The discussion of socialist settlement is one of the key events in the history of the pre-war period of the development of Soviet urban planning. The most detailed and detailed content of the discussion is disclosed in the monograph by V. E. Khazanova "Soviet architecture of the first five-year plan" [1].
But not a single work gives an answer to the question of why the discussion was forcibly closed, and its continuation in any form is categorically prohibited. The reasons for the negative assessment by the country's top leadership of the content of the discussion are unknown, the motives for the very selective condemnation of its "instigators", the "technology" of making this (and similar) decisions by the highest authorities, the further fate of its main ideologues.
Let us recall that the discussion was caused by the start of the industrialization program - the fact that the country began to “build socialism”, but at the same time, no one knew what, at least conceptually, the “socialist settlement” should be, what the “socialist city” should be. And without this, it was impossible not only to design specific master plans for future settlements, but also to plan the allocation of certain amounts of financial resources and material resources, bring in the required amount of labor and equipment, pull transport highways, build airfields, dig canals, move food products, overalls, wheelbarrows, shovels, etc.
The beginning of the discussion can be tentatively dated October 1929. Because on October 1 M. Okhitovich within the walls of the Communist Academy of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - from 1918 to 1936 is a higher educational and research institution in social and natural sciences - reads a report, calling for a "de-urbanistic" form of settlement. And on October 26, within the walls of the USSR State Planning Committee, a public discussion of the content of the books and articles of L. Sabsovich, preaching the opposite, “urbanistic” position, takes place. In the future, the public discussion unfolds mainly around these two positions. Subsequent meetings are held here, in the Communist Academy (October 31 and November 6, 1929; May 20 and 21, 1930) [2] and in parallel, in the USSR State Planning Committee (November 26 and 29, 1929) [3], as well as on the pages of magazines that have joined the discussion since January 1930 (Literature and Art, Modern Architecture, Revolution and Culture, Moscow Construction, Planned Economy and others) and central newspapers (Pravda, Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Economic Life, For Industrialization, Evening Moscow and others). The discussion is acquiring an all-Union scale - periodical (socio-political and professional) press is filling out articles, collections of reports are published, transcripts of speeches are published, resolutions are adopted, etc.
The end of the discussion should be dated May 29, 1930 - on this day, adopted almost two weeks earlier - May 16, the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "On work on the reconstruction of everyday life" [4] is published, in fact, clearly and very unequivocally proclaimed: “Stop debating! You will do what you are ordered to do."
In the above-mentioned time frames, violent disputes developed, attracting such well-known statesmen, public figures, scientists, architects as N. Kovalevsky, G. Krzhizhanovsky, N. Krupskaya, A. Goltsman, B. Gurevich, A. Lunacharsky, A. Paskutsky, N. Semashko, S. Strumilin, G. Krasin, Y. Larin, T. Khvesin, A. Zelenko, V. Belousov, P. Kozhany, Vesnin brothers, M. Ginzburg, N. Milyutin, N. Ladovsky, A. Shchusev and others. Only one meeting in May 1930 at the Communist Academy gathered more than a thousandth audience [5].
The discussion on socialist settlement discussed the ways and means of implementing the first five-year plan, in the context of which urban planning was seen only as one of many other means of its implementation, and far from being the main one. But it was obligatory, because the construction of hundreds of new industrial enterprises was impossible without the construction of new settlements next to them to accommodate workers and their families.
The discussion of socialist settlement excited the minds and attracted attention by publicly raising the question of how a city of a new type should be tripled. It made it possible to speak openly about what the management of cities should be like in the Soviet state - in conditions completely different from those in tsarist Russia - unified national economic planning, centralized financing and material and technical supply; specific principles for the placement, construction and functioning of settlements and places of employment; artificial forms of organization of intracity life and activities; the centralized creation of urban infrastructure and the distribution nature of the service system; specific and also "distributive" housing policy, etc.
The discussion of socialist settlement claimed to formulate the goals of the spatial distribution of industry and translate them into the principles of movement of the population across the territory of the country, taking into account its military and labor mobilization organization. Determine the "rules" for dividing the territory of the state into administrative units capable of ensuring the implementation of the fragment of the national process of production and distribution of products assigned to them; as well as the processes of life inextricably linked with this [6]. The forms of providing people's lives with everything necessary, the ways of organizing the daily life of hundreds of thousands of Soviet people arriving at new buildings, are, in this regard, one of the most burning issues.
During this period, the party attached great importance to the task of reforming the old way of life, called "petty-bourgeois". For this, at least four commissions of fairly high status were formed and actively worked:
a) Commission of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on the question of the restructuring of everyday life, chaired by A. P. Smirnova;
b) Commission of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission-NK RFKI USSR on the socialist restructuring of everyday life, chaired by A. S. Holtzman;
c) The Government Commission under the STO for the transfer of enterprises and institutions to a continuous production week, chaired by Ya. E. Rudzutaka.
d) Commission for the improvement of the labor and life of workers and peasants under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR
Conducting an all-Union discussion discussing the new settlement, the essence of the cities of the future, the associated reform of everyday life, the restructuring of the existing way of life, it would seem, is clearly useful for the work of these commissions, for the decisions that they work out. If only because the discussion carries out an enormous propaganda work, forms the population of the country an orientation towards innovative forms of organizing everyday life. But despite this, its content is suddenly condemned and categorically rejected. And the discussion itself - stopped, and at the highest party-state level - by the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) "On work on the restructuring of everyday life" [7].
