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The Soviet Urban Housing Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

T. Sosnovy
T. Sosnovy*
Affiliation:
Research Program on the U.S.S.R., New York
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Extract

Soviet Periodicals Proclaim the dawn of a new day for the apartment dweller of the USSR. Yet after thirty-four years of experimentation based upon an entirely new concept of housing relationships, the urban housing problem in the USSR seems to have become even more acute than it was at the outbreak of the Revolution. It is true that in pre-revolutionary Russia, with its economic backwardness and underdeveloped urban life and economy, there was a great lag in housing construction. No compiled data exist, however, from which it would be possible to construct a completely accurate picture of the housing conditions of the 24,700,000 persons who made up the urban population of pre-revolutionary Russia. It has been estimated that the average space available to the individual in 1912–1914 was 6.6 square yards.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 1952 , pp. 288 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1952

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References

1 See Vasil'ev, M., “Tall New Towers Byline Moscow's Skyline,” USSR Information Bulletin, XII (April 30, 1952), 248 Google Scholar.

2 The author is a professional economist who formerly worked in the field of housing in the USSR. The views expressed in this article are based upon personal observation and documented by official Soviet statistics and surveys made by the author in Displaced Persons camps in Germany. This study was begun for the Russian Institute, Columbia University, and produced as part of a longer monograph on Soviet housing with the assistance of a grant from the Research Program on the U.S.S.R. (a subsidiary of the East European Fund, Inc., New York), and is published with the permission of that organization.

3 The average space available to the individual is computed throughout this article in accordance with the custom prevailing in the USSR, namely to include bedrooms, living rooms, and dining alcoves, but excluding halls, kitchens, toilets, bathrooms, and windowless rooms. To facilitate comparison with conditions in the United States, the metric measurements in use in the USSR have been transposed into yards.

4 The historical stages through which the law has passed have been set forth recently. See Block, Alexander, “Soviet Housing—The Historical Aspect: Some Notes on Problems of Policy,” Soviet Studies, III (1951), 1 and 229CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The rationing system and the law governing its application have been set forth in Hazard, John N., Soviet Housing Law (New Haven, 1939)Google Scholar, and Leitch, Donald G., “Soviet Housing Administration and the Wartime Evacuation,” American Slavic and East European Review, IX (1950), 180 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Bol'šaja Sovetskaja Ěnciklopedija, volume entitled “Sojuz Sovetskikh Sotsialističeskikh Respublik” (Moscow, 1947), p. 63.

7 Areas inhabited by not less than 1,000 adults, and where agriculture does not constitute the main occupation of more than 25 percent of the population, belong to the category of cities. Areas populated by not less than 400 persons of whom not less than 65 percent are engaged in manufacture are classified as workers' settlements. For a discussion of this process, see Shabad, Theodore, Geography of the U.S.S.R.: A Regional Survey (New York, 1951)Google Scholar.

8 This table was computed from the following sources: Prokopovič, S. N., Der Vierte Fünfjahr Plan der Sowjet Union, 1946–1950 (Zurich, 1948), p. 124 Google Scholar; Veselovskij, B. B., Kurs ekonomiki i planirovanija kommunal'nogo khozjajstva (Moscow, 1051), pp. 166, 173, 175Google Scholar; Bol'šaja Sovetskaja Ènciklopedija, “SSSR,” p. 1013, and ibid., XXV, 452, 457; Voznesenskij, A. N., Voennaja èkonomika SSSR v periode otečestvennoj voiny (Moscow, 1948), p. 14 Google Scholar.

9 Zakon o pjatiletnem plane vosstanovlenija i razvitija narodnogo khozjajstva SSSR na 1946–1950 gg. (Moscow, 1946), p. 54.

10 Bol'šaja Sovetskaja Ènciklopedija, XXV, 451, 453.

11 Statističeskij spravočnik SSSR za 1928 g. (Moscow, 1929), pp. 820–21.

12 Law of February 28, 1930, as amended, see Žiliščnye Zakony (Moscow, 1947), pp. 120–22.

13 In the Soviet Union, a scientific worker is one who has a higher degree, regardless of whether that person is doing scientific work or lecturing in a higher educational institution. A specialist is a person with a specialized education, who is engaged in practical work in his field. Every scientific worker may at the same time be a specialist.

14 B. B. Veselovskij, Kurs … , pp. 132, 473.

15 Zakon o pjatiletnem plane vosstanovlenija i razvitija narodnogo khozjajstva, SSSR na 1946–1950 gg., p. 55.

16 B. B. Veselovskij, Kurs … , pp. 176, 391.

17 Itogi vypolnenija vtorovo pjatiletnego plana razvitija narodnogo khozjajstva SSSR (Moscow, 1938), p. 110.

18 Trolley cars operate in seventy-four cities, trolley buses in seven cities, autobuses (toward the end of 1938) in 205 cities.

19 This practice is most widespread in the USSR. To help their friends, tenants first have been moved into their own room, in the hope of eventually settling them in the kitchen. Thus, the creation of dwelling space in a common utility area is foreshadowed. This moving into the kitchen usually happens after the new tenant has legally reported his new address (registered it at the police station) and in general has somewhat accustomed himself to his new environment and to his new neighbors.

20 As a rule, for the whole apartment, there is only one meter for each of the public utilities.

21 The rules for use and maintenance of dwellings were amended to add a final paragraph in 1949 requiring that all residents maintain complete quiet from 12 midnight to 8:00 A.M., during which time the playing of musical instruments and loud conversation on the telephone was forbidden. See lzvestija, No. 191, August 14, 1949, p. 2.

22 The legal basis for these courts has been set forth by John N. Hazard, op. cit., supra, note 5.

23 See Sobranie Zakanov i Rasporjaženij SSSR (1937), I, No. 69, Article 314.

24 N. Vozhesenskij, Voennaja èkonomika SSSR v periode otečestvennoj voiny, p. 165.

25 Pravda, April 17, 1951.

26 Ibid.

27 Itogi vypolnenija vtorogo pjatiletnego plana razvitija narodnogo khozjajstva SSSR (Moscow, 1938), p. 70.

28 The author saw in the course of performing his duties the results of this survey in a special publication of the Government Planning Commission of the USSR which was labeled “for office use only.”

29 Izvestija, May 23,1950.

30 Instructive of August 6, 1941, published in Žiliščnye Zakony (Moscow, 1947), p. 168.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 ProfessorProkopovič, S. N., Real'naja zarabotnaja plata promyšlennykh rabočikh v Sovetskoj Rossii, 1946, p. 78 Google Scholar. (MS in archives of Russian Research Center, Harvard University.)

34 The author as a former member of a liquidated housing cooperative had returned to him, in 1938, 1000 rubles invested during 1925–1927. The purchasing power of that sum, in 1938, at best, equaled 20 percent of its purchasing power in 1925–1927.

35 Vedomosti verkhovnogo soveta SSSR, No. 36 (1948).