Consumption In the Soviet Union.

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

CONSUMPTION IN THE SOVIET UNION

"I shop, therefore I am" proclaim the cheap t-shirts and refrigerator magnets sold at the enormous markets all over Moscow, where low-quality consumer goods from China and Turkey are sold and fake labels of of well-known designer companies flash before the eyes of consumer. At the end of the 20th century Moscow is becoming a consumer paradise like any other big city in the world. Although the markets are still a dominating part of the scene, all sorts of small boutiques and great shopping malls appear with something in store for everyone.The t-shirt slogan is now appealing to the Muscovite and consuming becomes becomes a part of the persons self expression which was virtually impossible some years ago when the Soviet Union stilll existed and consumption as it is seen now was a part of Western reality not Soviet.

In the Western view of consumption it is the"means of creating culture in the urbanised and the industrialised societies of the modern world". Consuming is a common way of defining one's self-identity and proclaiming the difference between ''me" and "them". For the biggest part of the 20th century consumer experience of the Soviet citizen was radically different than that of a Westerner with the State regulating the life of its citizens through ideology and politics.The articles of Caroline Humphrey and Jukka Gronow take a look at different stages in the history of consumption in the USSR and both authors are concerned with a role of the state in defining peoples attitudes to products and establishing different standards of consumption among the population.

Consumption in The Soviet Union was different from the Western model not only because of the economic system with with its five year plans and the state owning the means of production but also because of the State ideology seeking to control individuals' private life and make it integrated into the community. Consumer is defined as a person "conscious of living through objects and images not of their own making". Humphrey describes the Soviet consumer, although not involved in the production of commodities directly, thinking of themselves as producers through the ideology of the state that seeked to associate every citizen with the activities of the state, that included centralised production and distribution of goods. This system of distribution that virtually left the people without free choice, generated the understanding that the citizens were all engaged in the great deceit (obman). Also this system produced all kinds of informal economic relationships between the people that seeked to improve ones economic situation and to deceive the state, although not deliberately, by means of informal social networks and blat - distribution of services and commodities through friends and acquaintances.

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The history of the Soviet consumption went through several stages, but the foundations laid already in the 1930s were persistent throughout the decades. After the years of famine, rationing and the New Economic Policy that hasn't really fitted the goals of the Soviet system the government started to worry about the production of goods. The party put forward the models of typically Soviet lifestyle for people to emulate. While the real life was hard and the majority of people resided in barracks and numerous kommunalkas in the cities and engaged in work in the plants and factories the illusion of happiness and good life had to be created. Humphrey describes in her article that goals for the happy future were presented by the party propaganda and people were made to believe that they were consuming the goods they have themselves produced and that these things were definitely Soviet. Humphrey doesn't mention in her article the notion of democratic luxury or "plebian or common luxury instead" defined as such by Gronow who argues that it was an "essential part of everyday life in the Soviet Union". Products like champagne, caviar, chocolate and perfumes were accessible to a common worker.These products were thought to represent the lifestyles of the rich aristocrats in the pre-revolutionary Russia. This created an illusion that in the Soviet state workers could consume products they couldn't even dream of before and that the goal of the revolution had been achieved: those who were nothing became everything.

Together with common luxury that wasn't even perceived as luxury by many, "real" priviliges were establishing themselves.Access to special stores , cars , big flats and summer houses were perceived as objects of real luxurry available only to certain groups of people and desirable for others. Consumption in Moscow was clearly divided between the common wage worker and those of political elite and middle class of top specialists and "people of culture"like prominent writers and artists. The great masterpiece of the Russian literature "Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov has brilliant satirical descriptions of the Muscovite lifestyle in the 1930s ,being very true if not exaggerated. Prominent members of the literary circle had access to restaurants and housing that a common Muscovite could only dream about. There are vivid descriptions of a house occupied by members of the writer's association with its spacy rooms and expencive furniture and at the same time there are kommunalkas on the same street with dark and dirty passages and housewives quarelling over the communal stove, and while the common folk in a theatre cafeteria have to buy cheese that has some kind of green hue and sturgeon of "the second freshness", those who have access to currency can indulge in delights offered by a central department store with its counters loaded with chocolates, tangerines , fresh salmon and shelves bulging with exquisite materials and stacked shoeboxes of several kind. It is interesting that the real luxury goods could not be bought, but they were special priviliges allocated through one's work place or given as prizes for good work. Although in reality only a small group of people could achieve these priviliges, in principle a common worker could dream of acquiring them by breaking a record in production competition. In the meantime there was common luxury to make the life of a Soviet citizen brighter.

