Housing, 1917-53 Flashcards
What was Lenin’s initial solution for providing housing?
Property was requisitioned from aristocrats and given to working people.
What happened to many aristocratic houses during the Civil War?
They were torn down so their timber could be used for fuel in light of the shortage crisis
What proportion of housing was denationalised by the NEP?
60-80%
What policy replaced house requisitioning under the NEP?
House construction on private contracts
How did Lenin start to backtrack on his ban on requisitioning houses?
In 1923 large town houses began to be “socialised”, with homeowners being forced to live one room so the others could be occupied by workers
What was the style of building that was the most popular under the NEP?
Constructivist
How did Stalin adapt existing housing blocks in cities?
He divided them up into 5.5 meter squared kommunalka
How were bathrooms and kitchens managed in kommunalka?
They were communal
How did the size of the kommunalka change over time?
Pressure for housing meant that by 1940 the average size was reduced to 4 meters squared
Who were corner dwellers?
People who lived in the corridors or the communal kitchens of the kommunalka. They weren’t even cheap - it generally cost half of the average worker’s wage
In what ways did the government fail to invest in communal facilities?
- In one Moscow district there were 650,000 without a bath house between them
- In the 1930s electrification and building of streetlights slowed
Give an example of a new factory town that sprang up under Stalin
Magnitogorsk, whose population went from 25 to 250,000
What accommodation was provided for people in the new factory towns?
Families had to share communal baracks made of straw and timber. They didn’t have running water, bathrooms or electricity.
What percentage of workers in Magnitogorsk ended up living in mud huts?
20%
Who occupied the state-of-the-art housing that had been constructed in Magnitogorsk?
American advisers and factory managers
