Soviet Consumer Culture in the

Brezhnev Era

After decades of turmoil and trauma, the Brezhnev era brought stability and an
unprecedented rise in living standards to the Soviet Union, enabling ordinary
people to enjoy modern consumer goods on an entirely new scale. This book
analyses the politics and economics of the states efforts to improve living standards, and shows how mass consumption was often used as an instrument of
legitimacy, ideology and modernisation. However, the resulting consumer revolution brought its own problems for the socialist regime. Rising well-being and the
resulting ethos of consumption altered citizens relationship with the state and
had profound consequences for the communist project.
The book uses a wealth of sources to explore the challenge that consumer
modernity was posing to Soviet mature socialism between the mid-1960s and
the early 1980s. It combines analysis of economic policy and public debates on
consumerism with the stories of ordinary people and their attitudes to fashion,
Western goods and the home. The book contests the notion that Soviet consumers
were merely passive, abused, eternally queuing victims and that the Brezhnev era
was a period of stagnation, arguing instead that personal consumption provided
the incentive and the space for individuals to connect and interact with society
and the regime even before perestroika. This book offers a lively account of
Soviet society and everyday life during a period which is rapidly becoming a new
frontier of historical research.
Natalya Chernyshova is a Lecturer in Modern History at the University of
Winchester, UK.

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Adaptations of Literature,
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26. The Collapse of Communist

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Jacqueline Hayden
27. Television, Democracy and
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28. Russian Constitutionalism
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29. Late Stalinist Russia
Society between reconstruction
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The Donbas in transition
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36. Democracy and Myth in

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38. Peopling the Russian Periphery

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39. Russian Legal Culture Before
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Atsushi Ogushi
42. Russian Policy towards China
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Natasha Kuhrt

46. Democratisation and

Gender in Contemporary
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Suvi Salmenniemi
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Colonial discourse and Europes
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Nataa Kovaevi
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The politics of foreign direct
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Jan Drahokoupil
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51. Federalism and Local Politics

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Inna Kochetkova
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Shocking chic
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Charles Walker
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76. The Communist Youth League

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Richard Mole

84. The EURussia Borderland

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87. Civil Society in Putins

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90. Soviet Consumer Culture in the
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Natalya Chernyshova

Soviet Consumer Culture

in the Brezhnev Era

Natalya Chernyshova

First published 2013

by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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business
2013 Natalya Chernyshova
The right of Natalya Chernyshova to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Chernyshova, Natalya.
Soviet consumer culture in the Brezhnev era/Natalya Chernyshova.
pages; cm.(BASEES/Routledge series on Russian and East European
Studies; 90)
1. ConsumersSoviet UnionHistory. 2. Consumption (Economics)
Soviet Union. 3. Consumption (Economics)Political aspectsSoviet
Union. 4. Cost and standard of livingSoviet Union. 5. Soviet Union
Economic conditions19651975. 6. Soviet UnionEconomic
conditions19751985. I. Title. II. Series: BASEES/Routledge series on
Russian and East European Studies; 90.
HC340.C6C49 2013
306.3094709047dc23
2012047556
ISBN: 978-0-415-68754-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-36202-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Book Now Ltd, London

For my mother and the memory of my father

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1

xv
xvii
1

Between failure and success: the economics and politics

of consumption under Brezhnev

17

Redefining the norms of socialist consumption

43

Shopping as a way of life: the experiences and values of

Soviet consumers

80

Structures of consumption: class and generation

103

From modest to modish: new attitudes to clothes and

fashion

133

Closing the door on socialism: furniture and the

domestic interior

162

Household technology in the Brezhnev-era home

184

Conclusion

202

Note on sources
Notes
Index

206
211
256

This page intentionally left blank

Figures

1.1 Clothing section of the Belarus department store in

Minsk, 1983
2.1 Your group is falling behind Catch up!
2.2 You have to get a second job: the child has grown;
his needs have increased
2.3 The mother is house-proud, the father is from the
intelligentsia, and the apartment is spacious. Alright, Ill marry!
2.4 How strange: there is plenty of everything, but my soul feels
empty
4.1 I dont want ABBA get me corduroy jeans!
5.1 Demonstration of the new seasons fashions at the
All-Union House of Fashion in Moscow, 1972
5.2 A fashion show in the town of Kropotkin in Krasnodar
region during a local holiday, 1980
5.3 An Office Romance, 1977
5.4 A dance party in the provincial town of Ust-Ilimsk in
Siberia, 1978
6.1 Newlyweds choose furniture in Latvia, 1961
6.2 A 1970s urban apartment in the Astrakhan region
6.3 You call this a museum? You havent been to my house!
7.1 Biriusa-5 refrigerators at the Krasnoiarsk factory Krasmash
7.2 Sucker Sonny

37
43
44
53
55
128
142
143
144
159
179
179
182
187
197

Cover illustration: A new department store in Astrakhan region, 1970s. M. Redkin,

FotoSoyuz. Used with permission.

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgements

This book was ten years in the making, and a lot of people and institutions have
helped me on the way. The initial research and writing for the PhD dissertation
was made possible by generous support from the Economic History Society, the
Institute for Historical Research, the Royal Historical Society, the University of
London Postgraduate Trust, the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme
and the School of Humanities at Kings College London. Kings History
Department provided a congenial environment for my studies, while the
History Department at the University of Winchester, my institutional home for
the past five years, has given me the necessary funding and time to do further
research and write the book. I am especially grateful to our Head of Department,
Professor Michael Hicks, for his support.
In Russia and Belarus, a number of archives and libraries opened their doors to
me, including NARB and BGANTD in Minsk; GARF, RGALI, RGASPI, RGAE,
TsAGM and INION in Moscow; and TsGALISPb and TsGASPb in St Petersburg.
I am especially grateful to the following specialists: G. M. Tokareva at RGASPI
(for directing me to the recently de-classified Fond 1s, but also for offering tired
researchers much needed tea and biscuits), L. I. Stepanich at RGANI,
V. Meikhovskaia at RGAE, the Director of TsAGM, V. V. Kostygov, and the
Director of the State Public Historical Library in Moscow, M. D. Afanasev.
Several people made my stay in Russia so much nicer. My sincere thanks go to
the hospitable Elagin family in Moscow and two incomparable Petersburgers,
G. A. Poletaeva and E. F. Trudkova, who shared with me their homes. Marina
Mamonova (ne Orlova) and her family offered great company. Alesya Obodova
and Aleksei Tkachenko graciously put me up in their modest kommunalka room.
Alesya, a fellow historian, took time from her own research to read many of the
works of fiction discussed in Chapter 2. I am very thankful to her for drawing my
attention to them and for good ideas. At a safe distance from Russia, my other
friends gave me practical help and moral support, for all of which I am grateful.
They are: Craig and Greta McCaughrin, Nuriya and Niko Kapralos, Julia Korosteleva
and Pavel Kuryan, Anastasia and Ronen Nesvetailova-Palan, Natalia Leshchenko,
the Doncaster family and Veronica Forwood. A very special word of gratitude
goes to Michael and Joyce Astill, my English parents, for their invaluable help
during my work on this project.

xviii Acknowledgements
A number of fellow historians, not all of them specialists on Russia, have
been very generous with their time, ideas, work and good humour. I would like to
thank Steven Harris, Rsa Magnsdttir, Sofia Tchouikina, Jane Zavisca, Anna
Kushkova, Julian Graffy, Richard Vinen, Ekaterina Gerasimova and Chris Aldous.
I am especially grateful to Lewis Siegelbaum and Sergei Zhuk for their support
and advice. At Routledge, Peter Sowden has been a wise, enthusiastic and patient
editor a real blessing for a slightly anxious first-time author. I am thankful also
to Richard Sakwa for taking on the manuscript.
This book and its author owe their greatest debt to Stephen Lovell, who was
involved every step of the way, from agreeing to supervise the project ten years
ago to reading the final draft of the manuscript. It has been my undeserved
privilege to be able to take advantage of his intellectual brilliance, patience and
generosity, all of which have made this a far better book than it would have been
otherwise.
Last but not least, my parents in Belarus, Svetlana and Boris Chernyshov, are
the reason why I could even begin contemplating writing a book. Their unconditional love and belief defied geographical distance. They knew where I was
heading before I knew it myself. They have done for me infinitely more than I
would ever be able to thank them for. This book is dedicated to them.
I am grateful for the permission to reproduce here material from the following
publications:
Consuming Technology in a Closed Society: Household Appliances in Soviet
Urban Homes of the Brezhnev Era, Ab Imperio: Studies of New Imperial History
and Nationalism in the Post Soviet Space, no. 2 (2011).
Philistines on the Big Screen: Consumerism in Soviet Cinema of the Brezhnev
era, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, 5/2 (2011).
I thank the editors, and especially Birgit Beumers, as well as anonymous
reviewers, for their help and comments on the articles.
The author and publishers are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce illustrations: Fotosoyuz (cover illustration, Figures 5.1, 5.2, 5.4, 6.1, 6.2);
RIA Novosti (Figures 1.1, 5.3); ITAR TASS (Figure 7.1). The author would like
to thank the History Department at the University of Winchester for helping with
the costs of these images. All Krokodill illustrations are courtesy of the UCL
School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library. Every effort has been
made to contact the rights-holders of material included in the book. The author
and publishers will be glad to make good in future editions any omissions brought
to their attention.

