Socialist Reconstruction of Moscow and Other Cities in the U.S.S.R.

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/ SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES IN THE U.S.S.R.j BY L. M. KAGANOVICH "'

INTERNATlONAL PUBLfSH ·ERS NEW YORK

CONTENTS I. THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND TOWN

DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . From Restoration to Socialist Reconstruction .

Inc.

II. TOWN DEVELOPMENT IN MOSCOW Toward a New Moscow . . Housing . . . . . . . . Fuel and a City Heat Supply Water Supply . . . . . Road and Sub-Surface Work . . . . . City Transport . . . . . . . . . . Ill. TOWN 'DEVELOPMENT IN THE us. s. R. . . . Water Supply, Drainage, Transport, and Housing New Forms of Building Material and Equipment Better Technique and Better Leadership . . . IV. THE LINES OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITIES OF THE U. S. S. R. . . . . . . . . The Socialist Reconstruction of Life and Habits Town Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Expansion of Old Cities and the Building of New Ones . . . . . . . . . . .

5 9 14 14 23 33 39 47 51 61 62 69 74 81 82 87 90

V. THE SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CITIES OF THE U. S. S. R. . . . . 100

~rioted in the U.S.S.R. by Trade Union Labom•

RESOLUTION OF THE PLENUM OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE REPORT OF COMRADE L. M. KAGANOWICH . . . . . . . . . I. Successes in Socialist Reconstruction and Municipal Development . . . . 11. Moscow Municipal Development . . . Ill. The Development of Municipal Economy in th.! V. S. S. R. . . . . . . . . . .

107 107 109 120

• SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES IN THE U. S. S. R. The current work being done to remove the defects in town development and to bring our cities, particularly Moscow, into a state of good order, bears a direct relation to the extensive problems of socialist reconstruction of the old large industrial centres and the construction of the new cities that are springing up in connection with the creation of new centres of industry, of tractor and machinery stations, and of soviet and collective farms. We have been brought up against this most important of problems by the very process of development of socialist construction. The Party has consistently, step by step, solved, and is continuing to solve, the fundamental problems of the socialist revolution. Starting with the seizure of power in October and its consolida· tion in the civil war, followed by the cementation of the alliance with the peasantry on the basis of the New Economy Policy, by the industrialisation of industry and the collectivisation of agriculture, we have now come squarely up against the problem. of the reconstruction and construction of our cities. These tasks, mutually bound up one with the other, have always faced the Party, but at each given historical stage it was one particular task that occupied the forefront of the attention of the Party of the proletariat. I. THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND TOWN DEVELOPMENT Having for many years fought against the capitalist exploitation of the working class, our Party after the October Revolution not only smashed the apparatus of pour~eois and landlord power, not only expropriat~~

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OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND TOWN DEVELOPMENT 7 6

DEVELOPMENT OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES

ban~ing, commercial and industrial capital, but a~?hshed the bourgeois house-owning system in

also our Cities. Here too, the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat did not confine itself merely to replacing the apparatus of the old city administration by a new apparatus - the Soviets of Workers' Deputies; the Party placed the administration of the cities at the ~isposal of the proletariat, to serve the satisfaction of Its needs and the fulfilment of its historical mission. The work of town improvement of the old city admini.st:atio~s, as; indeed, at the present day of all city admm~strabons m every capitalist country, was enveloped m a fog of democratic and even "socialistic" phrases. If the b~urgeoisie ever does do anything to ~mprove the workmg class sections it is only because It Is. compelled to do so in its own interests; epidemics, for mstance, have a way of spreading to the bourgeois districts of the city. But as a matter of fact in the sphere of town hr~provement the bourgeoisie 'pursues a .naked class pohcy. The bourgeoisie is not content ~Ith the suq~lus value it squeezes out of the workers ~n the factories and workshops. Town management Is bu~ a means for the additional exploitation of the workmg class. , There are in~ocent. people who believe that good order and cleanliness Is the rule in every quarter of such l~rge cities as London, New York, Paris, Berlin, and VIenna. Naturally, these cities have a high level of material and. technical development and are in a better state of Improvement than our cities; but all t~e J?Ore crudely !he fact stands out that the workers ln:e m the most miserable conditions. In Jack London Mike Gold and similar writers you will find picture~ of the poorer quarters of such cities as London and ~ew York, where the most wretched housing conditions, .dampness, fi!th, disease, and so forth prevail. ~ven Ip bo~st~d VIenna 1 wher~ Hw Soci~l-D~qtocrats

