Housing construction in the Soviet Union was one of the most important sectors of the Soviet national economy and was based on socialist principles.
Overview The state was the primary builder, but during the New Economic Policy (NEP) period, 70–80% of housing was built privately. In the post-war years, up to a quarter of new housing was constructed individually, financed by loans provided to the population by Savings Bank of the USSR (Sberbank).
Some housing problems were inherited by Soviet Russia from the Tsarist era, while others arose due to the economic crisis, the revolution, and the World War and Russian Civil War. During the Civil War, when new construction was impossible, the focus shifted to the policy of "housing redistribution," meaning resettlement and densification. At the same time, debates emerged about the socialist city and socialist housing. A significant chapter in Soviet architectural history was the development of garden cities, communal houses, residential complexes, and socialist cities. In the early 1930s, with a shift in political trends, avant-garde architecture was banned, along with residential projects featuring communal living, which were labeled as "leftist excesses." This marked the beginning of the Stalinist architectural period.
During the industrialization of the USSR, priority was given to industrial construction, resulting in low housing construction volumes, with a significant share consisting of temporary housing.
The already severe housing crisis worsened after World War II. To address it, a mass housing construction program was launched under Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s, leading to the development of so-called "Khrushchyovkas." Soviet architecture also saw a return to modernism. The new buildings were extremely simple, cheap, and functional, constructed according to standard designs, typically five stories high. From the early 1960s until the USSR's dissolution, Soviet housing construction was highly industrialized, with most buildings made of prefabricated reinforced concrete panels, which significantly simplified and reduced costs. For even greater savings, taller buildings with nine or more stories became more common. However, this resulted in the monotonous and uniform appearance of Soviet cities.
In the late 1950s, for the first time in Soviet history, the average living space per person significantly increased. As a result of mass standardized construction, millions of Soviet citizens received their own well-equipped apartments, moving out of barracks and communal housing.
State of Russian housing stock on the eve of the revolution According to Sergey Kamolov, the housing issue in its modern sense emerged in Russia after the reforms of the 1860s, which were associated with the abolition of serfdom, economic, and social modernization.Камолов С. Г. Жилищное строительство в СССР в послереволюционный период (1917-1926) // Вестник МГОУ. — 2009. — № 3.
A study published in 2007 by statistician Vasiliy Simchera, titled The Development of the Russian Economy Over 100 Years: 1900–2000. Historical Series, Century-Long Trends, Periodic Cycles, statedСимчера В. М. Развитие экономики России за 100 лет: 1900-2000. Исторические ряды, вековые тренды, периодические циклы. — М. : ЗАО «Издательство Экономика», 2007. — С. 222.:By the beginning of the century (1910), Russia had 1,179 cities, with a predominant prevalence of wooden and mixed-material buildings.
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At the start of the 20th century, urban housing amounted to only 50 million m², with 7.1 m² per person; by 1917, this had increased to 126 million m² and 8.2 m² per person.The Great Medical Encyclopedia, published in the Soviet Union in 1935, statedСССР // Большая медицинская энциклопедия. — М. : Советская энциклопедия, 1935. — Т. Т. 31: Смелли — Струма. — С. 563.:According to expert assessments of the overall state of housing and communal services in Tsarist Russia within its former borders, urban residential buildings comprised only about 2 billion m³ (including commercial premises within residential buildings), while the actual residential space was approximately 220 million m².The anniversary collection The National Economy of the USSR Over 70 Years reportedСоциальное развитие и повышение уровня жизни народа. Обеспечение жильем // Народное хозяйство СССР за 70 лет. Юбилейный статистический ежегодник. — 1987.:In 1913, the urban housing stock in pre-revolutionary Russia amounted to 180 million m² of total area. On average, each urban resident had 6.3 m² of housing space, taking into account the mansions of the bourgeoisie. However, at that time, 43% of working-class families rented a corner or shared a single bed, and about 70% of single workers rented half a bed, a bed, or just a corner.Similar statistics were presented in earlier collections. For instance, according to The National Economy of the USSR for 1913–1956, the urban housing stock of the Russian Empire in 1913 totaled 180 million m², of which 133 million m² was residential space.Народное хозяйство СССР за 1913-1956 гг. (Краткий статистический сборник). — 1956. — С. 161. According to Lyudmila Grudtsyna, in 1913, the average living space per person in Russian cities was 4.5 m², though "actual statistics" indicated a much worse situation.Грудцына Л. Ю. Жилищная политика в России: прошлое и будущее // Законодательство и экономика. — 2005. — № 6.
