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The Roots of Besprizornost' in Soviet Russia's First Decade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Alan Ball
Alan Ball*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Marquette University
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Extract

No spectacle in Soviet cities more troubled Russian and foreign observers during the 1920s than the millions of orphaned and abandoned children known as besprizornye. Whether portrayed as pitiable victims or as devious wolf-children preying on the surrounding population, they haunted the works of journalists, travelers and Communist Party members alike. “Every visitor sees it first,” a foreigner noted, “and is so shocked by the sight that the most widely known Russian youth are the … homeless children flapping along the main streets of cities and the main routes of travel like ragged flocks of animated scarecrows.” By 1922 the number of waifs reached the neighborhood of seven million, inundating cities and alarming officials that the country might soon amass enough inveterate delinquents to disrupt the socialist transformation of society.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , Summer 1992 , pp. 247 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1992

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References

I am grateful for support from the International Research and Exchanges Board that enabled me to conduct much of the research for this essay.

1. McCormick, Anne O'Hare, The Hammer and the Scythe (New York: A. Knopf, 1929), 198–99Google Scholar. For a sampling of comments by other observers on the ubiquity of besprizornyein the 1920s, see N. K. Krupskaia, Pedagogicheskie sochineniia, 11 vols. (Moscow: Institut teorii i istorii pedagogiki APN RSFSR, 1957-1963), 2: 231; Komsomol'skaia pravda, no. 73 (21 August 1925): 3; Pravda, no. 255 (7 November 1925): 2; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 6 (1925): 5; no. 9 (1925): 17; Paustovsky, Konstantin, The Restless Years (London: Harvill Press, 1974), 46.Google Scholar

2. A recent Soviet work places the number of besprizornye in the country by 1921 at four and a half million. V. G. Rudkin, “Prichiny massovoi detskoi besprizornosti v Belorussii i zakonomernosti ee likvidatsii (1917-1930 gg.)” (Minsk, 1983), Manuscript Number 14433, INION AN SSSR, Moscow, 4-5. A document preserved in the archives of Narkompros sets the number of besprizornye in 1922—in the Russian Republic alone— at five million. Tsentral'nyigosudarstvennyi arkhiv RSFSR (hereafter cited as TsGA RSFSR), f. 2306, o. 70, ed. khr. 119, 1. 32. In Ukraine at this time, according to a journal article, the number of “besprizornye and half-besprizornye children” reached two million. Pravo i zhizn', no. 8-10 (1927): 30. An official of the Children's Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee presented a figure of “about six million children, left to the whims of fate—thrown out onto the street.” Drug detei, no. 11-12 (1927): 1. Numerous sources offer an estimate of seven to seven and a half million besprizornye during the famine years. See for example, Stites, Richard, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism 1860-1930 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 366 Google Scholar; Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1st ed. 65 vols. (Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1926-1947), 5: 786; Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 50. A meeting of the directors of provincial Narkompros offices declared that the number of “starving and dying children” during the famine (excluding Ukraine) reached seven and a half million, with another six million children in need of immediate assistance. Krasnushkin, E. K., Segal, G. M. and Feinberg, Ts. M., eds., Nishchenstvo i besprizornost’ (Moscow: Moszdravotdel, 1929), 140 Google Scholar. No doubt a very large percentage of these children were, or soon became, besprizornye. A few years later, another author described the vast extent ofbesprizornost’ in the Russian Republic during the famine by citing these same figures— with the comment that they are based on far-from-complete data (and thus likelyto be well below the actual totals). Gilev, P. S., Detskaia besprizornost1 i bor'ba s nei v Buriatii za poslednie piat’ let (Verkhneudinsk: Detskaia komissiia pri BurTsIKe, 1928), 3 Google Scholar. It bears stressing that precise data on waifs eluded officials throughout the decade, a fact acknowledged by nearly everyone from Anatoly Lunacharskii, head of Narkompros, to provincial investigators. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, o. 69, ed. khr. 349, 1. 27; Drug detei, no. 3 (1928): 2; Vserossiiskoe obsledovanie detskikh uchrezhdenii. Doklad NKRKI v komissiiu po uluchsheniiu zhizni detei pri VTsIK (Moscow: NKRKI, 1921), 43. For expressions of concern that the besprizornye threatened society and the Party's socialist aspirations, seeNarodnoe prosveshchenie v R.S.F.S.R. k 1924/25 uchebnomu godu. (Otchet narkomprosa RSFSR za 1923/24 g.)(Moscow: Narkompros, 1925), 78; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v R.S.F.S.R. k 1925/26 uchebnomu godu.(Otchet narkomprosa RSFSR za 1924/25 g.)(Moscow: Narkompros, 1926), 63; Vestnik prosveshcheniia, no. 12 (1924): 30; Na pomoshch1 rebenku (Petrograd-Moscow: Tsentral'nyi komitet po organizatsii “nedeli besprizornogo i bol'nogo rebenka,” 1923), 20-21, 32-33; TsGA RSFSR, f. 1575, o. 6, ed. khr. 155, 1. 5; Detiposlegoloda. Sbornik materialov (Khar'kov: Tsentral'naia komissiia pomoshchi detiam pri VUTsIKe, 1924), 103-4.

3. Pravda, no. 81 (5 April 1928): 4; hvestiia, no. 81 (5 April 1928): 5.

4. Regarding these early post-revolutionary visions of some Bolsheviks, see TsGA RSFSR, f. 1575, o. 6, ed. khr. 4, 1. 128; Pervyi vserossiiskii s “ezd deiatelei po okhrane detstva. 2-8 fevral'ia 1919 goda v Moskve (Moscow: Narkomsobes, 1920), 11-12; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky October 1917-1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 227–28Google Scholar; Madison, Bernice Q., Social Welfare in the Soviet Union (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), 36 Google ScholarPubMed; Krupskaia, Pedagogicheskie sochineniia, 3: 393; Sotsial'noe vospitanie, no. 3-4 (1921): 58-62. Some proponents of this goal added that children's homes would emancipate women from child-rearing, freeing them to pursue activities outside the home. For more on the” withering away” of the family, see Wendy Z. Goldman, “The ‘Withering Away’ and the Resurrection of the Soviet Family, 1917-1936” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1987), 40, 47. The 1918 Family Code prohibited the adoption of children by individual families, revealing the belief of early Soviet jurists that the state would be a better guardian of juveniles. Goldman, “The ‘Withering Away’ and the Resurrection,” 84.