brag of the houses they have built, large masses of workers live in barrack buildings in the most wretched circumstances. It need hardly be stated that a diametrically opposite policy lies at the foundation of our city construction and m ana0ctement. In our socialist economic system there is neither surplus value, nor exploitation. In the land of the Soviets the worker works for himself and his surplus product is used ~or the construction o~ n.ew factories and workshops, city development, the bmldmg of houses, hospitals, schools, etc. With us, city management has one purpose and one aim, viz., to give the best possible service to the working class an~ provide the best possible improvements for the workmg cla~s quarters. Housing, which until the revolution, and ~n the capitalist countries to this day, was a means m the hands of private capitalists for the brutal exploitation of the working and toiling masses, in the country of the Soviets has been socialised and placed at the service of the working class. The October Revolution abolished the old capitalist policy in city administration. The bourgeois quarters of the cities, the modern, aristocratic houses, were filled by working men and working women, who formerly lived in basements, barrack buildings, rooming houses and doss houses in the most gloomy and filthy districts of the city. It need only be said that in Moscow alone half a million workers and toilers have been settled in the modern houses situated in the centre of the city. The Sadova Ring, in which prior to the revolution only 3 to 5 per cent of workers lived, is now inhabited by from 40 to 50 per cent of workers. Take, for instance, one of the facts revealed by a recent investigation. . M. Y. Bubentzov, joiner, a shock-worker in the "Geofizika" Works, 36 years of age. In the old days ~hift~d frolll b!isenwnt to pa.semeqt. In 192() WflS Siven

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DEVELOPMENT OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES

of the ~orkin~ class, which has grown to such gigantic proportions smce the October Revolution. In the sphere of the economic life of the country of indust.ry al!d agr.iculture, we have repeatedly pointed to the. his~onc~l diSJ?roportion to which we fell heir. Yet this h~stoncal disproportion _is still more striking and acute m the sphere of town development. In prerevolutionary Russia town development was at an ~xtrem~ly low level and, of course, beneath all comparIson w1th. the more advanced cities of Europe. A few figures will suffice to illustrate this. Only 219 cities out of 1,063, or only one-fifth, possessed water supply systems, as compared to from 75 to 100 per cent in Europe and the U.S.A. On the eve of the revolution there was in. all 2,089 kilometres of tramway line, as compared with tens of thousands of kilometres in Europe; American cities alone possess 75,000 kilometres. • Moscow consumed only 8 cu. metres of household gas per head, as compared with 400 cu. metres in London and 170 cu. metres in Berlin. Yet eve~ these back":ard town enterprises, during t?e whole eight years of Imperialist war and intervention, were not only not kept in a state of restoration not only. not further developed, but in many instance~ fell to pieces. Intervention wrought serious damaae to a. nu~b~r of cities. Cities in £he Ukraine, the Urals, ~Ibena, .m the Volga Basin and in other places were m the duect areas of military operations and suffered severely. ~he G~r~an, British, French, American and Japanese tmperiahsts, hand in hand with the White Guard generals. and the. p seudo-socialists of the S.R. and Menshev1k camps, mflicted severe damage on th ·r of the J]kraine (Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Yekateri~oc;l~~s etc.), cities (Archangel, etc. ) , c't' • th on V the 1 northern . I Ies' m ~. o.ga ;eg1?n (Samara, Kazan, Simbirsk, etc.) ~n9 ~~ti~-\l m Sibena, tlw Vr~J~ ~md tb~ Far E~st. These

OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND TOWN DEVELOPMENT

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gentlemen, who hypocritically declared themselves defenders of culture and civilisation, dealt mercilessly with cities which even before that were poverty stricken and backward in their development. According to the calculations of Prof. Lyubimov in his pamphlet Our Bill to the Foreign Capitalist~, the cities of the Soviet Union suffered damage from mtervention to the extent of 2,100,000,000 rubles. Hence, we inherited not merely a backward state of city development; we inherited cities in a state of dilapidation, cities which had suffered vast losses in the imperialist war and intervention. This is particularly true of the housing fund. During the period of intervention and civil war all the energies and attention of the Party and the proletariat were concentrated on crll5hing the enemies of the proletariat and driving them out of the count~y. After intervention, and after the successful conclusiOn of the civil war, when industrial production had fallen to 20 per cent and agricultural production to 60 per cent, the Party and the Soviet government made it their first duty to restore industry and agriculture. Every worker knows that without an industrial basis there can be no question of town development. Naturally, the restoration ,of our town development continued contemporaneously, but the rate of restoration fell far behind the restoration of industry and agriculture. And only when industry and agriculture had completed the period ofrestoration and entered on theperiod of reconstruction, in a ·word, only during the last three years has it become possible to undertake an extensive programme of restoration and development of our cities. As a result, we have now completely restored our city amenities and, indeed, a number of large cities, such as Moscow and Leningrad, have even surpassed the pre-war level, and have entered on the reconstructive phase of their development.

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DEVELOPM!!NT OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES

quarters in. an aristocratic house on Khlebny Pereulqk, No: 19. Prwr to the revolution in this house lived a rebr~d .general,. Vasiliev, the British Consul, Lockhart, a mmmg engmeer, Fenin, and other notables and rentiers. This house is now occupied almost exclusively by workers. Bubentzov occupies a room of 15 square metres together with his wife and six-year old daughter. Two months ago a son was born to him. One could cite thousands of such cases. " Our ~arty, in its programme, having noted that the Soviet government completely expropriated all the houses of the capitalist landlords and transferred them to the city soviets, proceeded to transfer workers wholesale from the outskirts of the cities into the houses of the bourgeoise, handed over the best of these ho~ses to the workers' organisations, assuming their mamtenance as a charge to the state proceeded to provide the familjes of the workers with furniture ~tc.," made it its duty "to endeavour in every way t~ Improve the housing conditions of the toiling masses· to dem_?lish unfit d'':ellings, to reconstruct old house~ and ~~Ild new ones, m accordance with the new living condi!IOns of. th~ w~rking masses, ~nd to bring about a r~,dtcal redistnbutwn of the habitations of the toilers. The progra~me laid down the duty of carrying o~t extensive s~mtary measures in the interests of the t~I~ers, as, .for ~~stance, (a) improving the health con. d~hons of mhabited places (soil protection, water and a1r)} (?) t~e ~eeding of the people on scientific and hygiemc prmc1ples, etc. . In spite of the vast difficulties encountered in the work o~ rest?ri~g the damage wrought to our cities by the !mpertahst war and intervention, we have, on th~ basis of the successes achieved in the industrialisatiOn of the .country and the socialisation of aoriculture, done a great deal during the last few years the sphere of towp. development. It need,. only be st~t~9

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OCTOBER REVOLUT-ION AND TOWN DEVELOPMENT

9

that during the past five years over 3Yz ~illion rubles hnve been invested in new house constru~twn thr~u?h­ out the U.S.S.R. and that during this periOd 30 millt_?n Hquare metres of new housing space h~ve b~~n bmlt. Up to 1931 about one million workers famih.es have heen settled in these new houses, whereas. m 1931 nlone 600 000 workers' families will be provided for. The tram~ay, water supply and drainage syste~ns botp of old cities and of new cities· have been constderably extended. Tramway systems have been introduced for the first time in Baku, Minsk, Stalingrad, Perm and other cities. Practically all extensions of tramway,.water supply and drainage systems have taken place m the working class districts. In spite of the inadeq~acy of. what has been done in this sphere from the pomt of v1ew of the ever gro':ing needs of the workers and toilers, let the bourgeois slanderers point to one country in Europe where such extensive housing construction has been undertaken during the past five years. During this period a number of cities have been reconstructed, such as, Baku, Grozny Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Nizhni-Novgorod, etc. M~reover, a number of entirely new cities have been built, such as Magnitogorsk, Dnieprostroy, Kuznetsk , Dzerzhinsk, etc.

