The Decree on the Abolition of Estates and Civil Ranks was a decree approved by the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies at its meeting on November 23, 1917 and agreed to by the Council of People's Commissars on November 24, 1917.
The decree was intended to abolish the estates and estate legal instruments — classes, titles and civil ranks of the Russian Empire on the territory of Soviet Russia, to introduce the legal equality of all citizens of the new state.
Before the October Revolution, in the Russian Empire there was an institute of allegiance, which enshrined the legal inequality of the subjects, in many ways it has developed in the feudal Middle Ages.
According to article 3 of the decree, the property of the noble-class institutions, merchant and petty-bourgeois societies was transferred to the respective local and city governments.
Decree Abolishing Classes and Civil Ranks abolished estates and estate legal instruments — classes, titles and civilian ranks of the Russian Empire on the territory of Soviet Russia, and also introduced the concept of Russian citizenship.