HOUSING QUESTION

HOUSING QUESTION as a socio-economic and sanitary problem became particularly acute in all countries from the mid-19th century in connection with the general growth of industry and the increase in urban population. The difficult housing and sanitary living conditions of working populations in various countries existed earlier in other historical epochs. Medieval cities with their labyrinth of narrow streets, with overcrowding and cramped housing, Eastern cities with their classic neglect of hygiene requirements, rural dwellings of the smoky izba and dugout type—all this had previously sufficiently characterized the sanitary value of dwellings and buildings of various peoples and epochs and their negative influence on the health of residents. However, only from the mid-19th century, on the soil of modern economic relations in bourgeois society, did that sharp discrepancy between the influx of the working population into cities and industrial centers with the extreme shortage of housing emerge, in which Engels rightly sees the essence of the H.Q. in its modern understanding. This discrepancy between the demand for housing and the existing supply led to a series of socio-economic and socio-hygienic consequences and turned the discovered sharp housing shortage into a permanent housing crisis, characterized by extreme overcrowding of the population, high cost of apartments, and general deterioration of the sanitary conditions of the dwellings themselves. All these factors, and each of them individually and all the more so in their combination, further exacerbated all the harmful housing conditions that existed and exist everywhere, since the necessary hygienic norms and rules for the construction and maintenance of dwellings were usually not observed and are not observed. Overcrowding of the population in cities and overcrowding of dwellings were a natural consequence of the growth of cities and urban settlements (worker settlements at factories, etc.). The concentration of industry and its development, the emergence of railways and major commercial centers created an increased influx of population into cities; at the same time, there was impoverishment of agricultural groups, depopulation of rural areas, and a similarly strong outflow of the rural population. In modern England, over 75% of the population lives in cities, in the USA and Germany—from 35% to 50%. According to the 1897 census in Russia, the urban population was 13 percent, and in 1926 the urban population of the USSR was already 26,309,898 people out of a total population of 146,939,460, i.e. about 17%. The growth of large cities and the emergence of new urban centers in mining and processing industry regions also sharply increased. New urban population groups everywhere increased faster than the housing stock; this excess population settled on the outskirts of cities, settling into all sorts of premises previously not exploited as residential (attics, basements, light summer buildings, etc.). Then the excess population began to densify already occupied premises, creating "overpopulation" of them, leading to renting out small rooms, corners, beds ("bedroom-corner apartments"), the development of lodging houses, etc. According to official data from the late 19th century in London, the total number of people living in overcrowded apartments was estimated at 900,000. In 1900 in Berlin, the number of overcrowded apartments, i.e. those where there were at least 6 residents per room, was determined at 13% of the total number of apartments, and in one-room apartments, before the war, over 800,000 people lived. In Munich in 1904-05, about 130,000 people had less than 15 m³ per person, i.e. phenomena of overcrowding were sharply expressed. (For an increase in overcrowding in major cities of the USSR, see below—the housing question in the USSR.) This overcrowding of the population, besides all other consequences, first of all leads to a sanitary deterioration of housing, in particular to a sharp reduction in air volume per person compared to the normal sanitary norm (30 m³). The high cost of apartments is also a natural result of the housing shortage and the housing speculation that developed on this soil by owners of houses and urban land. The increased demand for apartments raised their prices; a kind of monopoly was created by the corresponding groups of homeowners who inflated the rent. At the same time, the increase in the value of land in cities raised land rent, which in turn affected the increase in rent; speculation on urban land and houses exacerbated the situation even more. The high cost of housing, especially small ones on worker outskirts, made the housing question one of the essential elements of the housing problem. For the working population in cities, the high cost led to an even greater deterioration of housing and sanitary conditions, causing an increase in the same overcrowding and settlement in unsuitable premises (basements); for homeowners, this was a source of profit and exploitation. Rent actually took away 20-30 and more percent of the tenant's entire income, disrupting the balance of his budget and forcing him to rent out corners and beds in his dwelling to supplement his budget. With increased demand for apartments, owners were not interested in improving them, and as a result, that paradoxical fact emerged that cheap apartments became relatively expensive, i.e. "the less a family's income, the larger part of their income they spend on rent, and vice versa" (Schwabe's law), i.e. that the cost of a unit of living area in cheap worker apartments costs significantly more than the same unit of living area in well-equipped bourgeois apartments. Karl Marx formulated this fact in his well-known statement that "the high cost of rent is in inverse relation to their quality." The war further exacerbated the issue of the cost of living space, although in most countries a so-called moratorium on rent was implemented during the war, i.e. a prohibition on increasing rent. However, after the war, the cost of rent everywhere increased in general. The sanitary condition of housing is closely connected with both of the above-mentioned factors—their overpopulation and high cost. Numerous housing surveys conducted in various countries both before and