From Restoration to Socialist Reconstruction The city resources that the October Revolution redistributed to the advantage of the working class proved to be at such a low material and technical level and damaged to such an extent as a .result ~f the Imperialist War and the counter-revoluh?na~y mt~r­ vention of the White generals and the fore1gr; Impe~Ia­ lists, that even with the consistently proletarian pohcy pursued by the Soviet State, ~e were unable,. and are un~J>le to this day, fully to ·satisfy all the requirements

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DEVELOPMENT OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND TOWN DEVELOPMENT

of the ~orkin~ class, which has grown to such gigantic proportions smce the October Revolution. . In the sphere of the economic life of the country, of mdust.ry a';ld agr.iculture, we have repeatedly pointed to the. his~onc~l disproportion to which we fell heir. Yet this h~stoncal disproportion _is still more striking and ac-.;te m the sp~ere of town development. In prerevolutionary Russia town development was at an ~xtrem~ly low level and, of course, beneath all comparIson With. the more advanced cities of Europe. A few figures will suffice to illustrate this. Only 219 cities out of 1,063, or only one-fifth, possessed water supply systems, as compared to from 75 to 100 per cent in Europe and the U.S.A. On the eve of the revolution there was in. all 2,089 kilometres of tramway line, as compared WI.t h te~~ of thousands of kilometres in Europe;Amencan cities alone possess 75,000 kilometres. Moscow consumed only 8 cu. metres of household gas per head, as compared with 400 cu. metres in London and 170 cu. metres in Berlin. Yet eve~ these back'":ard t?wn enterprises, during t~e whole eight years of 1mpenalist war and intervention, were not only not kept in a state of restoration not only. not further de;reloped, but in many instance~ fell to pieces. Intervention wrought serious damaoe to a. nu~b~r of cities. Cities in the Ukraine, the Urals, ~Iberia, .m the Volga Basin and in other places were m the direct areas of military operations and suffered severely. ~he G~r~an, British, French, American and Japanese Impenahsts, hand in hand with the White Guard generals . and the . ps~udo-socialists of the S.R. and Menshev1k camps, mfhcted severe damage on the cities of the J]kraine (Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav ~tc.), on the nor.thern cities (Archangel, etc.), citie~ m th~ _Yo!ga .regi.on (Samara, Kazan, Simbirsk, etc.) ~m~ cJt~~~ m Sibena, t4~ Vr~J~ ~pg tb~ Fl:l.r E&st. These

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~cnllemen; who hypocritically declared themselves de-

l't•nders of culture and civilisation, dealt mercilessly with cities which even before that were poverty :-.Lricken and backward in their development. According to the calculations of Prof. Lyubimov in his pamphlet Our Bill to the Foreign Capitalist~, the cities of the Soviet Union suffered damage from mtervention to the extent of 2,100,000,000 rubles. Hence, we inherited not merely a backward state of city development; we inherited cities in a sta~e of di~apida.ti~n, cities which had suffered vast losses m the tmpertahst war and intervention. This is particularly true of the housing fund. During the period of intervention and civil war all the energies and attention of the Party and the proletariat were concentrated on cq1shing the enemies of the proletariat and driving them out of the count~y. After intervention, and after the successful conclusiOn of the civil war, when industrial production had fallen to 20 per cent and agricultural production to 60 per cent, the Party and the Soviet government made it their first duty to restore industry and agriculture. Every worker knows that without an industrial basis there can be no question of town development. Naturally, the restoration of our town development continued contemporaneously, but the rate of restoration fell far behind the r estoration of industry and agriculture. And only when industry and agriculture had completed the period of restoration and entered on theperiod of reconstruction, in a ·word, only during the last three years has it become possible to undertake an extensive programme of restoration and development of our cities. As a r esult, we have now completely restored our city amenities and, indeed, a number of large cities, such as Moscow and Leningrad, have even surpassed the pre-war level, and have entered on the reconstructive phase of their development.