Due to the agrarian economic structure of pre-revolutionary Russia, 82% of the population lived in rural areas, usually in privately owned, low-rise wooden houses (izba) without basic amenities.Грудцына Л. Ю. Жилищная политика в России: прошлое и будущее // Законодательство и экономика. — 2005. — № 6. In major cities, a significant portion of housing consisted of barracks, basements, semi-basements, dormitory-style rooms, dugouts, and semi-dugouts. For example, in Moscow in the 1910s, 327,000 people (the so-called "black tenants") lived in dormitory-style accommodations, accounting for more than 20% of the city's population.Орлов И. Б. Советское жилищное хозяйство в 1920-1930-е гг.: между классовой линией и самоокупаемостью // Современные проблемы сервиса и туризма. — 2014. — Т. 8, № 2. The living conditions there were often unbearableИстория Москвы. Хрестоматия. в 4 т. / Сост. М.М. Горинов. — М. : Изд-во «Международный Дом Сотрудничества», Изд-во объединения «Мосгорархив», 1997. — Т. III: Вторая столица Российской империи (конец XVII- начало XX в.). — С. 302, 330.:"The air is stifling due to overcrowding (15 people). The apartment is damp and incredibly dirty. The two small rooms are in complete darkness. The ceiling is so low that a tall person cannot stand upright. There is a distinct odor.
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The apartment is in a terrible state: the plaster has crumbled, and the walls have holes stuffed with rags. It's filthy. The stove has collapsed. Legions of cockroaches and bedbugs. No second window frames, so it's bitterly cold."
— Inspection of dormitory-style apartments conducted by the Moscow City Administration in 1899.Many of those living in such conditions were seasonal workers who had just arrived from the countryside and lacked connections within migrant communities, as well as single, often alcoholic individuals. They viewed their housing as temporary, which lowered their housing expectations. These dwellings were mainly located on the outskirts, while the city centers housed well-maintained districts occupied by wealthier social classes and profitable rental buildings. City governments did not engage in housing construction, leaving it entirely to private owners. Some factory owners built barracks and dormitories for workers, filling them with rows of beds. Such housing was used only for sleeping and short-term rest, as residents spent most of their time working.Поспелова Г.М., Лимонтов Л.Я. Московский дом. — М. : Флинта : Наука, 2001. — С. 82.Хан-Магомедов С. О. Архитектура советского авангарда: В 2 кн.. — М. : Стройиздат, 2001. — Кн.2: Социальные проблемы.Центральные архивы Москвы: Путеводитель по фондам. — М. : Мосгорархив, 2000. — Вып. 4. — С. 117.Борис Романов. Уровень жизни рабочих в России в 1913 году. Часть 2. // Дилетант. — 2018. — 11 сентября.
The housing crisis worsened due to industrial development in the late 19th century and the resulting population migration to cities, followed by the effects of World War I. Housing construction ceased. In 1915, the government attempted to address the issue by imposing a rent freeze, but this only led landlords to stop maintaining and repairing buildings altogether.Хан-Магомедов С. О. Архитектура советского авангарда: В 2 кн.. — М. : Стройиздат, 2001. — Кн.2: Социальные проблемы.Жилище в России: век ХХ : Архитектура и соц. история / Сост. и ред.: Уильям Брумфилд и Блэр Рубл. — М. : Три квадрата, 2001. — С. 48—49.
Housing redistribution Partly, the housing problems were inherited by Soviet Russia from the tsarist era, and partly, they were caused by new upheavals. The new government faced the task of developing a new housing policy that would not only resolve the housing crisis but also align settlement patterns with socialist principles. The measures were dictated by ideology: a class-based approach, the nationalization of property, the "expropriation of the expropriators," and the elimination of the capitalist economic system as a whole. The need to relocate workers from overcrowded dwellings into expropriated apartments of the wealthy had been discussed long before the Bolsheviks.Камолов С. Г. Жилищное строительство в СССР в послереволюционный период (1917-1926) // Вестник МГОУ. — 2009. — № 3.Хан-Магомедов С. О. Архитектура советского авангарда: В 2 кн.. — М. : Стройиздат, 2001. — Кн.2: Социальные проблемы. Friedrich Engels wrote about this in his work The Housing Question.
In his article Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?, published in 1917 on the eve of the October Revolution, Lenin wrote:The proletarian state has to forcibly move a very poor family into a rich man's flat. Let us suppose that our squad of workers' militia is fifteen strong; two sailors, two soldiers, two class-conscious workers (of whom, let us suppose, only one is a member of our Party, or a sympathiser), one intellectual, and eight from the poor working people, of whom at least five must be women, domestic servants, unskilled labourers, and so forth. The squad arrives at the rich man's flat, inspects it and finds that it consists of five rooms occupied by two men and two women—"You must squeeze up a bit into two rooms this winter, citizens, and prepare two rooms for two families now living in cellars. Until the time, with the aid of engineers (you are an engineer, aren't you?), we have built good dwellings for everybody, you will have to squeeze up a little. Your telephone will serve ten families. This will save a hundred hours of work wasted on shopping, and so forth. Now in your family there are two unemployed persons who can perform light work: a citizeness fifty-five years of age and a citizen fourteen years of age. They will be on duty for three hours a day supervising the proper distribution of provisions for ten families and keeping the necessary account of this. The student citizen in our squad will now write out this state order in two copies and you will be kind enough to give us a signed declaration that you will faithfully carry it out.
Lenin continued these ideas in his supplement On the Requisition of Apartments of the Wealthy to Ease the Hardships of the Poor to the Petrograd Soviet's decree On the Requisition of Warm Clothing for Soldiers at the Front. On October 30, 1917, the NKVD issued a resolution On the Rights of Municipal Governments in Regulating the Housing Issue: Municipal governments have the right to requisition all vacant premises suitable for housing.