Introduction

Was something rotten in the state of Soviets?

A popular joke of the late Soviet period has it that the Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev brings his elderly mother over to visit his residence for the first time
since he has become the Partys General Secretary. As they walk around and he
proudly shows her his luxurious cars, the rich furnishings of his dacha, his expensive suits, hunting gear, delicacies and vintage wines, he asks his mother whether
she thinks he has done well for himself. Yes, she replies, it is all very well,
Lenia, but what are you going to do if the communists come back?
While this piece of folklore is more than anything else indicative of the popular
awareness of a gap in standards of living between the ordinary Soviet public and
the state elite, it also points to contradictions between the official MarxistLeninist
ideology and the increasingly prominent materialistic cravings of Soviet citizens
cravings to which the very leaders of that state and promulgators of its ideology
succumbed. Theoretically, such a life of private luxury was incompatible with
socialism. Marxism envisaged decent living conditions for all in principle, but
opulence in private possessions was seen as dangerous for the communist project.
And yet, under this General Secretarys rule, not only the Soviet leadership but also
the toiling masses came to be living in materialistic sin. Vast numbers of ordinary
citizens experienced substantial and tangible improvements in the availability of
consumer goods. Rapid growth in private consumption and consumerism became a
defining social characteristic of the era, inviting recently the suggestion that
Brezhnev-era society was the scene of nothing less than a consumer revolution.1
A sense of life being uncharacteristically good is certainly preserved in popular
memory. In her remarkable unscripted autobiographical interviews recorded for
television in 1997, the renowned Russian translator Lilianna Lungina, whose
recollections spanned three-quarters of a century, offered the following comment
on the Brezhnev era:
Life had become easier. Shops offered reasonably priced meat, salmon and
caviar, and in winter we even bought oranges and bananas. Clothes became
less of a problem. Synthetic [garments] were very fashionable then, Nylon,
Dacron and others. Imported furniture was on sale: from Hungary, and rugs
from Czechoslovakia and Finland. People began to get a taste for comfort2

Introduction

Lungina was a Muscovite, but she is not alone in remembering the long 1970s as
a more prosperous and calmer time in the Soviet Union. During the turbulent and
uncertain 1990s, and even in the much more stable and consumerist first decade
of the twenty-first century, Russians tended to remember the Brezhnev era as a
Golden Age. A third of opinion poll respondents in 1995 and 1997, and half of
those polled in 2002, named that period as the best time to have lived in Russia.
In 1998, 36 per cent of respondents wished for the level of well-being they
enjoyed under Brezhnev.3
In contrast, historians of the Soviet Union have recently been focusing on the
preceding Khrushchev decade (19531964) as a crucial period in the development of Soviet mass consumption. A particular source of interest has been the
home: the production of, and discourse on, domestic goods and interiors constituted an important part of Khrushchevs package of political and social
reforms.4 Another body of literature has examined the topic of fashion and
clothes: from the official attempts to regulate taste to popular sartorial habits.5
Works on the Khrushchev era argue that its policies made for a radical break
with the Stalinist period: they brought an increase in the allocation of resources
to consumer industry, a favourable shift of ideological emphasis, and the rise of
consumption-centred Cold War rhetoric. As Jane Zavisca has argued, Khrushchevs
transformations created the economic, material and ideological infrastructure for
Soviet mass consumption.6
The consumer policies of the first post-Stalin decade indeed went a long way
in preparing Soviet people to be modern consumers. Gradually, their living
standards began to improve. Particularly significant in that respect was the mass
housing campaign, which brought millions of Soviet families out of the cramped
rooms in shared flats and into their own separate apartments. The authorities
launched mass production of furniture and pinned their hopes on the scientific
and technical revolution to provide people with consumer delights and communist
mentality.
Consumers were promised more goods in shops and better homes. The press
began to emphasize consumer rights in its coverage of problems with customer
service.7 The image of a fussy consumer who was entitled to be selective was
nothing new in the Khrushchev decade, but it was promoted more emphatically.
In pursuing these policies, the government had firmly tied its legitimacy to consumption. Communism itself came to be associated with material abundance, a
notion that was cemented in the new 1961 Communist Party programme.8
These were, however, largely rhetorical changes, and, while they were
undoubtedly important, this book argues that the Soviet consumer came of age
in the Brezhnev decades. It was these years, between 1964 and 1985, that bore
the full brunt of the Soviet consumer revolution. The social processes triggered
by Khrushchevs reforms merged with the outcomes of the Brezhnev governments own economic and ideological policies to transform the Soviet way of
life. Living standards reached heights unprecedented for the Soviet Union. With
prices artificially suppressed for two decades, and wages rising, ordinary people
got the opportunity to enjoy modern consumer goods, such as furniture, fashionable

Introduction
d
3
clothing and household appliances, on a new scale. The result was a consumer
boom which kicked up all sorts of contradictions and problems for the regime and
left it dealing with citizens who had very different aspirations than their predecessors of the 1950s and early 1960s. The long 1970s formed a new chapter in the
history of Soviet consumption and social history because decades-old rhetoric
about discerning consumers and improving living standards finally became reality.
How to square such claims with the persistent reputation for shortages, queues,
shoddy consumer goods, and corruption in trade that dogs the Brezhnev era as
much as all the other periods of Soviet history? Russian commentators are prone to
use the phrase total shortages (totalnyi defitsit)
t in reference to everyday life under
Brezhnev.9 This book objects both to the term and to its casual application. No-one
in their right mind would dispute the existence of shortages in the USSR not even
Soviet propaganda was that crude but using the word total to describe the (un)
availability of consumer goods in the long 1970s is problematic. As it will become
clear in the chapters that follow, total shortages is an unhelpful exaggeration
which glosses over substantive changes in the material conditions of the urban
population. While all sorts of consumer goods could be in short supply in Soviet
shops at various times, these were not the times of extreme paucity that the expression seems to imply. In fact, the Soviet consumers had never had it so good in
relative terms, of course.
Even at the time, perceptive observers caught the more consumerist moods of
the Soviets.10 The most fleeting visit to Moscow or Leningrad gave enough time
for most overseas tourists to experience first-hand the hunger of the urban
youth for Western jeans and the astonishingly high price they were prepared to
pay for them. The state press was full of concern about the rising consumerism of
contemporaries, as was cinema and popular literature. Less visible to foreigners,
sociological data from a number of surveys revealed by the early 1980s that the
Soviet public displayed a very strong interest in material well-being, often naming it as one of the most important things in life a development which one
Western commentator called a far cry from the old ideological premises about
the altruism of Soviet man.11
But Soviet people living under developed socialism were not simply very
interested in material goods. Compared to their counterparts of the Stalin and
Khrushchev eras, they were modern consumers: much more knowledgeable,
confident, and autonomous in their purchasing decisions. On the whole, they did
become more consumerist. As this study demonstrates, mature socialism succeeded not so much in cultivating mature socialists as in cultivating mature
consumers, giving rise to a new consumer culture in the Soviet Union.12
It is worthwhile, then, to consider Soviet citizens not in terms of their participation in public activities but in terms of their relationship to the material world and
their daily roles as consumers. Such a shift of focus reveals that, behind the stability of high politics and the deterioration of macroeconomic indicators, we can
find a more proactive and switched on population than we may be used to picturing. This book contests the idea that Soviet consumers were nothing more than
abused, short-changed, eternally queuing victims. Here is another difference with

Introduction

the Khrushchev decade, when the independence and power of the consumer was
hardly more than a rhetorical trope used by institutions and professionals in their
own interests.13 In contrast, a distinguishing feature of the Brezhnev era is that
consumers gained some real agency.
This examination of Brezhnev-era consumer culture also illuminates the more
complex class structure of late Soviet society. Despite the official view stubbornly holding onto the established idea of the class threesome (workers, peasants
and the intelligentsia), in practice social relations were increasingly redefined by
access to consumer goods. New non-class-based hierarchies and structures
sprang up and were manifested through ownership of material objects. In other
words, consumption played a role in fragmenting and segmenting late Soviet
urban society.
How were the authorities to respond to these changes? Prosperity was the carrot that the regime had always dangled before its captive audience but, once that
prosperity started to materialize, the results proved to be thorny. Consumerism
became a real problem for both ideology and the economy. All this pushed the
socialist state to redefine its relations with society, and especially to revise the
official position on some of its longest-standing ideas concerning everyday life,
culture, and the whole project of shaping a communist mentality.

