Based on extensive archival research and in particular on documents of the Central Committee
of the VKP(b) TsIK and SNK of the USSR and RSFSR VSNKh NKVD and other institutions this
book analyses the aims and methods of pre-World War II urban housing policies in the Soviet
Union. Among the issues covered are the principles of the Soviet approach to private and
communal housing the role of the state security organs in the administration and distribution
of accommoda-tion different types of early Soviet lodging (communal houses family flats
Soviet Houses and Hotels etc.) the reasons for the abandonment of cooperative housing as well
as for the restrictions on building private cottages and the role of housing for enforcing
certain types of behaviour and labour desired by the Soviet government. The study for the
first time in Russian language describes in some detail the so-called New Housing Policy
largely ignored in Soviet historiography.(in Russian language)
