Kilde: Uddrag af rapport fra en fuldmægtig i Odessa om forholdene i retssystemet – Juni 1932

One of the crudest violations of revolutionary legality has to do with housing policies of the Odessa City Council. In February 1932, when oblasts were organized in Ukraine, Odessa become oblast center, and space was needed to accommodate newly created oblast organizations and incoming staff. In dealing with this matter, local organisation blatantly ignored existing housing legislation, basing their actions on the applicability condemned by Lenin – of a separate, “Kaluga” law because of alleged unusual local circumstances. The established order of evicting and resettling workers by legal procedure (with the exception of those instances strictly defined by law) was countermanded by Odessa’s leaders. Instead evictions and resettlement by administrative fiat were instituted. Class distinctions were totally disregarded, workers; specialists; scholars; and others toilers subject to eviction were treated arbitrarily and crudely in spate of privilege guaranteed them under the law. Eviction took place immediately after sought-out “objectives,” i.e., rooms or apartments, had been found, and often people were resettle in housing that was clearly unsuitable….
An example demonstrating how the Odessa officials cast aside all restraint is their system o f ”bonus awards” for finding an “objective” leading to eviction, the “award” being some of the rooms from which others had been evicted . (An example of eviction paid for with a bribe is cited.) To sum up, the bacchanalia of administrative evictions continued for several months in Odessa. Thousands of working people were resettled. The procurator’s office, RKI, and city council received a mass of complaints about illegal resettlements and corrupt practices. However, the local (party) organization failed to respond to this in any way. Only after Pravda published TsKVKP(b)’s resolution of 14 April containing details about how the Rostov City Council had tempered with housing policy did the “zeal” of the Odessa administrators abate somewhat. (Discussions follow about how this campaign was never condemned, about any attempt to save face by blaming “switchmen,” and about ho the campaign in fact continued but failed to archive its object of accommodating incoming staff members. Many of the latter continued to live in hotels, the local nomenklatura cleverly using the campaign to their own advantage.)