The Brezhnev era and studies of consumption

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the Brezhnev era on the part of
historians both in Russia and abroad. The main outcome has been the recognition
that, although this is a relatively recent and seemingly familiar period, such
familiarity may be deceptive and assumptions made about the Brezhnev era ought
to be tested. This has led to the rejection of a blanket application of the term
stagnation to explain the era and its place in the longue dure of Soviet history.
Instead, historians have begun to offer more nuanced assessments of Brezhnevs
leadership, economy, ideology, nationalities policy, foreign relations and culture
in the long 1970s.14 A number of fascinating studies have explored aspects of
lived socialism i.e., as it was experienced by ordinary people. The insights these
works offer into the late Soviet population and its interaction with state structures
highlight the importance of everyday life for our understanding of developed
socialism. They demonstrate that it is not easy to separate people from the
regime and serve to undercut the simplistic portrayal of Soviets as either passive
recipients of propaganda or its ardent rejecters by showing them instead as citizens with a degree of autonomy who adapted to the regime and co-opted its
practices.15
Some of these works touch on consumption, especially in reference to youth
culture. For instance, Sergei Zhuks study of the influence of Western music and
other cultural products on the identity formation of young people in the closed
city of Dniepropetrovsk offers valuable stories of youths interaction with the
black market.16 William Rischs book on post-Stalinist culture in the western
Ukrainian city of Lvov discusses, among other things, Lvovs reputation as a

Introduction
d
5
Soviet abroad where, thanks to its flourishing black market and the presence of
foreigners, notably Poles, young people could get jeans, rock music records and
other artefacts of capitalist mass culture.17 Alexei Yurchak, in his examination of
the daily practices of ideological adaptation among educated young Leningraders,
argues that their desire for Western cultural symbols, such as jeans or music
records, was not a sign of their resistance to the state but a way to connect with
the imaginary West, a place they could never experience in reality.18 While the
present study is sceptical of Yurchaks suggestion that such practices cannot be
read as a manifestation of materialism, it agrees that young peoples pursuit of
foreign fashions did not constitute a conscious form of political protest. It was,
however, a social problem, whose scale was new to the Brezhnev era. Catriona
Kelly finds complementary evidence of changes in the quality of experience in
her account of the (relatively) privileged generation of children living in the late
Soviet period.19
Studies of Soviet consumption have begun to move into the Brezhnev period
only very recently, but the results are already illuminating.20 For example, we
now have some insights into geographical and social hierarchies of taste and
fashion, and we also know that MarxistLeninist ideology did not prevent the
emergence from the Khrushchev era onwards of an official discourse on consumer rights, which allowed the Soviet consumer to seek protection through the
peculiar institution of newspaper complaints.21 The failure of the economy to
provide the population with fashionable clothes has been highlighted as a key
factor behind popular disappointment in the regime in the 1980s. In the words of
two historians of Soviet fashion, this was a fortress that the Bolsheviks failed to
take.22 This may well be true, but the path from the shortage of fashionable gear
to the loss of the regimes legitimacy may be less direct than that, as the chapter
on fashion in this book argues.
In Lewis H. Siegelbaums pioneering study of the history of Soviet automobility
we find further evidence of the distinctiveness of the Brezhnev era. The government introduced in 1966 what Siegelbaum calls an important qualitative shift in
policy on personal cars: it was promised that production would quadruple, and by
1972, for the first time, more cars than trucks were manufactured in the USSR.
However, as Siegelbaum explains, these efforts came up against the states inability to provide adequate services, which pushed car owners to make use of the
black market and contributed to the flourishing of the second economy. He also
points to an ideological dilemma that mass car ownership presented for the
regime: while the car was a cherished symbol of modernity, it was also a dangerously individualistic possession.23 In fact, such ambiguity dogged many objects
of consumption in the long 1970s.
Connections between consumption and its socio-political context are examined
in Jane Zaviscas doctoral dissertation Consumer Inequalities and Regime
Legitimacy in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia. She argues that the government
used consumer policy as an instrument of legitimation: in return for the Partys
proclaimed commitment to citizens consumer interests, people were expected to
abide by the boundaries of rational consumption and, most importantly, remain

Introduction

committed to the main political principles of the state. The constant drumming
in of this mutual-commitment message in public discourse gave off the impression of stability.24
This recent boom in studies of socialist consumption and their important contributions make redundant any explanation of why this is a legitimate field for
research. Yet, for all the historiographic momentum the Soviet 1970s have
gained, there has not been a comprehensive study of the periods consumer culture. While case studies are valuable in their own right, it seems timely to explore
as a package Brezhnev-era consumer policies and economic performance, ideology
and public discourse, and popular practices and attitudes.
What can be gained by such an approach? For one, it can help us see the governments decision-making in the context of the consequences those decisions
produced. One example of this is the Brezhnev leaderships position on deStalinization. In his monograph on popular disturbances, Vladimir Kozlov links
consumption-friendly state policy with the problem of popular protest and the
rehabilitation of Stalinism. Material concessions were part of the same strategy
as Brezhnevs mild rehabilitation of Stalinism: both policies were directed at
averting mass unrest. The new leadership, Kozlov claims, learnt the lessons of its
predecessor namely, that Khrushchevs government faced popular challenges
over food prices and the perceived deterioration of living standards (most notably,
at Novocherkassk in 1962), and that the criticism of his erratic activities and
policies was often framed in pro-Stalinist terms, as, for instance, in Sumgait in
1963, when demonstrators carried Stalins portraits. Kozlov argues that Stalinism
was evoked not so much on its own terms as in opposition to the current authorities, who had set their administration against Stalins regime by launching deStalinization. Having removed Khrushchev, the Brezhnev leadership sought to
neutralize threats to its legitimacy by disassociating itself from both of his
faults: de-Stalinization and the perceived neglect of the commitment to raise
living standards.25
Brezhnevs re-Stalinization can be linked with consumption-related issues in
other ways, too. Just as Khrushchev had used consumption to define and implement de-Stalinization,26 under Brezhnev consumption discourse signalled the
new leaderships reversal of their predecessors policies. It was an obvious
choice: living standards had been one of Khrushchevs key arenas for social and
political reform. As Chapter 6 of this book discusses, the discourse on furniture
design and home interior had more continuity with the 1930s and early 1950s,
while many of Khrushchevs austere aesthetic principles were criticized, and this
criticism was often connected to the abandonment of de-Stalinization.
The revival of Stalinist principles was also reflected in greater inequality in
the distribution of material rewards for labour. Salaries for the elites were
raised, privileges were expanded, and status became increasingly evident in
material possessions.27 The secrecy that surrounded top officials salaries and
the absence of any legal upper limits on these suggested that there existed a
considerable gap between the levels of earnings of ordinary citizens and those
in the top administrative, scientific and cultural positions.28 Indeed, Marxist