It should be noted here that in fact, the decree "On work on the reconstruction of everyday life" is not a decree of the all-powerful Central Committee. It is the fruit of the activities of an even higher, closed, elite and even more powerful decision-making body in the Stalinist party-state hierarchy - the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The meetings of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and another similar body, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), were always of a conspiratorial, secret nature, often they were not even stenographed, and their decisions were never published in direct form. If necessary, the most important of them were formalized in the form of decisions of the Central Committee of the party, or decisions of the Council of People's Commissars or other state bodies. Exactly according to this scheme, the decree "On work on the restructuring of everyday life" was first adopted at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau on May 16, 1930, and officially presented and published in the form of a decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). Almost two weeks after taking it.
Here is its full text:
“About work on the reconstruction of everyday life. Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of May 16, 1930
The successful course of socialist construction, the industrialization of the country in particular, already at this stage creates the necessary prerequisites for planned work on the restructuring of everyday life on a socialist basis. The enthusiasm of the working masses for the speedy fulfillment of the five-year plan is beginning to take hold in the sphere of everyday life. At a number of enterprises, household brigades are created, entering into social competition with cooperation, taking over the patronage and control over the setting of public catering, nurseries, kindergartens, etc.
Party organizations should help this movement in every possible way and lead it ideologically. Councils, trade unions and local co-operatives must take upon themselves the practical solution of the tasks associated with this matter. The individual undertakings of the workers who undertake the restructuring of everyday life must be treated with the greatest attention, carefully studying the shoots of the new and helping in every possible way to put them into practice.
The Central Committee notes that along with the growth of the movement for a socialist way of life, there are extremely unfounded, semi-fantastic, and therefore extremely harmful attempts by individual comrades (Sabsovich, partly Larin, etc.) to "jump in one leap" over those obstacles on the way to the socialist reconstruction of life, which are rooted, on the one hand, in the economic and cultural backwardness of the country, and on the other, in the need at the moment to maximize the concentration of all resources on the fastest industrialization of the country, which alone creates the actual material prerequisites for a radical alteration of everyday life. Such attempts by some workers, hiding their opportunistic essence under the "left phrase", include the projects of redevelopment of existing cities and the restructuring of new ones, which have appeared in print recently, exclusively at the expense of the state, with the immediate and complete socialization of all aspects of the workers' life: food, housing, education. children with their separation from their parents, with the elimination of household ties of family members and the administrative prohibition of individual cooking, etc. The implementation of these harmful utopian undertakings, which do not take into account the country's material resources and the degree of preparedness of the population, would lead to a huge waste of funds and severe discredit of the very idea of socialist reorganization of life.
Therefore, the Central Committee decides:
1) Propose the Council of People's Commissars of the Union, within 15 days, to give instructions on the rules for the construction of workers' settlements and individual houses for workers. These instructions should provide for the deployment of public services for the everyday life of workers (laundries, baths, kitchen factories, children's institutions, canteens, etc.) both in newly built and in existing cities and towns.
2) During the construction of workers' settlements at new large enterprises (Stalingradstroy, Dneprostroy, Magnitogorstroy, Chelyabstroy, etc.), provide a sufficient green strip between the production and residential areas, ways and means of communication and provide for the equipment of these settlements with water supply, electric lighting, baths, laundries, public canteens, childcare facilities, clubs, schools and medical care. In new construction, the most accessible hygienic conditions and amenities should be ensured, and it is also necessary to take all measures to reduce the cost of construction as much as possible.
3) To draw the attention of all Party organizations to the need, in accordance with these tasks, to significantly intensify work to maximize the mobilization of funds from the population itself for housing construction through housing-construction cooperation.
4) In view of the existing disagreement in financing by economic agencies and trade-union organizations of various cultural and social institutions, instruct the People's Commissariat of Labor of the USSR and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, together with the cooperation, to take urgent measures to streamline and increase funding for the restructuring of everyday life.
5) Instruct the commission for the restructuring of everyday life under the NK RFKI USSR to monitor the implementation of this resolution.
6) Propose the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to issue a directive to the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR to expand, starting from this financial year, the production of equipment for servicing the everyday life of workers (kitchen factories, mechanized laundries, public canteens, etc.) and consider increasing funding for measures to restructure everyday life.