5. Besprizornye receive the most effective attention in Jennie A. Stevens, “Children of the Revolution: Soviet Russia's Homeless Children (Besprizorniki) in the 1920s,” Russian History 9, no. 2-3 (1982): 242-64; Margaret K. Stolee, “Homeless Children in the USSR, 1917-1957,” Soviet Studies 40 (January 1988): 64-83; Peter H. Juviler, “Contradictions of Revolution: Juvenile Crime and Rehabilitation,” in Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez and Richard Stites, eds., Bolshevik Culture (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 261-78; Goldman, “The ‘Withering Away’ and the Resurrection.” Regarding the causes of besprizornost', the nature of Goldman's topic places her emphasis on social and economic factors in the years after 1914-22. She acknowledges the importance of war, epidemics and famine, but her goal does not require a study of how these calamities drove millions of children to the street. The essays by Stevens, Stolee and Juviler slide over the topic in a few sentences on their way to interesting issues regarding the government's response to juvenile homelessness and crime. At a level of scholarship well below these works, one finds a dissertation on the besprizornye (presented at Columbia Pacific University), recently published in unrevised form. See Rene Bosewitz, Waifdom in the Soviet Union: Features of the Sub-Culture and Re-Education (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag P. Lang, 1988). Its usefulness is further limited by the author's lack of access to the rich body of published and archival sources available only in the Soviet Union. Indeed, in the years of Gorbachev's ascendancy, Soviet archives have opened much more frequendy (though not always and not fully) to western scholars; of the authors mentioned here, only Goldman conducted her research recently enough to profit significantly from the new opportunities.

6. Apart from publications on organizations and individuals (such as Anton Makarenko and Feliks Dzerzhinskii) involved in efforts to rescue street children, these studies include a number of regional accounts less widely known. See for example, two works by V. G. Rudkin: “Prichiny” and “Deiatel'nost’ organov sovetskoi vlasti i obshchestvennykh organizatsii Belorussii po preduprezhdeniiu detskoi besprizornosti (1921-1930 gg.)” (Minsk, 1983), Manuscript Number 14431, INION AN SSSR, Moscow; and three by N. V. Shishova: “Rol’ obshchestvennosti v preodolenii detskoi besprizornosti na severnom Kavkaze v 1920-1926 gg.” (Rostpv-on-the-Don, 1979), ManuscriptNumber 4764, INION AN SSSR, Moscow; “Sovershenstvovanie raboty partiinykh, gosudarstvennykh i obshchestvennykh organizatsii Dona i Kubano-Chernomor'ia po likvidatsii detskoi besprizornosti v 19261929 gg.” (Rostov-on-the-Don, 1982), Manuscript Number 9322, INION AN SSSR, Moscow; and “Sozdanie sistemy detskikh uchrezhdenii dlia spaseniia besprizornykh detei na Donu i Kubano-Chemomor'e v period vosstanovleniia narodnogo khoziaistva” (Rostov-on-the-Don, 1986), Manuscript Number 25907, INION AN SSSR, Moscow.

7. For a discussion of how besprizomye supported themselves on the street, see Alan Ball, “Survival in the Street World of Soviet Russia's Besprizomye” Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas 39, no. 1 (1991): 33-52.

8. For a brief survey of changes over the centuries in the tsarist government's response to besprizornost’ and juvenile delinquency, see Krasnushkin et al., Nishchenstvo i besprizornost', 116-22. For more on homeless children and juvenile delinquency in pre-revolutionary Russia, see Joan Neuberger, “Crime and Culture: Hooliganism in St. Petersburg, 1900-1914” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1985); G. D. Ryndziunskii and Savinskaia, T. M., Detskoe pravo. Pravovoe polozhenie detei v RSFSR, 3rd ed. (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1932), 273–74Google Scholar; Liublinskii, P. I., Bor'ba s prestupnost'iu v detskom i iunosheskom vozraste (Moscow: Narkomiust, 1923), 46–50 Google Scholar; Madison, Social Welfare, chapter one; Ransel, David L., Mothers of Misery: Child Abandonment in Russia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

9. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, o. 70, ed. khr. 2, 1. 4; Shkola i zhizn’ (Nizhnii Novgorod), no. 10 (1927): 54; Pervyi vserossiiskii s “ezd, 67; Konius, E. M., Puti razvitiia sovetskoi okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva 1917-1940 (Moscow: Tsentral'nyi institut usovershenstvovaniia vrachei, 1954), 141 Google Scholar; Maro, (Levitina, M. I.), Besprizomye. Sotsiologiia.Byt. Praktika raboty(Moscow: ” Novaia Moskva,” 1925), 66 Google Scholar; Pravo i zhizn', no. 8-10 (1927): 28.

10. Liublinskii, Bor'ba, 58; Profilakticheskaia meditsina (Khar'kov), no. 12 (1926): 75.

11. Rudkin, “Prichiny,” 2.

12. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 6 (1923): 129; Shkola i zhizn’ (Nizhnii Novgorod), no. 10 (1927): 54; Drug detei, no. 8-9 (1927): 9; O. Kaidanova, cornp., Besprizornye (Moscow: “Doloi negramotnost',” 1926), 40-42; Maro, Besprizornye, 110; Rudkin, “Prichiny,” 2; L. A. Vasilevskii and L. M. Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 3d ed. (Petrograd: Knigoizdatel'skoe tovarishchestvo “Kniga,” 1922), 73.

13. For illustrations from autobiographical sketches of besprizornye evacuated to Cheliabinsk during World War I, see O. Kaidanova, Besprizornye deti. Praktika raboty opytnoi stantsii (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1926), 50, 55-57.

14. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, o. 13, ed. khr. 11, 1. 39; S. N. Korneenkov, ed., Cheliabinskaia guberniia v period voennogo kommunizma (iiul'1919-dekabr’ 1920 gg.). Dokumenty i materialy(Cheliabinsk: Cheliabinskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1960), 173; Maro, Besprizornye, 66-67; Detskaia defektivnost', prestupnost’ i besprizomost'. Po materiaiam I vserossiiskogo s'ezda 24/VI—2/VII1920 g. (Moscow: Biuro mediko-pedagogicheskoi konsul'tatsii Narkomprosa, 1922), 19; Venerologiia i dermatologiia, no. 5 (1926): 836. For an estimate of seven and a half million people killed between 1918 and 1920, see Goldman, “The ‘Withering Away’ and the Resurrection,” 81-82.

15. Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva SSSR (hereafter cited as TsGALI), f. 332, o. 2, ed. khr. 41, 1. 21; Kaidanova, Besprizornye deti, 59, 62, 72; Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 73; Profilakticheskaia meditsina (Khar'kov), no. 12 (1926): 76, 78. A “white” newspaper, published in Rostov-on-the-Don before the bolsheviks captured the city, described a shelter for orphans of soldiers killed fighting the “reds.” The facility was said to be overflowing with children. Vechernee uremia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 367 (20 September 1919): 4.

16. Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii, vysshikh organov gosudarstvennoi vlasti i organov gosudarstvennogo upravleniia SSSR (hereafter cited as TsGAOR), f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 63, 1. 81; Prosveshchenie (Krasnodar), no. 3-4 (1921): 9.

17. TsGALI, f. 332, o. 2, ed. khr. 41, 11. 1, 21; M. Leshchinskii, Kto byl nichem … (Moscow: “Sovetskaia Rossiia,” 1967), 39; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 7-8 (1927): 35; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 6 (1923): 129.

18. See for example Cheliabinskaia guberniia v period voennogo kommunizma, 204.

19. V. A. Arnautov, comp., Golod i deti na Ukraine. Po dannym sektsii pomoshchi golodaiushchim detiampri tsentr. sov. zashchity detei na Ukraine ipodrugim materialam (Khar'kov: Narkompros Ukrainskoi Sovetskoi Sotsialisticheskoi Respubliki, 1922), 3-4; Itogi bor'by s golodom v 1921-22 gg. Sbornik statei i otchetov (Moscow: TsKPomGol, 1922), 462-65; Gor'kaia pravda o Povolzh'i i otchet tulgubpomgola (Tula: TulGubPomGol, 1922), 17; Zaria Vostoka (Tiflis), no. 41 (5 August 1922): 1; Kogan, A. N., “Sistema meropriiatii partii i pravitel'stva po bor'be s golodom v Povolzh'e 1921-1922 gg.,” Istoricheskie zapiski 48 (1954): 229 Google Scholar. For a sampling of western sources on the famine, see, along with titles listed in following notes, Fisher, Harold H., The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919-1923: The Operations of the American Relief Administration (New York: Macmillan, 1927 Google Scholar; Hibben, Paxton, Report on the Russian Famine (New York: American Committee for the Relief of Russian Children, 1922)Google Scholar; League of Nations. Secretariat, Report on Economic Conditions in Russia with Special Reference to the Famine of 1921-1922 and the State of Agriculture (Nancy-Paris-Strasbourg: Berger-Levrault, 1922).

20. By all accounts, deaths during die famine (including those due to diseases such as scurvy, typhus, cholera and malaria, to which the population in its weakened condition was especially susceptible) ran into the millions. Newspaper reports told of numerous villages stripped of most inhabitants, while estimates of the number of people “facing” death from starvation ranged from 23 million to 32 million. Meeting Report of die Kennan Institute for Advanced Studies VIII, no. 11 (for the figure of “at least five million” ); Murray Feshbach, “The Soviet Union: Population Trends andDilemmas,” Population Bulletin 37 (August 1982): 7; lu. A. Poliakov, 1921-i: Pobeda nad golodom(Moscow: Politizdat, 1975), 27; Itogi bor'by s golodom, 6; Istoricheskie zapiski 48 (1954): 228; Golod i deti, 33-34; Krasnaia nov', no. 2 (1922): 324; Gor'kaia pravda, 44; Iskhak Kazakov, ed., Bich naroda. Ocherki strashnoi deistvitel'nosti (Kazan': TsKPomGol pri TatTsIKe, 1922), 84-90; Krasnoarmeets, no. 40-41 (1921): 20.

21. Kazakov, Bich naroda, 79-80; Kaidanova, Besprizornye, 32; Golod i deti, 29-30; Gibbs, Philip, Since Then (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930), 393–400 Google Scholar; Hammer, Armand, The Quest of the Romanoff Treasure (New York: W. F. Payson, 1932), 51.Google Scholar

22. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 60, 1. 153; Gor'kaia pravda, 44, 46; Golod i deti, 28-29; Put'prosveshcheniia (Khar'kov), no. 3 (1924): 49.

23. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 61, 1. 52; Na fronte goloda, kniga 2 (Samara: Gubernskii komitet pomoshchi golodaiushchim, 1923), 205-6; Krasnaia nov', no. 5 (1923): 205; Gor'kaia pravda, 39, 43, 49; Kaidanova, Besprizornye, 31-32; Kazakov, Bich naroda, 79; Golod i deti, 28; Vestnik prosveshcheniia, no. 1 (1922): 16; P Sorokin, itirim A., Hunger as a Factor in Human Affairs (Gainesville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1975), 195–96Google Scholar; Krist, Gustav, Prisoner in the Forbidden Land (London: Faber and Faber, Limited, 1938), 326, 333 Google Scholar; Hiebert, P. C. and Miller, Orie O., Feeding the Hungry: Russian Famine 1919-1925 (Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Central Committee, 1929), 188, 231.Google Scholar

24. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 28, 11.5, 7; f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr.61, 1. 55; Kaidanova, Besprizornye deti, 69; Golod i deti, 31-33; Gor'kaia pravda, 44; Krasnaia nov', no. 5 (1923): 205; Derevenskaia pravda (Petrograd), no. 147 (25 October 1921): 1; no. 21 (28 January 1922): 2; Hiebert and Miller, Feeding the Hungry, 188; Krist, Prisoner, 331.

25. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 61, 1. 51; Biulleten1 tsentral'noi komissii pomoshchi golodaiushchim VTsIK, no. 2 (1921): 37; Kazakov, Bich naroda, 80; Golod i deti, 30-31; Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 77” , Gor'kaia pravda, 46; Izhevskaia pravda (Izhevsk), no. 101 (19 May 1922): 1.

26. Krasnaia gazeta (Petrograd), no. 100 (7 May 1922): 2; Derevenskaia pravda (Petrograd), no. 9 (13 January 1922): 1; Golod i deti, 5, 36-37; Gor'kaia pravda, 45-46; Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 82, 175-76, 179-81; Kazakov, Bich naroda, 103; Krasnaia nov', no. 2 (1922): 325; no. 5 (1923): 204; Novyi put’ (Riga), no. 295 (26 January 1922): 3; no. 319 (24 February 1922): 3; Sorokin, Hunger, 111-12; Pravo i zhizn', no. 1 (1922): 37; Pravda, no. 17 (24 January 1922): 4; Raleigh, Donald J., ed., A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917-1922 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988), 208–10Google Scholar; Salisbury, Harrison E., Russia in Revolution 1900-1930 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978), 246–47Google Scholar (for photographs of peasants who had been selling human flesh).

27. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 60, 11. 131, 200; Kommunistka, no. 1 (1922): 12; Posle goloda, no. 1 (1922): 65; Kazakov, Bich naroda, 24, 60 (for reports from Kazan’); Vestnik prosveshcheniia, no. 1 (1922): 16; Prosveshchenie (Krasnodar), no. 2 (1921-22): 127; Narodnoe prosveshchenie (Saratov), no. 3 (1922): 26; Biulleten’ tsentral'noi komissii pomoshchi golodaiushchim VTsIK, no. 2 (1921): 37; Pravo i zhizn', no. 1 (1922): 38.

28. M. Artamonov, Deti ulitsy. Ocherki moskovskoi zhizni (Moscow: “Zhizn’ i Znanie,” 1925), 39 (regarding Moscow's besprizornye at the end of 1923); Prosveshchenie (Krasnodar), no. 2 (1921-22): 127 (regarding the telegraph from Simbirsk province).

29. For a sampling of works that identify the famine as a major cause of besprizornost', see E. S. Livshits, Sotsial'nye korni besprizornosti (Moscow: “Rabotnik prosveshcheniia,” 1925), 65; Vtoroi otchet voronezhskogo gubernskogo ekonomicheshogo soveshchaniia (1 ohtiabria 1921 g.—1 oktiabria 1922 g.)(Voronezh: Voronezhskii gubernskii ispolnitel'nyi komitet i ekonomicheskoe soveshchanie, 1922), 34; Statisticheskii spravochnik po narodnomu obrazovaniiu 1923 g., vypusk 1 (Pokrovsk: Oblastnoe statisticheskoe biuronemtsev povolzh'ia, 1923), 13; Prosveshchenie na Urate (Sverdlovsk), no. 2 (1927): 60; Liublinskii, Bor'ba, 58; Narodnoe prosveshchenie (Odessa), no. 6-10 (1922): 44; Vestnik prosveshcheniia, no. 4 (1923): 163; Vozhatyi, no. 6 (1926): 29; Itogi bor'by s golodom, 32; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 102 (1922): 6; Prosveshchenie (Viatka), no. 1 (1922): 20; Put’ prosveshcheniia(Khar'kov), no. 3 (1924): 148, 165.

30. Itogi bor'by s golodom, 34; Prosveshchenie (Krasnodar), no. 2 X1921-22): 39; TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr.60, 1.200; f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr.43, 1. 134; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 102 (1922): 6. A recent Soviet work estimates that the famine produced two million orphans. Poliakov, 1921i: Pobeda nod golodom, 27.

31. Gor'kaia pravda, 24; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 105 (1922): 7; Vserossiiskoe obsledovanie, 34. For indications of the large number of besprizornye in other regions at this time, see TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 43, 1. 8; Itogi bor'by s golodom, 241; Pomoshch’ detiam. Sbornik statei po bor'be s besprizornost'iu i pomoshchi detiam na Ukraine v 1924 godu (Khar'kov: TsKPomDet pri VUTsIKe, 1924), 5; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 10 (1926): 4; Shkola i zhizn’ (Nizhnii Novgorod), no. 11 (1926): 31.

32. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 61, 1. 70; Commission on Russian Relief of the National Information Bureau, Inc., The Russian Famines, 1921-22, 1922-23; Summary Report (New York: Commission on Russian Relief of the National Information Bureau, Inc., 1923), 18; Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 74; Gudok, no. 373 (12 August 1921): 1.

33. Tvorcheskii put’ (Orenburg), no. 6 (1923): 3-5; Smolenskaia nov’ (Smolensk), no. 1 (1922): 5; Drug detei, no. 2 (1926): 15-16; L. G. Glatman, Pioner—na bor'bu s besprizornost'iu (Moscow-Leningrad: Molodaia gvardiia, 1926), 3-4, 8; Kaidanova, Besprizomye deti, 51-52; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 102 (1922): 12; no. 6 (1923): 129; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 9-10 (1927): 14; F. A. Mackenzie, Russia Before Dawn (London: T. F. Unwin, 1923), 152 (for the quotation).

34. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 47, 1.10; f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr.61, 11. 51-52; Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 77; Kommunistka, no. 14-15 (1921): 4, 7; Golod i deti, 35; C. E. Bechhoffer Roberts, Through Starving Russia (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1921), 44; V. I. Kufaev, lunye pravonarushiteli (Moscow: “Novaia Moskva,” 1924), 225; Prqfilakticheskaia meditsina (Khar'kov), no. 12 (1926): 79; Prosveshchenie (Viatka), no. 1 (1922): 20; Prosveshchenie (Krasnodar), no. 3-4 (1921-22): 153; Walter Duranty, Duranty Reports Russia (New York: Viking Press, 1934), 24; Gibbs, Since Then, 391.

35. Kazakov, Bich naroda, 79; Derevenskaia pravda (Petrograd), no. 1 (1 January 1922): 1; Golod i deti, 35-36; Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 77; Pravda, no. 204 (14 September 1921): 1.

