Trade in the USSR. Prohibition of private trade in the USSR Retail trade in the USSR

However, the bony hand of hunger and scarcity grabbed them by the throat so much that Lenin had to step on the throat of even his fanatical supporters and declare the NEP. But now Stalin is in power, and by the beginning of the 1930s he is returning the Soviet communists, so to speak, to the "true path" of social ownership of the means of production and everything else.

The fight against the private trader began around 1926-1927. In 1930, the share of the private trader in the turnover decreased to 5.6%, and in 1931 it practically disappeared. “If trade at the first stage of the NEP,” Comrade Stalin said at the January (1933) plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, “allowed the revival of capitalism and the functioning of the private capitalist sector in trade, then Soviet trade proceeds from the denial of both another. What is Soviet trade? Soviet trade there is trade without capitalists - small and large, trade without speculators - small and large. This is a special kind of trade, which history has not known until now and which is practiced only by us, the Bolsheviks, in the conditions of Soviet development.

As an inevitable consequence of this dubious "victory over the private trader" already in 1928-1929. card trading system was created. It was caused by a severe shortage of many essential, primarily food, goods. By the end of 1929, the ration card system was extended to almost all foodstuffs, and then to industrial goods, especially clothing and footwear. Instead of free purchase and sale of goods, merchandising took place, which was carried out according to the so-called "taking documents" through closed distributors, closed workers' cooperatives, and workers' supply departments. Each region had its own form, its own procedure for issuing all kinds of cards. Different categories of the population were established, for each category their own supply standards were determined. For absenteeism and leaving the enterprise, the worker was deprived of his card. There were special shops to which the best factory shops were attached. So hunger and the distribution system became the most important factor in the obedience of citizens to power. However, this has already happened in the period civil war.

From Special Report No. 2 INFO OGPU:
Plant "Red Shtampovshchik". At the rally devoted to the issues of the "Appeal of the Central Committee", out of 200 people, only 12 people voted for self-reinforcement. Regarding shock work, one worker spoke as follows: “You can work like a shock if you sing like a shock, but you will be shod and dressed, but with a hungry belly and a warrant in your pocket you won’t hit very hard.”
Trumppark them. Konyashin. During a meeting of drummers, one of the workers said: "What kind of competition can there be when we are all hungry and work for nothing." The speech was met with applause from part of the congregation.

On March 15, 1930, taking into account local excesses, the Central Committee of the Party in a letter to all the Central Committees of the National Communist Parties, regional, regional, district and district committees of the party "On the fight against distortions of the party line in the collective farm movement" obliges local party organizations: “Prohibit the closure of markets, restore bazaars and not hinder the sale by peasants, including collective farmers, of their products on the market”

As you can see, in a fierce struggle with the private trader, in some places in Soviet cities they even closed the traditional food markets, where peasants had been selling their products to the townspeople for thousands of years...

The fight against the private trader was going on both in the city and in the countryside. I had to involve significant forces of repressive organs. The most large-scale action took place, of course, in the countryside, because the authorities decided not only to take away property from the strongest peasants, but also to liquidate the peasants themselves as independent, independent of the authorities. According to the doctor of historical sciences, a well-known researcher of repressions V.N. Zemskov, in total about 4 million people were dispossessed, of which 2.5 million went to kulak exile in 1930-1940, during this period 600 thousand people died in exile.

In May 1931, a document of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Union states: “... The consumer cooperatives have forgotten that the ousting of the private trader and private trade does not yet mean the destruction of all trade, that, on the contrary, the ousting of private trade presupposes the all-round development of Soviet trade and the deployment of a network of cooperative and state trade organizations throughout the USSR. Well, still, because 1931-1933. These are years of terrible famine with millions of deaths. The authorities had to say something about this, and decided to shift the blame on the negligent Soviet cooperatives, who could not replace private traders in the food trade.

The size of the food shortage in the country is evidenced by the facts of a sharp reduction by 1933 of state stocks of food grains. On February 9, 1931, according to the People's Commissar of Supply of the USSR A.I. Mikoyan, there were 1011 million poods of food on the balance sheet; in January 1933, their actual presence, according to the results of the inventory carried out by the Committee of Reserves at the STO of the USSR, amounted to 342 million poods, i.e. decreased by almost 3 times.

