It should not shock us to learn that communist totalitarians once sought to eliminate domestic meals as a common aspect of civilized life. The destruction of the family as a bourgeois institution was explicitly listed among Marx’s priorities for implementing the communist revolution.

After the communists came to power in what became the Soviet Union in 1917, the new regime sought to address what were then common housing shortages by placing Russians in state-owned communal apartments—called kommunalki—where seven or more families were expected to share a single kitchen and bathroom.