Material and Living Conditions of Adolescents in Soviet Labor Reserve System during Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944)

Abstract

This article investigates the material and living conditions of students enrolled in trade schools, railway schools, and factory-apprenticeship schools within the besieged city of Leningrad. The primary objective of this study is to reconstruct the quotidian experience of adolescents integrated into the labor reserve system under the extreme duress of a prolonged military blockade. The methodological framework is grounded in a comprehensive approach that synthesizes the methods of social history and microhistorical analysis. The research draws upon previously unpublished archival materials, which are introduced into the scholarly discourse for the first time. The study examines the demographic size of the adolescent workforce, the degree of compliance with existing labor legislation, and the physical state of both industrial facilities and residential accommodations. Furthermore, it scrutinizes the mechanisms of food supply and distribution. The findings demonstrate that the utilization of child labor was a systemic and integral component of the city's survival strategy. It is shown that legislative norms were systematically violated on a regular basis. The analysis reveals that behind official accusations of truancy often lay severe life circumstances and the adolescents' own survivalist strategies aimed at securing their livelihood. The research establishes that measures to ameliorate living conditions were largely contingent upon local enterprise-level initiatives rather than centralized directives. The authors conclude that, in an environment of total scarcity, adolescents within the labor reserve system constituted the most vulnerable segment of the urban population. Their fate was determined not so much by state decrees as by the actions and decisions of local administrators on the ground.