36. Krasnaia gazeta (Petrograd), no. 102 (10 May 1922): 5.

37. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 47, 1.10; f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr.61, 1. 52; Prosveshchenie (Viatka), no. 1 (1922): 19-20; Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 75; Pravda, no. 168 (2 August 1921): 1 (regarding the report from Samara); Duranty, Duranty Reports, 25; Frank Alfred Golder and Lincoln Hutchinson, On the Trail of the Russian Famine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1927), 44.

38. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 28, 1.7; TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr.43, 11. 3, 27; TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 61, 1. 52; Derevenskaia pravda (Petrograd), no. 118 (17 September 1921): 2; no. 120 (21 September 1921): 3; no. 131 (5 October 1921): 3; no. 21 (28 January 1922): 2; Prosveshchenie na Urale (Sverdlovsk), no. 2 (1927): 60; Novyi put’ (Riga), no. 250 (1 December 1921): 3; no. 295 (26 January 1922): 3; Posle goloda, no. 1 (1922): 64; Vestnik prosveshcheniia T.S.S.R. (Kazan’), no. 1-2 (1922): 26.

39. Vasilevskii and Vasilevskii, Kniga o golode, 74-75. The detdoma of Samara province took in 20-25 children each day as early as May 1921. During the next two months the number rose to 50-55 youths each day and it passed 100 in August, TsGA RSFSR, f. 1575, o. 6, ed. khr. 4, 1. 66. For additional data showing sharp increases in the number of children in detdoma in several portions of the famine zone, see Gor'kaia pravda, 23; Prosveshchenie (Viatka), no. 1 (1922): 20; Vestnik prosveshcheniia T.S.S.R. (Kazan’), no. 1-2 (1922): 25; Statisticheskii spravochnik, 13.

40. Walter Duranty, Write as I Please (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935), 131. A visitor to Kazan’ during the famine described one of the city's detdoma as follows: “The children arrived at this one at the rate of a hundred and sometimes two hundred a day, and although the director of this home was a man of order, with sound ideas on sanitation, so that the children were washed and disinfected on arrival, all this method was overwhelmed by the pressure of new arrivals and the lack of clothes. They were all crawling with lice from which typhus was carried. Nothing the man could do, with his assistants, could destroy that plague of vermin which was the curse and terror of Russian life at this time.” Gibbs, Since Then, 391-92.

41. The following sources contain a range of estimates for the first year or so after the famine. TsGA RSFSR, f. 1575, o. 6, ed. khr. 152, 1. 1; Put’ prosveshcheniia (Khar'kov), no. 3 (1924): 32; Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 50; Na putiakh k novoi shkole, no. 3 (May 1923): 76; Prosveshchenie (Krasnodar), no. 1 (1923): 7. L. M. Vasilevskii writes that in the summer of 1923 there were, “according to official figures, over two million besprizornye; the actual figure was, of course, much higher.” Vasilevskii, L. M., Detskaia “prestupnosf'” i detskii sud (Tver': “Oktiabr',” 1923), 128 Google Scholar, footnote. For the figure provided by the Children's Commission, see Poznyshev, S. V., Detskaia besprizornost’ i mery bor'by s nei (Moscow: “Novaia Moskva,” 1926), 11 Google Scholar.

42. Narkompros estimates—some of which were admittedly based on “incomplete” and “clearly underestimated” data—ranged from 150, 000 to 300, 000 besprizornye in the Russian Republic in 1925. For a representative sampling of figures for 1925, see Poznyshev, Detskaia besprizornost1, 11; Krasnushkin et al., Nishchenstvo i besprizornost', 140-41; Volna (Arkhangel'sk), no. 9 (12 January 1926): 2; Krasnaia nov1, no. 1 (1932): 50; Sbornik deistvuiushchikh uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii pravitel'stva Soiuza SSR i pravitel'stva R.S.F.S.R., postanovlenii detkomissii pri VTsIK i vedomstvennykh rasporiazhenii po bor'be s detskoi besprizornost'iu i ee preduprezhdeniiu, vypusk 2 (Moscow: Detkomissiia pri VTsIKe, 1929), 70; S. S. Tizanov and M. S. Epshtein, eds., Gosudarstvo i obshchestvennost’ v bor'be s detskoi besprizornost'iu. (Sbornik statei i pravitel'stvennykh rasporiazhenii) (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1927), 32, 41; Drug detei, no. 3 (1928): 2; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR k 1926/27 uchebnomu godu. Otchet narkomprosa RSFSR za 1925126 uchebnyi god (Moscow-Leningrad: Narkompros, 1927), 59. According to one author, there were approximately 335, 000 besprizornye in the USSR in 1926: 300, 000 in the Russian Republic; 23, 000 in Ukraine; 6, 000 in the Transcaucasian republics; 5, 000 in Belarus; and 1, 000 in Turkmenistan.Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 4-5 (1926): 25. Other estimates of the number of besprizornye in the Russian Republic in 1926 tended to cluster in the neighborhood of 250, 000 to 300, 000. A Narkompros document dated 1 June 1926 stated that “the absence of complete data hinders an accurate determination of the extent of besprizornost', but the incomplete data at hand, clearly underestimated, indicate the presence of 300, 000 children in need of aid in the RSFSR, of which not less than 150, 000 are absolute besprizornye.” Molot (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 1461 (19 June 1926): 3; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 2 (1926): 28; Krasnushkin et al., Nishchenstvo i besprizornost', 141; Gilev, Detskaia besprizornost', 3. The census of 1926 counted 75, 000 besprizornye, but this figure is clearly far below the actual total. Detskii dom i bor'ba s besprizornost'iu (Moscow: Glavsotsvos, 1928), 7; Krasnushkin et al., Nishchenstvo i besprizornost', 141. According to an article published early in 1927, the Children's Commission estimated that there were still “over 100, 000” besprizornye on the streets of the Russian Republic.Vecherniaia Moskva, no. 42 (21 February 1927): 2. At roughly the same time, Narkompros estimated the number of besprizornye in the Russian Republic to be 150, 000. Pravo i zhizn', no. 8-10 (1927): 33.

