Soviet "Factories of Angels": the System of Fosterage before and during the Holodomor of 1932–1933

Abstract

The article reveals mechanisms of the fosterage system establishment and its organisation. Foster care used to mean a system of care for children to adjust them to society and labour activity. It is important to notice that fosterage discredited itself when the Communist authorities stopped paying over to families that took their children into foster care (during the imperial period, families with a foster child used to receive a regular pay-offs in an amount of 3 rubbles). Having lost government financial support, many foster parents began to dishouse children. In fact, among the population, fosterage was traditionally called as "angel factories". In the article demonstrates the analysis of the reasons for the actualization of the fosterage practice by the communist authorities, different types of patronage, as well as the attitude of children and patrons to such a system of education is clarified. Furthermore, the authors studied the genesis of fosterage, identified the features of its activities during the years of artificial famine in the 1921 – 1923, as well as its transformation during the NEP and the late 1920s. Significant attention was paid to the characteristics of the fosterage during the Holodomor 1932 – 1933 and transforming them into the factories of angels. The authors conclude that the communist system of education tended to use fosterage to relieve shelters. The living conditions for children were not under control by the authorities. For the peasants exhausted by the norms of grain procurement, it was physically impossible to keep a foster child. As a result, the mortality rate of foster cared children used to be extremely high. The republican social education authorities were aware enough of the difficult situation concerning the fosterage practice. In 1934 and 1936, numerous legislative attempts were made to improve the situation of foster children. However, the published guidelines remained only in the frameworks of the Soviet legislative myth-making. Therefore, the Soviet "factories of angels" never underwent any transformations, once again destroying the communist myth of a happy Soviet childhood.

Keywords

• system of social education
• fosterage
• children
• holodomor
• soviet myths