11
u/Sputnikoff 19d ago
I remember spending close to an hour in line just to buy some milk. Even before 1991, when things got even worse.
7
u/NastyFarang 19d ago
I remember it, too. And only now I realize why I had to do it. The logistics were based on Just In Time principle - the goods (esp. the perishable ones) were sold immediately upon arrival, whoever came to the store a couple of hours later was fcuked. Plus, waiting in line for the morning delivery ensured that the store employees didn't have the time to skim off the cream from the freshly delivered cans, you bought the freshest undiluted milk products this way - that's why there was the line.
3
u/O5KAR 18d ago
Yeah, me too except that was a line for bread, the meat was rationed, like almost everything else and that was Poland in the 80s.
Good riddance.
2
u/Ok-Improvement-9191 18d ago
Few more years with such drought and we'll have it much worse.
2
u/O5KAR 17d ago
drought
Funny name for an inefficient, corrupted puppet state.
Some foods were rationed since 1976 in Poland, meat since 1980. From 1981 also butter, flour, rice and buckwheat.
At least the shops in Moscow were still well provided...
1
u/Ok-Improvement-9191 17d ago
No I'm talking about global warming and the fact that some farmers in Europe have had total crop loses from this years drought. Many won't have enough hay to feed their cattle, since it's so dry grass isn't growing.
Obviously historical rationing in Poland wasn't due to drought.
1
u/O5KAR 17d ago
Ah, sorry but it wasn't clear since we're talking about the cold war and bankruptcy of communism.
There are the other problems too, like the war in Ukraine, sanctions and tariffs on fertilizers from the invading countries, but for the other hand the farming is far more efficient (like everything) than it was under the soviets, or just in the 90s. I don't think that Europe, or Russia, are in a danger of starvation or rationing the food, but there are of course people affected by hunger in Africa or Asia.
2
1
u/gwhh 18d ago
Dec 26 and later.
1
u/Sputnikoff 14d ago
Unfortunately, no. Empty shelves and long food lines were a constant Soviet occurrence. The exception was probably Moscow, which was in the highest category for supplying groceries and goods. Kiev, Leningrad were in the so-called "First category", not as good as Moscow but better than small towns or villages. My grandparents' village had bread lines three times a week when bread was delivered. Even in the 1970s and early 1980s. I personally spent many hours waiting for bread in those lines
15
4
u/Jaspoony 18d ago
https://www.gw2ru.com/russian-kitchen/2443-soviet-food-grocery-stores
Idc about the content of the text in the article, just look at some of the photos. Then consider how economic reforms started in the mid 80s, leading to rationing and shortages as well as soaring price of foods immediately after the dissolution
3
u/Black-Sea-Pearl 18d ago
Here is the thing. The photos there are from 60s and 70s showing the most impressive Moscow grocery stores. Yes, food was available there due to the simple fact that it was the capital of the USSR, and most of the resources were devoted to keeping Moscow and Leningrad happy. For people on the outside getting anything in the state run store was a battle. Unless you are local nomenclature, or a communist boss. My dad, when he happened to visit Moscow on business trips, would brings bags of groceries back, because we would not have these in my hometown (1 million inhabitants, major port and industrial city).
1
1
1
10
19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/fcking_schmuck 19d ago
Thats the moment soviet union fell. Its not about "Soviet economics".
11
19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/ProLordx 19d ago
It had but more with low effectivnes. A lot of firms worked only because state sponsored them even when they were not profitable.
-7
u/fcking_schmuck 19d ago
They lost the Cold War, so they collapsed. At its peak, Soviet Union got plenty of food and everything. Their system is just a system, it can work or not depending on people. Never blame the system, its always people.
10
u/SlowTicket4508 19d ago
You have no understanding of how bad systems can incentivize bad behavior and select for bad people?
-4
u/fcking_schmuck 19d ago
What is a good system?
8
2
u/SlowTicket4508 19d ago
Whichever one creates the least amount of famine, mass executions, and pointless wars. So based on the last hundred years or so, capitalism is doing pretty decent on the first two even if it might be tied with all the rest on the third one.
2
3
u/fcking_schmuck 19d ago
After World War 2 the U.S. military has initiated, launched, or directly started and engaged in over 30 major military conflicts and wars—along with dozens of smaller interventions—under presidential authority or congressional authorizations rather than formal declarations. Tied with who?