Hunger forced the workers to go to canteens with their whole families, otherwise it was impossible to survive. But the situation in the dining rooms was the same ...

From Special Report No. 23 INFO OGPU on interruptions in the supply of industrial districts and cities:
"Moscow District. In the canteen of the Needle Factory, oatmeal porridge made from poor-quality cereals is served daily. Due to malnutrition, there were 4 cases of fainting with workers.

In the canteen of brick factories No. 21 and 26 (Podolsky district), a number of cases of making food from spoiled meat and rotten vobla were noted.

Leningrad region. Factory "Renaissance". In the factory canteen almost every day about 50 workers go without lunch. Bandwidth the dining room is small due to lack of crockery.

At the Shipyard (Stalingrad), cases were noted when there was no bread in the shops for 2-3 days ... Tractor plant(Stalingrad). There is no place to repair shoes, many workers have to walk without shoes ... When the distribution of white bread was introduced in Stalingrad, queues at the distributors reached up to 1000 people ... Staging Catering in the canteens of the CRC of Astrakhan and Stalingrad continues to deteriorate ... Traktorostroy. The meals delivered to the construction site are messy, especially the pea soup, which is available almost daily."

Market relations, greatly reduced by the state, continued to exist in commercial trade, the Torgsin system and the collective farm market. In 1929, "commercial" shops appeared in the USSR. These were state-owned stores where goods were sold without cards, but at higher prices, which on average were 3-4 times higher than the prices for products sold with cards. In 1932, "commercial" stores gave a tenth of retail turnover country.

In 1931, TORGSIN joined the network of commercial stores. In the hungry year of 1933, people brought 45 tons of pure gold and almost 1.5 tons of silver to the Torgsin network. With these funds, they purchased 235,000 tons of flour, 65,000 tons of cereals and rice, and 25,000 tons of sugar. In 1933, food accounted for 80% of all goods sold in Torgsin, with cheap rye flour accounting for almost half of all sales. The starving people exchanged their last savings for bread. Torgsin's analysis of prices shows that during the famine, the Bolsheviks sold food to their subject citizens much more expensive than abroad. In 1933, Torgsin twice raised the price of bread and flour, but the demand for these products did not fall. This year, in Torgsin, bread among the goods had the highest foreign exchange profitability: in the first half of 1933, Torgsin's revenue from the bread / flour group exceeded their export price by more than 5 times! Due to the terrible famine, Torgsin in 1933 came out on top among all Soviet exporters in terms of gross foreign exchange earnings. People went to great lengths to survive. So the Bolsheviks proved in practice the truth of the well-known saying that with 300% there is no such crime that capital would not risk committing. And in this story, the profit was much more than 300%!

As you can see, the Stalinist government decided to make money on people instead of a private trader. In the absence of free competition, it could inflate prices almost indefinitely, and did so during the period of famine completely shamelessly.

Sources:

1. I.V. Stalin, "Issues of Leninism", ed. 11th, p. 390.

2. Special report No. 2 INFO OGPU on the facts of a negative nature in the course of the implementation of the appeal of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of September 3, 1930 November 14, 1930

Retail trade in the USSR

In the early years Soviet power especially acute was the problem of organizing the food supply of the working people. The first measures of the Soviet state were the introduction of workers' control over production and distribution, the creation on October 26 (November 8), 1917 of the People's Commissariat for Food (Narkomprod) to ensure a centralized supply of goods to the population and organize the procurement of agricultural products. In May - June 1918, in connection with the aggravation of supply difficulties, emergency measures were taken to solve the food issue. The "Decree on food dictatorship" was adopted, which granted the people's commissar of food emergency powers to fight the rural bourgeoisie, who hid grain and speculated in it; decrees on the reorganization of the People's Commissariat for Food and its local bodies and on the organization of committees of the rural poor (kombeds). Much attention was paid consumer cooperation, which was involved in the trade service of the entire population. In 1918, a state monopoly was established on trade in the most important consumer goods (bread, salt, sugar, textiles, etc.), and a ban on private trade was introduced. Trading networks and wholesale warehouses were transferred to the People's Commissariat for Food and its local bodies. These measures undermined the economic positions of the capitalist elements, the struggle against speculation intensified, and opportunities were created for improving the supply of the working people. During the Civil War and foreign intervention of 1918-20. a centralized rationed distribution of consumer goods was established (i.e., in fact, the "card system", introduced for the first time by the Provisional Government in 1917, was revived). The main form of procurement of agricultural products was the "food allocation" introduced in 1919, which made it possible to concentrate in the hands of the state necessary resources to supply the workers of industrial centers and the army.

