Glossary

WE ARE INDEBTED TO PROF. S. FREDERICK STARR FOR CHECKING THIS GLOSSARY — G.R.C.

Agrogoroda (pl.): Agricultural cities. These were planned as counterparts to industrial cities in the program of breaking down distinctions between city and country.

Artel: A traditional Russian cooperative association of workers banded together for various types of production.

ASNOVA: Assotsiatsiia Novykh Arkhitektorov. Association of New Architects. Organized by Professor Ladovskii and others in 1923.

Dom-kommuna: Communal house. “… an urban element functioning as a small autonomous commune in relation to a whole series of services and bodies.” (Kopp, Town and Revolution, p. 130)

Fermy (pl.): Farms.

FUBR: Fond Uluchsheniia Byta Rabochikh i Sluzhashchikh. Fund for the Amelioration of the (living) Conditions of Workers and Employees.

Glz: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo. State Publishing House.

Glavlit: Glavnoe Upravlenie po Delam Literatury i Izdatel’stv. Main Directorate of Literature and Publishing Houses.

Gosbank: Gosudarstvennyi Bank. State Bank.

Gosplan: Gosudarstvennyi Komitet Planirovaniia SSR. State Planning Commission. Highest planning body of the USSR.

Kolkhoz: Kollektivnoe Khoziaistvo. Collective farm.

Kombinat: An industrial or agricultural combine composed of a number of productive units, or a dwelling combination of living cells and common facilities.

MAO: Moskovskoe Arkhitekturnoe Obshchestvo. Moscow Architectural Society. Pre-Revolutionary organization, reactivated in the 1920s.

Narkompros: Narodnyi Komissariat Prosveshcheniia. People’s [or Public] Commissariat of Public Education. Founded 1918. Headed by A. V. Lunacharskii until 1929. Miliutin was attached to the Communist Academy which was under it.

Narkomtrud: Narodnyi Komissariat Truda. People’s Commissariat of Labor.

Narkomzdrav: Narodnyi Komissariat Zdravo-okhraneniia. People’s Commissariat of Public Health.

Narpit: Narodnoe Pitanie. People’s Food Commissariat.

NK RKI (Narkomrabkrin): Narodnyi Komissariat Raboche-Krest’ianskoi Inspektsii. People’s Commissariat of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorates.

Ogoroda: Family garden allotments.

OSA: Ob’edinenie Sovremennykh Arkhitektorov. The Union of Contemporary Architects. Founded in 1925 by M. la. Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers, it was the core of the Constructivist movement. Published SA (Sovremennaia Arkhitektura) [see]. “Osa” means “wasp” in Russian.

RSFSR: Rossiiskaia Sovetskaia Federativnaia Sotsialisticheskaia Respublika. Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Largest and wealthiest of the 15 republics of which the Soviet Union is composed; it is ethnographically the Great Russian nation, plus Siberia.

SA: 1. Sovremennaia Arkhitektura (Contemporary Architecture). Journal of OSA, published 1926–30. Edited by M. la. Ginzburg and A. Vesnin. 2. Sovetskaia Arkhitektura (Soviet Architecture). Journal issued by Narkompros, published 1931–34. Edited by N. A. Miliutin.

SASS: Sektor Arkhitektorov Sotsialisticheskogo Stroitelistva. Architects’ Association for Socialist Construction. A regrouping of OSA in 1931. It was soon merged into the new Union of Soviet Architects.

SNK: Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov (Sovnarkom). The Council of People’s Commissars. Its decrees represented the supreme law of the Soviet Union.

Sotsgorod: Sotsialisticheskii Gorod (Socialist City). This is the title by which Miliutin’s book is generally known; it was, however, commonly used to refer to any town organized along new socialist principles.

Sovkhoz: Sovetskoe Khoziaistvo. Farm owned and managed by the State.

Stroikom: Stroitel’nyi Komitet. Construction Committee [of the RSFSR]. Headed by M. la. Ginzburg.

TsSU: Tsentral’noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie. Central Statistical Directorate.

TsK VKP(b): Tsentral’nyi Komitet Vsesoiuznaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia/Bol’shevikov. Central Committee of the Bolshevik Communist Party.

V.O.K.S.: Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul’turnoi Sviazi s Zagranitsei. Soviet Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. From Jan. 1931 to Oct. 1934 published in several languages an informative propaganda magazine called “V.O.K.S.” (Resumed publication in late 1930s.)

VOPRA: Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Proletarskikh Arkhitektorov. The All-Union Society of Proletarian Architects. Organized in 1929 as part of the general proletarian movement in the arts.

VSNKh: Vysshii Sovet Narodnogo Khoziaistva. Supreme Council on the National Economy.

VTsSPS: Vsesoiuznyi Tsentral’nyi Sovet Professional’nykh Soiuzov (Tsentrosoiuz). The All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. This is the entity for which Le Corbusier designed the office building in Moscow.