This article examines the legal status of a public organization member in the Russian Empire and in the first decades of the Soviet regime in Russia. The purpose of the study is a comparative legal analysis of norms stipulating the legal status of a member of the public organizations at different stages of development of the Russian state and law. The article concludes that the changes in the state and legal policy affected the legal status of a public organization member. In addition, there are differences in legal approaches to the definition of membership in a public organization. The author points to historical conditionality of such differences, which were related to the overall direction of state policy at one or another stage of development of the Russian state. The results presented in the current paper can be used by researchers of the nonprofit sector for a full consideration of the matters of its formation and development. The results can be used in the legislative practice with the aim of improving the current legal regulation of the activities of public organizations.
public organizations, companies and unions, membership, legal status, Russian Empire, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