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OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND TOWN DEVBLOPMENT DEVELOPMENT OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES

. Nevertheless, the progress of city development dur~ng the last few years falls far short of the giaantic gr.ow~h of our co~ntry, of the rapid speed of industrialisation ~nd agn~ultural collectivisation and of the :''·~: growmg requ~rements of the working class and 01 mg masses. Durmg the past four years we have inv(est~d ~ ,393,000!000 rubles in municipal development exc udmg housmg) ' a very solid sum of mone but altogether. insignifica?t when compared with th?' ace of exp~swn of our mdustry. From the point of ~iew of the .m~erests of the working class and the interests of sociahs~ constr?-ction, the Party acted right! b first devotmg all Its energies to th . y y b · . e mcrease of the a~Ic reso.ur~es .of Industry, to the rapid develo ment ~f m~~stn~hs~twn and to agricultural collectivi!tion. o~ o . erwise It would be· useless to hope for the con' ~ol!Idd~twn of th~ J?roletafian dictatorship and the up: UI mg of socialism and hence of the rad· I . provement of th t . ' ' Ica Im. e ma erial and living conditions of the wor k ers and tmlers. w

~t the 1~esent stage of socialist construction when

fr~nt~~~~n~~~~d su:cf.s~ after success on the industrial

and wh

h socia IS reconstruction of agriculture

socialis~~ .:ee re:~:da!~e:~:;~t~;e~u~~o~~~~=t~d

of

!~~t!~~e~~~~s~~~o~~~~h~~i~~t~~=ife~e~fo~n~~:i~~!~i~~

or

mednt to the general level of national economy un ertake the fundament 1 · r ' 0 our cities and the c t a. socia Ist re~~nstruction of indus!rial centres ~~~ r~b~!~~~~; c~i~~ i~hthe new

~=c~~fl~c~~~ f~:t~r plac~~ei:rt~ent s!a:~

stations, the soviet

fan~s la::~

of our cities constitutes a " tight both from t~ soc~a Ist tr~nsformation of our country and cultural ~!~;~~;hview okf .satisfying the materiai e wor _mg class and from th 9

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point of view of the growth of our ind~stry -:- that leading factor in our economic life. Housipg, tramway systems and water supply are important items _in the living conditions of the worker and in· the progress of production. This, for instance, has made itself par· ticularly felt in the coal regions. It has made itself felt in the large cities, particularly in Moscow. If there are no houses in the vicinity of the works and the lramway works badly, the worker is obliged to arise almost at daybreak, he wastes a lot of tim~ travelling, and arrives at work already in a fatigued condition. The backwardness of city development becomes a hindrance to the further development of the socialist economy of the country and seriously retards the de· velopment of the cultural r evolution. In addition to food supply, municipal services are an important factor in the matter of improving the material conditions of the workers and in the question of real wages. At the Sixteenth Party Congress, Comrade Stalin said: "The progressive growth of the socialised sector, both in the sphere of industry and in the sphere of agriculture, is a fact beyond all dispute. What can this m ean from the standpoint of the material position of the toilers? It means that thereby the foundations have been laid for the .radical improvement of the material and cultural position of the workers and peasants." And the radical improvement of the working masses is impossible without developing housing construction and without improving our cities. We have entered on the period of socialism. This means that, in addition to completing the foundation of socialist economy and giving the fullest possible expansion to the industrialisation of the country, we must widely extend the work of reconstructing the material, living and cultural conditions of the workers and toil~ ing masses on a socialist basis.