43. Frederic Lilge speculates as follows: “It is probable that the greater number [ofbesprizornye] died of famine and epidemics, that others grew up into adult criminals, and only a small minority were rehabilitated. Many who were temporarily accommodated ran away either because of intolerable conditions in the overcrowded asylums, or because the directors were unable to discipline or accustom the children to work or study. Directors who, like Makarenko, succeeded were rare exceptions.” Frederic Lilge, Anton Semyonovitch Makarenko: An Analysis of His Educational Ideas in the Context of Soviet Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1958), 14.

44. Nash trud (Iaroslavl’), no. 7-9 (1928): 41; Voprosy prosveshcheniia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 3-4 (1926): 44; Itogi bor'by s golodom, 32; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 8 (1926): 69; Shkola i zhizn’ (Nizhnii Novgorod), no. 9-10 (1925): 87-88; Livshits, Sotsial'nye korni, 6, 134; Smolenskaia nov’ (Smolensk), no. 7-8 (1922): 8.

45. TsGAOR, f. 5207, o. 1, ed. khr. 62, 1. 22; Drug detei, no. 2 (1925): 20; no. 5 (1928): inside back cover; Shkola i zhizn’ (Nizhnii Novgorod), no. 9-10 (1925): 87; no. 11 (1926): 30; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 9-10 (1927): 4; Put’ prosveshcheniia (Khar'kov), no. 3 (1924): 44.

46. Shkola i zhizn’ (Nizhnii Novgorod), no. 11 (1926): 30-31; no. 3 (1929): 78.

47. Komsomol'skaia pravda, no. 139 (23 June 1927): 2; S. S. Tizanov, V. L. Shveitser and V. M. Vasil'eva, eds., Detskaia besprizornost’ i detskii dom. Sbornik statei i materialov 11 vserossiiskogo s “ezda SPONpo voprosam detskoi besprizornosti, detskogo doma ipravovoi okhrany detei i podrostkov (Moscow: Glavsotsvos, 1926), 167.

48. Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 37-38 (for the quotation); TsGA RSFSR, f. 1575, o. 10, ed. khr. 190, 1. 2; Komsomol'skaia pravda, no. 27 (26 June 1925): 3; Maro, Besprizornye, 108; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 6 (1925): 5; no. 3 (1926): 41; Artamonov, Deti ulitsy, 7, 29 (for the estimate of 20, 000); Leningradskaia oblast’ (Leningrad), no. 4 (1928): 111.

49. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 8 (1926): 69; Drug detei, no. 2 (1925): 21; no. 2 (1927): 18; no. 2 (1929): 8; Detskii dom, no. 8-9 (1929): 37; Put'prosveshcheniia (Khar'kov), no. 3 (1924): 43.

50. Proletarskii sud, no. 1 (1923): 25; Artamonov, Deti ulitsy, 29; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 8 (1926): 68; Drug detei, no. 1 (1925): 2; no. 1 (1927): 22; Vozhatyi, no. 6 (1926): 29; Komsomol'skaia pravda, no. 158 (13 July 1926): 3; no. 104 (11 May 1927): 4.

51. Motet (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 1144 (30 May 1925): 5; no. 1175 (7 July 1925): 5; Pravo i zhizn', no. 2-3 (1925): 92-93; Sbornik deistvuiushchikh uzahmenii i rasporiazhenii (vypusk2), 48; Voprosy prosveshcheniia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 2 (1926): 41; Severo-Kavkazskii krai(Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 5 (1926): 20.

52. Voprosy prosveshcheniia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 2 (1926): 41; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizomost', 167; Severo-Kavkazskii krai (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 5 (1926): 20; Drug detei, no. 2 (1926): 15; Motet (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 1563 (19 October 1926): 5.

53. Prosveshchenie (Krasnodar), no. 3-4 (1921): 9; Put’ prosveshcheniia (Khar'kov), no. 3 (1924): 148-49; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizomost', 168; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 6-7 (1926): 19, 29; no. 8-9 (1926): 14, 19.

54. Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizomost', 151, 167-68; Gor'kaia pravda, 40; M. S.Zhivov, comp., Asfal'tovyi hotel. Khudozhestvennye stranitsy iz zhizni besprizornykh (Moscow: “Sovremennye problemy,” 1926), 236-37; Komsomol'skaia pravda, no. 88 (8 September 1925): 3; no. 268 (19 November 1926): 2.

55. Voprosy prosveshcheniia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 2 (1926): 42; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 5 (1925): 39; no. 9-10 (1927): 24.

56. Pravda, no. 275 (2 December 1925): 1. See also Drug detei, no. 1 (1929): 10-12; Ural'skii uchitel’ (Sverdlovsk), no. 11-12 (1926): 31; Voprosy prosveshcheniia (Rostov-onthe-Don), no. 8-9 (1926): 50; Drugdetei (Khar'kov), no. 1 (1926): 2; Komsomol'skaia pravda, no. 157 (11 July 1926): 5.

57. Livshits, Sotsial'nye korni, 199; Tizanov and Epshtein, Gosudarstvo i obshcheslvennost', 40; Detskii dom i bor'ba s besprizornost'iu, 8; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizornost', 168-69; Kommunistka, no. 6 (1926): 10; Vozhatyi, no. 6 (1926): 29; Ural'skii uchitel’ (Sverdlovsk), no. 11-12 (1926): 31.

58. Dvukhnedel'nik Donskogo okruzhnogo otdela narodnogo obrazovaniia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 2 (1924): 10; Volna (Arkhangelsk), no. 28 (4 February 1926): 2; Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 46; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizornost', 169, 179; Drugdetei, no. 7 (1926): 3-4; Tizanov and Epshtein, Gosudarstvo i obshchestvennost', 41; Sovetskoe stroitel'stvo, no. 2-3 (1927): 152; G. D. Ryndziunskii, T. M. Savinskaia and G. G. Cherkezov, Pravovoe polozhenie detei v RSFSR, 2nd ed. (Moscow: luridicheskoe izdatel'stvo NKIu RSFSR, 1927), 85. Regarding local surges of besprizornost’ following poor harvests, see Voprosy prosveshcheniia(Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 2 (1926): 42; Obzor raboty po bor'be s detskoi besprizornost'iu i beznadzornost'iu v RSFSR za 1929/30god (Moscow: Detkomissiia pri VTsIKe, 1930), 5; Drugdetei (Khar'kov), no. 4 (1925): 3-4; Vecherniaia Moskva, no. 200 (2 September 1924): 3.