after the war paint an extremely unsanitary picture of the housing conditions of the broad masses of the population. As early as the mid-19th century, the classic works of Engels ("The Condition of the Working Class in England"), the corresponding chapters from the main works of K. Marx ("Capital") devoted to the same descriptions, the works of Engels in Germany and others gave a horrifying picture of the housing and sanitary living conditions of the industrial proletariat of these countries. The working population essentially did not have stability, since in search of housing it led a kind of nomadic lifestyle, while homeowners, by increasing rent, increased the mobility of the population, thereby worsening the sanitary conditions of apartments. All the negative aspects of such a situation were primarily reflected in the health of the population. Cramped apartments (lack of living space), cold in them (heating deficiencies), poor natural lighting (dark and semi-dark rooms), dampness (lack of ventilation, poor design and maintenance) and finally the general poor equipment of housing (lack of plumbing, sewage, etc.)—all this is confirmed by numerous later housing surveys. The description of London housing given in the famous book by Booth ("In Darkest England") at the end of the 19th century depicts the difficult living conditions of this city; surveys of German cities revealed a huge number of unheated but inhabited housing (Domashke and others); in France in the same years, there were over 200,000 apartments without daylight lighting (the result of a special tax on windows); in rich American cities, the poor still huddle in basements. Thousands and tens of thousands of homeless people fill various lodging houses. The same, or perhaps even more sad, picture of the sanitary conditions of housing in our cities and worker settlements is given in many descriptions by Russian authors. As early as the 1870s, Erisman gave a description of basement premises in St. Petersburg, where as late as 1912 up to 50,000 residents lived; it is superfluous to speak here about the significance for health of basement premises, especially in St. Petersburg, with its high groundwater level. Similar descriptions are found in the works of the Moscow provincial zemstvo on the survey of factories and plants of the Moscow province (1880s). Repeatedly conducted housing censuses in Moscow paint the same picture—semi-dark, damp, dirty, un-equipped housing of the Moscow population. The 1912 census in Moscow established that over 37% of bedroom-corner residents lived in cold rooms, up to 90% in damp premises. When surveying similar apartments in St. Petersburg, it was found that there were 6-7 m³ of air and about 2 m² (0.41 sq. sazhens) of floor per resident. In the Urals (Khlopin), in Baku (Glikman), Donbass (Lyashchenko) and other industrial regions, the sanitary condition of housing was even worse. In Donbass, the typical type of worker dwelling is a dugout; almost half of the residents do not have a separate bed and sleep on the floor without undressing. In Moscow, even later surveys (1917) give the same picture of overcrowding and poor sanitary condition (Vilents-Gorovitz). Naturally, such a poor condition of housing everywhere led to a whole series of harmful consequences for the health of the population.

The general mortality rate in poor and overcrowded parts of cities is usually higher than in other districts. The center, areas with more favorable housing conditions, show lower mortality rates. Tuberculosis has long been called the 'housing disease'; parasitic typhuses are diseases of lodging houses and crowded dwellings; rheumatism and nephritis are associated with dampness of premises; childhood diarrhea is linked to poor housing conditions (poor ventilation, overheating, etc.). Finally, the role of overcrowded and poor housing as a factor contributing to the development of alcoholism and other drug addictions, and the role of such housing in the development of prostitution, crime, etc., is also confirmed by a number of authors. Among all the negative aspects of modern city life, housing conditions often play one of the prominent roles. 'Dwellings and workers' settlements are the arena on which the tragedies of life are played out' (Rubner). The extensive material collected on the study of the H.Q. in different countries has made it possible to develop a special methodology for investigating the sanitary and socio-economic conditions of housing and a methodology for their processing and summarization. Economic surveys are conducted both through housing censuses and through budget studies. Sanitary surveys can be conducted either by the same comprehensive housing censuses according to special programs (as well as selectively in individual districts and areas) or by current records of various types. Examples include the so-called 'sanitary reports' of buildings, which contain basic sanitary information about each property and dwelling, to which other sanitary facts (cases of death, morbidity, etc.) are added in the course of ongoing supervision. Among sanitary indicators are: a) description of the plot, b) density of its development, c) population density by districts, by properties, by apartments, by rooms, d) living space per 1 inhabitant, e) overcrowding, f) volume of air per person, g) natural lighting, h) heating and ventilation, i) air humidity (dampness), j) condition of floors, walls, partitions, etc., k) equipment of apartments with water, removal of waste from them, their cleaning and sanitation, insects, etc. Overcrowding of apartments in different countries is understood as different degrees of their occupancy by residents: in England, an apartment is usually considered overcrowded if there are more than 2 residents per room, in Germany-5. Methods of resolving the H. question. The housing question in the broad sense of the term indicated above, i.e., the acute shortage and improper distribution of housing with all their sanitary consequences, is closely related to the general socio-political system of a given country and is a reflection in this area of the economic relationships between different classes. A radical resolution of the H.Q. can only occur with a fundamental restructuring of the existing economic system of capitalist countries. Private