As commissariats of the Soviet government took shape following the Revolution, rivalry soon developed among three of them—Narkompros, the Commissariat of Health, and the Commissariat of Social Security—over responsibility for child welfare. Each pressed claims to administer a variety of institutions entrusted with aiding abandoned juveniles.^[7] At first, early in 1918, decrees specified that care of homeless youths (including the operation of children’s homes) belonged in the Commissariat of Social Security’s hands.^[8] But Narkompros, undaunted, continued to lobby Sovnarkom for a greater share of responsibility in this area and gradually prevailed. As early as June 1918, Sovnarkom ordered the transfer to Narkompros of institutions for delinquents, and the following month Narkompros sent circulars to provincial agencies, instructing them to turn over Juvenile Affairs Commissions (which handled the cases of delinquents) to Narkompros offices on the scene. Unimpressed by these instructions, some local branches of the Commissariat of Social Security refused to relinquish control, and the matter lay unresolved for months. As a result, from province to province, one found commissions run by each of the two commissariats and even, in a few instances, by the Commissariat of Health.^[9] Finally, in February 1919, Sovnarkom ordered the Commissariat of Social Security to transfer its remaining children’s institutions to Narkompros by year’s end, thereby terminating the former’s brief tenure in the vanguard of the campaign to rescue street urchins.^[10]

Narkompros also bickered with the Commissariat of Health, for each claimed a larger role in the care of indigent children than the other deemed appropriate.^[11] Champions of Narkompros naturally stressed the importance of providing a proper education and general upbringing, while health officials emphasized the need for medical care. Beset by these competing appeals, Sovnarkom issued a series of decrees beginning in the autumn of 1919, spelling out the domain of each agency. In general, the Commissariat of Health retained control of children’s clinics, sanatoriums, and similar institutions where medical treatment and physical therapy represented the principal activity, while pedagogic facilities remained under the administration of Narkompros. According to a decree issued by Sovnarkom in September 1921, doctors chosen and paid by the Commissariat of Health would provide medical treatment for youths in Narkompros’s establishments. At the same time, local Narkompros branches received the right to nominate candidates for these positions and to dismiss individual physicians.^[12] Jurisdictional rivalries flared now and then during the remainder of the decade, but they were not so severe as to prevent the two agencies from reaching an accommodation. Health officials operated homes for juveniles up to age three (as well as medical facilities for older youths), and Narkompros administered institutions for residents three years of age and older.^[13]

Thus Narkompros emerged with primary responsibility for the rehabilitation of street children. By the beginning of 1923, after a series of internal reorganizations, the agency had evolved the following departments and subsections to undertake the mission: At the highest level, in Moscow, the commissariat’s branches (covering such bailiwicks as publishing, the fine arts, censorship, propaganda, higher education, and vocational training) included one titled Main Administration of Social Upbringing and Polytechnic Education of Children (Glavsotsvos). Glavsotsvos in turn contained a number of subsections with responsibilities that included preschool and primary school education, teacher training, and experimental educational institutions. The subsection of central importance in the attempt to reclaim abandoned youths bore the name Social and Legal Protection of Minors (SPON).^[14]

SPON’s four subdivisions focused their attention respectively on (1) the struggle against juvenile homelessness and delinquency; (2) the establishment of guardianships for youths; (3) the rearing of “defective” children (which included delinquents); and (4) the provision of legal assistance and information of benefit to juveniles (such as locating lost dependents and reuniting them with relatives). SPON thus administered most of Narkompros’s orphanages, supervised its Juvenile Affairs Commissions, and dispatched social workers to approach young inhabitants of the street.^[15] Throughout the Russian Republic, each province maintained its own Narkompros office (GubONO), generally organized to resemble the basic blueprint of Narkompros in Moscow. Among the branches of a GubONO, therefore, one customarily found a Gubsotsvos (the provincial equivalent of Glavsotsvos) with its own SPON subsection shouldering assignments similar to those of SPON in Moscow. Even smaller administrative units, such as districts (uezdy) and cities, sometimes opened their own Narkompros offices, which commonly retained a structure close to that described above.^[16] In Moscow, the thousands of tattered youths thronging the capital by 1922 prompted formation of an Extraordinary Commission in the Struggle with Juvenile Besprizornost’ and Juvenile Crime (the Children’s Extraordinary Commission, for short)—a division of the Moscow City Narkompros organization (MONO). Thereafter the Children’s Extraordinary Commission sought out Moscow’s homeless, handled cases of juvenile delinquents, and administered welfare institutions until it was combined at the beginning of 1925 with another unit of MONO to produce a new division bearing the SPON title.^[17]