With the transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, the “surplus appraisal” was replaced by a food tax, small private trade was again allowed, but subject to strict control by the relevant state structures. With its revival, the need for a card system disappeared. The importance and high economic efficiency of private petty trade proves the fact that, as of 1924, the private sector owned 88% of retail enterprises, its share in retail trade was 53%. organization domestic trade and regulation of market relations on the scale of the entire national economy, the Soviet state began with wholesale trade. The marketing of the products of large-scale industry was carried out by its governing bodies: from 1922, a special apparatus, industry syndicates, and other state organizations (commodity exchanges, fairs, etc.) began to be created. Cooperative trade also played a major role in wholesale trade during this period. With the strengthening of socialist forms of economy in the country's economy, the development of state and cooperative trade, private intermediaries were squeezed out, first of all from wholesale and then from retail trade. This was facilitated by the government's policy of taxes, tariffs, credit, price reduction, financial assistance cooperation and other economic measures.

The transition to industrialization, the growth of the urban population and cash income significantly increased the demand for goods, and small-scale Agriculture could not ensure a rapid increase in the production of food and industrial raw materials. This necessitated the transition in 1928 to a rationed supply of the population with basic goods on cards. As the state commodity resources increased, "commercial" trade at higher prices was introduced. Along with the development of cooperative trade, state retail trade grew. Since 1928, the creation of “closed” distributors began, supplying goods to workers and employees, enterprises “attached” to them, and in 1932 they were replaced by labor supply departments (ORSs). Collective-farm trade was allowed, not planned by the state, where prices were set under the influence of supply and demand. As a result of the increase in commodity resources and the development of trade in 1935, the card system was finally abolished and a free trade was established. open trade. In 1935-1941, unified state retail prices; organizationally restructured vending machine. The ORS enterprises and the cooperative trade network in the cities were transferred to state trade organizations. The main area of activity of consumer cooperatives was the development of trade in the countryside. The volume of retail trade turnover of the state and cooperative trade for the years 1928-40 increased 2.3 times; the number of retail and public catering enterprises increased from 170 thousand to 495 thousand. The turnover of public catering enterprises in 1940 was 13% of the total turnover of state and cooperative trade. The share of socialized forms of trade in total volume retail trade.

During the Great Patriotic War up to 77 million people were covered by the state rationed supply system. Specific gravity catering in retail turnover almost doubled. On the industrial enterprises ORSs were organized again. All the years of the war, ration prices for basic foodstuffs and industrial goods remained at the pre-war level. In the collective farm markets at the beginning of the war, prices rose, but already in 1944 their level dropped noticeably due to the "commercial" trade in food and industrial goods. Significantly reduced in 1942 (compared to 1940), retail trade turnover has been continuously increasing since 1943, and by 1945 it reached the level of 200%. At the same time, trade turnover in the eastern regions grew faster than in the country as a whole.

Despite the enormous difficulties caused by the war, open trade was established at the end of 1947. A major role in this was played by the preparation of an appropriate technical base, the restoration and expansion of fixed assets of domestic trade, and the selection and training of sales personnel. By 1950, centralized trading networks were fully restored, and trade turnover exceeded the pre-war level (the indicator in 1950 was 107% of the 1940 level).

Thus, the main specific feature of the Soviet store retail trade can be called its complete subordination to centralized state structures. The process of trade centralization began in the USSR in the second half of the 1920s, immediately after the end of the New Economic Policy. As a result, the share of the private sector in retail trade first declined from 50% in 1924 to 30% in 1927. And in 1932, private trade was completely prohibited by law. The same fate befell the cooperative trading sector: if in the same 1932, its share, against the background of a decrease in the number of private traders, increased to almost 60% of the total trade turnover, by 1940 this figure barely reached 25%.

Store shelves full of the same type of goods, gloomy faces of saleswomen, gigantic queues for any scarce goods - in such conditions, Soviet people bought goods for many decades. Going to the store turned into a special life in the USSR with its own rules, concepts and phraseological units. The goods were “gotten”, they were “thrown away”, the queues were “live”, at home “stash boxes” of products purchased for future use were created. The deficit - and they had anything they wanted, from smoked sausage to furniture sets - they received “by pull”, “from the back door”, sometimes paying something useless to it “to load”. True, there were also ideal stores, but only in the form of a closed system of special distributors or currency departments.