ownership of land and houses serves as an insurmountable obstacle to the elimination of housing shortage and to the elimination of the exploitation which in this area most cruelly affects the working groups. Therefore, everything done in this regard in bourgeois countries is only a certain palliative; the resistance of the propertied classes (and above all the house-owning groups) and the need for a correct solution to the H.Q. to violate the property rights of the latter set limits everywhere to all reforms in this matter. The war of 1914-18 forced the state power of the warring countries to intervene in the matter of resolving the H.Q. with a kind of military methods (moratorium, military billeting, requisitions); the result of this, as well as the general financial crisis of those years, was the complete cessation of housing construction and even the stopping of current repair of housing. The housing crisis sharply intensified everywhere, overcrowding increased, and the sanitary condition of housing deteriorated. To this must be added the enormous direct damage caused by the military operations themselves, which everywhere significantly reduced the housing stock. The housing question after the war therefore entered in the West to some extent a new phase, when the state was forced not only to take a closer part in improving housing conditions but also to recognize that the care for supplying the population with housing represents a state function. All measures taken before the war and now to resolve the H.Q. can be reduced to three groups of measures: a) housing and housing-sanitary legislation, b) housing construction, c) housing-sanitary supervision. The first attempts at housing legislation date back to the mid-19th century in England. These were the Shaftesbury laws (1851) on apartments for single persons, i.e., on furnished rooms, and the Torrens law (1868) on the right to condemn houses unfit for habitation. In the main 'Public Health Act' (1875), several articles also speak of the corresponding rights of sanitary authorities with regard to current supervision of housing. All these laws in general only more sharply confirmed the difficult housing conditions in English cities and the insufficiency of the measures taken. This fact was confirmed by a special parliamentary commission of 1885, which established the continuing poor sanitary condition of housing. In 1890, a new 'Working Class Housing Act' was published, which brought together all previously issued regulations and strengthened the rights of municipalities to demolish unhealthy housing and to build new ones. This law was quite widely applied in a number of English cities, but the increased housing construction and improvement of various insanitary districts also had its reverse side. Groups of population evicted from such districts and housing, usually those most in need, did not occupy the new houses built by municipalities due to higher rents and the presence of other candidates for housing, but settled in new districts, creating new 'slums'. The unsatisfactory state of affairs gave impetus to new legislative acts, and in 1909 a new law 'On Housing and Town Planning' (Housing, Town Planning Act, 1909) was published. This law introduced many new things and to this day is the most radical of the pre-war housing laws of European countries. Municipalities were granted the right to acquire houses and properties unfit for habitation by administrative order (and not by court, as before). Compensation is set by a special arbitration commission. 'Unfit' houses can be immediately closed upon establishment of their insanitary condition; a number of sanitary requirements for housing have been strengthened, more precise definitions of 'unfit' housing have been given, basement rooms for habitation have been prohibited. Finally, individual citizens were granted the right to demand from municipalities improvement of local housing conditions, and all disputes in this area should be resolved by central authority. (The application must be signed by at least 4 citizens.) The 1909 law had a number of positive results. From 1909 to 1913, in English cities, 114,623 notices were sent to house owners with proposals to improve the sanitary condition of their houses; a number of districts in cities were subjected to compulsory improvement; many new houses were built. This same 1909 law also raised for the first time the questions of proper town planning, obliging municipalities to begin drawing up plans as well as future plans for city expansion. During the last three years before the war, (according to a parliamentary report) about 130,000 houses were put in order. Thus in England even before the war significant improvements were made in the area of the H.Q., but a fundamental change still encountered economic conditions and above all the lack of necessary funds for construction, as private capital even then preferred to go to more profitable industries of industry. The sanitary condition of the existing housing stock undoubtedly improved over all these years under the influence of systematic sanitary supervision on the basis of the listed laws. In 1911 in England, most apartments were 3-6-roomed, the number of one-room apartments decreased (254,710), overcrowding began to somewhat weaken. After the war the H.Q. again arose as the largest socio-economic problem. As early as 1916, the 'National Council for Housing Reform' outlined the necessary steps to prevent a housing crisis, placing financial assistance to municipalities in the first place and developing types of housing (4-room apartments for one family). In 1919, the Ministry of Health was created in England, and one of its first steps was the implementation of the already prepared new Housing Act (1919). The entire housing problem in England is now a function of the Ministry of Health; in its activities are combined both sanitary, technical, and economic-financial questions of improving housing in the country. The new law makes a new decisive step in this area. All municipalities are obliged within a short specified period to submit a plan for local housing construction to meet all the needs of the working population with indication of financial calculations, choice of land plots, types of buildings, time of completion, etc.