What are the reasons for the adoption by the supreme body of Soviet power of a resolution that suddenly and in a rather harsh form, which completely unconditionally prohibited discussion? What caused the negative attitude of the highest party governing body to the broad social movement, which discussed issues that seemed to be very significant for the country's leadership, especially in the context of the gathering pace of the industrialization program? Why, the authorities, who had not previously expressed their attitude to the content of the discussion, suddenly turned their attention to it, and in the form of an extremely harsh condemnation?
It can be assumed that the attention to the discussion was drawn by the activity shown by the Central Committee of the Komsomol. The fact is that on January 25, 1930, the Central Committee of the Komsomol decides to convene a meeting of communes of workers 'and peasants' youth [8]. And, as is customary in the Soviet system of party management, he appeals to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with a request to authorize its implementation [9].
Period 1929-1930 differs in that at this time the whole country spontaneously embraces the youth movement for the formation of communes. According to the memorandum of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, sent to the Department of Education and Life of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b): “In Moscow, Leningrad, Ukraine, the Urals and in a number of other large centers, there is a growing movement for the collectivization of everyday life, for its restructuring on a new basis. This movement begins with the simplest elementary forms of organizing everyday life (a team for food, for living space, for raising children, for cultural services, etc.) grows into the most complex forms of a new life in communes with complete socialization, making high demands on personal, industrial and social work to the members of their team …”[10].
It can be assumed that the influx of young people into the communes was to a certain extent initiated by the calls that sounded during the discussion about social resettlement. The socialization of everyday life is extremely attractive to young people, because, as it seems to them, it promises state support for those who, believing ideological appeals, rallied into a commune. In the USSR at that time there were already about 3,000 communes (about 30-40 thousand people) [11].
The main question that the Central Committee of the Komsomol plans to answer as a result of the meeting: what kind of socialization of everyday life - partial or complete, should begin to be carried out en masse [12]. And besides, not much or less: "discuss the project of building socialist cities" [13]. The need to develop a position of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the upcoming meeting of the Central Committee of the Komsomol and predetermines subsequent events.
On February 6, 1930, a meeting of the Commission of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the issue of restructuring life was held under the chairmanship of A. P. Smirnov on everyday life. Most likely, this commission was instructed by someone from above to develop a document evaluating the results of the all-union campaign for socializing everyday life and formalize a public expression of the position of the party leadership on this issue [14]. Only part of the speeches is transcribed. But already in that part of the texts of speeches that is available, sharp criticism is clearly visible, which will later appear in the paragraphs of the resolution "On the restructuring of everyday life." It is directed, first of all, to three persons - Milyutin, Larin and Sabsovich. But, what is especially important, in the speeches of the members of the commission, in particular, Smirnov, the dissatisfaction of the Central Committee of the party not only with specific persons, but also with the current situation as a whole, as well as with the specific actions of the Soviet government, is clearly visible. What provoked this criticism and this dissatisfaction, what caused them, is completely unclear - there are no documents on this score in the case. But the transcript still gives answers to some questions.
So:
« Roysenman (the beginning of the speech was not stenographed) … Larin is a master at all sorts of big words, but you have to know how to build buildings. No experience yet. We do not know how to spend what we have. Everyone builds differently, building very expensively. Household Commission - Comrade Holtzman should see how it is used (as in the text - M. M.) that there is, in particular, dining rooms, the dirt there is incredible, the spoons are not washed, they sometimes contaminate. Here they can do a lot, teach how to live more cultured, how to sleep more cultured, how to eat more cultured, etc. What we have must be used to live like a human being. I cannot imagine, it will not be said in the Central Committee, I am terribly angry with Larin, why the hell do we need him to sit and invent. He does not go to Donbass, to Rostov, so he would have looked there what the housing needs are. He is sitting here inventing things, and our comrades are lagging behind him and are afraid to speak out lest they be accused of a Right deviation, and I, as a Bolshevik practitioner, must say this. The party says that it is necessary to build, but build gradually. Now we need to give the workers the opportunity to live in human conditions. Workers often live without water and basic amenities. … The Party Central Committee works a lot, very hard, but, unfortunately, this thing has passed the Central Committee. Now the Central Committee must issue a directive … we must now begin to build according to the projects that we have. In the future, it is necessary to come to an agreement. In general, for the housing business of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, it is necessary to have a special center that would send its workers abroad to study this matter there, how to build, where to build, etc., so that workers can live in human conditions and so that buildings do not cost as much as now.
Bubnov … … I believe that Comrade Tolmachev is absolutely right in his criticism of this, as he calls “consumer socialism of everyday life,” this groundless idle talk that we now have on the part of Sabsovich and Larin, and so on. I must tell you that not so long ago, at one time, Larin was for individual buildings, for small houses - koteji (as it is written - MM), he scolded everyone who did not agree with him, now he had another idea. This is a man without a rudder and without sails, a man cut off from life, a man whose head thinks like a Menshevik. But he has the ability to occupy a very large foothold (Smirnov: the main thing is unexpectedly), and then turn around when people like at least Nick. Alex. (probably, we are talking about N. A. Milyutin - M. M.), who say, yes you go to hell, why am I going to mess with you. I didn’t have time to get rid of one story, and then a new one will be glued. I believe that this separation, which is now happening, should be recorded here. Tolstopyatov says: here is a labor commune, one gets 300 rubles, the other - 25 rubles. - merged into one common boiler. After all, these are children's toys, no one can forbid doing such things, but so that the state can take this seriously - sorry! (Goltsman: or that the party should give slogans) they did not invent anything new. After all, this was always the case, and it should not be done out of trifles what a big deal, some kind of big movement.