In January 1919, amid the commissariats’ wrangling, Sovnarkom decreed the formation of a Council for the Defense of Children. Headed by a representative from Narkompros and including members from the commissariats of labor, food, social security, and health, the council received instructions to coordinate the work of individual government agencies to improve the supply of food and other essentials to juveniles.^[18] However, as it lacked the leverage to command respect from even the commissariats represented in its own offices, the council made little headway promoting bureaucratic cooperation and played an insignificant role in providing relief to destitute youths.^[19] Before long, it gave way to a more imposing interagency body, a commission driven initially by the zeal and clout of the secret police.

To some, the name Feliks Dzerzhinskii, head of the Cheka (secret police), suggested dry-eyed ruthlessness—an image that Dzerzhinskii himself scarcely shunned. But when conversation turned to the plight of waifs, his expressions of dismay at their misery struck more than one interlocutor.^[20] In just such a conversation he told Anatolii Lunacharskii, head of Narkompros:

In this matter we must rush directly to help, as if we saw children drowning. Narkompros alone has not the strength to cope. It needs the broad help of all Soviet society. A broad commission under VTsIK [the All-Russian Central Executive Committee]—of course with the closest participation of Narkompros—must be created, including within it all institutions and organizations which may be useful. I have already said something of this to a few people. I would like to stand at the head of that commission, and I want to include the Cheka apparatus directly in the work.^[21]

Pursuing this goal, Dzerzhinskii took the lead in establishing, on February 10, 1921, a Commission for the Improvement of Children’s Life attached to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.^[22] Apart from Dzerzhinskii as chairman, the commission included six other representatives, one each from the Cheka, Narkompros, the commissariats of health and food, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, and the Central Trade Union Council. In some respects their duties differed little from those of the earlier Council for the Defense of Children. They were to facilitate the flow of supplies to agencies responsible for juveniles’ welfare and oversee implementation of decrees (as well as suggest new legislation) to protect minors. But the Children’s Commission, more than the council, focused its energy and resources on the problem of homelessness, underscoring the government’s growing concern with this phenomenon. The order creating the council in January 1919 had called for aid to needy youths in general, without referring specifically to those abandoned. Two years later, in February 1921, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee directed the newborn Children’s Commission to assist “first of all” agencies caring for boys and girls of the street.

The same decree of February 10 instructed province and district executive committees to designate officials for children’s commissions at these levels in the Russian Republic, and similar organizational structures took shape in other republics. In Ukraine, for example, the equivalent of the Children’s Commission bore the title Central Commission for the Assistance of Children and was attached to the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.^[23] The primary role of the commission in the Russian Republic, and of analogous bodies elsewhere, was to assist other government agencies, most notably Narkompros, rather than operate their own orphanages and schools. Nevertheless, Lunacharskii and his lieutenants at Narkompros displayed little enthusiasm for the commission and proposed the creation of interagency bodies featuring a more prominent role for Narkompros and none for the Cheka.^[24] But the commission weathered these early challenges (it survived for nearly two decades), and other agencies eventually accepted it as a partner in their labors.

Meanwhile, the number of homeless juveniles steadily increased. As the government struggled to assign general responsibility on this front to such bodies as Narkompros and the Children’s Commission, the question remained: how should they go about aiding millions of beggars and thieves? Everyone desired that prerevolutionary shelters be replaced, but many social workers and educators had no idea—others a bewildering variety of utopian theories—how to organize and operate new institutions.^[25] Ilya Ehrenburg described the chaos that reigned among facilities for “morally defective” youths in Kiev during the months of Bolshevik control in 1919. Though he possessed no experience or even any connection with such work—and thus much to his surprise—he received an assignment to help rehabilitate children.