Introduction
d
7
theoreticians claimed that wage inequality was an effective and necessary
method of raising labour productivity.29 Already in the mid- and late 1960s, the
socialist theory of labour motivation began to stress the role of material stimuli
in socialist labour.30 With time, egalitarianism was even more emphatically
rejected for the sake of efficient labour motivation. This rejection was a return
to the Stalinist position on stratified labour rewards and constituted an important element in Brezhnevs abandonment of de-Stalinization.
At the same time, other social reforms worked to reduce inequalities for
example, those between rural and urban populations.31 Geoffrey Hosking writes
that agricultural subsidies and higher state prices for produce, for instance,
meant that, by the mid-1970s, average rural wages were only 10 per cent lower
than those in towns; another step towards greater social equality was the issuing
of passports to collective farmers after 1974.32 I would argue also that the greater
availability of consumer goods in state shops and on the black market and the
growing wages of ordinary citizens helped dispel tensions based on consumer
inequalities.
In a more pronounced break with the Khrushchev era, the state diminished its
efforts to interfere in citizens private space namely, their homes (see Chapter 6).
This can also be seen as a form of continuity with late Stalinist attitudes to the
home as a site for cultured privacy.33
In other words, the relatively progressive consumption policy in the Brezhnev
era was connected in a multitude of ways to the conservative policy of the rehabilitation of Stalinism. What does this tell us about mature socialism? Was it a
step back into the past or a stride forward towards the modernization of Soviet
society that allowed it to move closer to the West in living standards with fewer
ideological limitations than under the Khrushchev leadership?
This is one intriguing issue that can be raised by examining consumption in
late Soviet society. There are others. Consumption posed a number of practical
dilemmas for Soviet ideology throughout the history of the Soviet state. Matters
were particularly complicated during developed socialism, when both ideology
and the leader of the state grew increasingly feeble and unable to arouse popular
enthusiasm (or instil fear) to the same extent as their predecessors had done.
Besides, the Brezhnev government had to deal with a difficult legacy from
Khrushchev. As Zavisca notes, the contradictions within the ideology of socialist
consumption that were characteristic under Khrushchev were exacerbated under
Brezhnev.34 And yet the Brezhnev era lasted for over twenty years how did it
manage to survive successfully these exacerbated contradictions? How were they
resolved? After all, ideological inconsistencies were conspicuous. For instance,
although the very notion (and term) of private property had previously been
excluded from Soviet official and legal discourse, the 1977 constitution introduced a separate article on private property.35 The sharply negative, almost
criminal, connotations attached to the words proprietary mentality in Soviet
public discourse were counteracted by the constitutions declaration that the more
comprehensive satisfaction of peoples growing material needs was the highest
goal of socialist production.36 Did these contradictions undermine the regime or

Introduction

did they afford it more flexibility? Addressing this question might help shed light
on the question of consequences: did the encouragement of private consumption
help sustain Soviet socialism for longer or did it bring its collapse closer?
Matters of ideology acquire greater meaning when they are examined in relation to social processes. Contrary to the sleepy image of stagnation, there existed
serious tensions between propagated and practised values in Brezhnev-era society.
How did values change as a result of policy and economic developments? What
happened when new consumer aspirations clashed with the enduring inefficiencies
of the command economy and the persistent prioritizing of defence and heavy industry?
Consumption practices reflected a complex process of adaptation to and transformation of official norms and ideals. How did an increasingly urban and educated
population negotiate life under developed socialism? And, for that matter,
how did the state negotiate with its citizens? How was the Soviet project
affected by these negotiations? These are the questions that the book seeks to
address.

Socialist modernity
Where does this study fit in the rich tapestry of broader themes of Soviet history?
One such theme is the story of Soviet communism as a mission to create an alternative form of modernity. Consumer culture was an important part of the socialist
modernization project, and this perspective has been extensively advanced in the
literature on Soviet consumption of earlier periods. Historians of Stalinism place
the contemporary discourse on consumption in the context of the states modernizing efforts that found their expression in the Stalinist drive for culturedness
(kulturnost), whereby official advice appointed clothes, furniture, books, and
various other objects as tools for transforming the uncouth masses into cultured
and modern citizens of the new state.37 Stephen Lovell notes the same kulturnost
context for the state-sponsored encouragement of reading.38 Julie Hessler argues
that the Stalin-era campaign for cultured trade encompassed efforts to help
modernize socialist retail: to make it more efficient, competent, and better able to
realize the communist dream of abundance. With the concept of cultured trade,
she claims, Stalin steered his country firmly in the direction of modernization,
Westernization, and the money nexus.39
In the post-Stalin period, connections between the material world and the
modernization project were stressed with even greater vigour. For instance, electric
household durables, such as vacuum cleaners or washing machines, were celebrated as ambassadors of the scientific technological revolution in the home,
while the housewives who used them were presented as domestic agents of
modernization.40 Modernist principles of rationality and functionality in the
design of consumer goods were expected to mould their users into modern citizens.41
Not only in the USSR but elsewhere in the socialist bloc, the culture of consumption was framed in the same terms of modernity and modernization.42
What about the relationship between consumption and modernization in late
Soviet society? Here significant differences with the previous decades emerge.

Introduction
d
9
However important the kulturnost campaign might have been, the absolute
priority in the Stalinist plan for modernization belonged to the industrial restructuring of the economy. In other words, Stalinist modernization was primarily
economic and collectivist. Khrushchevs take on modernization afforded people
more scope for privacy when it encouraged personal consumption and gave citizens individual housing; however, these steps were offset by the intrusion of the
state into the newly granted private space, with its patronizing monitoring of
taste, mass production of typified furniture, and the emphasized role of public
involvement in private matters something that has been called the offensive in
the domestic realm.43 As such, Khrushchevs vision of modernization was also
essentially collectivist. Brezhnevs modernization, this book argues, was effected
mainly through social change driven by economic improvements in opportunities
for consumption, and not the fundamental transformation of industry or the boosting of ideological activism. Unlike Stalin and even Khrushchevs modernization
drives, this path towards modernity bred individualism.
Was the Brezhnev regime successful in taking a further step towards socialist
modernity? Scholars of East European societies have pointed out that one of the
main problems with the post-Stalinist communist regimes was their failure to
offer an alternative form of modernity as an effective counterpoint to capitalism
with its individual consumer prosperity.44 While the alternative i.e., specifically
socialist modernity as fundamentally distinct from its Western counterpart did
not materialize in the Soviet Union, at least not in the way it had been envisaged,
we should not rush to assume that modernity was manqu. Although there were
certainly constraints on consumption, the Brezhnev period did see a limited version of capitalist consumer modernity, even without the market. Consumption
became a channel through which such attributes of modern Western societies as
individualization, privatization, commercialization, and fluency in modern technology made their way into Soviet society. Transition from a class society to other
forms of social distinction and hierarchy was also closely connected to consumption practices and attitudes. The gradual substitution of consumption for politics
led to one of the unexplored paradoxes of late socialism: society modernized just
as the state diminished its efforts at modernization, giving up such long-cherished
cultural projects as shaping popular taste in clothes and home decoration. This
acceptance of Western-type consumerist modernity under Brezhnev, seemingly
without a fight, is seen by some historians as puzzling and detrimental to the
socialist project.45 This book demonstrates why and how it took place, helping us
to make sense of these changes and to explain also why they made sense to the
leadership.
The second broad theme to which this study relates is the discussion of everyday life under socialism as a field where the relationship between the Soviet state
and its citizens took concrete forms. Like a number of recent works on postStalinist society, this book does not view late Soviet consumption as a field of
resistance to the regime.46 I focus on symbiosis (to borrow Kozlovs term) rather
than opposition and ask questions about negotiation and cooperation as well as
about conflict. Consumption is the litmus paper that reveals the strategies that

10

Introduction

both the state and citizens used to coexist. What this book does not ignore, however, is that negotiation can be a dangerous thing, with potential to erode the
foundations of the socialist project.
Ultimately, this investigation aims to advance our (so far rather modest)
understanding of how Soviet society lived and changed in the long and enigmatic
period between Khrushchev and Gorbachev. Even for the leaders of the state
these changes brought uncertain results, and they themselves were not sure what
sort of society they were ruling. But one thing was clear even to these ageing
men: much had changed, and old theories no longer applied. Commenting on his
Soviet contemporaries in 1983, Iurii Andropov admitted: Frankly speaking, we
have not yet properly studied the society in which we live and work and have not
yet fully explored its laws.47 Albeit with a very different purpose in mind, this
book hopes to do that.

