The problems of elimination of child homelessness and neglect in Buryatia in the 1920s

Tsyretarova Bayarma Babasanovna PhD in History Docent, the department of Advancement of Vocational Education, Buryat Republican Institute for Education Policy 670000, Russia, respublika Buryatiya, g. Ulan-Ude, ul. Sovetskaya, 30 bayarma7a@mail.ru

One of the acute problems that causes concern in society is street children. Homelessness entails severe social consequences, such as an increase in offenses and crimes, alcoholism, drug addiction, and the spread of various diseases.

There are street children in any region of Russia and, at the same time, their number is steadily growing from year to year. Moreover, a significant part of such children are "social orphans" with living parents.

According to the Ministry of Social Protection of the Population of Buryatia, there are currently more than five thousand orphans and children left without parental care in a difficult life situation in the republic.  The causes of this social problem lie, first of all, in the economic crisis of society, poverty of the main segment of the population, unemployment, weakening of family foundations and weakening of social ties, the spread of mental illness, crime and criminalization of society.

But, whatever the source of child homelessness, there is a social phenomenon that requires special attention from society, a special approach that takes into account all the problems that arise.

The problem of child homelessness and neglect that has arisen in Russian society is not a new phenomenon. The current state of child homelessness has its deep roots, without understanding which it is impossible to understand the phenomenon itself, and it is also impossible to solve this problem.

The experience of the national republic, in which patriarchal traditions and customs of the indigenous and assimilated population of Buryatia were still preserved in the early years of Soviet power, will be especially interesting.   

Thus, Buryat and Old Believer families were characterized by traditions of a large-family way of life, which included several generations of relatives, including relatives on the so-called "side line" - single uncles or aunts of the head of the family or his wife, unmarried relatives or cousins, nephews.

In Buryat life, orphans left without parents were not left unattended or sheltered, but lived in families of close or distant relatives, as foster children with childless relatives, more or less well-off relatives ^[1]. The same trend was seen in Old Believer families with some differences. Thus, the family ties were preserved, a more comfortable environment for the child's socialization was created.

The creation of a productive system of work with street children is impossible without taking into account the unique historical experience of eliminating child homelessness in the 1920s, which still remains unclaimed due to insufficient knowledge. The development of this topic is of practical importance for state institutions in addressing the elimination of child homelessness.

Analysis of the degree of study of the problem suggests that interest in the fight against child homelessness was shown back in the 1920s. The appearance of works during this period is explained by the practical activities of those who dealt with the elimination of child homelessness. For example, in the research of P. S. Gilev, the experience of combating child homelessness in Buryatia is considered, where the author introduces the public to the situation of combating child homelessness, evaluates various forms and methods of struggle ^[2]. In particular, he points to the lack of planned work for the upcoming period, the weak work of aimach children's commissions. Calls on the population of the republic to actively work in the fight against child homelessness. 

A lot of modern research has been devoted to the problems of eliminating homelessness and neglect in Russia. Among them are the works of A. A. Slavko, who pose the problem of a systematic study of child homelessness during 1917-1952 ^{[3, 4]}. The author investigated the social portrait of a homeless and neglected child of the studied period, the formation and functioning of state institutions and public organizations for work with homeless and neglected children, the activities of orphanages and institutions for juvenile offenders in the Russian Federation.  The researcher, on the basis of various sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, clarified many facts revealing the positive and negative sides of the process of eliminating child homelessness in the 1920s.

At the present stage of the topic research, it is important to study the state of homelessness by region. There are already quite a lot of works of this nature ^{[5, 6, 7]}. The most studied area at the moment is the Volga region, this can be explained by the fact that it was in this region that the famine that broke out in the early 1920s caused the appearance of a large number of street children.

Despite a wide range of studies on homelessness and neglect, there is still little-studied experience of combating this social phenomenon in Buryatia.  

The main source of studying the problem was archival documents and materials of the periodical press. First of all, these are office materials of the Central Children's Commission for the Improvement of Children's Lives under the Buryat-Mongolian Central Executive Committee (reports, reports on the activities of the Central Committee under the CEC BMASSR), resolutions of the CEC BMASSR, statistical data.

The subject of this study is the activities of the state and public structures of the BMASSR and the identification of problems in the fight against homelessness and neglect of minors in the 1920s.