The state takes upon itself the approval of these local plans and their financing through preferential loans, tax reductions, assistance to cooperatives, and covering the deficit (up to 3/4 of possible losses in operation and repayment). Preliminary surveys have established the need for England to build from 800,000 to 1,000,000 houses. The Ministry has issued in the "nearest years" a number of standard house types and schemes for their development. In the first 3 years, based on this law, over 200,000 new houses were built. However, on the grounds of financial operations related to this law, a number of difficulties arose, the struggle of interested wealthy groups intensified, speculation in building materials developed. The Housing Law of 1919 became one of the prominent objects of class and parliamentary struggle. The conservative government, coming to power, pursued its policy in this matter, reducing the role of the state (law of 1923); the MacDonald labor government in 1924 put forward a more liberal program (construction according to a 15-year plan, periodic review of implementation, guarantees of use by those actually in need of housing, struggle against speculation and resale of apartments) (Whitley law; 1924).-The general problem of H. Q. in England nevertheless remains pressing and urgent. In any case, within bourgeois relations, the housing law and practice of 1919 in England is the most radical attempt to improve housing conditions in Europe. State intervention in housing affairs is developing much more modestly in other European countries. In Germany before the war, there were no imperial laws in this field; only individual states that were part of the Imperial Union implemented certain forms of housing and sanitary supervision over existing housing, and cooperative housing construction was quite widely carried out with very weak state support. After the war, a sharp housing crisis arose, and due to financial difficulties, the state's activity in combating this crisis went in the direction of a more equitable distribution of the existing housing fund, of course again within the framework of existing economic relations. In 1920, a general German law about the shortage of housing (Wohnungsmangelgesetz) was issued, giving municipalities fairly broad rights in the area of requisitioning living quarters, occupying vacant premises, densifying them, distributing newly vacated apartments, etc. At the same time, the Ministry of Labor issued a number of instructions on this matter; all distribution of living space was to some extent centralized (in special municipal housing bureaus). Subsequent orders of 1921-23 allowed a number of deviations from these basic rules of 1920. Special regulations established the queues of persons and families who should be supplied with apartments in the first place. The housing crisis in Germany is still acutely felt; the housing census of 1927 established that about 950,000 families need apartments. The housing situation is even weaker in France. According to the law of 1906, supplementing the law of 1894 "On the organization of cheap housing", the right of communes to care for the improvement of housing and to establish special committees was established, but only as an optional right. The law of 1902 "On the protection of public health" established the right to expropriate unhealthy housing, but the payment for this expropriation is such that this law has yielded no results. The moratorium introduced during the war remains in force with minor exceptions even now, easing rent, but very little new construction is taking place. However, in this respect the state has now (1929) made concessions to homeowners, and the moratorium is gradually being lifted with a simultaneous sharp increase in rent. The general need for housing in France after the war was determined at 500,000 houses (1922-23). Only in 1928 did the parliament pass the so-called construction program of Loucher, which is to begin implementation in 1929 and provides for the construction of 260,000 housing units within five years. The type of apartment established is a 4-room apartment. The annual expenditure for construction is determined at 1,300,000,000 francs. Certain measures to improve housing conditions are also being carried out in all other countries (Austria, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Holland, etc.), mainly in the direction of increased state participation in housing construction—directly or through special tax levies. Thus, the activity of European states at present is directed towards the legislative regulation of new housing construction. The huge funds needed for this are only partially covered by state appropriations, a significant part comes in the form of cooperative investments, municipal construction, and other sources. Despite the unquestionable increase in construction in all countries in recent years in connection with the laws of various countries, the fundamental resolution of the housing crisis, as European experience shows, lies beyond existing bourgeois relations, only in the recognition of the principle of nationalization of urban land and houses. This is particularly emphasized by the pre-war experience of municipal and especially entrepreneurial housing construction by the manufacturers themselves, when housing for workers became in certain cases a means of enslaving workers (Krupp factories in Germany). But in any case, the modern policy of European states has provided much of interest in the field of new technical methods of housing construction, development of new types, their standardization, proposal of new building materials and new planning methods.-The last group of measures to improve housing conditions is the so-called housing and sanitary supervision, both in the field of preventive measures (drawing up plans and projects for housing, planning, etc.) and especially in the field of current sanitation (see Housing and sanitary supervision).