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fJ'Ev£ioPME::N"r

o'F Moscow AND o'T:HE:R c·rriE.§

We are faced with a hvofold task. · We musi c?nduct current city development in such a way as to give the best possible service to the workers and toiling ma~~es: prote~t their health, give the workers houses, facilitate their cultural improvement, provide their ele~entary needs, su.c? as water supply, light, heating, dramage and clean Cihes. At the same time, apart from !hes~ current tasks, we are faced with a task of historIcal n_nportance, the great task of the socialist reconstruchon of our cities and city improvements on a scale equal to that of the other tasks laid upon us by the period of socialism. These tasks must and will be reflect~d in the economic plans of the coming year and particularly of the second Five-Year Plan. Il. TOWN DEVELOPMENT IN MOSCOW Toward a New Moscow The policy of socialist industrialisation has profound.ly affected the whole character of Moscow, not only m respect to the quantitative growth of its industry and of the working class, but also in respect to !he stru~ture of its industry and the composition of 1ts . workmg class. The sloga~s issued by the Party at its Fourteenth Congress-~Jz., the industrialisation of the country and the produchon of means of production - have been clea~ly reflected in. the development of Moscow. It Was m. Moscow pa.rhcularly that the right deviationists, in their fight agamst the realisation of these slogans ~ttempted to create a seat of resistance to the generai hne of t~e ,;arty, to the J;>Olicy of industrialisation, allegedly m defence of the mterests of light industry " . But, in spite of the rights, a colossal change in the mdustry of M~scow. has taken place during the last f~w. yea~s. While pnor to the revolution Moscow was d1shngmshed by the predominance of its light indus-

TOWN bEVELOPMENT IN MOSCOW

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I des (7 5.6 per cent), we have now an entirely different picture. Proportionately, textile production has declined l'l'om 25.7 per cent to 14.9 per cent, although absolutely there has been no decrease; on the contrary, tne output of the textile industries has increased from 143 million rubles to 250 million rubles. Yet, in spite of its nbsolute growtn, the textile industry of Moscow has proportionately declined, owing to the fact that the metallurgical and electrical industries have grown stillt more rapidly. The same is true of the food industries,. which declined proportionately from 34 per cent to 1Z per cent, although absolutely they have increased. How have the metallurgical and electrical industries developed? While prior to the war the heavy industries of Moscow represented 24.4 per cent of all its industries, the proportion today is 43.7 per cent. Metallurgy has grown from 9 to 20 per cent and the electrical industries from 1.5 to 10 per cent. Moscow has likewise become a centre of the chemical industry. And on the completion of the plants and factories at present in the course of construction - the Ball Bearing Works, the AMO, the Cycle Works, the Machine Lathe Works, the "Calibre" Works, the "Frezer" Works, etc. - the heavy industries of Moscow will reach 53 per cent. Thus you see: prior to the revolution, 75.6 per cent light industry, 24.4 per cent heavy industry; by next year, 47 per cent light industry and 53 per cent heavy industry. Such has been the effect of the policy of industrialising the country pursued by the Central Committee. While Moscow prior to the revolution was distinguished by its large number of small industries, today it possesses highly developed modern industries, among which are certain branches of vital importance to the development of the whole economy of the country. Moscow is a machine builder and a producer of electrical equipment. I cite these facts not in order to single