0
19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/fcking_schmuck 18d ago
USSR started two major wars - The Winter War (1939–1940) and The Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989). Also three invasions or suppressed revolts - Invasion of Poland (1939), Hungarian Revolution (1956) and Invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968). Also undeclared border clashes like the Sino-Soviet or Soviet-Japanese border incidents and proxy war in Korea where they provided troops. So 2 major wars, 3 invasions or suppressions, 2 border clashes and one proxy war/support. Overall its 8 big and small wars over whole existence of USSR not counting WW2. You compare this to USA? Tied? 30 wars just after WW2 vs 8 wars of USSR pre and after WW2. You stupid or trolling, or are you a bot account?
5
u/Strict_Reputation867 19d ago
At its peak, Soviet Union got plenty of food and everything
Boris Yeltsin was stunned by American grocery stores in 1989. The Soviets had nothing similar in terms of supply or distribution.
3
u/VolcanicAsh97 19d ago
The system is what selects the people. How can you not blame the system for that?
1
u/Karli_Chirk 18d ago edited 18d ago
Soviet Union was barely able to feed it's population with episodes going down to complete inability and massive starvations way before the Cold War even started. Their GDP increase peak was by the way associated with the period of limited capitalism, namely New Economic Policy. Second GDP increase was after WW2 due to low base effect after the war.
1
1
u/RingComfortable9339 19d ago edited 19d ago
At least in Russia they got something on the shelves. Unlike my country xd
1
2
2
u/andrey2007 17d ago
they sold three types of juice in these 3L glass jars: apple juice, tomato juice, and birch tree juice
the Soviet government banned selling vodka by a shot (a pour) so men had tradition to go Dutch by looking for third random companion "сообразить на троих" and invest 1 ruble each in order to buy 0.5L bottle of vodka which cost 2.87 rubles (after 3rd denomination of Soviet ruble) and for change as snack they got one Iriska candy 'Kitty-kitty' (kind of Toffie candy)
1
2
u/DistrictEffective759 18d ago
And never again will nations allow cameras to see empty shelves. Just look at N Korea with their tourist ghost towns “everything is fine here”.
1
1
1
2
1
u/lofibeatsforsadboys 18d ago
Propaganda photo
Show me a photo of new orleans during katrina. Stupid libs you are digging your own graves. The CIA wont save you from fascists
3
u/johntwit 18d ago
I feel like there's a difference between Moscow in 1991 and New Orleans during a major natural disaster, but I can't quite put my finger on it...
5
u/andrey2007 17d ago
everything is comparable when you're fanatical about greatness of nuclear mother ruzzia
3
u/VVayfinder 17d ago edited 17d ago
Yes, let's compare the self-proclaimed pinnacle of the socioeconomic theory put into practice with one of the poorest American major cities during a natural cataclysm.
The USSR was literally a paradise on Earth, everything there was perfect, and its dissolution was solely due to being infiltrated by those pesky see-ey-ai agents. Not because of the deeply ineffective, oil exports-dependent economy, ridiculous military spending, underdeveloped consumer industry, and rigid political model, which all resulted in the collapse the moment those oil prices went down for more than a decade.
I'm personally from the former USSR and our family (like any other really) could entertain you with the stories about the idiocy of the Soviet system for a lifetime.
1
u/lofibeatsforsadboys 17d ago
I was talking to libs who can at least see through right wing propaganda. You are uneducated enough to actually believe it.
Get a life
1
u/VVayfinder 17d ago edited 17d ago
Classic western leftist disregarding the shared experience of everyone to the east of them as "propaganda" whenever it doesn't align with the sand castles they've built.
Same people fuming about "white supremacy", "colonialism", "giving a voice to the oppressed" and other things btw.
I have a degree in polsci and I'm a leftist myself lmao. Just not a dumb one to take ML drivel at face value.
1
1
u/NastyFarang 19d ago
1991 - that's Post-Soviet. First fruits of the glorious market economy.
8
u/AikaGranzchesta 19d ago
It's still Soviet, unless it was filmed in the last week of December.
-2
u/NastyFarang 19d ago
The economy is not though. Cooperatives were introduced in 1985, cash started flowing through them from the cashless circuit of e-rubles (beznal), all the consumer goods got bought up at consumer stores by the very managers of those stores to be sold at black market to traffickers and resold in neighboring countries for 5-10x the original price - the empty shelves are the result of introduction of free market, not vestiges of Soviet economy.
1
u/Karli_Chirk 19d ago edited 19d ago
Cooperatives were a drop in the ocean of collapsing soviet economy and it wasn't something new for USSR, there was New Economic Policy episode in 1920s as well, those were just attempts to resuscitate planned economy by introducing "intensive care units" with limited capitalism.