a. sysin. Housing Question in the USSR.The causes that exacerbated the H. Q. in Western Europe were also present in pre-revolutionary Russia. Even before the war, the number of housing, especially of small size, in large cities and industrial areas was far from sufficient. City self-governments almost completely did not deal with H. Q. Factories, even the richest, kept the majority of their workers in conditions that excluded any possibility of decent housing in sanitary terms. According to data from the Yekaterinoslav provincial zemstvo for 1912, out of 2,757 worker-miner apartments, 1,331 had earthen floors, 818 had no ceilings; for 1,000 apartments only 74 had a normal amount of light; 84% of workers did not have a normal amount of air.Worker barracks with solid sleeping bunks, often in 2 and even 3 tiers, in which family workers often lived, separating themselves from each other with calico curtains, provided housing for far from all workers. The decree of 4/VII 1894 on the elimination of dugouts for workers remained on paper, and dugouts throughout the Donbas continued to exist until the Soviet power. The housing crisis was extremely great even in the capital. Shipyard workers in St. Petersburg, according to official data from the city sanitary commission for 1910, lived on sewer barges that carried waste out to sea. In the lodging houses of the same St. Petersburg, according to the same data, 130 people slept on 30 places. In Moscow, bed-sitting-room apartments constituted 15.2% of the total number of occupied apartments and housed 17.4% of the entire population of Moscow. In 1912, there were counted in Moscow apartments with rental of beds and sitting-rooms in the city 21,065 with 283,300 inhabitants, and in the suburbs-3,552 with 43,338 people, while at that time as on average 1 apartment in Moscow had 8.7 inhabitants, in these apartments-1 1/2 times more (13.3 people). By 1917, such apartments already numbered 27,095 with a population of 340,589. The growth in Moscow of bed-sitting-room apartments progressed sharply: 1899

1912

1917. Bed-sitting-room apartments. 16,376 24,597

326,638

340,589- Percentage of total population. 17.4 20.2

Of the population in dormitory-room apartments, 14.4% belonged to factory workers; additionally, in this same population there were 4% laborers, 3.7% lower railway employees and 3.1% servants. The February Revolution of 1917 did not bring any improvement in the H.Q. The Provisional Government issued only one housing law, of August 5, 1917, which was supposed to regulate the relations between homeowners and tenants, however it was unable to satisfy either one or the other. By the beginning of the October Revolution, all the negative aspects of the housing question were present. During the time of the imperialist and later civil wars, the housing crisis intensified even more: the loss of housing amounted to at least 1/6 of the entire urban housing stock. Construction of new housing from 1914-21, with rare exceptions, did not occur in cities, and even buildings that had been started remained unfinished. Despite such a loss of housing space, no particular need for housing was observed in the first years after the October Revolution. This is explained in part by the massive outflow of population from industrial centers to the countryside, but mainly by those social reforms that were carried out in housing legislation after the October Revolution. For the first time, and precisely in the USSR, the resolution of the H.Q. was approached by a revolutionary path, by abolishing the right of private ownership of housing and land, by radical intervention by the workers' state in the distribution of the housing stock. The decrease in the population of cities in the USSR in 1920, which was 61% in the capitals compared to 1917, 25% in industrial regions, and 16% in grain-producing regions, also facilitated the implementation of necessary measures. The VTsIK decree of August 20, 1918 'On the Abolition of the Right of Private Ownership of Real Estate in Cities' and the SNK decree of May 25, 1920 'On Measures for the Proper Distribution of Housing Among the Working Population' made it possible in the years mentioned for workers to improve their housing conditions and at the same time laid the foundation for all Soviet legislation in the H.Q. and determined its housing policy. The confiscation of mansions and extensive noble apartments contributed to a more uniform settlement of housing, eliminating the sharp contrast in the use of housing by wealthy and poor groups of the population. Corner, dormitory-room and other unsuitable housing, inhabited by the poorest layers of the population, were eliminated. The eviction of the urban poor and first of all workers from basements made it possible to eliminate the most harmful housing from a sanitary point of view. Thus, in Moscow by 1919 there were 2,543 inhabited basements, but in the first 2 years alone 719 were closed, or about 1/3. Compaction and requisition were applied almost exclusively to purely bourgeois apartments, which were also inhabited by workers. Compaction and requisition of apartments in Moscow for 1918 were expressed in the following dimensions: Apartments and rooms Total number Requisitioned Compacted Total requisitioned and compacted abs. % abs. % Rooms . . . . . 