The novelty of the research lies in the fact that, generalizing the experience of predecessors and involving other materials, including a number of archival materials, the fight against child homelessness and neglect in the first years of the establishment of Soviet power in the national republic is studied, and the problems of implementing the tasks set by the state are identified.

The methodological basis of the study was the generally accepted methods of historical science. The descriptive method allowed us to consider the activities of state institutions and public organizations to create conditions for the social protection of children who have become homeless. The historical and systematic method allowed us to form a holistic and comprehensive picture of the struggle against child homelessness in the 1920s, to illustrate the functional relationship of various organizational forms.  

In the early years of the Soviet state, homelessness became a very common social phenomenon. Mass homelessness in the 1920s and early 1930s was caused primarily by crisis phenomena in economic life and instability in society. 

In Buryatia, the problem of homelessness was one of the most unfavorable. The reasons for the homelessness of children in the republic were the consequences of the civil war, crop failures for several years and unemployment, the evacuation of children to Siberia from the starving areas of the Volga region. In addition, the army of street children was replenished by children whose parents were mobilized for forced labor. 

Unfortunately, we do not have complete information about the number of street children in the republic, because a partial accounting of street children was carried out. May 30 , 1923  It was formed by the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. With the creation of the republic, the process of forming a system of state authorities began and at the same time, an operational solution to current problems and tasks was required. In November 1923, the first accounting was carried out, only in Verkhneudinsk. 280 people have registered. When taking into account all the homeless were divided into three categories: the first category – completely homeless, homeless and feeding on handouts; the second category – children selling cigarettes, cigarettes, newspapers, etc.; the third – children of the working and peasant poor who, after their parents leave for work or service, remain completely without supervision ^{[8, l. 55]}. 22 children were assigned to the first category, 19 of whom were assigned to the Verkhneudinsky orphanage, and three were brought up by the divisional troops of the State Political Administration [2 p. 5]. 

The second accounting in February 1925 was carried out by the departments of the People's Commissariat of Education of the BMASSR with the involvement of the forces of students of schools of the II stage, senior classes of the I stage, Komsomol members, pioneers and delegates of the women's department. The number of homeless in Verkhneudinsk, Troitskosavsk and Barguzin amounted to 472 people. Of these, 74 people belonged to the first category, 95 people – to the second, 287 people – to the third. Moreover, this number of children did not include 350 children from orphanages ^{[2, p. 5]}. Thus, these homeless and homeless children remained outside orphanages, finding shelter at the train station, in flophouses, brothels or just on the streets.

The third registration in the summer of 1926 registered 468 orphans (registration was carried out according to a special questionnaire, only "absolutely homeless" children were registered). These data are provided only by half of the territory of the republic. Therefore, according to P. S. Gilev, the number of orphans in the BMASSR in 1926 reached 1,000 people, and 98% of all street children are children of the local population.

In October 1928, there were already 794 street children. Moreover, no more than two thirds of the territory of Buryatia was covered by accounting. More detailed information about the homeless in the BMASSR according to the accounting data of 1928 is reflected in Table 1.

Table 1

The number of registered street children in the BMASSR in 1928

^{[9, l. 114]}

The above table shows the number of registered street children in 794 people, excluding street children who arrived in Buryatia from other regions within three years, but archival documents allow us to say that the real number of orphans for this period was 1,100 people in 1928 on the territory of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR ^{[10, l. 63 about.]}. 

Table 1 shows that there are significantly fewer orphans among the Buryats, despite the fact that the majority of the population of the republic were representatives of the indigenous Buryat population.

The Central Children's Commission for the Improvement of Children's Lives under the Buryat-Mongolian Central Executive Committee (DTC under Burtsik), the People's Commissariat of Education of the BMASSR were engaged in the fight against child homelessness in the BMASSR, local aimach departments of public education, city departments of public education and aimach children's commissions.

The Commission for Improving the Lives of Children under BURTSIK was organized on October 24, 1923. Aimach district children's commissions were established locally in 1925 in 9 aimags, in 1927 there were 16 such commissions (i.e. in each aimag). 

The main task of the commission was the fight against child homelessness, assistance to the homeless, semi-homeless (these included children with one parent who could not cope with their parental responsibilities).

