The Reconstruction of Moscow

dwelt repeatedly in his memoirs on the insuperable dif- ficulties encountered in the process of replanning Paris, because of "sacred and inviolable" private property in land. "To execute engineer- В elgran's plan for the water supply of Paris," he writes, "the city had to gain possession of the sources of the Somme and the Sonde. However, private owners did not yield to any per- suasion, and the job fell through." the «atastrophic earthquake and fire in 1923, which destroyed nearly the entire city, it was necessary to pay private owners of city land 40,000,000 yen for some 120 hectares used for widening the streets when the city was replanned. But the great advantages in the matter of planning socialist cities cannot be confined to this question of private property. There are other outstanding advantages. One of these is the principle of planning, which has been introduced into all branches of economic life and culture of the Soviet Union and which is directed towards further- ing the interests of the millions of proletarians and toilers. Another determining factor is the correct Marxist-Leninist policy of the C.P.S.U. in municipal construction. When the Communist Party and the Soviet govern- ment first began to tackle the task of reconstructing Moscow, there were different points of view on the ques- tion of developing the Soviet capital. Some, said that Moscow should be made into a museum-city. "It is an ancient city with very beautiful memorials of ancient times," said the reactionaries. "We should not disturb these niemorials of the -past. Let us build a new city somewhere outside of Moscow." When the Japanese capital, Tokyo, suffered

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