How child homelessness was eliminated in the Soviet Union

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

85 years ago, a resolution was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the elimination of homelessness and neglect of children." According to historians, this document marked the end of the fight against homelessness, the scourge of Soviet society in the 1920s and 1930s.

According to experts, the measures taken in the USSR to socialize orphans turned out to be very effective - they allowed hundreds of thousands of children to get an education and become full-fledged members of society. Thus, reception centers for minors, boarding schools were created, patronage, adoption, guardianship and guardianship were actively introduced, quotas for industrial training and employment of adolescents were introduced. The techniques developed within the framework of this work have been recognized all over the world.

On May 31, 1935, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution "On the elimination of child homelessness and neglect." The document became one of the last steps in the fight against child homelessness, which was one of the most serious problems of Soviet society in the interwar period.

The consequences of the war hard times

“Mass homelessness in Soviet Russia was the result of the First World War and the Civil War that followed. She became a real scourge of society, an army of orphans turned out to be on the streets, said Evgeny Spitsyn, historian and advisor to the rector of Moscow State Pedagogical University, in an interview with RT.

During the revolutionary events of 1917, the system of charitable and orphanages that existed in the Russian Empire ceased to exist. In December of the same year, Vladimir Lenin signed a decree proclaiming childcare as a direct responsibility of the state. At the beginning of 1918, the Council of People's Commissars created commissions for juvenile affairs, which included pedagogical, social and medical workers, as well as representatives of the justice authorities.

Since 1918, all issues of the development of education in the regions were transferred to the jurisdiction of the provincial departments of public education (GUBONO), which were departments of the provincial executive committees and at the same time local bodies of the People's Commissariat of Education. There was an acute shortage of special institutions for the social rehabilitation of minors.

In 1919, a decree was issued establishing the Council of Child Defenders. He was involved in the evacuation of children to the "grain" areas, the organization of public catering, food and material supplies. The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) began to be involved in this work.

“The participation of the Cheka bodies was justified and logical. They had a well-developed local apparatus. In addition, homelessness served as a fertile ground for the emergence of crime, - said Spitsyn.

In 1920, a decree of the People's Commissariat of Education was promulgated, which dealt with the organization of receptions for street children, as well as providing them with treatment and food. On January 27, 1921, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee created a Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Children, headed by the Chairman of the All-Russian Cheka and People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Felix Dzerzhinsky / RIA Novosti

“In the early 1920s, the situation with homelessness became critical. It was a nationwide disaster. The street children went into the millions. In various sources, their number was estimated from 4.5 million to 7 million. Some children lost their parents, others were lost during travel and evacuations, said in an interview with RT the head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the PRUE named after G. V. Plekhanov Andrey Koshkin.

According to the expert, children left without a permanent place of residence or parental supervision were sent to residential institutions. To provide them with primary care, reception and distribution centers were created. Dzerzhinsky was assisted in organizing the very system of overcoming homelessness by well-known Soviet teachers, in particular Anton Makarenko, who was later classified by UNESCO as one of the people who determined the way of pedagogical thinking in the twentieth century.

Registration of homeless children in the school duty room by an employee of the Moscow Department of Public Education / RIA Novosti

“Given the scale of homelessness, the problems associated with it have become a political issue. It was a test for the viability of the Soviet system of government, the issue of the future of the whole country was being decided, Koshkin emphasized.

"We are surrounded by a whole sea of children's grief"

The situation with the homelessness of children in the early 1920s, according to the members of the Children's Commission, threatened "if not the extinction of the younger generation, then its physical and moral degeneration." The problem worsened against the background of drought and mass famine in a number of regions of the RSFSR. Children left without parental supervision suffered from infectious diseases and violence from criminals. Many of them joined the ranks of gangs, committing thefts, robberies and murders.

In 1921 alone, about 200 reception centers for minors were created. They began to actively introduce patronage, adoption, guardianship and guardianship, began to introduce quotas for industrial training and employment of adolescents.