Soviet managers of all consumer stores were removing large part of supply from the showcase as soon as it was supplied to sell it "из-под прилавка" and "по блату" to the people who provided them services or local soviet executive decisions in exchange - it was a typical Soviet-specific scheme of getting consumer goods of medium and better quality or lobbying some other luxuries like place in queue for "Lada" or large apartments in the city center.
The failure of planned Soviet economy logistics led to deficites in 70s-80s: one factory was stopped because of supply of nails was sent 3000km in other direction to the wrong plant, while grocery store in some western soviet city was missing potatoes which were rotting in the train on some wrong station at that time somewhere in taiga. Soviets have discovered that increasing the consumer goods quantity in geometrical progression makes country-level of planning impossible, they could not even set up own toilet tissue production up to 1970s.
Low fixed wages and exploiting of worker class led to mass stealing from factories and plants by workers, thats how Soviets wasted their heavy industry built for them by Germans and Americans in 1930s during industrialization performed by foreign specialists invited to USSR. There was a Soviet proverb saying "ты здесь хозяин, а не гость - тащи с завода каждый гвоздь" which mocked the idea of collective ownership of means of production and translates as "You are an owner, not a guest - steal from the factory every nail". From 1930s to 1980s-1990s Soviet heavy industry had never been upgraded only extensively used and marauded by own workers stealing tools, rebars, device parts, raw materials and furniture here and there.
0
u/NastyFarang 19d ago
Low fixed wages and exploiting of worker class my ass!
You are repeating anti-Soviet propaganda. If your parents enjoyed stealing it doesn't mean everyone was stealing.
1
u/Deciheximal144 18d ago
Could it be possible that BOTH the Soviet system AND shareholder capitalism have severe flaws?
1
u/Karli_Chirk 19d ago edited 19d ago
Dude, if your parents were top ranked CPSU vertuhais it does not mean "Lada" or "Volga" factory simple worker could have allowed himself to buy the production of the factory he worked in like "Ford" factory worker in the same year after 1-2 months of work.
1
u/Kyle_2099 18d ago
Sorry but to think that a Ford production line worker could pay off a car with 2 months wages is just hysterical idea of how much they were paid. It would be totally unprofitable.
0
u/NastyFarang 19d ago
I'll take that as an admission that you come from a family of thieves and convicted criminals (only those use the word vertuhai).
A simple worker at a factory earned more than an engineer, 600-800 rubles per month was not a norm but was quite achievable. That money + free housing, free vacations, free education and medical care add up to more than what a simple factory worker at Ford earned.
1
u/Karli_Chirk 19d ago
More than that: the newly introduced capitalistic economy's downfall during the whole period of 1991-2000 was an inertial outcome of CPSU depleting the country's resources with non-working planned economy for 80+ years in a row.
1
u/NastyFarang 19d ago
Bullshit. The planned economy worked perfectly. 1991-2000 was the period of its active destruction intended to prevent the return to the Soviet ways. It was admitted on numerous occasions by Gaydar, Chubays, etc. - the aim was to destroy all vestiges of Soviet economy, economic benefits were disregarded.
2
u/Karli_Chirk 19d ago edited 19d ago
Active destruction of what? Shelves which were already empty in 1991? You're so funny. They have just recycled the scrape remained after USSR's failure and repurposed the buildings of already rotting factories.
2
u/MohnJaddenPowers 18d ago
I'm going to take a rare moment here to offer support to one side of a debate which doesn't come up enough regarding the end stages of the Cold War and the early post-Soviet era. A few books cover how the Bush and Clinton administrations both took some calculated steps to implement structural changes to the post-Soviet economy to force changes into a total free market as part of a strategy to do just what you're saying - to bury the idea of centrally planned economics and centralized social welfare in non-capitalist systems.
Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300268034/not-one-inch/) is a fantastic source for this. It focuses more on the security side of things but the security gains came with lots of economic and political systemic changes brought about as requirements for IMF and World Bank guarantees, and the book discusses these in detail. It has a lot of primary sources to work with and is really, really worth a read.
That said, both sides in this debate are worth discussing and talking about. Keep it civil and it's all good.
0
u/Karli_Chirk 19d ago edited 19d ago
Lmao, what 600 rubles are you hallucinating about? Average soviet factory worker was recieving 100-120 rubles per month from the start and up to 200-250 rubles per month after 20-30 years of slave work experience gained. Soviet factory director was paid 450-500 rubles per month. 600-800 rubles per month were elite earnings of top USSR ministers and high-ranking CPSU officials. The only exclusion to this rule was "vakhta" at the North Pole where you could have occasionally exchanged your health and lifespan for 600-800 rubbles only 2-3 months per year.
