Summerfolk полностью

An impulse to impose some measure of order on the chaotic dacha stock had been provided by a Soviet government decree of 24 May 1922 that called on ispolkoms to compile within two months a precise list of all municipalized dachas (that is, all dachas that were under the control of the soviets). This decree did not signal the start of dacha municipalization (which, as we have seen, was under way in some locations as early as 1918); rather it launched a period of stocktaking.23 During the Civil War, houses had often been municipalized on local initiative, not according to any coherent overall policy; the absence of such a policy had also permitted many dachas ripe for municipalization to stay in private hands. In the way of Soviet decrees, the 1922 decree was promptly translated into an NKVD instruktsiia (that is, a set of guidelines as to how the decree was to be implemented in practice). The latter document called for restraint in redistribution of dacha properties: given the huge demand, only “well-founded applications” should be given consideration; and the transfer of whole dacha settlements to a single institution was strictly forbidden. The communal dacha stock was to be made up, first, of dachas whose owners were absent; second, of “lordly” (barskie) dachas (defined as dachas with at least one of the following attributes: running water, bathroom, electricity, heating; outbuildings; extensive gardens and parks; and fancy fittings); and third, of dachas whose owners had other such property in the same area (in such cases, the owners were to be left with one dacha only). The NKVD suggested a further criterion for those areas (and we must assume they were the majority) where the dacha pool obtained by the above methods was insufficient: on plots where there were several residential buildings, the owners were to be left with one building only.24

In June 1923 the Communal Department of the Moscow uezd soviet reported on its implementation of the municipalization policy.25 It estimated that “up to 35 percent” of all dachas in its territory had now been municipalized. A breakdown by district revealed that the traditionally “bourgeois” settlements located on the Kazan’ and Northern (Iaroslavl’) railway lines had borne the brunt of reappropriation. In all, well over 5,000 dachas had been municipalized: nearly half (49.2 percent) of them had been deemed “unfit” (beskhoziaistvennye); 46.6 percent had been appropriated on the grounds that 125 their owners had other dachas; and 4.1 percent were classified as “lordly” (though it may safely be assumed that many of the “unfit” dachas would have fallen into this category had their owners stuck around to find out).

In order to avoid municipalization, dacha owners had to register their property with the local soviet. By the time of the report, 5,001 private dachas had been registered and a further 2,918 applications were being considered. The understaffed department was struggling to keep pace, especially as applications required proper investigation (apparently many families registered several dachas in the names of various members).

What, though, did the Moscow regional administration do with the 6,000 dachas that were under its control as of summer 1923? The first task it defined was to “review the social composition of those renting municipalized dachas and to take them away from nonlaboring elements [netrudovye elementy] if their number exceeds the regulation maximum.” Municipalized dachas, in other words, were to be subjected to the dreaded “compression” (uplotnenie). No less than 90 percent of the communal dacha stock was to be allocated to the “laboring masses” and to institutions. Rents were set prohibitively high for those outside legitimate employment: from 1 October 1922 to 1 May 1923, nonlaboring elements occupied 75 municipalized dachas and paid 119,341 rubles in rent; workers and employees (sluzhashchie) were allocated 2,223 dachas and charged only 37,516 for the privilege.