223,805 1,802 638,084 12,935 0.8 2.1 2,450 11.185 1.1 2.2 4,252 27,723 1.9 4.3 In them residents 1,710,605 22,013 1.3 21,731 2.5 As a result of these and other below-mentioned measures, a certain, sharply visible change occurred in the use of housing by different groups of the population after the very first five years of Soviet power. In 1912 the average occupancy of apartments in Moscow was 1.99 people per room, in 1923 it was 2.19, i.e. the overall density increased, but the overcrowding of small apartments and the uneven use of living space significantly decreased. In 1912 overcrowding of small apartments was 62%, in 1923 only 23%; in 1912 the distribution of living space was extremely uneven—from 1.08 to 6.21 people per room on average in different layers of the population, in 1923 the majority (70.3%) lived in apartments with a density of 1.96-2.08 people per room. As a result of the redistribution of living space in Moscow in 1923, under conditions of overcrowding (less than 2/3 room per person), about 2/3 of the population lived instead of 2/3 in 1912. Per 100 people of the population they used: 1 room and more in 1912-7.1; in 1923-8.6; from 2/3 to 1 room-31.2 and 54.7; from 1/3 to 1 room-57.2 and 31.8; less than 1/3 room-4.9 and 4.5.

The management of housing by the tenants themselves (housing rental cooperatives and housing associations) under the control of Soviet power, the registration of free living space for settlement by workers, the standardization of the use of living space, class-based calculation of rent and other measures made it possible in the future to secure the use of living space for workers and improve their housing conditions. Particularly significant improvements were made in factory settlements, where through compaction of higher administration and employees, as well as eviction of persons not directly related to the enterprise, implementation of a number of measures for improvement, and later new significant housing construction—it was possible to provide workers with new additional funds of living space for family workers and dormitories for single people. Thus, in Moscow in 1921 there were already 607 communal houses and 6,210 large houses inhabited almost exclusively by workers. A survey of the Lenin district of Baku in 1925 showed that compared to 1913 there was a certain shift in the reduction of barracks-type apartments and an increase in family apartments; the number of barracks-type apartments decreased from 3,143 apartments in 1913 to 294 apartments in 1925, i.e. 14 times; the population in barracks—from 24,101 people to 3,210 people, i.e. 7.9 times. The sanitary significance of these measures is self-evident. However, with the restoration of the national economy and the growth of industry, the influx of population into the cities of the USSR again sharply increased (increase in population already from 1920 to 1923 for capitals by 65% and for industrial cities by 19%), and in connection with this, the need for living space began to grow again (in 1923 on average per 1 urban inhabitant there were 6.46 m²). In addition, the condition of the existing housing fund naturally deteriorated due to the long absence of repairs, careless attitude to the maintenance of apartments, frequent change of tenants, etc. The measures of Soviet power from this time therefore significantly expanded, and as a result extensive new legislation was created. Among the measures it is necessary to especially note housing construction, as a result of which it was possible not only to stop the decline in living space but even to achieve a real increase for the nearest five-year period, with the largest part of the constructed living space going to satisfy the needs of workers, and the construction itself being carried out in places of concentration and development of industry taking into account the interests and demands of the working population. The table on p. 359 shows the number of newly built, completed and restored houses in the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR and BSSR. This amounts to the entire living space in cities and urban-type settlements, calculated in 1924 at 120 million m², -0.9%, 1925 for 1923-0.8%, -1.4% and 1926-2.4%. As can be seen from the census data, not only are the dimensions of housing construction growing, but the pace of this growth is also increasing; thus, taking 100 as the new living space in 1923, the new living space in 1924 is 113.7, in 1925-146.8 and in 1926-169.7, with the development of housing construction in the state and cooperative sectors going faster than the private, and the share of this construction increasing every year. Particularly distinguished by construction are industrial regions: with an average number of square meters of new living space per 1,000 inhabitants 283.5 for the four-year period and 124.0 in 1926, there is: Regions 1923-26 (in m²) 1926 (in m²) Grozny district ..... Ivanovo-Voznesenskaya gub. Kuznetsky okrug Siberian region Lugansky okrug Ukrainian SSR . . Artemovsky okrug . . Stalinsky okrug

