The Reconstruction of Moscow

necessitates drastic measures. It is necessary to demolish buildings which obstruct the widening and straightening of the streets, not to mention those houses which are a liability not only because they are actually in the way,, but which are moral liabilities because they were built ex- tremely badly, purely as sources of rent for the landlords. Such dark and airless houses, with their pit-like court- yards where the sun very rarely penetrates and where the apartments are almost without ventilation, cannot be left in a socialist city. However, it goes without saying that it is impossible to wipe out this evil heritage of the past at one stroke, and that it must be done gradually, and according to a definite plan. ^ In the question of demolishing old buildings the policy of the proletariat is diametrically opposed to the policy of the bourgeoisie. ! The Soviet authorities provide new ac- commodations in well-appointed houses for all tenants of houses marked for demolition. It is»of interest to draw a comparison, between Soviet conditidhs and the frightful pictures presented by the razing of the gloomy and ancient slums of the disinher- ited urban poor in capitalist cities* to understand the really fundamental difference between socialist recons- truction in our cities and that "Haussmann method' r 'exposed so devastatingly by the great teacher of the prole- tariat, Frederich Engels, in his Housing Question. About this botirgeois policy as expressed in the "Haussmann method" Marx wrote: "Admire this capitalistic justice! The owner of land, of houses, the business man, when expropriated * Emil Zola, the famous French writer, depicts such scenes with great force in his novel Paris, describing Paris of the middle of the nineteenth century.

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