On the other hand, this consumer socialism is not a trifle. … besides Larina's group, there is a huge movement, which is headed by the Central Committee and which is associated with the emancipation of women, with the gradual building up of the necessary basis in public catering and the coverage of children with children's institutions. Larin is doing obvious harm with his left-wing stupidity, because he is pulling this matter off the base, because he is causing a completely legitimate reaction … now we are building entire cities: Chelyabstroy, Stalingradstroy, Magnitostroy, etc. Stalingradstroy develops five cities, even Nizhny develops construction for new cities. Moreover, the city councilor of Nizhny told me that the projects there were given to the Americans. A socialist city, and the projects are done by the Americans. They will set up the way the socialist cities of Larin and Sabsovich now seem to be: large barracks with large corridors, with a divided family or no family at all. It cannot be like this, the family exists and will exist for a long time, you cannot brush everything away, because this is stupidity, this is fantasy, this is Menshevism inside out. … Then, behold, there is also that nonsense that Comrade Epstein told me about. Milyutin's commission (probably referring to the commission for the construction of new cities - M. M.) decided that the construction of new cities could only be due to the demolition of old squares. The devil knows what! This can be suggested by a person who would like to bring the state into an unprecedented loss. All this should be noted. … It is necessary to precisely establish a completely obvious situation, now there is nothing to fantasize, we must be equal in terms of economics. It must be remembered that the socialized organization of everyday life on a new basis can follow the economy, when the methods of socialism and socialization are introduced into the economy. … we must decisively discriminate against these dreamers and eliminate them just as we eliminated them from the fight against alcoholism.
Saltanov: These same sentiments of Larin, Sabsovich and others, they have already received material expression in those projects that are available. Stalingradstroy, Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant, Magnetostroy, all of them are being built according to the designs of Sabsovich, working drawings are made according to their designs. Keep in mind what will happen if we do not lay our hands on these projects, then construction begins in spring. The delivery of materials began. From this spring, the construction of Stalingradstroy begins, everything there was developed according to the projects of Larin, Sabsovich and Khvesin (Smirnov: no one stated this). The Central Committee has never been involved in the approval of projects for the construction of cities, but in the Soviet order, these projects must be approved. This issue was examined by a number of commissions. … We became interested in this matter, discussed the issue, created a small commission, inquired about the projects of other buildings, it turns out that the projects of the Nizhny Novgorod and Stalingrad construction have the same drawback. When I spoke on the commission and called Sabsovich a fool, he took offense at me, and this is so. … we must raise the question of a single center. The Council of People's Commissars is overloaded with all sorts of things, and it misses these questions. The preparation of this question in the commission of comrade Milyutin, it fully expresses the tendencies of Larin and Sabsovich. …
Leplevsky: The main thing that is remarkable in this matter is that such a huge matter, which in essence is the work of the broadest masses, has received formalization in the press apart from the Central Committee. Not only that, but this case also appeared on the pages of Pravda. The question is, what is so sad about that? But, look at what. I sat for two hours on the commission, surprised how comrade Epstein and Nadezhda Konstantinovna were alone. The commission met under the chairmanship of Comrade Milyutin … All current conversations are causing harm and confusion. Here it is necessary to hit those comrades who travel to the cities of the bases of the Central Committee's permission to make speeches, etc. All this should be in this document”[15].
The speech of the chairman of the commission, Alexander Petrovich Smirnov, to whom, by the way, Nikolai Alexandrovich Milyutin dedicated his book "Sotsgorod", accompanied by the epithet "the most practical enthusiast", brings some clarity to the essence of the issue. From the transcript of Smirnov's speech, it becomes clear what caused the sudden attention of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) to the topic of socializing everyday life. It turns out that it was attracted, namely, by the initiative of the Central Committee of the Komsomol to hold an all-union meeting of communes of working youth. While somewhere within the walls of the State Planning Commission and the Communist Academy, on the pages of newspapers and magazines, there was a discussion about social resettlement and socialization of everyday life, it was invisible to the country's top leadership and therefore was completely uninteresting to him - you never know what scientists, architects, old Bolsheviks, leaders of the middle links, leaders of women's councils. Let them debate … But when the "personnel reserve and support of the party" - the Central Committee of the Komsomol asked the Central Committee of the party what guarantees can be given to young men and women of the Soviet Union - enthusiasts of a new way of life, what exactly can be promised to the vanguard of working youth on behalf of the government, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) worried in earnest.