246,8 » » (203,3%) The sum of expenditures on housing construction by housing construction cooperatives in millions of rubles was: Expenditures 1925. 1926. 1927. 1928. Expenditures on all housing construction in USSR . . . 256,5 286,7 500,0 Expenditures on cooperative housing construction . . 24,3 47,0 86,0 91,0 Share of cooperative housing construction 15,5 16,4 21,8 18,4 As a result of these measures, although slowly, the housing crisis is being alleviated. In 1926/27, there were 5.25 m² of living space per person, in 1927/28 - 5.61 m², in 1928/29 - 5.75 m². The major measures being implemented to resolve the H.Q. corresponded to Soviet housing legislation, which can be divided into several major sections. I. Legislation on the H.Q., aimed at preserving and regulating the use of the existing housing stock: 1) general provisions defining the rights and obligations of various departments (NKVD, NKZ, NKT, NKPS, VSNKh, etc.), institutions (Central Communal Bank, local city banks, Gosstrakh, etc.) and public organizations (housing cooperatives, construction and rental); 2) decrees on nationalized and municipalized buildings, their operation and management; 3) decrees on privately owned buildings - right of ownership and right of development; 4) decrees on the use of living space and rent; 5) decrees on buildings for special purposes (cultural and educational institutions, waiting rooms and overnight lodges, military buildings, etc.). II. Legislation on new housing construction, aimed at its development and cost reduction: 1) general provisions on management, regulation, standardization and control of housing construction; 2) decrees concerning land organization, land use and planning of populated areas in connection with housing construction in them; 3) decrees on measures to support new housing construction, its financing and credit; 4) decrees standardizing housing construction itself and concerning the design of housing, building materials and construction work. Preservation of the existing housing fund is constantly at the center of attention of the Soviet authorities, for which a) first and foremost, sanitary supervision of housing is introduced and strengthened (SNK decree of 16/VI 1919 "On the sanitary protection of housing" and of 6/VI 1921 "On the unification of the entire sanitary protection of housing in NKZdr"), b) the procedure for managing buildings is established (Regulation on the management of buildings, approved by SNK on 8/VIII 1921) and responsibility for their preservation (SNK decree of 23/I 1922 "On the responsibility of citizens and administration of institutions for the preservation of occupied premises", SNK decree of 6/X 1921 "On state property insurance", etc.), c) the settlement of housing is regulated, and eviction from them is clarified, both judicial and administrative (decree of VTsIK and Sovnarkom of RFSFR of 16/VIII 1926 "On the restriction of compulsory consolidations and relocations in apartments"). Another fundamental issue in housing that has attracted serious attention is the issue of rent; here two principles have been adopted: class-based calculation of rent and the principle of self-sufficiency of apartments. The introduction of rent tariffs based on wages and occupation (class criterion), the establishment of living space standards, the provision of additional space or a room to sick persons working at home and scientific workers, the allocation of excess living space and its mandatory surrender to the communal fund - all have the same purpose - to alleviate the housing crisis, which is increasing with the urbanization of the country, and to give the entire settlement a character of class-based, uniform and more just distribution of living 3fil housing question 862 space. The transfer of the municipalized fund to the population through housing rental cooperation further contributed to the cooperation of the population in this area and again has major political significance. The enacted legislation on housing cooperation made possible the broad participation of the working population in it (decree of CIK and SNK of USSR of 19/VIII 1924 "On housing cooperation"). Finally, Soviet legislation not only extracted the most valuable and significant holdings from homeowners (by area about 50% of the entire housing stock), but also with respect to those dwellings that remained in private hands, introduced certain restrictions in the interests of the working population, such as: the right to pay for premises at the tariff established by law, the right to renew the lease of residential premises without the consent of the homeowner, etc. Thus, the elimination of exploitation, municipalization and nationalization of buildings, restriction of private homeownership, accessibility of housing for the working population at rent, and uniform distribution of living space among them, sanitary protection of housing, involvement of the population in the management and conduct of household operations, operation of household operations in the interests of preserving housing and creating necessary amortization funds for new housing construction to replace worn-out buildings (law of 15/III 1926 "On the formation in cities and workers' settlements of special capital funds for housing") - these are the distinctive features of Soviet housing legislation, which sharply distinguish it from bourgeois countries. All these measures now provide a full and real basis for resolving the H.Q. Along with the problem of preserving the housing stock and its proper operation, Soviet legislation has also widely posed and systematically resolved another problem of the H.Q. - housing construction. The accelerated pace of industrialization of the country and the associated significant growth of the population in cities and workers' settlements have led in the first years to a further decrease in living space per person to 5.69 m² in 1928/29. Therefore, special attention is now being directed to the development, cost reduction and rationalization of housing construction itself and the involvement of broad masses of the population in it. The nationalization of land, freeing from the costs of acquiring land plots and eliminating land speculation, as well as the special conditions of