Soviet Archives - Collection of Government Documents on Workers

From the Collection of enactment and decrees of the government for 1921, Administration of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR

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On procedure for providing work to ministers of religious cults. ( Izv. No. 22, S. U. 8‐56 ).

Article 56.

Decree of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars

On the procedure for providing work to ministers of religious cults.

Persons who are in material or official dependence on religious organizations, such as: priests, rabbis, priests, mullahs, pastors, shamans, etc., can be registered and sent to work in state institutions and enterprises by the Accounting and Distribution Departments of the Worker Forces with the following restrictions:

1) These persons may be granted positions in Soviet institutions only in county and provincial cities, but in no case in volost Executive Committees, Village Councils and their bodies, and in rural areas in general.

Note . When performing their official duties in Soviet institutions, clergymen are obliged to wear the civilian attire that is common to everyone.

2) These persons may not be granted positions in Soviet institutions, which are paid above the 16th grade of the tariff rates of the Union of Soviet Workers.

3) These persons are not allowed at all to serve in the following departments of the Executive Committees of the Soviets:

a) public education;

b) justice;

c) agriculture;

d) Workers ʹand Peasantsʹ Inspection;

e) Department of Management;

f) food.

Note . Individual Commissariats are given the right to extend to their subordinate institutions, in whole or in part, the restrictions of paragraph 3.

4) In all cases where the positions granted to the ministers of religious cult before the publication of this resolution violate this resolution, the heads of the institution are obliged to take measures within two weeks to bring the work of these persons in accordance with this resolution.

Signed by:

Chairman of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin) .

N. Gorbunov, Administrator of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars .

Secretary L. Fotieva.

January 13, 1921.

Published in No. 22 Izvestia of the All‐Russian Central Executive

Committee of Soviets on February 2, 1921.