The attention of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) to the topic of socializing everyday life was also caused by the fact that the actual course of the discussion was very much at odds with the plans initially outlined by the party regarding state housing construction and the guidelines that it initially gave:
« Smirnov: First of all, our commission, the political commission. We will not deal with any technical issues and material ones from the point of view of the industrial financial plan. We are faced with the task of clarifying the question, from the point of view of giving instructions, in the field of housing construction and the main main thing in this plane - the construction of everyday life on the basis of the deployment of our socialist economy. Here the comrades noted that the Central Committee missed it, formally one might say so, but in essence, this is not true. We could not imagine that our government would go after charlatans, after adventurers, without asking the Central Committee what to do with the appearance of these adventurers. I assure you, if I were in government, I would show the doors to these adventurers.
Here, I wonder how this question got to us. The Komsomol put before us the question of convening an all-Union congress, but we proved to them that, guys, you are in a hurry, this issue is not yet ripe enough to convene a congress, if you insist, we will talk with all the secretaries. The case dragged on, we all have no time, the question was filmed several times, then, finally, they raised it and in this connection they determined what kind of thing it was. Instead of a social study of this issue, the question is posed here as if the issue is already ripe and all that remains is to give it a directive, a line of work, to cover it with party coverage. The program was of this order, here, here I saw the development of a new person. It turns out that Sabsovich also has it. It turns out that again everything revolves around Larin and Sabsovich. In this regard, we here, too, just learned that not only among the Komsomol, but also along the Soviet line, and along the government and along a number of other lines, there is a full-blown failure to clarify this issue in public order, but in the manner of legislative definition a certain line of work in this area. The Central Committee could not have known in any way that the directive given by it in the field of housing policy in the field of everyday life was rejected and the line of the adventurer was adopted as a legislative act. I must draw your attention to the fact that two years ago the Central Committee adopted a resolution on housing construction and everyday life. Additionally, in connection with the work of the Zhenotdel, a resolution was adopted related to the emancipation of women. The Central Committee did not cancel these directives. How the government took Sabsovich's directive when the Central Committee delegated its rights to issue directives to Sabsovich, I do not know. I don't know how such a thing could have happened. Here for us this question surfaced in this form completely unexpectedly, and we immediately raised it, outlined a commission that should work out the corresponding directive. Here's how it went.
Essentially, from the point of view of a new way of life, is this a new question, no. Both congresses and conferences dealt with this question in parallel with the general development of our industry. We often touched on these issues, moreover, on special institutions, we gave a number of directives. So directives were given on NKPros, NKZdrav, on housing construction. What is new here being put forward today? First of all, what is new today is that everyday life is associated with the gigantic construction of new factories. … We are investing large sums in this business and we must proceed from these material investments. How to get the most out of these material investments. We will not satisfy all those appetites that Larin and Sabsovich put forward. We are able to provide this new workforce in a clean place, where there is not a single building, where there is not a fathom of living space, where there is not a single institution serving, unfortunately, very small ones. Unfortunately, we are able to invest with very limited funds. This should be the starting point.
Hence it follows that the living space for the worker should be as cheap as possible - this is the first, the most comfortable - the second, and the third - with these funds, the maximum provision by servicing the workers. I must say that Sabsovich and Larin they confused two different things: living space with everyday life. I can have a socialized life in a separate room, using a socialized kitchen, bathhouse, laundry, etc.
Hence follows more good, cheap, comfortable barracks - houses for workers with the maximum provision of collective services for his basic needs. … We cannot provide a kitchen in every room, this is a luxury. We have to squeeze the tendency of the old way of life, but one kitchen can be given to a house. … First of all, the construction of production, production is followed by the provision of workers with everything necessary as far as possible. All our plans as a whole, one hundred percent, should be based on our material capabilities. This does not mean that we will not work towards changing and rebuilding the old way of life. But it should not be fixed by regulation in the field of law, but from the point of view of building some services, from the point of view of social work for this everyday life.
Let us instruct to draw up a draft commission consisting of Comrades Vol. Goltsman, Tolmachev, Saltanov, Kuznetsov, Leplevsky. Convocation of a commission for comrade Goltsman. The term of work is 5 days”[16].
So, the dissatisfaction of the highest party body, expressed by A. P. Smirnov, a member of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), is that:
1) The postulates of Larin and Sabsovich are harmful, as they call to provide "labor in a clean place" with a wide range of service facilities (without which socialization of everyday life is impossible) in conditions when the country's leadership cannot or does not want to do this: "… we, unfortunately, able to invest very limited funds. This should be the starting point”; "All our plans as a whole, one hundred percent, should be based on our material capabilities."
2) The country's leadership does not want to accept the orientation towards the construction of a normal dwelling, in which one family lives in a separate apartment with its own kitchen, bathroom, toilet, arguing that state funds are not provided for this. The country's leadership does not want to undertake any obligations to provide each inhabitant with a separate "individual cell" with an area of at least 6 square meters. meters in communal houses, as suggested by N. Milyutin, because even this - extremely minimized, but isolated living space, costs a lot of money, and "living space for a worker should be as cheap as possible."