We spent a long time working out a project for an “experimental pilot colony” where juvenile law-breakers would be educated in a spirit of “creative work” and “all-round development.” It was a great time for projects. In every institution in Kiev, it seemed, grey-haired eccentrics and young enthusiasts were drafting projects for a heavenly life on earth. We discussed the effect of excessively bright colours on excessively nervous children and wondered whether choral declamation influenced the collective consciousness and whether eurhythmics could be helpful in the suppression of juvenile prostitution.

The discrepancy between our discussions and reality was staggering. I began investigating reform schools, orphanages and dosshouses where the besprizornye (lost children) were to be found. The reports I drafted spoke not of eurhythmics but of bread and cloth. The boys ran away to join various “Fathers”; the girls solicited prisoners of war returning from Germany.^[26]

The approach developed at Narkompros by the early 1920s called for three stages of institutions: one to remove a child from the street and tend to his or her immediate needs; a second to observe and evaluate the youth; and a third to achieve rehabilitation. Closest to the street in this system were the receivers (priemniki), facilities generally administered by SPON personnel and often located near markets, train stations, and other settings frequented by the homeless.^[27] Narkompros planned for receivers in all cities and towns down to the district level and intended that they admit waifs twenty-four hours a day for emergency shelter, care, and questioning.^[28] In addition to youths who arrived on their own, receivers were to accept children dispatched by social workers, the police, and private citizens. This included juveniles apprehended for begging, prostitution, street trade, and thefts, as well as those who appeared to have lost contact with their parents only temporarily. In the case of delinquents, Narkompros hoped that receivers would provide a less pernicious environment than police-station cells and issued instructions in 1920 that staff members greet all entrants with warm attention.^[29]

Upon arrival, a youth was to be questioned (in an effort to establish identity, recent activities, place of residence, reason for entering the facility, and so on), then taken to receive a bath, haircut, medical exam, and disinfected clothes, followed by isolation for those with infectious diseases. Narkompros intended that children remain in receivers no more than two or three days and therefore did not foresee extensive pedagogic activity at this stage—nothing more than exercise, crafts, singing, readings by the staff, domestic chores, and attempts to nurture better personal hygiene.^[30] The plan stipulated that inhabitants be sorted and housed separately according to age, sex, and other characteristics to prevent contact between a practiced young criminal, for instance, and a lad new to the street.^[31] Finally, after a few days of observation, a child faced discharge to a destination deemed appropriate by the staff. This might be to parents or relatives if they could be located, to a Juvenile Affairs Commission in most cases involving crimes, to a children’s home to begin rehabilitation, to a hospital, or to an intermediary institution for additional observation.^[32]

The last option routed a child to an “observation-distribution point.” Here ensued an extended period of examination designed to establish the subject’s mental and physical condition—and thus the type of institution likely to provide suitable upbringing. Narkompros considered observation-distribution points particularly appropriate for difficult or troubled youths and intended that information assembled at this stage be passed on to assist Juvenile Affairs Commissions in deciding the means of rehabilitation for delinquents.^[33] According to a circular prepared by a division of SPON in Moscow, the normal length of stay in an observation-distribution point was to range from one to three months, though it could reach “six months or more” if necessary. Under these conditions, regular school classes still made little sense, but SPON recommended that some form of rudimentary instruction take place—making a start toward literacy, for example—in addition to the sorts of activities suggested for a receiver.^[34] Given the resources and staff required to maintain observation-distribution points, Narkompros must have expected them only in large cities, a pattern of concentration that soon developed in any case.^[35] As the years passed, so few such facilities appeared that the vast majority of Narkompros’s wards never entered their doors, moving instead from receivers (or the street) directly to institutions of rehabilitation.