Trade in the Soviet Union was based on market principles only in the first years of its existence. But, having once embarked on the path of a planned economy, it has forever remained, in fact, a distribution system.

Soviet trade in Estonia did not leave such a depressing impression as in the outback of Russia. Modern shopping center"Silhouette" in Narva was in Soviet time the biggest shopping complex in the city (of course, not counting the city market) and was mainly focused entirely on women. The dream of every Narva trade school graduate was to work as a salesperson in this store.

1959 Product department. Typical. If my vision serves me right, the products on the counter are not very rich, to put it in euphemisms. And speaking directly and without embellishment, the counter is completely empty. True, it should be recognized that something is hanging behind the back of the seller. To be honest, I didn't understand what it was. Roofing felts of decomposed meat carcasses, or something wrapped in oiled paper. Okay, let's say it's meat.

1964 Moscow. GUM. Gumov's ice cream has always been popular. And in the 64th ...

And in 1980...

And in 1987.

But, as they say, not ice cream alone ...

1965 In Soviet times, design was approached very simply. There weren't a lot of stupid names. Shops in all cities were called simply, but clearly: "Bread", "Milk", "Meat", "Fish". IN this case- Gastronomy shop.

Here's the toy section. The store, therefore, manufactured goods. All the same 1965 year. I remember that in 1987, a girl I knew, a saleswoman in the Dom Knigi store on Kalininsky, told me that she was uncomfortable every time when foreigners froze in shock, watching her calculate the cost of purchases on the accounts. But that was 1987, and in 1965 no one was surprised by the scores. The sports department is visible in the background. Chess, checkers, dominoes are different there - a typical set. Well, lotto and games with a cube and chips (some were very interesting). In the foreground is a rocking horse. I didn't have one.

All the same 1965. Selling apples on the street. Please pay attention to the packaging - a paper bag (a woman in the foreground puts apples in it). Such third-rate paper bags were all the way one of the most common types of Soviet packaging.

1966 Supermarket - Self-service department store. At the exit with purchases, there is not a cashier with a cash register, but a saleswoman with bills. The check was strung on a special awl (it stands in front of the accounts). On the shelves - a typical set: something in packs (tea? tobacco? dry jelly?), then cognac and some bottles in general, and on the horizon - traditional Soviet pyramids of canned fish.

1968 There is progress. Instead of an account cash registers. There are shopping baskets - by the way, quite so cute design. In the lower left row, the buyer's hand with a carton of milk is visible - such characteristic pyramids. In Moscow, these were of two types: red (25 kopecks) and blue (16 kopecks). They were fat. On the shelves, as far as you can see - traditional cans and bottles sunflower oil(seemingly). It is interesting that there are two sellers at the exit: a checker of purchases and a cashier (her head peeks out from behind the right shoulder of the aunt-seller with a facial expression typical of a Soviet seller).

1972 Let's take a closer look at what was on the shelves. Sprats (by the way, they later became scarce), bottles of sunflower oil, some other canned fish, on the right - something like cans of condensed milk. There are a lot of cans. But there are very few titles. Several types of canned fish, two types of milk, butter, kvass must, what else?

1966 Something did not make out what exactly the buyers are looking at there.

1967 This is not Lenin's room. This is a department for the House of Books on Kalininsky. Today these retail space crammed full of all sorts of books (on history, philosophy), and then - portraits of Lenin and the Politburo.

1967 For children - plastic astronauts. Very affordable - only 70 kopecks apiece.

1974 Typical grocery store. Again: a pyramid of canned fish, bottles of champagne, a battery of green peas "Globus" (Hungarian, it seems, or Bulgarian - I don't remember something already). Half-liter jars with something like grated beets or horseradish with beets, packs of cigarettes, a bottle of Armenian cognac. To the right (behind the scales) are empty flasks for selling juice. Juice was usually: tomato (10 kopecks a glass), plum (12 or 15, I don’t remember already), apple (same), grape (similar). Sometimes in Moscow there was tangerine and orange (50 kopecks - wildly expensive). Next to such flasks there was always a saucer with salt, which could be added with a spoon (taken from a glass of water) to your glass of tomato juice and stirred. I have always loved to skip a glass of tomato juice.

