The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-03-31
What Russia is Doing About Homeless Children

teachers and attendants look after
226,051 children. $3.50 are children
Of peasants, workers $3.50 and sol
diers and artisans 2096 commits
sariat of Education Weekly, while
out-relief is being given to 175,000
additional children.
During the next three years, ae-
cording to government plans, Len
in Memorial Fund" of 100 million
roubles will be devoted to the spec
ial task of wiping out the last traces
Of child homelessness. Since the
problem of vocational guidance is the
greatest, 500 new working communes
are being planned with an equipment
that is to cost IL million roubles.
The Situation in Moscow.
The capitalist press charges that
there is a homeless army Of $4,000
children in Moscow, with room in the
institutions for only 2,410; that S,025
were assigned to these institutions by
the authorities and that half of these
have escaped. Not a single one of
these figures is anywhere near the
truth.
Below we give a list of the insti-
buttons in the Moscow gubernia and
the number Of children harbored in
them. am told that there are not
more than between 500 and 1000
children, practically none of them ma
tive to Moscow, still uncared for on
the streets, and they are being gath
cred one by one, not by the police,
but by conscientious volunteer and
professional workers among these
children.
The official census taken recently
will give us accurate data. In the
year from October, 1926 to October,
1926, there were 2,640 dependent and
6l2 delinquent children placed into
Moscow institutions, total of 3,252.
Boys viii Run Away.
AS far as runaways go, of course,
there are runaways, but the number
is nowhere near that indicated. And
running-away does not mean here
what it does in oul reform schools
in the states, climbing down leader
pipes and crawling over walls stud
ded with steel pickets and jagged
broken glass bottles.
Thus far not single one of the
homes and other institutions locks
the children in or takes any meas
ures to hinder their going if they
wish. An essential factor of the
treatment these youngsters receive is
to convince them that they are not
being shut off from their fellow-wor-
kers, that they are not being kept
against their will as though they
were criminals.
Money For Clothes.
In one home 1 visited found that
all the boys, about 80, had been fur
nished work of one sort or another
outside the home and that they kept
their wages latter paying very low
board) to do with as they pleased.
These wages did not go, as might be
supposed, for drink and dissipation
the first possession the boys inves-
ted in was a pair of fine shiny new
"goloshes," and after that came the
wide-pegged riding trousers now
considered by the Russian youth as
the acme of smart dressing. So
running away here simply means
the young vagabond holds out a lit
tie longer against the social influen-
ces that surround him and that are
bent on enrolling him as a useful
member of proletarian society.
Discuss CompuIsiOn.
This month the first home for
''breLprezhorni" at which any COM
pulsion is to be introduced will be
opened in Moscow. This home will
be particularly well equipped, with
gymnasium, manual training school,
specially qualified teachers, etc., to
make it so attractive that if pos
sible the boys (who have run away
from other institutions in the past
before being sent here) will not want
to run away-but if they do want to
they will be prevented.
This is arousing considerable dis
cussion, A. V. Lunacharsky, Com
missar of Education, being opposed
to it. The fact that so mild meth
cd, which so distantly resembles the
police method of dealing with the
problem, should arouse opposition Of
this kind completely shows how i'm
possible is this fairy tale Of an Arctic
exile, and all the other tales of
"children's hard labor prisons"
In Moscow there are almost 200 in
stitutions harboring about $4,000
children. About 500 of them came
from outside of the gubernia during
the great migration attending the
war and famine. Child
rem
Num- Quar-
Kind of Institutions Der tered
Homes Of normal type "a 1928
Special homes, observa-
ton centres special
I