59. Krasnushkin et al., Nishchenstvo i besprizorrwst', 156; Livshits, Sotsial'nye korni, 56; Gilev, Detskaia besprizorrwst', 6-7; Vozhatyi, no. 6 (1926): 29; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR k 1927-28 whebnomu godu. Otchet narkomprosa RSFSR za 1926/27 uchebnyi god (Moscow-Leningrad: Narkompros, 1928), 54; Drug detei, no. 2 (1927): 18; no. 1 (1928): 12; no. 3 (1928): 2; no. 6 (1928): 16; Tizanov and Epshtein, Gosudarstvo i obshchestvennost', 10, 34; Zhizn’ Buriatii (Verkhneudinsk), no. 5 (1929): 71; Krupskaia, Pedagogicheskie sochineniia, 2: 231-32; Artamonov, Deti ulitsy, 6-7; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 9 (1925): 31-32; no. 9-10 (1927): 5; Narodnoe prosveshchenie, no. 8 (1926): 69. Of course, other motives could also launch peasant youths toward the cities—a desire to begin or continue school, for example, or to satisfy one's curiosity about urban marvels reported by others. Regardless of motive, these peasants often found themselves before long in the ranks of the besprizornye. S. S. Tizanov, V. M. Vasil'eva and 1.1. Daniushevskii, eds., Pedagogika sovremennogo detskogo doma (Moscow-Leningrad: Glavsotsvos, 1927), 259; Vozhatyi, no. 12 (1928): 19; Drug detei, no. 7 (1926): 4.

60. Regarding poverty, often aggravated by unemployment, as a cause of besprizornost', seeSbornik deistvuiushchikh uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii (vypusk 2), 215-16; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR k 1927-28 uchebnomu godu, 54; Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 46; Tizanov and Epshtein, Gosudarstvo i obshchestvennost', 32. Regarding the plight of single mothers as a source of besprizornost', see Livshits, Sotsial'nye korni, 25; Voprosy prosveshcheniia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 2 (1926): 46-47.

61. Wendy Z. Goldman, “Working-Class Women and the ‘Withering Away’ of the Family: Popular Responses to Family Policy,” in Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitch and Richard Stites, eds., Russia in the Era ofNEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), 129 (for the statistics); Kufaev, Iunye pravonarushiteli, 141, 148.

62. Vestnik prosveshcheniia, no. 2 (1923): 75; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v R.S.F.S.R. k 1924/25 uchebnomu godu, 78; Drug detei, no. 3 (1928): 2; Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 46; Tizanov and Epshtein, Gosudarstvo i obshchestvennost', 10; Maro, Besprizornye, 88; Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia, 366-69; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 3 (1927): 20-21; Madison, Social Welfare, 38.

63. Na putiakh k novoi shkole, no. 5-6 (1926): 51; Prosveshchenie Sibiri (Novosibirsk), no. 5 (1927): 63; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 3 (1925): 8; Motet (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 1573 (30 October 1926): 5.

64. Puti kommunisticheskogo prosveshcheniia (Simferopol’), no. 1-2 (1928): 36; Drug detei, no. 7 (1930): 7; Prosveshchenie Sibiri (Novosibirsk), no. 12 (1929): 12. One author referred to the condition of beznadzornost’ as hidden (skrytaia) besprizornost'. B. O. Borovich, ed., Kollektivy besprizornykh i ikh vozhaki (Khar'kov: “Trud,” 1926), 44-45.

65. Nash trud (Iaroslavl’), no. 1 (1925): 25; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 9 (1925): 14; Kufaev, Iunye pravonarushiteli, 174-75; Boris Sokolov, Spasite detei! (O detiakh sovetskoi Rossii) (Prague: “Volia Rossii,” 1921), 46.

66. Drugdetei (Khar'kov), no. 8-9 (1926): 14; no. 3 (1927): 19; no. 9-10 (1927): 4, 34; Voprosy prosveshcheniia (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 2 (1926): 44-45; Narodnoe obrazovanie v R.S.F.S.R. (po dannym godovoi statisticheskoi otchetnosti mestnykh organov narodnogo komissariata po prosveshcheniiu na I/VI1924 goda) (Moscow: Narkompros, 1925), 119; Livshits, Sotsial'nye korni, 28; Dorothy Thompson, The New Russia (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1928), 251-52; Pravda, no. 112 (20 May 1927): 5.

67. P. I. Liublinskii, Zakonodatel'naia okhrana truda detei i podrostkov (Petrograd: “Akademiia,” 1923), 87, 91; Krasnushkin et al., Nishchenstvo i besprizomost', 144-45.

68. Bor'ba s besprizornost'iu. Materialy 1-i moskovskoi konferentsii po bor'be s besprizornost'iu 16-17 marta 1924 g. (Moscow: “Rabotnik prosveshcheniia,” 1924), 42; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizomost', 169; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR k 1927-28 uchebnomu godu, 54.

69. TsGALI, f. 332, o. 2, ed. khr. 41, 11. 4-5; Volna (Arkhangelsk), no. 173 (31 July 1926): 3; Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 39, 46; A. S. Makarenko, The Road to Life, 2 vols. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1951; reprint, 1973), 2: 241; Vestnik prosveshcheniia, no. 9 (1925): 90; Drug detei, no. 5 (1928): 20; Detskii dom i bor'ba s besprizornost'iu, 47; Voprosy prosveshcheniia na Severnorh Kavkaze (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 10 (1928): 23.

70. Detskii dom i bor'ba s besprizornost'iu, 11; A/a putiakh k novoi shkole, no. 7-8 (1924): 49; no. 10-12 (1924): 85; Drug detei (Khar'kov), no. 9-10 (1927): 5; Krasnaia nov1, no. 1 (1932): 44; V. I. Kufaev, Shkola-kommuna imeni F. E. Dzerzhinskogo (Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1938), 6.

71. Livshits, Sotsial'nye korni, 108; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR 1927-28 god (Moscow: Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie RSFSR, 1929), 175.

72. Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizornost1, 184; Poznyshev, Detskaia besprizornost1, 108; Pravda, no. 42 (20 February 1926): 1 (for the figure of 80 percent).

73. Detskii dom, no. 4 (1930): 10; Severo-Kavkazskii krai (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 5 (1926): 24; Shkola i zhizn’ (Nizhnii Novgorod), no. 9-10 (1925): 90; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizornost', 180; Poznyshev, Detskaia besprizornost', 109; Gilev, Detskaia besprizornost', 1; Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 5: 789; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v R.S.F.S.R. k 1924/25 uchebnomu godu, 84; Ural'skii uchitel’ (Sverdlovsk), no. 5-6 (1925): 41.

74. Narodnoe prosveshchenie v R.S.F.S.R. k 1924/25 uchebnomu godu, 84; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v RSFSR k 1926/27 uchebnomu godu, 63; Tizanov and Epshtein, Gosudarstvo i obshchestvennost', 7; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizornost', 183; Krasnushkin et al., Nishchenstvo i besprizornost', 145; Gilev, Detskaia besprizornost', 11.

75. Artamonov, Deti ulitsy, 37-38; Tizanov et al., Pedagogika, 17; Tizanov and Epshtein, Gosudarstvo i obshchestvennost', 32-33; Tizanov et al., Detskaia besprizornost', 168-69, 184-85; Pedagogicheskaia entsiklopediia, 3 vols. (Moscow: “Rabotnik prosveshcheniia,” 1927-1930), 2: 355; Narodnoe prosveshchenie v R.S.F.S.R. k 1925/26 uchebnomu godu, 68.

76. Prosveshchenie na Urale (Sverdlovsk), no. 12 (1930): 71; B. S. Utevskii, comp., Obshchestvo “Drug detei” (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1932), 20, 43; Sbornik deistvuiushchikh uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii pravitel'stva Soiuza SSR i pravitel'stva R.S.F.S.R., postanovlenii detkomissii pri VTsIK i vedomstvennykh rasporiazhenii po bor'be s detshoi besprizornost'iu i beznadzornost'iu, vypusk 3 (Moscow: Detkomissiia pri VTsIKe, 1932), 3; Okhrana detstva, no. 1 (1931): 12; no. 5 (1931): 45 (for the slogan quoted).

77. Drug detei, no. 7 (1931): 27 (for the review); Bowen, James, Soviet Education: Anton Makarenko and the Years of Experiment (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962; reprint, 1965)Google Scholar, 5 (for Dewey's remarks).

78. Utevskii, B. S., comp., Bor'ba s detskoi besprizornost'iu (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1932), 10 Google Scholar (for the statement by Semashko). For other claims that besprizornost’ had all but disappeared by 1931 (earlier in some cases) from various regions, see Pravda, no. 166 (19 July 1928): 6; Sbornik deistvuiushchikh uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii (vypusk 2), 195; Detskii dom, no. 4 (1930): 64; Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii.1917-1949 (Moscow: Narkomiust, 1920-50), 1932, no. 21, art. 106; Krasnaia nov', no. 1 (1932): 50; Min'kovskii, G. M., “Osnovnye etapy razvitiia sovetskoi sistemy raer bor'by s prestupnost'iu nesovershennoletnikh,” in Voprosy bor'by s prestupnost'iu, vypusk 6 (1967): 49 Google Scholar; Rudkin, “Prichiny,” 14-15.

79. Obzor raboty po bor'be s detskoi besprizornost'iu i beznadzornost'iu v RSFSR za 1929/ 30 god, 24 (for the report from the Children's Commission); Drug detei, no. 8 (1931): 15; no. 11 (1931): 22 (regarding the receiver at Rostov-on-the-Don); Ryndziunskii and Savinskaia, Detskoe pravo, 232 (regarding the receiver at Kazan’ Station and the total for the Soviet Union during this period); Okhrana detstva, no. 6 (1931): 22 (regarding the transportation network around Leningrad); no. 9-10 (1931): 29; TsGA RSFSR, f. 393, o. 1, ed. khr.201, 1. 17 (regarding the organization of volunteers); 7-a sotsialisticheskuiu kul'turu (Rostov-on-the-Don), no. 12 (1930): 24. If official sources shrouded the new eruption of indigence—and especially its link to government policies in the countryside— others reported the calamity without hesitation. Foreign residents and Soviet citizens who later departed for the west described crowds of hungry peasant children in the streets and around railway stations. Lyons, Eugene, Assignment in Utopia (New York: Harcourt, Brace and company, 1937), 281 Google Scholar; Monkhouse, Allan, Moscow, 1911-1933 (London: V. Gollancz, Ltd., 1933), 213, 231 Google Scholar; Serge, Victor, Russia Twenty Years After(New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1937), 28 Google Scholar; Kravchenko, Victor, Chose Freedom (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1946), 63 Google Scholar; Orlov, Alexander, The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes (New York: Random House, 1953), 39 Google Scholar; Bauer, Raymond A., The New Man in Soviet Psychology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 41–42 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the anonymous reports from the Soviet Union contained in a newspaper published by Mensheviks in emigration. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik (Paris), no. 8 (1933): 16; no. 12 (1933): 15; no. 18 (1933): 16; no. 24 (1933): 15.

80. In contrast, after Hitler's invasion filled the country yet again with itinerant children, they were recognized openly as products of fascist brutality. For an example of the blind spot regarding besprizornye in the 1930s, see Pedagogicheskaia entsiklopediia, 4 vols. (Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1964-1968), 1: 191-95. This article discusses besprizornyeof the 1920s and also mentions that “many children lost their parents” during World War II. But there is not the slightest hint that another wave of besprizornost’ occurred in between. Concerning besprizornost’ and World War II, see Stolee, “Homeless Children,” 76-78; Min'kovskii, “Osnovnye etapy,” 60-63; Madison, Social Welfare, 45; Kravchenko, Chose Freedom, 381, 407, 451; A. M. Sinitsin, “Zabota o beznadzornykh i besprizornykh detiakh v SSSR v gody velikoi otechestvennoi voiny,” Voprosy istorii, no. 6 (1969): 29.

81. See, for example, the relevant endnotes in Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow. Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) and the section on the 1930s in Stolee, “Homeless Children.”