To do this, public organizations were involved in helping, coordinated the work of various departments and institutions in helping children and provided them with organizational and material assistance in this work. They had the right to enter the AIC Presidium with their proposals. The People's Commissariat of the BMASSR was engaged in taking into account street children, the legal protection of children and the fight against child delinquency.

They did not allocate funds from the budget for the activities of the aimdet commission, in order to achieve their goal, the aimdet commission independently sought funds to help children, where the funds of the children's commissions under the aimach executive committees consisted of:

- income from organized evenings, bazaars, performances, concerts, etc.;

- voluntary one-time and periodic donations;

- cash and material receipts from the society or the "Friend of Children" cells;

- government subsidies;

- other sources of income provided to children's commissions by special resolutions of legislative bodies ^{[11, l. 77]}.

The income received was spent mainly on the maintenance of an orphanage, on the issuance of individual allowances to semi-homeless children, on the organization of children's feeding stations.

There was an acute shortage of funds for organizing the activities of children's commissions, incomes were mainly collected in Verkhneudinsk and a very small part in aimach centers, where the population was mainly 200 – 500 inhabitants.

In the city of Verkhneudinsk itself, where street homelessness was the most "developed", then all the funds collected went to preventive measures carried out in the capital of the republic. There was no money left for the rest of the children's commissions.

In addition to the lack of financial resources on the ground, there was a constant change of the leadership of the district children's commissions, the work of the members of the commissions was carried out on a voluntary basis, additional activities were not paid (except for the Troiskosavsky DTC), there was no "live" instruction on the ground, replacing it not always and everywhere with written instructions.  

Trade unions, Komsomol members, pioneers, schools and public organizations were involved in the fight against homelessness. But the reports of the central children's commission speak of insufficient propaganda work, in the 1920s. in Buryatia, active public participation was not noted. In addition, as indicated in the report on the work of the Central Commission for Improving the Lives of Children under BURCIK, "... trade unions, party and public organizations look at the children's commission as a "speculative enterprise" ^{[12, l. 13]}. 

In October 1924, in order to strengthen the fight against child homelessness, the society "Friend of Children" was established in the BMASSR, the main task of which was to combat child homelessness, need and poverty in all its forms and manifestations, to assist the relevant Soviet authorities in carrying out legal protection of children, measures for the protection of motherhood and infancy"^{[13, L. 56]}. 

Since February 1925, the society begins its direct work in Verkhneudinsk.  Thus, 11 cells of the society in the number of 524 people and 12 cells in the number of 300 members were organized at the schools of the city.

Thus, in the city of Verkhneudinsk in 1925 there were 23 cells in the number of 824 people. In December 1927, according to the aimags of the republic, there were already more than 2,000 members of the cells.

The company's funds were made up of membership fees. Each member of the society paid an entrance fee of 10 kopecks and paid monthly membership fees of 5 kopecks ^{[13, L. 130]}.  According to the charter, the members of the organization were engaged in collecting voluntary donations, campaigning, promoting the purpose of the society, held charity concerts and performances, distributed lottery tickets. Some cells accepted homeless people for their maintenance.  

The system of elimination of homelessness in the republic included the identification and control of neglected children, dysfunctional families, provided social assistance and prevention of homelessness.

Children's educational institutions of boarding type, such as orphanages, were organized, various forms of work with street children were used, such as patronage, adoption, guardianship and guardianship.

In comparison with the industrial regions of Siberia, the number of orphanages in Buryatia was significantly less: in 1923, the number of orphanages was 40 times less than in Irkutsk province and 46 times less than in Yenisei province.

The number of children from orphanages in Buryatia was less than in the Irkutsk province, more than 60 times, and compared with the Yenisei province – more than 70 times. [14 p. 19]

In 1925, there were three orphanages in the republic (Troitsky, Toreysky and Verkhneudinsky) with a total of 368 pupils.

The course of unification that began in the second half of 1924 in order to optimize financial and human resources, material and technical support of orphanages led to the fact that in 1926 there were only two orphanages in the republic (Verkhneudinsky and Troitskosavsky) with 165 pupils (i.e. the reduction was 203 people or more than 50%).

Unloading of orphanages was very intensive, as can be seen from the following data:

Table 2.