1975 City Mirniy. On the left, as far as one can judge, deposits of bagels, gingerbread and cookies - all in plastic bags. To the right are eternal canned fish and - below - 3-liter cans of canned cucumbers.

1975 City Mirniy. General form shop interior.

1979 Moscow. People are waiting for the end lunch break in the shop. The showcase is decorated with a typical pictogram of the Fruit and Vegetable store. In the showcase itself are jars of jam. And it seems to be the same kind.

1980 Novosibirsk. General view of the supermarket. In the foreground are batteries of milk bottles. Further, in metal mesh containers, something like deposits of canned fish. In the background are groceries - bags of flour and vermicelli. The overall dull landscape is somewhat enlivened by the plastic pictograms of the departments. We must pay tribute to the local designers - the icons are quite understandable. Not like pictograms Microsoft programs word.

1980 Novosibirsk. Manufactured goods. Furniture in the form of sofas and cabinets. Further, the sports department (checkers, inflatable life buoys, billiards, dumbbells and various other trifles). Even further, under the stairs - TVs. In the background are partially empty shelves.

View of the same store from the side of the household electrical department. In the sports department we can distinguish life jackets and hockey helmets. In general, it was probably one of the best stores Novosibirsk (I think so).

1980 Vegetable department. The queue is watching the saleswoman intently. In the foreground are green cucumbers that appeared in stores in early spring (and then disappeared).

1980 Sausage. Krakow, must be.

1981 Moscow. Typical store layout. "Milk". On the right, a woman is pushing a wildly scarce imported stroller with "windows".

1982 In the market, the Soviet people rested their souls.

1983 Line for shoes. Not otherwise imported boots "thrown out."

1987 Queue for something.

Kvass seller. For kvass, people went with aluminum cans or three-liter cans.

1987 Electrical goods.

No comment.

Soviet underwear as it is. Without any colorful bourgeois packaging.

Spiritual people do not need fashionable shoes. But the women in this photo do not have a very cheerful look.

Also shoes ... And where to go? The other is not.

An almost sacred place is the meat department. “Communism is when every Soviet person will have a familiar butcher” (from some movie).

"Pork" - 1 ruble 90 kopecks per kilogram. Grandmothers do not believe their eyes. “Butcher, bitch, sold all the meat to the left!”

Soviet line. What a tense look of people - “is it enough?”.

“Now bring the meat. You will see, they will definitely bring him.”

"Eat meat!" Local fight over the best piece.

phallic symbol. It is enough to look at the reverence with which the aunt holds this item to understand that in the USSR sausage was much more than just a food product.

It is necessary to cut more pieces of sausage, which will then be instantly swept away from the counter.

Ice cream hake is certainly not a sausage, but you can also eat it. Although, of course, it does not look very aesthetically pleasing.

Not a single sausage ... For a Soviet color TV, a Soviet person had to pay almost a salary for 4-6 months (Electronics costs 755 rubles).

Vegetable department. In the foreground is a cart with some kind of rot. And it was assumed that someone could buy this rot.

Ineradicable antagonism between Soviet buyers and Soviet sellers. In the eyes of the man it is read that he would strangle the saleswoman with pleasure. But it is not so easy to strangle such a saleswoman - the Soviet trade tempered people. Soviet saleswomen knew how to deal with customers. More than once I saw a flurry of indignation and attempts to rebel in the queues, but the result was always the same - the victory remained with such aunts-saleswomen.

One of the features of the Scoop was the presence of a sophisticated system of benefits (all sorts of veterans there, "prisoners of concentration camps", etc.). Different beneficiaries with red crusts in the Soviet queues were hated almost as much as saleswomen. Look at the snout in the hat - not to “like everyone else” take the put duck, he pops the red crust - apparently he claims to have two ducks.

This photo is interesting not so much for the sold hake as for the packaging. Almost all purchases were wrapped in this brown hard paper in the USSR. In general, the darkest thing that happened in Soviet trade was the packaging, which, in fact, did not exist.

Another queue.

And further…

Suffering. No comment.

Who did not have time, he was late. Now spells won't help.

Queuing for the dairy.

"Our job is simple..."

Queuing for the wine section.

