Research On Soviet Urban Housing Problems From The Early20th Century To1970s

In the early20th century, with the purpose of improving residents’ housingconditions and ensuring that “every citizen has his own house”, the new Soviet regimeforcefully confiscated capitalists’ houses by administrative means and distributedthem among ordinary people who are lack of house or in harsh housing conditions.The new Soviet regime won the support of the masses and consolidated the newregime by housing redistributing. In1922, Soviet Russia and other separate republicscomprised the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR). In1929, considering thechanges of situations both at home and abroad, the Soviet began to implement aplanned economy and shifted the focus to the development of industrialization, as aresult, the city residential construction was slowed down. With the development ofurbanization and industrialization, many farmers flocked into the cities, which causedthe city population explosion. Meanwhile, the city residential construction had enteredinto a slow developing stage, therefore, per capita living space declined and thecontradiction between supplying and demanding was sharpened. In this condition, thegovernment, on the one hand, made plans to build and maintain houses and setpolicies to inspire private construction companies to participate in national housingconstruction; on the other hand, the government also guided construction companiesto adopt new building materials and encouraged schools to develop vocational andtechnical education in order to cultivate more better construction workers, thusimproving the efficiency of housing construction and housing quality. Besides these,the government encouraged commonweal organization to participate in theconstruction of public housing maintenance and quality supervision to ensure thecomplement of housing construction and housing maintenance. In terms of housedistribution and house renting, the Soviet Union established series of laws to regulate rights and obligations, aiming to work out problems appear in the process of housedistribution and finally ensured the effectuation of house distribution and houserenting.This paper is divided into three parts: introduction, main text and conclusion.The first part is introduction, which describes the significance, research status, relatedconcepts, study methods and innovations of this thesis.The second part is main text which can be divided into three chapters.Chapter One discusses urban housing problems of Soviet and summarizesrelevant policies set by the government from the early20th century to1970s. In orderto ensure the promise of “every citizen has his own house”, the newly establishedSoviet Union reallocated the existing housing, bettered the living conditions of thepoor urban citizens, won the majority of the people’s support and eventuallyconsolidated the new regime. In1922, the Soviet Union together with other republicsformed the Soviet Union, considering the changes of situations both at home andabroad, the Soviet began to implement a planned economy in1929and shifted thefocus to the development of industrialization, and as a result, the city residentialconstruction was slowed down. With the development of urbanization andindustrialization, many farmers flocked into the cities,which caused the citypopulation explosion. Meanwhile, the city residential construction had entered into aslow developing stage, and in order to work out the housing problems among transientpopulation, the government had to reduce the per capita housing distribution area,which led to the decline of per capita living space and thus the contradiction betweensupplying and demanding was sharpened. In this condition, the government setpolicies to guide construction companies to build houses and also made plans to solvethe problems appear in the process of housing construction and finally ensured theeffectuation of housing construction. Most of urban houses were severely damaged inSoviet Union during World War II, which exacerbated urban housing crisis. In orderto solve housing problems of the residents, the Soviet government, on the one handincreased the investment in housing construction, and on the other hand encouragedthe use of new materials in the construction industry to improve the efficiency of housing construction and strived to build more houses in a limited time, which metthe housing needs of residents. After years of unremitting efforts of government andconstruction companies, the basic goal of9square meters per capita housing wasfinally realized at the end of Seven-year plan. After that, the Soviet Union had been ina steady period of housing construction.Chapter Two introduces issues and policies that appear in the Soviet housingconstruction. The Soviet government made plan annually to provide the constructioncompanies with the amount of housing construction, but the construction companiesalways focused only on the completion of the construction plan made by thegovernment while ignored quality of the houses, resulting in a large number ofhousing quality problems, which made many houses could not be put into use asplanned. In order to solve this problem and improve the quality of housingconstruction, the Soviet government carried out vocational and technical education totrain excellent construction workers, meanwhile, it guided construction companies toimprove management guidance, promote new materials and led the masses toparticipate in monitoring the quality of housing, housing allocation and maintenance.Through these measures, a variety of problems arising in the process of houseconstruction could be avoided.Chapter Three explores the issues and policies in the process of housedistribution and house renting. When the houses were built and verified by thenational quality inspection, they could be allocated and rented by the government.Despite a number of housing allocation corruption could be exposed in the process ofhousing construction and which would naturally cause great loss to the Sovietgovernment, the relevant laws and supervision systems established by the governmentwould better those problems appear in the house distribution. In addition to housingallocation, the Soviet government also provided rental housing for the people. SovietRealtor relevant laws defined the rights and obligations of tenants clearly, whichlessened the problems in rental market.The last part is conclusion, which is the summary of the full thesis.