The number of orphans of the BMASSR placed in orphanages

^{[15, l. 73-74]}

As can be seen from Table 2, the number of pupils of the Verkhneudinsky orphanage decreased by 2.1 times in one year, and the Troiskosavsky orphanage by 2.14 times.

It should be noted that the unloading of orphanages took place without any plan. The children simply "unloaded". Some of them were handed over to parents and relatives, several people were assigned to production (training workshops), and some voluntarily returned to the street and again became homeless, delinquents, beggars. No systematic work has been carried out on the planned transition, re-socialization of street children for further independent work.

The need to place orphans in orphanages has not decreased. Thus, according to the Central children's commission under the Buryat-Mongolian Central Executive Committee in 1925, 457 children were in dire need of placement in orphanages. ^{[16, l. 125]}. 

Table 3

Coverage by orphanages of street children of the BMASSR ^{[2, p.12]}

As Table 3 shows, in Verkhneudinsk, only 24% of street children were in an orphanage, in Troitskosavsk – 39% as of February 1925 and 47% in the summer of 1926.

There were difficulties with the implementation of one of the main tasks of orphanages – preparing children for independent life through labor training. The lack of agricultural equipment, livestock, and land made it impossible to fully engage in agriculture.

 There was a shortage of teaching staff who could teach street children work skills. Weak personnel training of teaching staff was noted. For the maintenance of sewing and shoemaking workshops, financial resources were allocated 4 times less than required.  All these facts indicate that in the republic the labor training of pupils was carried out at a low level.

For the purpose of labor training of children from orphanages, on May 19, 1926, the decree of the SNK of the BMASSR No. 329 was issued according to which it was allowed to transfer street children and children from orphanages to families of peasants, artisans, artisans, collective farms, agricultural communes, artels, enterprises and institutions ^{[17, p. 2.]}.

According to the "Rules for the transfer of children from orphanages to cooperative associations, artisans, artisans and working peasant families", children transferred to organizations, institutions and families of artisans should not be under 14 years old, and transferred to peasant families – 10 years. Children under the age of 10 were transferred only by way of adoption. Persons, organizations and institutions accepting children for upbringing and training received certain benefits and advantages, where an allowance from 3 rubles to 7 rubles was issued for the maintenance of children for one year. 50 kopecks per month (from 36 rubles to 90 rubles per year) per child.

The amount of the allowance was established by a corresponding written contract and depended on the age of the child, as well as on the security of the receiving party.

Additionally, a peasant household receiving an orphanage pupil or a street child received a land allotment according to the labor use rate, with this additional allotment being exempt from paying a single agricultural tax during the first three years. Artisans and artisans, during the period of validity of the contract, were exempt from social insurance contributions for children accepted for education.

Children of families who had adopted children from orphanages and street children for upbringing and education were exempt from tuition fees at schools of the I and II levels and vocational educational institutions, if the adopted children studied at the same time.

In addition, adopted children were considered family members and enjoyed all the benefits established by the Soviet government.

For the effective operation of this decree, it was necessary to popularize the idea of labor education of children from orphanages and street children by state authorities. But in fact, the practice of transferring children to working families in Buryatia was very poorly established. The reasons for this state of affairs, as noted at the meeting of the board of the agitprom Burobkom of the CPSU (b), are the passive attitude of the departments of public education in the field and the prejudice of artisans and artisans towards the children of the orphanage and the homeless, as spoiled children and unable to work. ^{[18, l. 213]}.              

If in other regions, except orphanages for orphans, labor communes, colony schools and commune schools were created, then in Buryatia there were no such children's institutions. 

One of the ways to prevent the prevention of child homelessness was the issuance of benefits to unsecured families with children, as well as to street children living in private families.

The allowance was given to orphans who did not have brothers and sisters who would be obliged and could take care of them; children who lost contact with their parents and relatives or children with disabled parents, if the parents did not receive benefits from the state and did not receive material support from their relatives. Also, in exceptional cases, temporary assistance was provided to children in the care of only one mother, deprived of any earnings and support, or to children who found themselves deprived of any means of livelihood due to the temporary absence of parents or persons on whose dependents the children lived (due to deprivation of liberty, being in hospital for treatment).