Lunacharskii’s commissariat intended the children’s home (detskii dom, often shortened to detdom, pl. detdoma) to be the most common site of extended rehabilitation. A model charter for detdoma sent by Narkompros in 1921 to its provincial branches presumed an extensive array of these institutions—some for preschool candidates, some for older youths, some for delinquents, some for the physically handicapped, and so on.^[36] Narkompros emphasized repeatedly that the network’s success hinged on detdoma admitting only children who had already undergone preliminary sorting in a receiver and, ideally, an observation-distribution point. In addition, detdoma were to conduct periodic evaluations of their residents’ mental and physical health so that those with problems rendering them unsuitable for a particular detdom could be identified and sent to a more appropriate institution or to an observation-distribution point for further appraisal.^[37]

As spelled out in the charter, a model detdom maintained the following facilities: ample sleeping quarters, kitchen, dining room, laundry, bath, storerooms, quarantine, separate rooms for the staff, rooms for special projects, and a few workshops for activities such as carpentry, leather work, and sewing. Narkompros also desired the children to receive a standard education, either inside the detdom or at a nearby public school. To supplement traditional classroom instruction and fill free time productively, detdoma received strong encouragement to organize clubs and circles. Suggested activities included drama, music, handicrafts, sports, animal and plant raising, investigations of nature in the surrounding area, and studies of local folklore.^[38] In addition, every detdom was to have at its disposal sufficient land for a kitchen garden and, if possible, a larger field to provide food and labor training for the inhabitants. An order from Narkompros and the Commissariat of Land in December 1923 specified that a detdom receive approximately one-quarter of an acre per child.^[39] Finally, institutions were urged to implement a program of “self-service” or “self-government” (samoobsluzhivanie or samoupravlenie), which, broadly speaking, meant that youths assumed responsibility for daily chores and some administrative decisions.^[40] Such measures, designed to imbue residents with a sense of control over their lives and an instinct for collective responsibility, were destined to receive considerable attention in years to come.

While the government anticipated that most homeless children would follow the path just described, from receiver to detdom, it made additional provisions for youths charged with crimes. Shortly after the Revolution, in January 1918, Sovnarkom and the Commissariat of Justice directed that juvenile delinquents not appear before courts or receive prison sentences. Instead, the decree ordered the formation of Juvenile Affairs Commissions to handle cases of all offenders less than seventeen years of age.^[41] Originally placed under the Commissariat of Social Security, but transferred to Narkompros in 1920, each commission comprised three members from local offices of Narkompros and the commissariats of health and justice, with the first serving as head.^[42] Soviet authors proclaimed at the time (some noting the contrast with the treatment of delinquents in tsarist Russia and Western countries) that youths would now be rehabilitated, not punished.^[43] At the beginning of the 1920s, plans called for commissions in virtually every city down to the level of district towns, a network as dense as that envisioned for receivers. Indeed, Narkompros intended the closest cooperation between commissions and receivers, with the latter (or observation-distribution points, where these existed) holding delinquents temporarily and providing commissions with information on their mental and physical condition.^[44]

Commissions were instructed to conclude cases by selecting one of numerous options, among them a simple conversation or reprimand, the dispatch of children to parents or relatives (if these could be located and appeared capable of providing a satisfactory upbringing), or placement in a job, school, detdom, or medical facility. By 1920, however, instructions recognized that such measures might not be appropriate for inveterate young criminals (who were proliferating along with homeless adolescents in general) and therefore granted commissions the choice of passing particularly difficult offenders on to the courts.^[45] In March, Sovnarkom increased by one year the maximum age of juveniles whose cases were to be handled by commissions—but at the same time allowed these bodies to transfer intractable youths at least fourteen years old to the courts. Because such decisions required the establishment of a child’s age, often difficult under the circumstances, additional directives advised commissions to rely, if necessary, on estimates derived from medical examinations. The Commissariat of Justice received orders to hold teenage defendants apart from adult criminals in all stages of the judicial process and place those sentenced by the courts in special reformatories.^[46]