In the 1950s and 60s , during the Khrushchev's government, the pictures of the bright future in the land of the Soviets were no longer representing goals for the future, but the images were presented as if they were real. A limited range of products became available that came to be the attributes of every home. The lifestyle of the nomenklatura and affluent artists and writers, which resembled the ways of American and European middle class,or rather a small part of it, could become available to the common citizen. The system of distribution luxuries that belonged to ones "office", such as cars , dachas and private flats became challenged with an establishment of a car plant producing "Ladas". According to Gronow this marked a turn in history, when automobiles and entertainment electronics have started to make their ways slowly into the Soviet home. At the same time blat became an even more firmly established institution than before. Because the quantity of desirable commodities was rather small and the state distribution system decided exclusively on the amount of products being allocated at the time, people engaged in the distribution of goods apart from the state. Through friends and acquaintances in trade one could acquire almost anything.The informal economy florished in the USSR with people engaged in making favours to one another and getting services in return.

The Khrushchev era was a stream of light in a rather gray history of Soviet way life. Private housing, cars and other products started to be available and on the whole the state was much more tolerant than before with prose, poems and youth life styles appearing that could not be accepted in the previous era . Also the warming of the Khrushchev time made the West not so enemy-like as before with the leader himself travelling abroad and patterns of American agriculture and production introduced into Soviet reality.

Well, Khrushchev did open up the Soviet state to the new influences but the patterns of consumption remained homogenious with little variety of choices available to the citizens.

The reign of Brezhnev that lasted for around 20 years produced a stalemate (zastoi) with the society becoming much more closed than before and the industry remaining pretty much at the same level as during Khrushchev.In the zastoi period the people began to realise once again that they were involved in the gigantic obman. The glimpses of abroad on the TV and the stories of those who had worked there proved that the Soviet Union was behind the iron curtain with another world and another history existing outside. The foreign goods were considered desirable and the Soviet citizens admired anything foreign.

The quality of the goods produced in the country was terrible and the people had something to compare the commodities to. Soviet specialists were working abroad in the developing countries helping to build industrial objects and returning back home they could see the difference even between the "third world" goods and the homemade ones. Establishment of shops selling products from other East European countries also showed the inferior quality of the Soviet commodities. No one wanted to be associated with the state through the inferior quality products and so any foreign goods had to be obtained by any means. Perhaps the only goods of home origin that were perceived positively were the common luxuries:caviar, champagne and chocolate. The desire for foreign things made the networks of blat flourish and the common proverb of the time said "don't have hundred friends , but have a hundred sales asssistants".Things obtained through blat could be exchanged on the black market for other objects. Among the people the consumption was far from self expression, for it didn't matter what sort of things they were as long as they were foreign.Shopping was a process of endless running from one queue and buying clothes and shoes even of the wrong size, so that they could be later exchanged for something useful.

Looking at consumer practices during the 70 years of Soviet rule show that the State always had a role in regulating the shopping practices of the citizens. But even as propaganda tried to make people identificate themselves with the state through the consumer products and claimed the Soviet society to be homogenious and classless , it was impossible to achieve this goal. Even in the closed society such as the Soviet Union images of the outside world penetrated the country and the people saw the state practices engaging them in the great obman, the dimensions of which were incredibly wide. Not only on the scale of the state and individual but also the other way around .The Soviet economy which is considered to be political economy with the dominant role of ideology and state, had in fact an informal side not always confirming to the propaganda values. Perhaps, the desire for better consumer products

and the hierarchical access to commodities were some of the many factors contributing to the fall of the Soviet State.

Sources:

Caroline Humphrey "Creating a Culture of Disillusionment"

Jukka Gronow "Caviar with Champagne"

Mikhail Bulgakov "Master and Margarita"