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DEVELOPMENT OF MOSCOW AND OTHER CITIES TOWN DEVELOPMENT IN MOSCOW

out Moscow in comparison with other cities and not in. order to ~nimise the importance of the light ind.ust~Ies, but I~ . order to put in their places the nght theoreticians who came forward as would-be champions of light industry and who sought unsuccessfully to find support in Moscow, and suffered complete defeat at the hands of the Party. · Since the revolution, particularly during the last two or three years, fifty new works and factories have been built in Moscow - electrical works (Electrozavod), tool-making, electrical motors, two watch and clock factories, rare elements, woolen mills, etc. - at a total cost of 134 million rubles and with a gross output of 377 million rubles. 155 old works have u~der­ gone reconstruction, including the AMO, the Dynamo, the Red Proletarian, etc. As a result, the basic capital of the Moscow industries has increased by over 50 per cent during the last five or six years. The characteristic feature of the industries of Moscow is their high state of concentration: out of 793 fac~ories,. in 165 are concentrated 80 per cent of the basic capital of all the Moscow industries and 60 per cen! of all the workers. Of these, 37 each possess total capital of over 2,500,000 rubles; 22 over 5,000,000 rubles; 12 over 10,000,000 rubles and 3 over 25,000,000 rubles. The gross output of the industries of Moscow -amounts to 3¥2 billion rubles (calculated at 1926-27 p~ices), representing a threefold increase as compared with pre-war. The total capital of these industries ~mounted to 893 million rubles at the beginning of 1930. ~':1 the :year 1929-30 200 million rubles were in:vested m capital construction, and 270 million rubles •n 1931. At the pre~ent time 35 enterprises are in the course of cons.tr~chon, representing a capital investment of 471 million rubles and with an eventual grosa output of 1,300 million rubles annually.

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This expansion of industry has. res~ted in a vast increase of industrial workers. While pnor to the revolution the industries furnishing returns (the so-called census industries) employed 167,000 workers, today they employ 380,500 workers not counting railway workers, of whom there are over 50,000 in Moscow. A change in the composition of the population of Moscow also has taken place as a result of the rec?nstruction of industry. Not only has the populatiOn grown numerically, not only has the number of parasitic elements sharply decreased, but the very struc· ture of the working class and the toiling masses has undergone considerable change. . The total population increased from 1,618,000 1n 1916 to 2,800,000 in 1931, an increase of 73 per c~nt. 1 dq not speak of the year 1920, ~hen t~e pop?lahon had fallen to 1,027 ,000, in companson w1th which the present population represents an increase of more th~n 2~ times. The number of persons employed f~r hire has increased from 740,000 to 1,500,000, while the number of non-working elements from 100,000 has now become almost insignificant. In every sense of the wo~·d Mo~cow is a. pro~etari~n city, in contrast to bourgeois capi~als, wh1ch, m sp1te of their large proletarian populabons, are more and more assuming a parasitic character. Even the bourgeois economist Sombart has been obliged to adJ;Uit that "the l~rge ci~y ~s becom~ng less and less an 'industrial city, i. e., 1t 1s becommg less and less dependent on t);le indus~ria.l activities carr~ed on within it." * The direct opposite IS true of Mosc.ow, where we have the socialist type of growth of a caplt.al. Moscow is, accordingly, growing both a~ an m· dustrial centre and as to its working P,?Pulahon. T.he solution of the unelOployment problem 1s a most stnk· • Sombart, Modern Capitalism.

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DEVELOPMENT OF MOSCOW AND OTHER. CITIES

TOWN DEVELOPMENT IN MOSCOW

ing illustration of this growth when contrasted with the colossal. u~employm~nt prevailing in the capitals of t~e capitalist countnes (Berlin, 450,000 unemployed, y1enna J40,000). In Moscow there is a steady increase m the number of working members in families with a consequent general improvement of the well-being of the working class. . Here are 1he results of certain conversations held With workers the other day. E.G.Rashkov, a dyer in the Trekhgorka Works. Has been a factoryworker for 39ycars.At present a foreman. He w.as f?rmerly the only ·worker in the family. He n?w l~ves m a room in a newly constructed house. With hm1 live t~vo daughters. One is working as a cleaner the other. IS s.tud?'i~g, preparing to enter the factory school. H1s Wife IS m the village and has also begun to earn, she has organised a collective farm works in the mutual aid committee, and earns 20 ruble~ a month. T?e Chukanovs. Of the family of seven, five are W?rkmg. ~· H. Chukanov is employed at the Nogin Mills, earnmg 100 rubles per month. His wife works at the same place and earns 80 rubles. His mother works on the ~bite. Sea and Baltic Railways, earning 54 r~bles. A sister IS. employed at a printing works, earmng 80 rubles, while a second sister is studying at a factory s~hool and receives 25 rubles a month. There are two children, one six years of age, the other seven months. They are the only ones not earning. The c~ief thing about the state of mind of this w~rker 1s, ~f c?urse, the certainty that these two c.hildren of his, SIX years and seven months old respech~ely - ?nd others too, should they be born to him _ w.Ill ob.tai.n an education and will receive work. For h1s socwhst country is growing. This is an important factor in the state of mind of the worker. ':!'hese examples could be multiplied. Thus we have an Improvement in the well being of the workhig