1991 Well, this is the apotheosis. Finita…

And this is a completely different queue, a queue of people who dreamed of escaping from Sovka at least for an hour. And no spirituality.

Is it true that in the Soviet Union there were barrels of black caviar in every store and it cost a penny? What was hard to get? Were there queues? It was possible to get normal products without blat? Is it true that the bread tasted better?

I don’t remember almost anything from the Soviet era, I was too young and my parents didn’t take me to the shops. From the 90s, I only remember that I had to walk through the forest on the Moscow Ring Road for some bananas. Why I had to go after them, I still don’t understand, no one ate them anyway. I also remember that on Tverskaya there was a very cool SvitSvitVey store, where they sold foreign weight sweets. Now on this place is the cafe Floor (by the way, the garbage dump is terrible).

At the showcase of the shoe department of the Central Department Store, 1934.

Showcase, 1939

Metropol Bookshop, 1939

Showcase of the Eliseevsky grocery store, 1947.

At a tobacco display on Gorky Street, 1947.

At the window of the bookstore "Moscow"

At a showcase with oriental souvenirs, 1947.

1951 Moscow, Taganskaya square. Shop

Kutuzovsky prospect, house 18 - showcase with crockery. 1958 A residential building with shops on the ground floor since its construction was popularly called the "Pink Department Store". It was the first building that marked the line of the future Kutuzovsky Prospekt to the Novoarbatsky Bridge. Prior to its construction, Mozhaisk highway smoothly turned into Dorogomilovskaya street, and it was completely incomprehensible why the house was being built at a strange angle to the existing streets. When it opened, the Pink Department Store was the most popular store in the area, stocking everything from coats to needles. Well, dishes too.

In the same place, a showcase with TV sets

st. Gorky. Radio goods store. 1960

st. Gorky. Shop window "Dietary products"

Ether shop.

Shop "Cheese"

st. Gorky. Showcase of the store "Russian wines"

Showcase of the Toy House on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, 1960.

Department store Moscow, 1963.

Showcase and counters of the Moscow department store in the 70s.

Running street, 1969.

Gorkogo Street. Moscow windows. Shop "Men's Fashion", 1970.

Grocery store "Novoarbatsky"

On Malaya Gruzinskaya, 29. In the favorite store of V.S. Vysotsky

"Toy House", 1975

Shop "Orbita"

Voentorg on Kalinin Avenue, 1979.

TSUM GUT MO

GUM

GUM. Grocery store window. 1984

East Village. Store. 1985

Store " Child's world". 1986

Pedknigi house on Pushkinskaya. 1986

Passage of the Art Theater (Kamergersky per.), 1986.

Showcase on the Arbat

Shop "Melody", 1989.

Department store "Moskovsky"

Don't sell, give away

After the Civil War, the leadership of the young country decided to resort to the help of private traders in supply matters and did not lose.

Announced in the fall of 1921, a new economic policy allowed private trade along with state and cooperative. And already in 1922-1923, the share of private trade in retail turnover reached 75.3%. Thanks to this, the problem of providing the population with essential products was solved in a short time.

However, in December 1925, the Kremlin began the industrialization of the country, for which the currency was needed - to buy high-tech equipment. Raw material prices - main article Soviet exports - because of the crisis then fell. The export of agricultural products could help, but the peasants did not want to hand them over to the state low prices, but tried to sell to private traders with greater profit.

In December 1925, the Kremlin began the industrialization of the country, for which currency was needed - to buy high-tech equipment

And the Kremlin took the path of repression - the peasants began to be dispossessed and massively driven into collective farms, and private traders were removed from the supply sector, making it centralized.

Such actions immediately led to a crisis. Products disappeared from stores, for which huge queues lined up with fights and pogroms. Local authorities, in order to curb wild demand, began to introduce rationed sales of goods, but this did not help. Cards for bread appeared - they were first introduced in Odessa in the second quarter of 1928. In the same year, bread cards came to Kyiv, Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson, Mariupol, and at the beginning of 1929 - to Kharkov. At the same time, due to a shortage of grain, the state stopped selling flour to the population. Starvation outbreaks began throughout the Union, including in Ukraine.

The situation in industry was aggravated - half-starved workers went on strike, which threatened to disrupt industrialization plans. As a result, throughout the country they followed the path trodden by the Odessans: on February 14, 1929, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks approved a decree on the all-Union rationing system for the distribution of bread.