When commissions (as opposed to the courts) channeled delinquents into institutions, the destination was generally a facility operated by Narkompros. Here and there around the country, officials inaugurated establishments bearing a variety of names—detdoma, colonies, communes, institutes—intended exclusively for a “difficult” or “morally defective” clientele. Narkompros issued detailed instructions for the proper operation of these institutions, accompanied by articles in its journals stressing the wisdom (and economy) of reclaiming youths before crime became their adult profession.^[47] According to reports and resolutions at the First All-Russian Congress of Participants in the Struggle with Juvenile Defectiveness, Besprizornost’, and Crime (held in the summer of 1920 in Moscow) and instructions issued later by Narkompros, facilities for difficult children were to resemble regular detdoma in many respects. Officials stressed, for example, that an institution contain residents of the same sex, age, and level of development (or degradation). Also, activities in schools, clubs, and workshops had to fill the inhabitants’ lives, eliminating unsupervised idleness. In particular, guidelines emphasized labor training, whether on the land or in workshops, as essential in nurturing desirable work habits and good character—besides preparing trainees to help build a new society.^[48]

At the same time, Narkompros’s resolutions and instructions indicated a number of ways in which institutions for delinquents should differ from ordinary detdoma. Discipline, for instance, had to be stricter, though never vindictive. If a violation of the rules seemed to warrant sanction stiffer than a reprimand, additional punishments could include extra chores, temporary deprivation of recreation and other pleasures, or even isolation in a separate room (under staff supervision). Corporal punishment was not permitted.^[49] Narkompros also advised that facilities for difficult children operate on the principle of “closed doors” (zakrytyedveri), meaning that instruction take place on the premises and youths not be permitted to leave the grounds on their own.^[50] Institutions themselves belonged mainly in the countryside, far removed from temptations afforded by train stations, markets, and other bustling urban sites.^[51]

Commissariats other than Narkompros (and the Commissariat of Health) also administered facilities for delinquents—in particular, for teenagers whose cases Juvenile Affairs Commissions had transferred to the courts. Once before a court, a youthful offender faced sentence to a labor home (trudovoi dom) run by the Commissariat of Justice until 1922, and through the rest of the decade by the Commissariat of Internal Affairs.^[52] Activities favored here resembled those expected in Narkompros’s detdoma for difficult children—school, workshops, agriculture, sports, even a form of “self-government”—but with still more emphasis on rehabilitation through labor.^[53] Guidelines for operating labor homes appeared in the Russian Republic’s Correctional Labor Code rather than Narkompros’s publications. Also, while labor homes shared many of the pedagogic methods of detdoma, they were to employ stricter discipline together with window bars and guards to restrain their charges.^[54] As in other “institutions for the deprivation of freedom,” those assigned to labor homes served sentences, which a court could extend to an inmate’s twentieth birthday.^[55]

This, in broad strokes, completed the array of facilities intended at the beginning of the 1920s for most abandoned and other abused or delinquent children. To guide them into such institutions, Narkompros set about deploying a corps of social workers. In September 1921, Sovnarkom ordered the formation of a Children’s Social Inspection, under the administration of Narkompros, to spearhead the battle against juvenile homelessness, delinquency, begging, prostitution, and speculation (a term often applied to street trade). The inspectors were intended to replace the police in most dealings with minors, and their duties included patrolling markets, stations, and other locations that attracted waifs. They could call on the police for assistance but did not carry weapons or wear uniforms themselves. Narkompros hoped they would manage to establish contact with youths, draw them out of places exercising an unhealthy influence, and direct those lacking homes to receivers.^[56]

The doorstep of a receiver or Juvenile Affairs Commission did not mark the end of the Social Inspection’s beat. Sovnarkom noted in its September decree that inspectors’ duties included supervising youths admitted to receivers (or observation-distribution points) and assisting in their examination. Both receivers and commissions, as interested parties, held the right to submit candidates for positions in the Social Inspection.^[57] Commissions themselves were to rely first on another set of social workers, known as investigators-upbringers (obsledovateli-vospitateli), for the following assistance: (1) investigation of offenders (their backgrounds, personalities, and crimes) scheduled to appear before commissions; (2) presentation of this information in commission hearings; and (3) implementation of decisions reached by commissions (supervising guardianship arrangements, for example, or escorting youths to institutions). The general similarity between the duties of the Children’s Social Inspection and investigators-upbringers allowed commissions to call on the former for assistance in the absence of the latter.^[58]