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Rent in the USSR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2019
Extract
In a free market economy, with the absence of rent control, the cost of housing, as of all other goods, is determined by supply and demand. Characteristic of the USSR and the result of its economic system, which abolished private ownership of land and nationalized two-thirds of all urban housing, is the absence of a free market in the field of housing relations.
The role of the state, as the owner and operator of urban housing, continues to increase. As the largest and, in fact, the only builder of large scale housing, the state also assumed the function of distributing the dwelling space among the different groups of the population, as well as the function of regulating all questions brought out through its involvement in the housing problems of its citizens.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1959
References
1 In 1958, of the 463.7 million sq. m. of dwelling space in the cities and workers’ settlements of the USSR, 318.6 million sq. m., or 68.7%, belonged to the State. (From the author's forthcoming book The Development of Urban Centers in Soviet Russia, Harvard University Press.) ;
2 Of the 333.9 million sq. m. of housing built between 1923 and 1958, the State built 257.6 million sq. m., or 77.2% of the total.
3 Hazard, John, Soviet Housing Law (New Haven, 1939).Google Scholar
4 1 sq. m. = 10 . 75 sq. ft.
5 In privately owned houses and in houses rented by individuals from local soviets, it is permissable to increase the rent by not more than 20%. See Zhilishchnye zakony. Sbornik vazhnejshikh zakonov SSSR i RSFSR, postanovlenij, instrukcij i prikazov po zhilishchnomy khozjajstvu po sostojaniju na 1 nojabrja 1957 g. (Moskva, 1957), p. 240.
6 The passage of this law was motivated by “the necessity of standardizing the rents for, and the use of public housing in the republics of the Soviet Union.” See Sobranie zakonov SSR (Moscow, 1926), II, 754-56.
7 Ibid., p. 754, paragraph 1.
8 Asknaziy, S. I., Braude, I. L., Pergament, A. I., Zhilishchnoe pravo (Moskva, 1956), p. 169.Google Scholar
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10 Zhilishchnye zakony… . 1957, p. 413.
11 See: Uchebnoe posobie po otdel’nym otrasljam statistiki (Moscow, 1958), p. 127.
12 Zhilishchnoe zakonodateV stvo SSSR i USSR (Kiev, 1957), p. 157.Google Scholar
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14 Broner, op. cit., pp. 23, 24.
15 Sbornik postanovlenij i instrukcij po zhilishchnym voprosam, 2nd edition (Moscow, 1952), p. 109 Google Scholar.
16 Bomsh, S., Pravilapol'zovanija zhilojploshchad'ju (Leningrad, 1952), pp. 90, 91Google Scholar.
17 Kontrol'nye cifry narodnogo khozjqjstva na 1925/26 g. (Moskva, 1926), p. 29.
18 “Finansy SSSR,” No. 7, 1957, p. 37.
19 “Gorodskoe khozjajstvo Moskvy,” No. 5, 1958, p. 6.
20 Sobranie zakonov SSSR, 1928, No. 6 “Postanovlenie o zhilishchnoj politike” ot 4 janvarja 1928g., paragr. 10.
21 The same situation applies to the relative weight of expenses for communal facilities: from 2.3% in 1928 to 0.93% in 1940. See: Sosnovy, T., Tarify i tarifnaja politika kommunal'nykh predprijatij SSSR (Khar'kov, 1935), pp. 40–41 Google Scholar; Gol'denberg, A. M., Osnovnye vcprosy organizacii finansov socialisticheskogo zhilishchnogo khozjqjstva (Moscow, 1950), p. 50–51 Google Scholar.
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23 In pre-revolutionary Russia and at present in most of the countries of Western Europe and in the United States, the proportion of the expenses for rent (excluding communal services and heat) fluctuates between 14 and 18%. See: S. N. Prokopovich, “Real'naja zarabotnaja plata promyshlennogo rabochevo v Sovetskoj Rossii,” unpublished manu- script (Russian Research Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1947), p. 9; “Recent Family Budget Enquiries,” International Labour Review, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5 (November, 1933), p. 654; “Distribution of Family Expenditures on Chief Groups,” Inter- national Labour Office, Year Book of Labour Statistics, Eighth issue, 1933-1944 (Montreal, 1945).
24 Voznesenskij, N., Vojennaja ekonomika v period otechestvennoj vojny (Moscow, 1948), P. 119.Google Scholar
25 Sosnovy, T., The Housing Problem in the Soviet Union (New York, 1954), p. 180 Google Scholar.
26 Pravda, January 15, 1956; Planovoe Khozjajstvo, No. 2, 1956, p. 70.
27 Whereas in 1940 they received loans totaling 170 million rubles, by 1956 the loans reached 800 million rubles. See: Finansy i socialisticheskoe stroitel'stvo (1917-1957) (Moscow, 1957), p. 357.
28 Pravda, July 15, 1958; Izvestia, June 11,1958.
29 Pravda, June 14, 1958.
30 Planovoe Khozjajstvo, No. 4, 1958, p. 26.
31 Zhilishchno-KommunaPnoe khozjajstvo, No. 8, 1957, p. 2. The available housing in cities may also be decreased as a result of disasters such as fire and flood, as well as through the transformation of residential buildings to non-residential buildings.
32 Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, No. 3, 1958, p. 68.
33 Ibid., No. 7, 1958, p. 46.
34 Ibid., No. 11, 1957, p. 101.
35 Ibid., No. 7, 1958, p. 48.