3) It is also impossible to completely eliminate kitchens, bathrooms, toilets, laundry rooms, etc., following the calls for the complete socialization of everyday life. Because, in this case, the state must provide the population with public institutions that can replace all these services. And Larin and Sabsovich, not understanding this, call for the complete transfer of service functions to the sphere of state support. The country's leadership plans to build "good, cheap, comfortable barracks - houses for workers" with "one kitchen per house", with a toilet on the street, with city-wide baths, etc. This is precisely what takes on the formulation "maximum provision" of the working population with "collective service of its basic needs." And Larin and Sabsovich insist on the need to build canteens, kitchen factories, kindergartens, bath and laundry plants, gyms and much more at public expense.
4) "The directive of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) in the field of housing policy in relation to everyday life" was "rejected and the line of the adventurer was adopted as a legislative act." "The government followed charlatans, adventurers."
At this point it remains unclear which "directive of the Central Committee" was rejected, which "resolution of the Central Committee on the question of housing construction and everyday life" is meant. But it is obvious that with regard to the resolution related to the emancipation of women, we are talking about the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of June 15, 1929 "On the immediate tasks of the party to work among women workers and peasants" [17]. This decree prescribes a sharp "increase in the use of female labor" in all branches of production. Including in such traditionally non-women as the heavy and chemical industry, woodworking, etc.: “When carrying out the plan for the use of female labor, the Central Committee proposes to proceed from: a) An increase in the use of female labor in heavy industry, especially in machine shops and mechanical engineering and in those branches of industry where female labor is used insufficiently, but where it fully justifies itself (woodworking, leatherworking, etc.) … e) Expansion of the use of permanent agricultural labor. female workers and laborers in state farms and plantations”[18]. How harshly the country's governing bodies plan to use female labor can be judged by a quote from a speech by a representative of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks during the adoption of this resolution: “… At the same time, a number of impracticable proposals are being put forward. Such an unrealizable proposal at the present time is the question of granting leave to collective farm women on collective farms before and after childbirth. It will be possible to solve it when the collective farms become economically stronger and expand their economic base. This question is being raised somewhat early”[19]. Women in Soviet industrialization are obliged to be, without exception, the same labor-liable as all adult men - liable for military service. And nothing, including childbirth, should not be an obstacle to the rigorous implementation of production plans outlined by the party and government.
5) The discussion about the socialist settlement, spreading the propaganda of a socialized way of life, distracts the population from understanding that the party "first of all" provides "construction of production", and only secondarily, the construction of housing - "providing workers with everything they need" follows "production" … Moreover, not necessarily, but "as far as possible."
6) The instigators of the discussion (Milyutin, Larin, Sabsovich) are pushing the government to make specific decisions, and the government does not want to take on any obligations and guarantee anything in relation to providing workers with everything necessary for life, does not want to "cover" these reforms its resolutions: "… work towards changing and restructuring the old way of life" should not "… be fixed by regulation in the field of law."
On February 26, 1930, a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (20) is being held.
As part of the rather extensive agenda of the meeting, the request of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of January 25, 1930 on the convocation of an All-Union congress of household communes of workers and peasants' youth was considered. The following wording appears in the resolution of the meeting:
“… In connection with the issues raised in the press about the reconstruction of everyday life and the work of the commission on socialist life under the NK RFL, it is necessary to consider the issue of the further direction of work in this area at one of the next meetings of the Organizing Bureau. Instruct the commission consisting of comrades. Smirnov (previous), Bubnova, Yenukidze, Royzenman, Artyukhina, Goltsman, Voronova, Saltanov, Evreinov, Uglanov and Zimin to study this issue, develop and submit appropriate proposals for approval by the Organizing Bureau. The term of work is 2 decades”[21].
On March 5, 1930 Tolstopyatov (representative of NKTruda - MM) sends A. P. Smirnov a letter in which he reports: “At a meeting of the Government Commission at the STO for the transfer of enterprises and institutions to a continuous production week, chaired by Comrade Rudzutaka, when discussing the issue of “reconstruction of everyday life”, the following decision was made: “1) To bring these issues to the discussion of the broad masses of the workers and the Soviet public (through newspapers). To discuss these issues at workshops and combine the material available from various organizations, create a special subcommittee consisting of vols. Tolstopyatov, Larin, Sabsovich, Zaromsky and representatives from the domestic commissions of the NK RFL and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. 2) Instruct the subcommittee to designate a group of comrades for submitting a number of popular articles to Rabochaya Gazeta, Trud, Gudok, etc., outlining the main proposals for the theses of Comrades. Larin and Sabsovich, as well as outline and submit for approval to Comrade Rudzutaka industrial centers and a group of comrades to travel to the field to deliver reports on these issues at work meetings. 3) To oblige the subcommittee to develop, on the basis of the proposals of the workers and the collected material, a draft of general provisions on these issues, combining the drafts of vols. Larin and Sabsovich and submit it to the Commission within 20 days in order to put it up for discussion by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in a month. … "[22].
