- Social welfare benefit will be paid to all persons without exception who live by wage labour, and will be extended to home workers, independent artisans, and peasants.
- For the second half of the year 1919 the Soviet Republic assigned a sum of five milliards of roubles for the social welfare benefits of workers and employees.
As far as concerns the second category of those who receive social welfare benefit, the most important benefit is that paid to the families of soldiers in the Red Army and to the Red soldiers themselves.
An invalided Red soldier who has completely lost the capacity for work (to the extent of more than 60 per cent.), receives a pension corresponding to the average wage of the locality where he lives. The pension decreases proportionally to a decrease in the degree of incapacity for work (in 15 to 30 per cent. incapacity, the ex-soldier’s pension is one-third of the customary wage). The land of a Red soldier must be tilled and his farm must be properly supplied with seed. His family must receive a ration which is proportional to the number of the members of his family who are unable to work. The family of a Red soldier lives rent free and receives a supplementary food card. In the event of the death of a Red soldier, such members of his family as are unable to work and as are unprovided for by social welfare benefit will receive a pension amounting to 60 per cent. of the customary local wage for one person incapacitated for work, and a full wage for three or more persons incapacitated for work, etc., etc.
In the payment of allowances to the families of Red soldiers, there was expended during the first half of 1919 a sum of 1,200,000,000 roubles. The estimates for this expenditure for the second half of the same year were 3,500,000,000 roubles. According to the reports of Comrade Vinokurov, in the autumn of 1919 the families of 4,500,000 Red soldiers were receiving allowances.