,.,nsscs. In Moscow before the revolution the great 11111jority of the workers lived alone, without families. 'l'ht·y left their families in the village .. Bef?r.e th~ revolution the average number of a family hvmg m the l'lly together with the head of the family was 0.4, whereas in 1931 it is 3.6. As a result, before the revolution in :rvloscow there were 700 women to every 1000 men, whereas today the number of men and women are practically equal: 1053 women to every 1000 men. The revolution has made it possible for the workers lo obtain dwellings. We have transferred half a million people from cellars, doss· houses and barrack houses lnlo the apartments of the former bourgeoisie. I do not ,·('fer to the new houses, where the workers amount to 75 to 80 per cent of the inhabitants. As a result, a change is taking place in the cultural make-up of the Moscow workers. Moscow is now a c·ily of universal literacy. Illiteracy in Moscow has hcen completely liquidated, whereas in 1917 there were ~5 per cent illiterates and even in 1926 as much as 15.6 per cent. The figures we have citeft, together with the increase in the number of educational institutions (in 1931, 166,000 children are attending school, as ngainst 81,000 in 1913 - an increase of 105 per cent; 1->ludents attending middle grade schools 85,200, as ngainst 30,700- an increase of 134 per cent; technical schools and cour-ses and factory schools 155,000, as ugainst 15,000- a tenfold increase; higher educational eentres 121,000, as against 33,000 - an increase of 267 per cent), illustrate the vast cultural uplift that has I'Csulted from the revolutionary achievements of the I he Moscow workers. There are now 800 clubs in Moscow (including factory clubs). The theatres have now become acces~ible to the workers. I shall cite several more conver:sntions bearing on this point. · ·

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DEVELOPMENT

OF Moscow A~H) 61'ti:Eh

TQWN DEVELOPMENT IN MOSCOW

CittE:s

. Prask?vy.a Zakharovna, 52 years of age, employe m. the spmnmg department of the Trekhgorny textil mi~ls .. Has been a worker fot 29 years. A shock worke This Is what she says: " Formerly, I was illiterate, there was nowhere t lea~n. No~, although it is difficult, since I have man social dub.es, I Iiever!heless study. True, the teache recently has ~een coming to the house very itreauJarly but I shall raise this question in the factory co~mittee M~ husb~d reads and I lis ten and I know what i gor?g on m the world, and whete. In the old day I did not even know the way to the theatre, but now . although not often, because of my social duties I go t the theatre or to the movies two or three times month. My husband is a great lover of the theatre He goes there more often than I do." · F ed or. Kruglov, 45, a conductor at the Sortirovoch naya Station on the Moscow Kazan Railway. Has been a worker for 20 years. • . "Yo~.ask w?ether I rod~ on the tramcar before the r evolution? I did not. I could not afford it. It used to cost 12 kopeks. there and back and I earned 16 rubl . a month. How could I ride in a tramcar? But now . cares a bout 10 kopeks? 'w 0

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"As to cult~re, I will say this. Wherever you turn th~y drag you mto cultural life. It's either the movie , or the club, or books. !t is an interesting fact p~ople come to our Sortirovochnaya Station from th

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village to work and immediately demand the movie: or. other at?use~ents. And you don't have to o' far all cultural drversiOns are here a t hand at th gf t _, . · themselves." .> e ac or1es . .T.he . rise in the cultural level of the workers has been very gn;at. I cite these cases as illustrations . th · may;be multrplied indefinitely, since-the achi ' · ey are mdeed enormous. Thus 'it will b evem,ents r econstructive changes have taken p-la~e si~~h:~~tr~~s;

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