SIMAKOVA A.A. Housing Cooperation in Tsaritsyn – Stalingrad as a Means of Overcoming the Housing Crisis During the Implementation of the New Economic Policy (1921–1928)
- Details
- Hits: 58
- item->id; ?>
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2026.3.14
Alena A. Simakova,
Postgraduate Student, Department of History and International Relations, Volgograd State University, Prosp. Universitetsky, 100, 400062 Volgograd, Russian Federation,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ,
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6532-9206
Abstract. Introduction. The article considers the problem of overcoming the housing crisis with the help of housing cooperation in Tsaritsyn – Stalingrad during the implementation of the new economic policy. The intensification of industrial construction in Stalingrad led to the rapid growth of the city’s population and, as a result, the actualization of the problem of housing shortages. Under these conditions, cooperative experience was in demand, and in the 1920s, it began to be introduced not only into agriculture, trade, and the financial system, but also into housing and communal services. Methods and materials. The introduction of cooperation in the housing sector was of a systemic state nature, which left behind a rich array of documentation. The sources of the study were legislative acts (decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars) and paperwork (circulars and instructions of the NKVD and materials of the local executive committee and the city council, deposited in the State Archives of the Volgograd Region and the Center for Documentation of the Modern History of the Volgograd Region) and periodical printing. Results. Housing and rental cooperation took over the functions of managing houses, unloading the local communal department. By the end of NEP, up to half of the city’s households were transferred to rental cooperatives, which under the new conditions took over the functions of repairing the housing stock and resolving all current economic issues in coordination with local communal departments. Building cooperatives, both civil and workers, were created to directly address the housing crisis. Construction cooperation showed its potential in the construction season of 1924/25, ensuring the commissioning of more than 50% of the new housing stock. In total, during the NEP period, housing cooperatives rebuilt up to 30% of the living space of the total housing construction. The study found that the shortcomings noted in the functioning of the new system were due, inter alia, to the social composition of such associations (often unearned categories), insufficient administration, which gave rise to speculative practices with housing stock, and non-compliance with existing legislative norms. The lack of financial independence of housing cooperation, depending on the subsidies of the communal bank, also narrowed the field of activity of the cooperative system. Despite the existing problems, housing cooperation contributed, to a certain extent, to reducing the severity of the housing crisis and improving the state of the city’s housing stock (including by involving initiative groups of the population in resolving current issues). By the end of NEP, housing cooperation, remaining a participant in housing construction in matters of organization and financing, began to significantly yield to departmental state construction. Funding. The article was prepared with the financial support of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation within the framework of the project FZUU-2026-0006 “Development of methods and algorithms in the field of historical 3D reconstruction and development of technologies for creating virtual excursions.”
Key words: housing crisis, housing cooperation, NEP, Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad.
Citation. Simakova A.A. Housing Cooperation in Tsaritsyn – Stalingrad as a Means of Overcoming the Housing Crisis During the Implementation of the New Economic Policy (1921–1928). Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 4. Istoriya. Regionovedenie. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Science Journal of Volgograd State University. History. Area Studies. International Relations], 2026, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 154163. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2026.3.14
Housing Cooperation in Tsaritsyn – Stalingrad as a Means of Overcoming the Housing Crisis During the Implementation of the New Economic Policy (1921–1928) © 2026 by Simakova A.A. is licensed under CC BY 4.0 
 3_Simakova.pdfURL: https://hfrir.jvolsu.com/index.php/en/component/attachments/download/4103 | 48 Downloads |