The amount of the allowance ranged from 5 to 15 rubles per month. Although benefits were given out to buy necessary products, there were cases when families receiving benefits spent money on their needs that were not related to improving the living conditions of children. The children themselves, mostly street children, "... spent their allowance on sweets, movies, and even tobacco and wine." ^{[2, p. 16]}

But not all those in need received benefits. Sometimes because of the irresponsible attitude on the ground. For example, the Khorinskaya Aimdet Commission "... did not provide assistance to unorganized street children, while 735 rubles are useless at the cash register. In total, there are up to 30 homeless people in the aimag who beg, beg and feed on this" ^{[19, p. 2]}

The next reason was the lack of full-time employees who would be responsible for accounting and issuing benefits to those in need. In the Ehirit-Bulagatk aimag, only four street children were given an allowance for a year, although there were funds ^{[20, p. 2]}.

They also did not pay benefits due to lack and lack of financial resources. This problem was caused by the fact that there was no department in the office of the Central Committee and the People's Commissariat of the BMASSR, which would clearly organize the work on identifying and monitoring those in need of benefits and the correct spending of funds.

The case of guardianship and patronage in the aimags of the republic was put extremely poorly. There was no accounting of children subject to guardianship, control and management of guardianship by departments of public education. No reports were provided by the guardians. In some aimags, guardianship was in the introduction of public education departments, in some it was conducted by the Khoshun executive committees, and the Troitskosavsky aimachny department of Public Education even created a special guardianship commission, which, in fact, did not carry out any systematic work in this direction. ^{[21, l. 95]}

Such a critical situation is explained by the fact that until the end of 1923, the issues of guardianship and guardianship were under the jurisdiction of the social security bodies, and in January 1924, according to the Decree of the CEC and the SNK of the BMASSR, this direction was transferred to the local public education bodies.

In the aimags of the republic, due to the limited number of full-time employees of the departments of public education, there were no specialists dealing with this issue.  In the 1920s. the main forces of the departments of public education were accumulated for the elimination of illiteracy among the population and the introduction of universal education, respectively, attention was paid to the problems of homelessness on a residual basis.

One of the forms of liquidation of street children was the employment of orphans in enterprises and institutions. Thus, according to the report on the work of the Central Commission for the Improvement of Children's Lives and Everyday Life at the Bur CEC on November 1, 1927, 53 people were employed in Verkhneudinsk: 32 people in carpentry workshops, 5 people in a shoemaking workshop, 11 people worked as tailors, 4 people were assigned to the school of cutting and sewing, 1 a man in a private workshop.

The employed were settled in a dormitory with 55 beds, which began functioning on December 1, 1927. Each employed homeless person was provided with "... a sleeping place with a full set of bed linen, clothes and shoes. The hostel was equipped with a kitchen, a dining room for catering."

The report of the Central Committee under the CEC of the BMASSR indicated that "... only boys employed in production were placed in the dormitory. Girls, regardless of their occupation at work, were assigned to private apartments at the expense of the central children's commission and were transferred to working families for upbringing."  ^{[22, L. 68 vol.]}

According to archival documents of the State Archive of the Republic of Buryatia, there was an acute shortage of financial resources in the fight against child homelessness. Thus, 60,359 rubles were allocated from the republic's budget in 1925-1926 to combat child homelessness, and 64916 rubles in 1926-1927.  

The allocated funds were used for the maintenance of an orphanage, a mother and child home, as well as a number of small expenses, for about 150 people in total. But the bulk (about 850 people) were out of help. According to the cost estimates of the central children's commissions in 1927, 42,343 rubles were required, and the income estimate was 28,343 rubles. The deficit was 14,000 rubles. ^{[23, l. 46 vol.]}.

Thus, the implementation of the tasks was complicated by a number of problems. The analysis of archival materials shows that there was no systematic control and supervision by departments and aimach children's commissions, there was a turnover of management and a lack of full-time employees, as a result, there was no clear plan to combat child homelessness, a lack of financial resources, weak public involvement in the problems of child homelessness, a complete lack of quantitative and qualitative accounting and the state of homelessness, insufficient number of children's houses.

In villages and uluses, this aspect was not given sufficient attention, they did not make efforts to get rid of child homelessness in its embryo, they tried to absolve themselves of responsibility by sending a homeless person to the city, where he again became a street child, returned to the former life of a homeless person with the ensuing consequences in the future.

Thus, the unregulated work on the elimination of child homelessness on the ground was the main problem that hindered the effective operation of the entire system.