"We Must Keep a Firm Plan": on the History of Consideration of the First Version of the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow in July 1934

Abstract

The article focuses on the key elements of the General plan for the reconstruction of Moscow transformation process after its first consideration by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in July 1934. The study of these changes was made possible thanks to the scheme of the main radial and ring highways of Moscow prepared in 1934 by the Planning Department of the Moscow Soviet, which was revealed in the Fund of architect P. I. Goldenberg (Russian state archive of economics). This scheme, printed in a large number of copies, is one of the few shreds of evidence that the architects - the authors of the planning project - and the Moscow leadership in the person of L.M. Kaganovich in July 1934 looked forward to the approval of the presented project. Particular attention devoted to the analysis of the revealed scheme and consideration of its differences from the planning project 1935. On the basis of documents from the L.M. Kaganovich Fund (The Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, RGASPI) an attempt to reconstruct the process of revising the key settings, that formed the basis of the layout of the planning scheme in 1934 and try recreate principles which guided the architects in the changes to the General plan already in 1935 is also undertaken. In particular, we consider the events that followed the discussion of the General plan for the reconstruction of Moscow in Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in July 1934 andled to the appearance in a year the decision of the party and government "On the General plan for the reconstruction of Moscow", as well as those changes that after the meeting in 1934 were made to the Moscow planning schematics. These materials together allow us to see the events of July 1934 from a qualitatively different perspective, to review their role in the history of the General plan for the reconstruction of Moscow in 1935 and to determine the extent of their impact on the further development of the city.