5HSRUWRQ5XVVLD entitled to grant Soviet citizenship to foreign citizens living in Russia, in particular those who belonged to the class of workers and peasants and who were not using vicarious labour. In compliance with the Soviet Constitution of 1918, this category of the people could obtain Soviet Citizenship ‘without any baffling formalities’ (Article 20). The Soviet Government gave a free hand (i.e. full discretion) to all local authorities (Soviets) in order to attract as many as possible to become citizens of the Soviet republic. At that time there were more than 4 million foreign people on Russian territory, mostly residents of the Polish territories (ca.1.5 million people) and prisoners of war from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria and other states (ca. 2.5 million people) (Kikotya 2003: 32). In addition to this liberal order of citizenship acquisition, Lenin’s government created the option for deprivation of citizenship on the initiative of the Soviet authorities. This measure could be invoked as a defense against ‘the enemies of Soviet power’. On 31 December 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R., or Soviet Union) was created and the Russian Soviet republic became part of the Soviet Union. General provisions regarding Soviet citizenship were given in the 1924 Constitution of the USSR (art.7) (Belkovets 2010: 204). According to Soviet law, the principle of the automatic acquisition of the Soviet citizenship came into force, i.e. every person in the territory of the USSR were considered as citizens of the Soviet Union, unless they expressly stated that they had foreign citizenship (Kishkin 1925: 4). Under the new regulations, administrative competence for granting Soviet citizenship was transferred from local Soviets to the main public bodies of the Soviet republics (TsIK of the Soviet republics of the USSR).11 Based on the federal structure of the USSR, the Soviet legislator established a two-level model of Soviet citizenship consisting of Federal (Soviet Union) Citizenship and Republican Citizenship.12 Sometimes there was even threefold Soviet citizenship in the USSR, for example in the case of the Moldavian SSR.13 The respective provisions stated that a citizen of the Soviet Union also had citizenship of the Union republic where he or she had a place of permanent residence. If the citizen, according to nationality or other reasons, had considered himself or herself a citizen of any other Soviet republic, he or she was entitled to select the citizenship of the respective republic of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the corresponding legislation of the Soviet republics and the republican passports were never provided. Republican Citizenship was thus primarily symbolic. It has also to be considered that according to the Soviet Law, the marriage to a Soviet female citizen to a foreigner did not change her citizenship. At that time, Soviet legislation based on gender equality considerably differed from the legislations of other countries in which the wife and legitimate children had to follow the citizenship of the head of the family (i.e. the male), while children born out of wedlock kept the citizenship of their mother. Thus, the Soviet Law fixed for the first time ever the principle of preservation of citizenship of the woman after the conclusion of the marriage (Belkovets 2008). 3.2.2 The Stalin Era The first Soviet Citizenship Law came into force stricto sensu only in 1938, replacing Soviet sublegislative provisions14 (Durdenevsky 1938: 48). The reason for the new citizenship law was the 11 Central Executive Committee (in Russian: IJK). So called ‘federative elements in the Soviet Citizenship’. 13 ‘On 12 October 1924, the USSR officially established the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Autonomous Republic (MSSAR) on the present-day territories of the Republic of Moldova’s Transnistrian region (then territories of the Ukrainian SSR). After its first Constitution in 1925, the MSSAR adopted a new Constitution in 1938 which provided in art. 17 for a triple citizenship for the citizens of the MSSAR, i.e. citizenship of the MSSAR, citizenship of the USSR and citizenship of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic’ (Gasca 2010). 14 The Law of the USSR from 19 August 1938 ‘About the Citizenship of the USSR’ // Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR.1938. ! 11. [G&;)" AAA? )/ 19 &*%8./& 1938 %)-& «B %+&,-&"./*# A)79& A)*#/.;1E A)D1&$1./1<#.;1E ?#.(8:$1;» // H#-)=)./1 HA AAA?. — 1938. — ! 11]. www.consultant.ru 12 56&$6(8'2&,7&5‹$XWKRU