In Moscow and Leningrad, as the Russian historian Elena Osokina notes in her book Behind the facade of “Stalin's abundance”, the workers were entitled to 900 g of bread per day, their families and other workers - 500 g, and the proletariat of other cities of the Union - 300-600 g per day. day. Peasants were not issued cards.

The workers were entitled to 900 g of bread per day, their families and other workers - 500 g, and the proletariat of other cities of the Union - 300-600 g per day. Peasants were not issued cards.

In January 1931, cards were introduced for basic foodstuffs and non-grocery goods. At the same time, the population (according to its importance for the cause of industrialization) was divided into four lists - special, first, second and third. The first two included workers strategic enterprises Moscow, Leningrad, Donbass and other industrial regions. In the second and third - workers and employees of non-industrial cities and factories and factories that produced consumer goods. The peasants were again left behind.

The most wealthy in those years were the highest party workers, who received the so-called letter rations, which included all the basic foodstuffs.

So, by the 1930s, trade in the USSR turned into the distribution of goods: each category of the population had access to its own types of distributors.

According to market laws, only commercial shops and collective farm markets operated, where prices were several times higher than state ones. Another category of points where goods could be bought, and not received by card, was the network of currency torgsins. Initially, they were aimed at foreigners, but since the autumn of 1931 they were also opened for Soviet citizens, who could buy goods there by handing over gold, silver or antiques. It was torgsin that helped many peasants survive in the hungry years of 1932-1933: more than 80% of the goods sold through this network at that time were food products, of which 60% were bread.

By the 1930s, trade in the USSR turned into the distribution of goods: each category of the population had access to its own types of distributors.

Cards were briefly abolished only at the beginning of 1936, but trade remained rationed all the time. A new crisis began in 1939 with the outbreak of war against Poland and then Finland. In cities where the supply was better, huge queues of locals and visitors gathered, with whom they tried to fight with the help of the police.

“The issue of clothing in Kyiv is extremely difficult,” noted in a letter to the head of the Council of People's Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov at the end of 1939, a certain resident of Kiev, N. S. Kovalev. - Thousands of queues to shops have been gathering for manufactory and ready-made clothes since the evening. The police line up somewhere a block away in an alley, and then the “lucky ones”, five to ten people in single file, one after the other in a girth (so that no one slips out of line), surrounded by policemen, like prisoners, are led to the store. Under these conditions, spooky speculation flourishes.”

In July 1941, with the outbreak of the war, the USSR reintroduced the card system, which was eliminated only at the end of 1947. But for many years, some of the goods were actually distributed. For example, according to Vitaliy Kovalinsky, a Kiev historian, in the 1950s, flour was sold to the population according to lists, and only three times a year - for New Year, on the first of May and on November 7, the anniversary of the October coup.

Focus on consumption

The situation began to change in better side in the late 1950s. At this point, the Kremlin decided to focus on the development of food and light industry. As a result, the assortment in stores began to change qualitatively, where other products began to crowd out bread as the basis of food.

“The share of bread and bakery products in the country's retail trade turnover in 1940 was 17.2%, in 1950 it was already 12.6%, and now it is about 6%,” wrote Soviet Trade magazine in April 1960.

In August of the same year, a decree was issued on the improvement of trade, after which wholesale fairs began to be held in the country, where enterprises showed samples of goods to representatives of trade organizations, and they, in turn, decided who to buy what from. The specter of market relations loomed over the country, but it did not fundamentally change the situation.

Stores, says Nina Goloshubova, a professor at the Kiev National University of Trade and Economics, were rigidly attached to a particular supplier.

Prior to this, the State Planning Committee of the USSR distributed resources among the republics. Stores, says Nina Goloshubova, a professor at the Kiev National University of Trade and Economics, were rigidly attached to a particular supplier. This gave rise not only to a shortage, but also to the monotony of goods on the shelves, which were stale, - after all, the industry produced products in very large batches, not focusing in any way on demand.

However, the innovation only slightly eased the situation. And it did not at all solve the problem of marriage, which was all-pervading in the Union: under the planned economy, manufacturers had guaranteed sales, and they were not too worried about quality.

“Organs state supervision in the system of the State Standard of the USSR, 1,788 enterprises of the Ministry of Light Industry were checked in 1973 and found that 60% of them produce products in violation of standards, Soviet Trade wrote in January 1975. - IN trading network the supply of 364 types of products was prohibited.”