Beyond the West: the history of consumer societies and

definitions
To some readers, the title of this book might appear frivolous. Is not Soviet
consumer culture a contradiction in terms? Indeed, while historical interest in consumption has burgeoned in the past decades, until recently it has focused mainly
on Western societies. In their search for the birth of consumer society, some
scholars turned to eighteenth-century Britain, with its expansion of social
mobility, rise in interclass emulation, commercialization especially of fashions
democratization of consumption, and changes in philosophy and economic
thought.48 Others have gone even further back in time and pointed to the burst of
agricultural productivity that made possible the Industrial Revolution, or to the
European secularization of norms that predated the Industrial Revolution and to
the development of the European system of pawn banks.49 Yet others have argued
that consumer society arrived, instead, with the establishment of a mass consumer
market in Britain in the early 1900s; with the growth in disposable income and
time available to the middle and working classes in Britain in the twentieth century; with changes in shopping experiences and the transition from small local
shops to chain supermarkets; with the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties in
America; with the consequences of the Great Depression of the 1930s, whose
traumas of unemployment made money and material goods preferable to leisure
time that was associated with the failure to find work; and, finally, with the rapid
postwar economic recovery and social change of the 1950s and 1960s.50
It can be tricky to draw clear definitions of terms like consumer society or
consumer culture based on such diverse historical investigations. In fact, John
Brewer points out that attempts to impose the concept of consumer in its modern
sense upon those societies where consumer self-consciousness was absent is
misleading and anachronistic. Brewer is reluctant to apply the term consumer
society to Western communities that existed before the 1950s and 1960s, when
the term attained wide circulation as a generalized description of the existing
social order in the West.51

Introduction
d

11

Matters are no simpler with contemporary definitions. A glance at modern

consumer culture, without historical excursions, captures a plethora of meanings,
often contradictory, with which the consumer is associated: she is an exerciser
of the freedom to choose, both a dictator of fashions and their victim, a wasteful
user and a conscientious citizen, a politically active community member, a liberated individual, and an exploited victim of stereotypes.52 Consumption is not a
simple process of purchasing and using goods, but a multi-layered socio-cultural
complex of practices and meanings, which ties together class, status, taste and
material goods.53
If definitions pose challenges to scholars of Western societies, where at least
there is no doubt that consumer society does now exist, how can we use these
terms in the Soviet context? Would it be a superimposition, as Brewer might
argue, on an alien economic and political structure?
Until recently, many would agree. Consumer society has traditionally been associated with the capitalist economic system. In 1977, in his definition of consumer
society, I. R. C. Hirst stressed the freedom of the market from the centralized power
of the state, insisting that the distinction is between the private and the public
sectors of the economy and that Britain is the consumer society in the sense of
an economy directed by the purchasing decisions of millions of individual consumers.54 It follows from his argument that consumer society could not be found
east of the Iron Curtain, where the public sector of the economy dominated the
extremely marginalized private sector, where the economy was directed by the
centralized decisions of the state apparatus rather than by millions of individual
consumers, and where ideology often dictated what choices were available to
individual shoppers.
But, if such a limiting perception of consumer society might be expected to
circulate in the Cold War era, it is somewhat less explicable to see it persist today.
Consumer society is still routinely presented as a feature of Western modernity
and a peculiar type of market society, the Western capitalist system of exchange.55
As Don Slater summarizes conventional wisdom, consumption is always and
everywhere a cultural process, but consumer culture a culture off consumption
is unique and specific: it is the dominant mode of cultural reproduction developed
in the west over the course of modernity.56 This line of thinking has been
lamented by Craig Clunas (himself a sinologist), who comments that one of the
main works on the history of consumption John Brewer and Roy Porters
Consumption and the World of Goods is not so much about the world as it is
about the West.57
Such a West-centred view, however, is now outdated.58 The rapidly growing
body of works on consumption under socialism shows that it is not counterintuitive to talk about communism and consumer culture in one breath. Not only
were such cultures present in the command economies, but they often played an
important part in the socialist project and were promoted by communist regimes.
The literature on the Soviet Union by no means holds a monopoly here. A particularly rich scholarship exists, for instance, on the centrality of consumption to
politics and nation-building in East Germany.59 From Paulina Brens original

12

Introduction

study of Czechoslovakias TV culture after 1968 we learn that the consumeroriented notion of a quiet life played a key role in the countrys normalization
following the crushing of the Prague Spring.60 Comparative studies encompassing several East European countries have contributed much to the bigger picture
of socialist consumption and brought the region into the global studies of such
topics as fashion or cars.61 The list of examples could go on.
We can not only talk about socialist consumer culture, we can also compare it
to its Western counterpart. The absence of a capitalist system of exchange in the
Soviet Union (and elsewhere in the bloc) should not discourage us, as it was aptly
substituted by other means of facilitating commodity flows, such as the exchange
of favours and blat, bribes and rations, closed shops and canteens for the Party
and cultural elites, and barter in shortage goods. Thus, even though no capitalist
market existed in the country, the abundance of substitute systems allows Nancy
Condee to conclude that the Soviet consumer found himself inside modernity but
outside capital.62
The peculiarities of the command economy and the constraints of ideology, in
fact, meant that consumption required more mental and social effort than it did
in the consumption-accommodating Western economies, and so consumer goods
always had amplified material and social, in addition to ideological, meaning in
the Soviet Union. As Sheila Fitzpatrick writes in her study of everyday life under
Stalin, things mattered enormously in the Soviet Union in the 1930s for the simple
reason that they were so hard to get.63
The difficulty was not so much in the financial (in)ability to buy goods as in
gaining access.64 Access to material provision depended, at various times, on
political allegiance, position in the labour force, and social status.65 Consequently,
for the Soviet consumer mentality, especially in its mature form i.e., under
mature socialism economic value as such was of little consequence, but the
social message conveyed by an object be it a pair of imported jeans, French
perfume brought back from a trip abroad, fashionable white turtlenecks, or the
complete works of Anton Chekhov determined its value outside the official
system of economic exchange.
This means that the term consumption in this book has connotations that
extend beyond the economic meaning of ownership and move towards that of
social practice. Depending on context, it denotes a set of actions and attitudes, such
as desiring, seeking out, purchasing, using and enjoying an object. Consumption
is an instrument for expressing and reading social identities; it is a social marker,
and consuming means using an object to meet social and cultural needs, not just
physical ones. Equally, consumerism encompasses the expanded social importance of consumer goods, sensitivity to their social meanings, and preoccupation
with their acquisition. The use of this term reflects the amplified social role that
consumption came to play in late Soviet society, although it is not used in a judgemental way as in Soviet public discourse. Consumer society is used to describe
the kind of social order where consumer goods have numerous social meanings that
extend beyond their economic value, and where consumption, with its environments, discourses, attitudes and practices, is an important part of the social fabric.

Introduction
d
13
Examples of the imprint of consumption on culture and society would include
social emulation, conspicuous consumption, and social distinctions based on ownership of objects.66
Finally, I ought to say that this is a book about urban consumers. It is far from
a small sample: after 1960 the majority of Soviets lived in towns.67 In the Brezhnev
decades, millions more settled to life in the city. Consumption played a vital role
in this socio-cultural transformation, offering the quickest route to integration for
provincial wannabes. Zhuravlev and Gronow note with regard to fashion: In the
1960s1970s, yesterdays robust and rosy-cheeked milkmaids and cowgirls
dreaming of becoming city girls saw fashionable clothes, diet, and the application of make-up as the simplest way to reach that goal.68 Consumption practices
and meanings were in turn profoundly affected by this rapid social change. Urban
consumers relationship with the material world was a complex affair, and its study
yields insights into social relations in a supposedly classless society, into contemporary values, and into relations between sexes and generations.

