Housing problem as a factor of personnel shortage in industrial enterprises of the Ulyanovsk region in 1968–1972

The article considers housing shortage as one of the key factors of personnel instability in industrial enterprises of the Ulyanovsk region in 1968-1972. Based on the documents of the State Archive of the Modern History of the Ulyanovsk region letters, certificates and information notes of the Ulyanovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU the mechanism of interaction of regional party bodies, the management of enterprises and central departments in solving issues of housing and social construction is reconstructed. Special attention is paid to enterprises of the light, food, machine-building industries, as well as facilities of the agro-industrial complex. It is shown that the shortage of housing and social infrastructure was not a local problem of individual enterprises, but acted as a structural limitation of the Soviet model of industrial development, in which the commissioning of production facilities outstripped the creation of conditions for the consolidation of labor. The authors conclude that the Ulyanovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU performed an intermediary function, using petitions to the union and republican ministries as a tool to attract construction resources and mitigate the personnel shortage.

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