the Soviet system, have created favorable conditions for the participation of working masses in cooperative and individual housing construction. The Regulation on the terms and procedure for credit from basic capital of communal banks for individual builders from among workers and employees, approved by SNK of RFSFR on 17/XII 1927, the Regulation on measures to support the construction of workers' housing, approved by CIK and SNK of USSR on 30/I 1929, and others - have provided a solid basis for the development of cooperative and individual housing construction. The creation of central bodies (Commission on Construction under STO - SNK of USSR decree of 22/III 1927 and Construction Commission of RFSFR - SNK of RFSFR decree of February 17, 1928) and local bodies ("Regulation on the management of construction control in regions, provinces and governorates of RFSFR", approved by VTsIK and SNK of RFSFR on 27/11 1928) bodies that standardize, regulate and control construction, the organization of state construction enterprises (decree of CIK and SNK of USSR of 7/III 1927), state financing and crediting of housing construction (decree of SNK of USSR of 24/I 1928) have given the entire construction the character of a state measure carried out with the direct participation and planning of the state with the aim of overcoming the housing crisis exclusively in the interests of the working population and with its active support. The scale that our housing construction is acquiring in the USSR is already evident from the financial expenditures on this matter, which are currently passing through both state and local budgets, and through cooperatives, and through loans from communal banks. Thus, in cities of RFSFR in the construction season of 1928/29, 324.6 million rub. were invested in housing construction; control figures for housing construction in RFSFR for 1929/30 provide for appropriations already in the amount of 518.1 million rub., with a significant increase in new housing construction in the socialized sector, which can be seen from the following main indicators according to control figures for 1929-1930 on the housing economy of RFSFR. Investments in new housing construction I. Socialized sector Executive committees......... Housing cooperatives...... Republican and local industry..... Transport......... Union industry . Others...........| &ch v~ al sch S4 a -- --, (O 1> « a S1 a ot t4 ^tCh in millions rub. 68,0 54,7 17,1 82,9 Total . II. Private sector . 195,1 70,0 Total.....265,1 345,1 413,7 626,9 85,2 67,2 73,4 100,4 37,7 33,0 44,2 94,7 195,0 4 0 - 266,1 79,0 324,7 518,1 89,0 108,8 Finally, the SNK of RFSFR decree of 15/XI 1927 "On measures for housing in urban settlements", the CIK and SNK of USSR decree of 4/I 1928 "On housing policy" and the VTsIK and SNK of RFSFR decree of 31/XII 1928"

"On the policy and practice of worker housing construction in cities and worker settlements" gives a unified direction to the entire H. Q. as a whole, both in strengthening the planned nature of housing construction, its ordering, reduction of cost, and development, and in the operation and management of the housing stock, its preservation and restoration. In the area of new housing construction, as well as in the operation of the existing housing stock, all sanitary requirements and standardization occupy a prominent place, both in the aforementioned resolutions and in the special resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of June 6, 1928 "On measures to improve the sanitary condition of worker housing construction and improvement of worker settlements" and in the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of August 20, 1928 "On measures to satisfy the cultural and domestic needs of the population of worker housing." Summarizing all measures taken on the housing question by the Soviet power, the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of November 31, 1928 "On the policy and practice of worker housing construction in cities and worker settlements" characterizes the work done as follows: "As a result of the working class's seizure of state power and the systematic implementation of Soviet housing policy, the housing conditions of the working population have significantly improved: mass resettlement of workers from basements and small cubicle rooms to better-equipped housing has been carried out; in a number of districts, the population density of old worker barracks has decreased; the state and local government bodies have invested significant funds in housing construction; in order to accelerate housing construction, builders have been provided with concessions in the areas of credit, taxation, timber allocation, transportation, and others; a system has been created and the activity of housing construction and housing rental cooperatives has developed, which contributed to attracting the initiative and funds of the working people to the struggle against the housing crisis; thanks to large investments, the construction of new houses for workers in urban centers and worker settlements has expanded, replacing old insanitary housing; legislative norms for the protection of the housing interests of working people have been established. As a result of all the listed measures, despite the significant wear and tear of the old housing stock during the imperialist and civil wars, the average per capita area in the RSFSSR has increased compared to the pre-war period, and the housing conditions of workers have improved in sanitary and domestic respects," e. Bragin.