Perchik L. The Reconstruction of Moscow. — Moscow, 1936

“The manner in which the great multitude of the poor is treated by society today is revolting. They are drawn into the large cities where they breathe a poorer atmosphere than in the country, they are relegated to districts which, by reason of the method of construction, are worse ventilated than any others; they are deprived of all means of cleanliness, of water itself, since pipes are laid only when paid for, and the rivers so polluted that they are useless for such purposes; they are obliged to throw all offal and garbage, all dirty water, often all disgusting drainage and excrement into the streets, being without other means of disposing of them; they are thus compelled to infect the region of their own dwellings. Nor is this enough. All conceivable evils are heaped upon the heads of the poor. If the population of great cities is too dense in general, it is they in particular who are packed into the least space. As though the vitiated atmosphere of the streets were not enough, they are penned in dozens into single rooms, so that the air which they breathe at night is enough in itself to stifle them. They are given damp dwellings, cellar dens that are not waterproof from below, or garrets that leak from above. Their houses are so built that the clammy air cannot escape.”*

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* Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.

“Man returns to the cave dwelling, which is now, however, poisoned by the mephitic, pestilential air of civilization, in which, moreover, he only dwells precariously, a foreign power which can slip away from him any day, out of which he can be thrown any day if he does not pay. He must pay for this death house. The sunny dwelling, which Aeschylus has Prometheus call one of the great gifts by which he made a savage a man, ceases to exist for the worker.”**

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** Marx-Engels, Collected Works, Vol. III, Book 1, p. 128, German ed.

“Luxury and extravagance have reached unprecedented dimensions among this class of the rich, and the main streets of the large towns are lined with their princely palaces and luxurious castles. But, as capitalism grows, the conditions of the workers become worse ... it became more and more difficult to find employment and alongside, the luxurious palaces of the rich (or in the suburbs) the workers’ hovels increased in number, the workers were compelled to live in cellars, in overcrowded, damp and cold tenements and sometimes even in dugouts near where new factory premises were being built.”*

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* Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 474, Co-operative Publishing Society, Moscow, 1935.

“How a social revolution would solve this” (the housing) “question depends not only on the circumstances which would exist in each case, but is also connected with still more far-reaching questions, among which one of the most fundamental is the abolition of the antithesis between town and country. As it is not our task to create utopian systems for the arrangement of the future society, it would be more than idle to go into the question here.”*

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* Engels, The Housing Question, p. 36, Co-operative Publishing Society, Moscow, 1935.

“Everywhere self-sufficiency, lack of connection ... The houses or huts are like fortresses, prepared to withstand a prolonged siege. The household is everywhere, but there is practically no civic life.”