A brief note on sources

An investigation into consumer culture is likely to suffer from an overabundance
rather than a dearth of sources. The diversity of themes involved from economic
policy to films and personal stories required a corresponding diversity of
resources. Archival material for this study comes from the central and municipal
archives in Moscow, regional and municipal archives in St Petersburg, and
national archives in Minsk, Belarus, with the last providing a useful peripheral
counterpoint to stories from the centre. Not all documentary sources are readily
available: for instance, Russian archives are prohibited from disclosing any
materials which contain information about the private life (chastnaia zhizn) of
individual citizens, unless these documents are 75 years or older.69 This puts many
personal letters, complaints, personal archives, and other documents from the
Brezhnev era out of the researchers reach many, but not all: I was able to consult
not only ministerial records, trade departments collections, marketing surveys and
statistical reports, but also a number of citizens letters to the press and to the
authorities, personal collections, and reports from the editorial offices of several
newspapers to the CPSU Central Committee. The last summarized and cited citizens letters for the benefit of the Party bosses and thus provide indirect evidence
of peoples opinions. Other citizens letters turned up in unlikely places, such as a
passionate anonymous epistle about the absence of raincoats in Moscow in 1968
which I found amidst the heavyweight folders of the Council of Ministers.
However precious, these and other archival documents alone would not provide a full picture of Soviet consumer culture in the Brezhnev period, and they
are used in tandem with a variety of other sources. I have benefited from the
recent popular interest, even nostalgia, for the Soviet 1970s and the popular turn
towards history of everyday life in Russia, which resulted in a number of fascinating memoirs, published both on paper and online. I am very grateful to authors of
the memoirs and personal stories which I sourced from internet forums such as

14

Introduction

LiveJournal. I was also able to use some interview material from the Oxford
Archive of Russian Life History, an outstanding source which was created under
the directorship of Professor Catriona Kelly (New College, Oxford).70
Other sources used here include articles and caricatures from a range of
national and local newspapers and periodicals, advice literature and contemporary scholarly publications. Works of fiction and cinema form another substantial
resource, helping us to understand the attitudes of the cultural intelligentsia.
Analysed in combination with other evidence and over the entire period in question, they also indicate the direction of social change.
Public opinion surveys as an academic exercise did not exist in the Soviet
Union until the 1960s the needs of the state for such information had been
satisfied by NKVD and KGB reports. During the 1960s, however, sociological
research was reborn, and in 1974 the first professional journal, Sotsiologicheskie
issledovaniia (Sociological Studies), started publication. The journal makes for
informative reading. As a professional publication, it was not intended for a mass
readership. When one gets past the usual references to MarxismLeninism and
the leading role of the Party, one finds that many reports are based on serious
research, usually into what was perceived as social problems at the time, and the
published results can be especially useful for giving us a sense of contemporary
values, especially those of young people. This is particularly the case in the late
1970s and early 1980s, when many of these reports convey specialist concerns
about social change, illuminating developments that took place within our period.
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, moreover, is by no means the only sociological
source. A number of other published works, either collected volumes or monographs, reward a careful and persistent reader with valuable insights into the
contemporary social climate.
Such finds strongly recommend the judicious use of published sources, including newspapers and magazines, which should not be dismissed lightly even in the
Soviet Union. The press of developed socialism was not only a mouthpiece for
officialdom but also a stage where some genuine debate between specialists,
journalists and even readers took place. This is evident from archival records of
newspapers, where we can observe behind-the-scenes conflicts between the
authorities, reporters, readers and editors. But even if such smoking guns had
not been left in the archives, the dissonance in opinions and arguments in many
articles on fashion, home design, acceptable norms of consumption, young peoples
behaviour, and so on, testifies strongly to a multitude of voices rather than one
coherent message being broadcast from above. The same applies to literary and
cinematic discourse on the Soviet material world.
Published letters from readers also deserve attention. It is often hard to suppress the suspicion that these letters were edited or even forged, but it remains a
fact that editorial offices received large volumes of mail from readers.71 Letters
were taken seriously: editors were required to report regularly to the Party
authorities on the correspondence their newspaper received and on measures
taken in response. Many had dedicated departments and staff for dealing with
readers letters. A number of letters got published, and they were sometimes so

Introduction
d
15
critical or provocative as to make officials and other politically correct readers
cringe. But even though we cannot take individual published letters for granted
as vox populi, we can analyse them as a corpus for recurrent themes. We can
surmise that a particular issue had sufficient presence in editorial correspondence
when a newspaper or a magazine ran letters from the readers (genuine or not)
as a peg on which to hang its discussion of this issue.
The structure of this book is thematic rather than chronological. This is partly
because sharp periodization of the long 1970s with respect to consumer culture is
tricky: not all processes that made up its development were synchronized. A thematic approach more accurately reflects the complexity of the story, affords room
for detailed discussion of its different aspects, and provides a more nuanced sense
of change. We begin by looking at the role the state played in the consumer boom
of the long 1970s: chapter 1 pays particular attention to the impact of Aleksei
Kosygins reforms on the consumer industry and their political consequences,
which continued to shape the conditions for consumption even after the reforms
themselves were scrapped. Chapter 2 focuses on the ambivalence of public
debates about the role of material goods in mature Soviet society. Participants in
these debates, who ranged from Party-state officials to specialists, reporters and
the cultural intelligentsia, faced no small challenge: to redefine the boundaries
between permissible cultured consumption and materialism in the shifting sands
of improving living standards. Soviet official discourse had traditionally contained a large dose of ambiguity on consumption: on the one hand, it celebrated
modern consumption and promoted a sense of consumer entitlement but, on the
other, it actively discouraged excessive indulgence. This ambiguity became especially acute as the authorities desperately sought to control rising consumer
expectations during the late 1960s and the 1970s.
The next two chapters tell the consumers side of the story. Chapter 3 explains
what was new about consumer behaviour and choices in the Brezhnev era. It
argues that Soviet shopping was more of a public activity than we are used to
recognizing, where people engaged with the state rather than withdrew from it.
Following on from this, chapter 4 explores practices of consumption for what
they can tell us about changes in social structure and intergenerational relations
during the long 1970s.
These general findings are further illustrated with three case studies. Chapter 5
draws a sartorial portrait of Soviet urbanites in the Brezhnev era: it describes
what was trendy and why; where people got their ideas about what was hot and what
was not appropriate; and how differences of opinion on the subject could lead to
conflicts. Consumer behaviour is set in the context of the contradictions of the
socialist fashion industry and changes in official and public attitudes to fashion in
general and youth fashion in particular.
Chapter 6 looks at furniture, which had a special place in Soviet consumer
culture and in the Soviet consumers heart. Owning furniture was more than a
convenience: it could be a homage to modernity as with newly fashionable
furniture sets an indicator of good connections as with obtaining designs in
short supply or a symbol of status as with grander-looking, expensive or

16

Introduction

imported pieces. In the 1970s and early 1980s people were more knowledgeable
and demanding as buyers of furniture, and, despite high prices, they were able and
willing to invest more time and money in their homes. For the authorities, however, furniture was a political project with a long history: didactic attempts to
shape the hearth of future communists could be traced back to the early postRevolutionary years. How the uses of furniture changed after 1964, and how the
contradictions between more independent consumers and efforts to direct their
tastes were resolved, is the subject of this chapter.
Finally, Chapter 7, the third case study, is about electrical goods: TV sets,
refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, record players and radio
sets. One reason why this group of goods was chosen is their privileged status in
state discourse since the Khrushchev years, when the scientific and technological
revolution was expected magically to transform the everyday life of ordinary
people. The chapter investigates what happened to this pet project of Khrushchev
after his removal. It also provides an especially vivid illustration for our story of
modernizing Soviet consumers. They became more technologically savvy, more
responsive to new developments, and more selective and autonomous in their
decision-making, not only choosing the level of sophistication of their machines
but also judging brands on their reputation and appearance, just as one would
expect a Western consumer to do. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates how,
despite the ideological peculiarities of Soviet economic policies and the generally
closed nature of Soviet society, late Soviet consumer culture developed in ways
that had many parallels with that of Western consumer societies, raising interesting questions about the nature of consumerism as a global or local phenomenon.

