.

Convicts for crimes covered by this law were not subject to amnesty.

The law was signed by Mikhail Kalinin, Vyacheslav Molotov (Skryabin), and Avel Enukidze.

The accompanying "Instruction on the Application of the Decree of 8/8/1932" detailed that the death sentence was to be applied with respect to organized and systematic theft, to theft accompanied with arson and other destruction, as well as with respect to "kulaks, former merchants and other socially alien elements". Ordinary kolkhosniks and non-collectivized peasants (edinolichniks), as well as minor theft on transport was to be punished with 10 years of imprisonment.^[2]

It has been estimated that a quarter of a million people were charged by the OGPU and there were more than 200,000 sentences (normally of 5 – 10 years in the Gulag) of which more than 11,000 seem to have been death sentences.^[3]

See also

• Soviet famine of 1932-1933

References

1. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago
2. "Instruction on the Application of the Decree of 8/8/1932"
3. Michael Ellman, Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited Europe-Asia Studies, Routledge. Vol. 59, No. 4, June 2007, 663-693. PDF file