If in 1919 125 thousand children were brought up in orphanages, then in 1921-1922 there were already 540 thousand. In 1923 only in Moscow 15 thousand teachers were sent to fight homelessness.

In March 1924, the 1st conference on the fight against homelessness was held in Moscow, and in November a congress of heads of government departments for the fight against homelessness convened.

“The point is not only that we are surrounded by a whole sea of children's grief, but also that we risk getting from these children antisocial, antisocial people, fundamentally spoiled, enemies of a healthy lifestyle … unprincipled people who with a light heart will go to the camp of our enemies who will join the army of criminality,”said Anatoly Lunacharsky, People's Commissar of Education, in one of his speeches.

In 1925, the mass creation of the Lenin funds in the regions began, which were involved in helping street children and orphans. In 17 provinces there were “Friends of Children” societies that had their own canteens, teahouses, clubs and shelters. In total, at that time, more than 280 orphanages, 420 "labor communes" and 880 "children's towns" worked in the RSFSR.

“To overcome homelessness, the Soviet authorities resorted to a variety of measures. The People's Commissariat of Railways actively helped to solve this problem. Railways and train stations, like a magnet, attracted street children. They were identified, given shelter, fed, taught. Orphans were sent to peasant families in the mid-1920s. The peasants who took care of the children were provided with additional plots of land,”said Yevgeny Spitsyn.

In 1925-1926, a number of regulations were adopted in the USSR that protected children, including those that provided benefits to minors who were left without parental supervision. A clear procedure for the transfer of children to guardianship was fixed. Enterprises and institutions involved in the fight against homelessness received tax breaks.

“Despite the economic difficulties that existed in the country, millions of rubles were allocated to overcome homelessness. Both horizontal interdepartmental and vertical cooperation aimed at the regions were established in order to solve this problem. Many powers were delegated to local public education authorities. Art was used for educational purposes. Children from orphanages became heroes of famous books and films,”said Andrey Koshkin.

According to him, in the first half of the 1930s, the level of homelessness began to decline rapidly.

Shot from the film "Republic SHKID" © kinopoisk.ru

Super efficient work

On May 31, 1935, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution "On the elimination of child homelessness and neglect." The document voiced a number of claims against the executive authorities. They concerned the unsatisfactory work of orphanages, as well as the inadequacy of measures to combat juvenile delinquency and the irresponsibility of their guardians.

The document built a clear system of ordinary and special orphanages, as well as labor colonies and reception centers for minors. He streamlined the issues of vocational training and employment of adolescents, internal regulations in orphanages, and encouragement of distinguished children. Responsibility for the timely placement and provision of orphans was assigned to local councils.

The building of the commune named after F. Dzerzhinsky / RIA Novosti

For persons who violated the rights of children, the document established criminal liability. At the same time, the decree obliged the internal affairs bodies to intensify the fight against offenses committed by minors themselves. The police received the right to fine parents for street hooliganism of children and raise the issue of forced placement in children's homes of minors "in cases where the parents do not provide proper supervision over the child's behavior."

A separate part of the decree obliged the department of cultural and educational work and the department of press and publishing houses of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties and the Council of People's Commissars of the Union republics to strengthen monitoring of children's literature and films that can have a harmful effect on children, for example, describing the adventures of criminals.

“The measures taken in 1935 became the finishing line in the fight against interwar homelessness. By the end of the 1930s, the problem was practically solved,”stressed Andrey Koshkin.

Pupils of the orphanage / RIA Novosti

According to Yevgeny Spitsyn, the second wave of homelessness in the USSR rose in connection with the events of the Great Patriotic War, but, despite the most difficult circumstances, it turned out to be easier to overcome than the first: the experience gained in the interwar period affected.

“The way in which homelessness was overcome in Soviet Russia and the USSR was super effective work. A unique experience has been accumulated, which was later used by other countries and which can be used to overcome various kinds of social problems today,”summed up Yevgeny Spitsyn.