Government initiatives have not saved stores from another feature - massive “stuffing” of goods. They usually happened at the end of the month and were the echoes of enterprises trying to meet monthly, quarterly and annual plans.

Soviet buyers quickly adapted to these subtleties. For example, in Kyiv, in the courtyard of the Ukraine department store, a crowd often gathered by the end of the month, waiting for a “stuffing”. The gathering place was not accidental: the people of Kiev knew about one more feature of the shops - their management, so as not to create long queues in trading floors, sometimes ordered to sell the deficit right in the yard, at the place of unloading.

Top of the consumption pyramid

As early as the 1930s, a class of “special” buyers arose in the USSR, which lasted until the very end of the Soviet system. We could talk about different categories of the population - the military, pensioners, low-income people - who were allocated and sold goods that were inaccessible to other citizens. But the real caste of privileged clients was the party and economic nomenklatura.

For the elite, everything was special: special state farms grew food, special workshops produced other products, then all this was delivered to special shops or special canteens, in which special buyers had the right to purchase all this at special prices (very loyal to wallets). The infrastructure was very extensive, it could cover almost all needs, up to tailoring.

“There was an atelier opposite the bank [the current National Bank],” recalls the daughter of one of the employees of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, on condition of anonymity. “There really were good craftsmen there, but not everyone was allowed to sew clothes there.”

As early as the 1930s, a class of “special” buyers arose in the USSR, which lasted until the very end of the Soviet system.

The entire special system worked in conditions similar to underground: the Soviet leadership really did not want to annoy its people. However, it was an open secret. Moreover, ordinary citizens even learned to enjoy inaccessible benefits.

For example, in the central part of Kyiv there were many grocery stores under which special departments worked. Thanks to them in open sale from time to time scarce goods arrived, stale on the shelves of distributors. Among the people such outlets they even began to call them “scrap shops”, and it was here that the people of Kiev hunted for what was not available in the general trading network.

In addition to the elite, people who worked under a contract abroad joined the sweet life. They were paid in foreign currency checks and could buy them in a chain of special stores, such as Kashtan, which sold inexpensive Soviet deficits and imported products.

“We mainly went there for shoes,” says Valentina Aleksandrova, the daughter of a specialist who worked abroad. “Because we had a lot of shoes in our stores, but they were of poor quality and ugly.”

The collapse of the system

All this multi-level distribution system has led to the emergence of a super-elite class of merchants - directors and sellers, not only special, but also ordinary stores, heads of bases, warehouses, and other suppliers. They became heroes of folklore and the object of close attention of employees of the departments for combating the theft of socialist property as offenders, earning on the deficit, trading from under the floor. But under the conditions of the planned system, it turned out to be impossible to overcome this problem.

Meanwhile, Soviet trade was ruined not by crooks and speculators, but by the general problems of the state, which got involved in the Afghan war, faced a drop in oil prices and was unable to meet the needs of the population, spending money on defense.

It was not crooks and speculators who ruined Soviet trade, but the general problems of the state, which got involved in the Afghan war, faced a drop in oil prices and was unable to meet the needs of the population, spending money on defense

As a result, from the second half of the 1980s, the situation in trade began to deteriorate. “Shopping is becoming more and more useless, as almost every day promises us a new shortage,” Soviet Trade wrote in January 1990. “Of the 1,200 major commodities monitored by VNIIKS [Institute for Trade and Demand for Consumer Goods] in 140 cities across the country, only 200 trade relatively smoothly.”

In conditions of less and less satisfied demand, the population periodically rushed to buy the most common products. So in 1988 in Kyiv it happened with sugar, which was literally swept off the shelves. The authorities had to restrict its sale. “We introduced coupons for sugar in Kyiv,” recalls Anatoly Statinov, the last Minister of Trade of the Ukrainian SSR. “Because there was such a boom in demand in the city that stores sold up to three months of sugar per month.”

But neither coupons nor other measures solved the problem of the growing deficit. Only the rejection of the socialist planning system and the transition to the market very quickly filled the shelves of stores with a variety of goods. But this has nothing to do with Soviet trade.

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Trade in the USSR. Prohibition of private trade in the USSR Retail trade in the USSR

Retail trade in the USSR

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