The Ministry of Construction decided to cancel Lenin’s decree on free places in cemeteries

Draft resolution published

The Russian Ministry of Construction and Housing and Communal Services proposes to invalidate the burial rules approved by the Bolsheviks in December 1918. Project government regulationswhich will cancel the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars signed by Lenin, has been submitted for public discussion on the portal of regulatory legal documents.

The basis for canceling the decree is that today the conduct of funeral ceremonies in Russia is regulated by the Law “On Burial and Funeral Affairs,” the provisions of which in some places contradict the still valid Bolshevik decree. The decree is more concise (only 7 small points versus 33 articles of modern law) and more democratic.

In particular, the decree requires that grave sites be provided free of charge. In addition, the decree established the same funeral for everyone (with the exception of funerals according to religious traditions, they were allowed, but at the expense of the burying people). Of course, this rule was already violated at the funeral of Lenin himself, but it exists and formally should still be in effect now.

The decree also abolished the division into categories of burial places, and modern law distinguishes between public, religious, military and war memorial cemeteries, as well as family burial grounds. That is, this rule has actually not been in effect for a long time.