Most likely, it was this draft resolution of the Council of People's Commissars that was the spark from which A. P. Smirnov's dissatisfaction with Milyutin, Larin and Sabsovich flared up into a scorching flame of public censure. The reason was the provisions that Larin and Sabsovich proposed to be included in the text of the government decree on the restructuring of everyday life. This text, giving their ideas an official status, was supposed to be presented at the beginning of April for discussion by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR with the subsequent adoption of the corresponding document. Fulfilling the order of the Government Commission at the STO, the members of the commission, in particular, Tolstopyatov, travel to large cities and propagandize the main provisions of the concept of “reconstruction of everyday life” by Sabsovich: “On the basis of the above decision, I went to Leningrad, spoke at working meetings on the theses that I attach … I also attach the reports of Sabsovich and Larin. In addition, I am sending a copy of a letter from the Leningrad workers addressed to Comrade Stalin, published in Leningradskaya Pravda. Greetings. Tolstopiatov”[23].
Simultaneously with the holding of a public campaign for propaganda in the working collectives of a socialized life, a draft resolution is being prepared for the Government Commission at the STO on the issue of restructuring life, after the approval of which [24] it must bring it to the top for the adoption of a government decree. Most likely, this work is also carried out with the direct participation of Sabsovich and Larin. Here is this project: “Having considered the issue of transferring workers' housing and communal construction to the construction of a consistently socialist type and the construction of new socialist cities, the Government Commission under the STO for the transfer of enterprises and institutions to a continuous production week considers it necessary to submit the following draft resolution for approval by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR:
1. All new cities (workers' settlements) erected at newly built large industrial enterprises should be built as cities of a consistently socialist type. In these cities, life should be organized on the basis of the maximum socialization of the satisfaction of the everyday and cultural needs of the working people, with the most rational and complete use of all the labor resources of the population, in particular, the most complete productive use of women's labor on an equal basis with men's labor.
2. In existing cities, all housing and communal construction should also be directed towards the consistent socialist restructuring of everyday life, with the fastest possible release of women from household chores and individual childcare and with maximum use of her in production.
3. With regard to rural housing and communal construction, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that the technical, organizational and social revolution in agriculture, leading to a very rapid disappearance of small individual farms and to the creation of large, mechanized, chemicalized and scientifically established collective and state agricultural enterprises, requires the concentration in one point of significant masses of the population, now scattered over an area of ten square kilometers. Therefore, in the rapidly growing socialized sector of agriculture, it is necessary from the very beginning to take a firm course towards the creation of sufficiently large agricultural or agrarian-industrial cities of a consistently socialist type.
4. In order to direct all communal and housing construction in the city and countryside along a new channel and begin to implement the tasks of socialist restructuring of everyday life already this year, immediately create a Government Committee under the STO (as a people's commissariat, with its subsequent transformation into a united people's commissariat USSR), directing the construction of industrial, agricultural and agro-industrial socialist cities and the socialist organization of everyday life in existing and newly built cities.
The aforementioned Governmental Committee under the STO shall be entrusted with the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Union Republics in the area of communal services and housing and communal construction.
5. Under the Government Committee under the STO, immediately create a Central State Institute for the design of cities, the construction of housing and amenity institutions and their internal equipment, based in its work on a number of central institutes existing and newly organized under individual departments and central institutions, and on a number of scientific -research institutes and institutions.
6. In all cases where large-scale housing construction is carried out in relation to a number of newly built or expanding industrial enterprises or is carried out within or near existing urban settlements, a general ad hoc building committee of the city or area should be created, which is decisive in matters of general planning. district and the location of industrial enterprises and uniting all housing construction and construction of enterprises and institutions serving communal and public life.
7. To issue a law prohibiting the implementation of communal and housing construction in the socialized sector of the city and the socialized sector of agriculture without the guidance of directives and norms issued by the specified Government Committee under the STO and without approval by the relevant planning authorities.
8. In order to avoid irrational spending of funds on housing and communal construction of the old type, suggest that all institutions and organizations in charge of and carrying out housing and communal construction, if possible, delay fundamental construction in the current year, replacing it, where possible, with temporary buildings (temporary barracks, etc.) and shifting the fundamental construction of a completely new type to the end of the current or the beginning of the next operating year”[25].
The content of this draft resolution fully corresponds to the content of Sabsovich's ideas. It is quite possible that it was this draft resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR that turned out to be the reason for the special attention of the party leadership to the persons of Sabsovich and Larin.
Looking ahead, it should be noted that after the release of the decree "On the restructuring of everyday life", Sabsovich's surname becomes an abusive stigma. But the proposals put forward by him, in a form "purified" from his name, in the subsequent period, are being implemented consistently and very purposefully. The same party and state bodies, which subjected the idea of socializing everyday life to condemnation and prohibition.