Between failure and success

The economics and politics of consumption
under Brezhnev

Brezhnevs troublesome inheritance

An American scholar who visited the Soviet Caucasus in the early 1980s made the
following observation: In a country where consumer goods are unavailable or
exorbitantly priced, and where there is little advertising, they form the core of
peoples lives, if not in fact then in desire, no less than they do in the West.1 Many
other foreign visitors to the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union testified that, despite the
seemingly perpetual scarcity, Soviet people displayed an uncommon interest in
fashions, household gadgets, cars and all other material trappings of a comfortable
modern life. To explain this paradox one needs to revisit the traditional perception
of Soviet shops. Their reputation in the West was indeed poor: drab goods and
little or no choice. As one British visitor during the 1980s reported,
the only readily available goods are those that nobody wants all the spiritless,
home-manufactured fittings which are dismissed as brak,
k junk. Muscovite
women, and men too, prowl the shops on the lookout for anything of quality,
their string bags or briefcases ready to receive the sudden arrival of Yugoslav
boots or Polish bras. Shopping becomes a nightmare game of musical chairs
in which most of the players are left out.2
He was not wrong, of course, but what this image fails (understandably) to
recognize is the change which took place for Soviet consumers in the late 1960s
and the 1970s. Store shelves might have been looking bad to Western visitors,
but to home consumers they were certainly looking much better. Soviet urban
living rooms, wardrobes, bedrooms and kitchens were now having to accommodate a much wider variety and quantity of goods than ever before in the years
of communist power.
The Brezhnev government could and did take credit for this: better-stocked
shops and warehouses and, more broadly, better living standards were an important political issue. This was one aspect of Khrushchevs legacy that the new
leadership, which had ousted the erratic premier in October 1964, could not easily
abandon, even if it had wanted to do so. Living standards had taken a prominent
place in Khrushchev-era public speeches and declarations, while his new Party
Programme had expressed the promise to construct communism by 1980 chiefly

18

Between failure and success

in terms of material progress and personal welfare.3 Individual apartments

presented to millions of ordinary people were seen as a major step towards fulfilment of that promise. In other areas of consumption, changes were modest,4 but
politically they made a big difference to the successor government. Brezhnevs
ideologists deflected the uncomfortable proximity of the 1980 deadline for
achieving communism and unlimited prosperity when they invented the
intermediate concept of developed socialism,5 but the idea of material abundance as a precondition for communism was there to stay. Encouraged by
Khrushchevs pro-consumer promises, Soviet citizens, with their newly built
separate apartments, visions of modern (if a little flimsy) furniture, and slightly
fuller grocery bags, would resent any throwbacks to Stalin-era or postwar poverty, as protests in the 1960s clearly demonstrated.6 Coercion through mass
violence was no longer an option, leaving the Brezhnev government little choice
but to stick to the consumer-friendly path blazed by its predecessor.

The commitment to prosperity

In fact, the new leadership readily took up the banner of prosperity for the
people. Where practical, it even criticized its predecessor for his limited approach
to consumption.7 Setting more generous limits for socialist consumption served to
strengthen the popular authority of the new leadership and helped to distance it
from its predecessor. Communicating this to ordinary citizens was crucial.
Brezhnev insisted at the December Party Plenum in 1965: It is necessary that
workers and peasants have a good understanding of how much the Party and the
government care about increasing the material well-being and cultural level of
the Soviet people.8 Brezhnev himself gave this topic considerable attention in
his Kremlin speech on the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution on
6 November 1964, which Pravda printed the next day. Among other welfare
measures, he mentioned the growing demand for consumer goods and promised
to develop production and to lower prices.9 Days later, and only weeks after the
new leadership took over, Pravda ran a leader on its front page which declared in
bold letters: More goods of great quality and variety!10 Party congresses were
another regular occasion for asserting that the Party took living standards very
seriously. When the new Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin addressed the XXIII
Party Congress in April 1966, the very first congress under Brezhnevs leadership,
he told the audience: Comrades! Construction of communism and improvement
in peoples welfare are inseparable.11 Brezhnev, in turn, declared that the main
task of the governments eighth five-year plan (196670) was to improve living
standards.12 The imperative to remind the population that the Party prioritized
material well-being persisted throughout the Brezhnev years. A brochure for lectors and propaganda workers published in 1983 emphasized the mantra that had
to be impressed upon audiences: The welfare of the individual is the main goal
of the Partys economic strategy.13
Brezhnev and his colleagues clearly understood the importance of such declarations, but they also realized that overly ambitious promises could be just as

Between failure and success

19

damaging as ignoring the material interests of the population. In November 1965,

at a meeting to discuss his report to the XXIII Party Congress, his first such
appearance as First Secretary, Brezhnev asked his working group to tone down
the economic prognosis and hinted that the boastful pitch of Khrushchevs 1961
Party Programme was unwise:
The previous congress was loud and brassy: our generation will live under
communism, ride on free transport, live in free apartments. It is better, I
think, [to make it] more realistic and accessible for the people: what tasks we
set ourselves for this five-year plan in terms of social problems, what we will
do for the pensioners, low-paid [workers], what housing we can build. 14
Statistics had to be level-headed, Brezhnev noted. Khrushchevs reports are full
of those calculations. Apparently, both the Party and the people are getting
tired of these unrealistic figures.
This sober-mindedness, which contrasted so much with the boisterous language of the recent Party Programme, was based on the awareness that the Soviet
economy was not doing as well as it should. On the one hand, the 1950s had
brought dynamic economic growth as a result of postwar reconstruction efforts,
the removal of Stalinist constraints on agriculture, and improved labour efficiency.15 But a report by the KGB economic department, prepared for the October
1964 Plenum which saw the removal of Khrushchev, stated that during the last
eight years of Khrushchevs administration economic growth fell by over 50 per
cent, while the growth of productivity dropped to just over half of what it had
been in the early 1950s.16 Consumer goods production (Group B) especially was
in trouble because of the traditional priority afforded to the heavy and defence
industries (Group A). One of the main criticisms thrown at Khrushchev during his
ouster was the growing chasm between the levels of investment in these industrial
groups. The report of the Presidium of the Central Committee, delivered at the
October Plenum, stated that Soviet levels of production of consumer goods were
less than half of those of the United States, and that it would take the Soviet
Union about fifteen years and maybe more to catch up. Khrushchev, the report
said, often attacked this problem in his speeches, but in practice his efforts made
the gap wider. Presently, light industry and the food industry were not even close
to the targets of the seven-year plan.17 In fact, consumer industry had been failing to
fulfil its plans for years.18 Given such indicators, the new leadership under
Brezhnev knew it could not promise Soviet consumers too much.

Economic problems
Economic problems, including those of the consumer sector, were not a state secret.
In the early 1960s they were widely discussed at all levels, from state planners to
factory directors and economists and in the mass media.19 These discussions never
questioned the fundamental principles of a planned economy, but they reflected
a general sense that some changes were now due. The causes for concern were

20

Between failure and success

several. The main one, as the above-mentioned KGB report suggested, was the
declining efficiency of production. This was worrying because the potential for
extensive growth on which the system had relied in the previous decades was
becoming exhausted.20 To continue growing, the Soviet economy had to switch to
the intensive mode of production, which meant greater efficiency in the use of
labour and resources. The problem was that, in the planned economy, agents had
no real economic incentive to make constant efforts towards efficiency. As Jnos
Kornai has argued, economic agents under socialism were subject to soft budget
constraints: enterprises were safe from market risks, impossible to shut down
because bankruptcy was not an option politically, and thus were dependent on the
state to cover their losses.21 In the Stalin years, market incentives for efficiency
were replaced by strict discipline and disproportionate physical punishment for
failure. But the post-Stalin years saw a considerable relaxation of production discipline.22 Workers absenteeism was growing, while enterprises were wasting large
sums on paying for overtime to catch up on the plan, and storming the practice whereby most of the work was done in the last days, weeks or months of the
reporting period left little time for quality control or innovation.23 Despite official calls for raising efficiency, the Soviet economy was anything but efficient.
The problem was compounded by an obsession with growth. In planning and
measuring performance, only quantitative indicators, and especially gross output, were taken into account: they were easy to measure, but the emphasis was
placed on quantity of products, not on quality or efficiency of production.
Producers cast aside quality and efficiency in pursuit of bonuses for plan fulfilment based on gross output.24 Nor did they have to worry about the fate of their
products beyond the factory gates: whether their manufactured tractors, tyres,
refrigerators or cotton dresses sold like hot cakes or mouldered in warehouses,
theirr plans were fulfilled. Even more troublesome for the state budget, grossoutput planning allowed producers to count the same products twice, ensuring
that all five-year plans were fulfilled on gross-output indicator and none in terms
of actual goods.25
Another problem that featured in the 1960s discussions was that state planning
was much too centralized for the increasingly complex economy, where the
central planning agency, Gosplan, struggled to keep up with the production and
distribution of millions of goods. Although giving up planning controls was never
on the cards, some specialists argued that perhaps some decentralization would
help if the burden could be shared among several institutions. At a meeting of
Gosplan experts to discuss the plan for 196670, one Comrade Golynskii argued
that Gosplan should work only on outlining the main directions of the economy,
such as the basic proportions of the overall plan, while delegating the more localized jobs to ministries, the State Supply Committee (Gossnab) and even producers.
In this case, Gosplan could creatively work on major questions which remain
unsolved in the economy today and slow down its development.26
Since growth in efficiency was of paramount concern by the 1960s, specialists
raised the alarm concerning another key problem of the Soviet economic system:
its sluggishness in renewing capital resources. For all the talk of technological