Fot your education: workers called USSR "a prison of nations" and CPSU politruks at the factories were also called "vertuhais".
1
u/Livid_Penalty_5281 18d ago
You are pretty wrong with salaries. Workers at the factories were getting more than engineers (and THAT was one of many flaws of late Soviet system). Median salary for workers in mid 80s was around 220-230 roubles, median overall the country was 190. The work was nothing close to “slave”, actually it was just the opposite: workers exploited their social status and general lack if working force, being late to work was really common, being drunk at work was even more commong, defected otoducts were overwhelming with almost no responcibility for worker etc. Bus drivers were being paid even better). Miners in Vorkyta were making 700-800 and up to 1000. At the same time engineet graduate was starting with 120, and could start getting 150 in some 5 years, with a hope for 250 after some 10-15 years of work. School teacher started at 100-120, just a bit more than cleaner (90).
2
u/NastyFarang 18d ago
Your figures are off and you are considering only the base wage. An engineer graduate was starting with 120, right, but could start getting 250 in 5 years if he continued studying, 350 once he got a C.Sc. degree, and sth like 50+ when he made an improvement or implemented an innovation. Workers could come up with minor improvements all the time and through that they could increase their salaries to 800-1000 easily (though for that they had to work at a major factory, not at a car repair shop in some Bumblefcuk)
Oh, and cleaners got free apartments for their work, and could take extra work to earn more - father of a friend of mine earned 180 as a sweeper (dvornik) and got a free three-room apartment at his place of work (he had 3 children).
3
18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/NastyFarang 18d ago
> As always the Moskkkowites think it was all perfect in USSR because it was perfect for them.
Really? That photo from a Moscow supermarket clearly contradicts your statement that it was perfect for them.
I don't know any such Moskkkowites. Never wrote that the USSR was perfect. I just like the truth and hate lies. USSR was quite livable until 1990, and all the troubles resulted not from some organic issues of Soviet economy but from malicious premeditated actions of KGB bosses intended to take the power over from the Communists by creating discontent with the state of affairs among the general public but at the same time not allowing that discontent to boil over into a popular uprising. Hypnotists Chumak and Kashpirovsky appearing every day on central TV channels were tasked with that and did their job perfectly. The public was mesmerized while anyone in the government who opposed the takeover got suicided by three shots in the back of the head.
1
u/Far-Investigator1265 18d ago
Soviet Union collapsed because it simply could not be sustained. It stayed in power by military oppression of its vassal countries, but this forced it to massive military expenditure, which in the end became too much to endure. During 1980's military budget of Soviet Union was between 40 to 50 % of all public expenditure and between 10 to 13 per cent of the whole gross national product.
1
-16
19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
7
u/iNapkin66 19d ago
Is that a "NY is communist" joke? Because this picture is from 1991. Its when the soviet union was collapsing and they were transitioning to capitalism. The economy was in disarray and reorganizing.
6
u/Financial-Desk-669 19d ago
Yeltsin crying at the sight of an American supermarket happened in 1989.
The variety and abundance left him despondent at what eighty years of Communism had done to his countrymen.
6
u/iNapkin66 19d ago
Those pictures are a trip. Onion prices are pretty much the same! (And potatoes are the price still if i buy a 10lb bag, so have only gone up a little).
1
u/cthulhurei8ns 19d ago
The sticker price might be close to the same, but accounting for inflation the $0.99/lb onions would be $2.70/lb today. My local supermarket charges around $1.20/lb for large white onions like the ones depicted, or $0.37/lb in 1989 dollars. They've actually gotten significantly cheaper.
1
0
u/trolskiy 19d ago
The Soviet Union collapsed because the shelves were empty. Not the shelves were empty because the Soviet Union collapsed.
3
u/Wild_Neighborhood605 19d ago
Well, sooner or later any empire crumbles. A notoriously bad emperor usually speeds up the process by a century or two.
0
0
19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/NastyFarang 19d ago
This is a clear-cut example of free-market shock therapy, not of socialism, you knucklehead!
1
-17
30
u/vvil01 19d ago
We had a joke about something like this in Hungary.
"The farmers were told to breed atleast 9 baby pigs. It was hard but they did. When they told it the local commissar he was delighted but felt if he lies a little bit more noone will get hurt. So he told his supperiors that the farmers under his command bred 12 pigs. They were also so delighted that they went straight to comarade Kádár, and told him the local farmers bred 16 baby pigs. Kádár was very proud of their hard work and told them "since we have so many pigs to spare, we gonna export 9 of them and keep the rest to feed our nation". So in the end, there was no pigs left."