Our Daily Bread

This text presents a picture of living standards in pre-war Soviet Russia and the role of state-controlled distribution of food and goods as a tool of Stalinist dictatorship. It offers a different perspective on the regime's method of controlling human behaviour and reshaping the social order.

Drawing on newly available archival materials including official documents, reports, and personal accounts, this remarkable study presents a detailed picture of the living standards of various social groups in prewar Soviet Russia, and the role of state-controlled distribution of food and goods as a tool of the Stalinist dictatorship. The study offers a new perspective not only on the period of collectivization, industrialization, and terror but also on the regime's most rudimentary method of controlling human behavior and reshaping the social order. In her conclusion the author analyzes the long-term impacts of the Stalinist "dictatorship of distribution", from bureaucratization to rural depopulation to the emergence of a distinctive type of black-market economy.

Autorentext

Kate Transchel, Elena Osokina

Inhalt

I: Destruction of the Market: 1927-1930; 1: Rationing and Famine-Why?; 2: 1927-1928: First Blow to the Market, First Round of Rationing; 3: 1928-1929: The Attack on the Market Continues; 4: 1929-1930: Dizzy with... Hunger; II: The Inevitability of the Market: 1931-1935; 5: The All-Soviet Rationing System: The Carrot and the Stick of the Industrialization Drive; 6: The Hierarchy of Poverty; 7: Survival Strategies and Spontaneity of the Market; III: The Alliance Between Distribution and the Market: 1936-1941; 8: Approaching the Era of "Free" Trade; 9: Supply Crises: Moments of Truth for Socialist Trade; 10: Business and the Market in the Era of "Free" Trade; Instead of a Conclusion