So, for example, the proposal is embodied "full productive use of women's labor on an equal basis with the work of men" and "liberation of women from household and childcare with maximum use of her in production" - calculations of the normative population of social cities and a practical policy on the use of labor resources in cities and social settlements, is entirely based on these provisions.
Another point of the Council of People's Commissars decree - on the construction of temporary housing ("temporary barracks") is also being implemented in practice: in 1930 and in the following years of the first five-year plan, capital construction of housing was practically not carried out. It is the "temporary" dwelling (barracks) that is becoming the main type of mass residential development in newly-built social cities.
The proposal to create a government body with the rights of the People's Commissariat, with its subsequent transformation into a united People's Commissariat of the USSR, which directs the construction of socialist cities, is also practically implemented. At the very end of 1930, in the course of reforming the state apparatus, according to the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR "On the unification of all new construction of cities and towns on a republican scale", the Main Directorate of Communal Services was created in the structure of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, at the disposal of which the whole complex of works was transferred on urban planning, which was previously under the jurisdiction of the republican People's Commissars of Internal Affairs: "… to transfer completely the functions of the liquidated People's Commissariats of Internal Affairs for the management of communal services, non-industrial construction, firefighting" [26]. Not being formally the People's Commissariat, the GUKH, in fact, has all the signs of such, and later, as it was indicated in the proposals of L. M. Sabsovich, turns into the "United People's Commissariat of the USSR" - the People's Commissariat of Communal Services of the USSR.
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NOTES:
[1] V. E. Khazanova Soviet architecture of the first five-year plan. Problems of the city of the future. M., Nauka, 1980.-- 374 p.
[2] Ginzburg M. Socialist reconstruction of existing cities // Revolution and culture. 1930. No. 1. p. 50-53; On the problem of the social city // Bulletin of the Communist Academy. 1930. No. 42, p. 109.
[3] V. E. Khazanova Decree. op. P. 105.
[4] On work on the reconstruction of everyday life - Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) / CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee (1898-1986). T. 5. 1929-1932. M.: Politizdat. 1984.– 446 p., Pp. 118-119.
[5] On the problem of the social city // Bulletin of the Communist Academy. 1930. No. 42. p.109-147., P. 109.
[6] In more detail the problematic and semantic content of the discussion is disclosed in the monograph The cemetery of social cities: urban planning policy in the USSR (1928–1932) / M. G. Meerovich, E. V. Konysheva, D. S. Khmelnitsky. - M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN); Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center Foundation, 2011. - 270 p.: ill. - (History of Stalinism).
[7] About work on the reconstruction of everyday life. Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) // CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee (1898 - 1986). T. 5.1929 - 1932. Moscow, 1984. S. 118 - 119.
[8] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 828. - 143 p., L. 87.
[9] Ibid.
[10] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 828. - 143 p., L. 88.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 828. - 143 p., L. 87.
[14] The meeting is attended by: comrades. Smirnov, Bubnov, Uglanov, Tolstopyatov, Saltanov, Zimin, Goltsman, Roizenman, Leplevsky, Tolmachev, Kuznetsov (RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 851. - 232 pages, L. 61-76).
[15] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 851. - 232 p., L. 61-76.
[16] Ibid.
[17] On the immediate tasks of the party for work among women workers and peasants: Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 15, 1929 // CPSU in resolutions … T. 4. M., 1983. S. 515.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Bulletin of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). No. 19 (278) dated July 13, 1929, p. 4.
[20] The meeting is attended by: members of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b): comrades. Artyukhina, Bauman, Bubnov, Gamarnik, Kaganovich, Kubyak, Moskvin, Rukhimovich, Smirnov, Uglanov; candidate members of the CPSU: Comrades. Antipov, Lobov, Shvernik; member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party: Comrade Krupskaya; candidate member of the Central Committee: comrade Ancelovich; from the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party: comrade. Pastukhov, Peters, Royzenman, Shkiryatov; heads of departments of the Central Committee: comrades. Bulatov, Kaminsky, Savelyev, Samsonov, Stetsky; deputy heads of departments of the Central Committee: comrades. Veger, Voronova, Gusev, Zimin, Katsenelenbogen; responsible instructors of the Central Committee: com. Krasnova, Clotheschepchik, Pshenitsyn; Assistant Secretaries of the Central Committee: Comrades Ashchukin, Levin, Mogilny; from the Central Committee of the Komsomol: comrade t. Kosarev, Saltanov, Serikov; from "Pravda": com. Maltsev, Popov.
[21] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 828. - 143 p., L. 4.
[22] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 851. - 232 p., L. 116.
[23] Ibid.
[24] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 861. - 194 p., L. 44-ob-45
[25] RGASPI F.17, Op.113., D. 851. - 232 p., L. 122-122-rev.
[26] NW USSR. 1930. First Division. No. 60. Art. 640, p. 1157.
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