Between failure and success

21

revolution and scientific progress, Soviet industry was far from boasting the latest
technology and new machinery. It was much too slow in updating technical equipment and constructing new plants to keep up with the Western economies. Kosygin
reported at the September Plenum in 1965 that the completion of industrial projects in the Soviet Union took two or three times longer than in developed capitalist countries, and often by the time they were finished they were already outdated.27
Uncompleted construction projects cost the state billions of roubles in frozen
investment.28 The cumbersome system of planning, restrictive state controls, the
perpetual fight for centrally allocated resources, and the absence of economic
incentives made rapid completion of high-tech enterprises unlikely. The consumer
sector suffered particularly from the problem of the so-called dolgostroi (protracted construction) because it did not have priority in the overall scheme of
resource allocation.

Consumer industry: the neglected stepchild

These problems concerned the economy as a whole, but in the consumer sector
they resulted in major discrepancies between what consumers wanted and what
industry was putting out. Pravda put the problem on its front page in November
1964, when it reported that 20 per cent of all clothes inspected by quality control
in the country during that year were classified as low standard or were even
returned to producers. In the Russian republic alone, poor quality of goods
forced shops and warehouses to reject deliveries from 257 factories. According
to Pravda, this was no trivial matter: the retail network had accumulated over
2.1 billion roubles worth of unsold goods above the expected norm, including
1.6 billion worth of ready-made garments, textiles and footwear. The problem
was that production plans were often set without much concern for the requirements of buyers or recommendations from trade workers. Simply put, industry
was producing the wrong kinds of things. Furthermore, setting the output targets
from above left no room for initiative for enterprises and made them very reluctant
to update their range of products or improve their quality. Trade also shared the
blame: its specialists were not doing a very good job studying consumer demand.29
Pravdas criticism summed up many of the problems plaguing the Soviet
consumer industry. Hyper-centralized planning created the twin phenomena of
shortages and piles of unwanted merchandise (which, paradoxically, did not
preclude the over-fulfilment of sales plans). When the buck was passed to producers who delivered unsellable wares or failed to deliver the goods altogether,
they cited problems with suppliers. A typical example was a small sewing factory
in the worker settlement of Surskoe in the Ulianovsk region, which in 1964
complained to Pravda that its suppliers flooded it with poor-quality material for
shirts (one of the offending fabrics had the telling title of the collective farmers
shirt cloth). The shirts that the factory made from these kinds of material were
rejected by their trading partner because they did not sell. The Surskoe factory
would have much preferred to make shirts that sold, but it was only a small link
in a big chain of producers and warehouses that were all bound by the production

22

Between failure and success

plan, whose targets could not be changed halfway through the year. To fulfil
their plan, the suppliers continued to dump their dubious wares on the Surskoe
factory, which refused to pay for them or use them, but it would eventually have
to choose one of two options: to have a legal dispute with the fabric manufacturer
or to offload the unwanted shirts on the retail system.30
Some manufacturers would have said that the Surskoe factory was lucky to
have enough of any kind of material, never mind its quality. In 1965, projected
cuts in supplies of agricultural materials, for instance, would lead to the production of fabric dropping exponentially over the next five years: by 10 million
metres in 1966, 40 million in 1967, 120 million in 1968, 355 million in 1969, and
430 million in 1970.31 This would have a knock-on effect on the manufacturing
of clothes at a time when consumers were showing increased interest in readymade garments: in the first half of 1965, trade in garments grew by 15 per cent
compared to the previous year.32 The State Trade Committee calculated that
unsatisfied demand (a euphemism for shortages) for off-the-peg items amounted
to half a billion roubles, and the projection for 1966 was even worse: 1 billion
roubles. New plants and efficient equipment were not forthcoming: in 1965 new
facilities were so few that they added a meagre 1 per cent to the total output of
clothes.33 It all boiled down to the old fact that light industry did not have priority
in the state allocation of resources.
Likewise, the production of household goods, durables and furniture suffered
from the slow pace of construction and from lapses in the supply of materials
and parts.34 Even consumer goods production at the privileged enterprises of the
defence industry could be a victim of resource deficit. When the ministry for
the radio industry explained to the Council of Ministers why it failed its production plans for consumer durables in 1965, it pointed to the lack of spare parts:
for some goods its plants received only a third of the required amount. It had
complained to Gosplan and Gossnab and to other relevant authorities, but to no
avail. Instead, plan targets for the coming year had been increased.35
These problems could not be solved without major changes, and most likely
not without the overhaul of the entire economic system and the abandonment of
planning. The Brezhnev administration had no intention of going that far when it
assumed office in October 1964, but it did essay a relatively ambitious reform
package. This step received much attention from contemporary observers and
later from historians, who have analysed its nature, contradictions and impact or
its failure to have any impact on the Soviet economy. But the fact that easily gets
overshadowed by the reforms all-encompassing scope is that its measures, while
not intended exclusively for the consumer industry, had important consequences
for late Soviet consumption.

Kosygins reform and the consumer sector

The reform was officially launched at the Party Plenum in September 1965, less
than a year after the new leaderships arrival in power. Named after its patron,
Prime Minister Kosygin, it was hailed in 1965 as the third most significant

Between failure and success

36

23

[reform] in all forty-eight years of the Soviet state. Such a grand description did
not save it from being scrapped four years later. The reasons for its failure were
numerous. Many commentators, notably the economic historian Alec Nove, have
pointed to the reforms built-in contradictions.37 Some suggest that, had it
received political support and continued, it would have given the Soviet economy
a chance.38 But the dominant view remains that any fundamental change was an
ideological impossibility. All attempts to change the system faced a political
dilemma: economic revival would inevitably come at the price of sacrificing a
number of primary ideological principles, such as global power ambitions, the
inherent Marxist hostility to the market, and the need to preserve the social contract at home.39 As it happened, the leaderships choice was for ideology over the
economy. Whatever the reasons for the reforms ultimate failure, it is easy to
conclude that, since it was so quickly aborted, its gains were short-lived and it
hardly made any difference to the long-term state of the economy.40 This is probably accurate; however, from the viewpoint of consumer policy, the reform made
a big difference, and in more ways than one. Both its initial successes andd its
subsequent failure helped shape the relationship between the state and consumers. Despite its short lifespan, the reform deserves a closer look here because it
had an impact on the subsequent history of late Soviet consumption.
Although public discussions of the ailments of the socialist economy, and even
experimental solutions, had been taking place for years before 1965, not everyone
in the top leadership shared the view that reforms were necessary. Nikolai
Baibakov, who headed Gosplan in the Brezhnev decades, recalls the hostile reaction of the Chairman of the Supreme Council Nikolai Podgornyi during a Politburo
discussion of the planned reforms: What the hell do we need a reform for? Arent
we developing fine? Podgornyi was not alone in doubting the need for comprehensive change: according to Baibakov, his outburst convinced a few others and,
once the reform was launched, few of the Politburo members supported it.41
But Kosygin insisted. According to the testimony of many contemporaries,
including his former colleagues, he was a capable and hard-working administrator who had a keen sense of responsibility for the economy and a good awareness
of its weaknesses, and he sought to help it the best he could within the given
political constraints.42 By that point, he was committed to the reform, which had
already gained impetus from numerous public discussions of economic problems
and the success of some pilot schemes.43 Brezhnev might not have been ecstatic
about the reform, but he was not against it.
The reform tackled the problem of efficiency by making enterprises more independent in several ways. The number of planned indicators imposed from above
was reduced from 30 to nine, and enterprises were allowed to set many of their
own planned targets, in the hope that this would make their planning more realistic and would tie production to demand. The reform also encouraged producers
to heed consumers by replacing the gross-output plan indicator (valovoi product)
with an indicator of sales (realizovannyi product): factories had to selll their goods
to other producers or to the retail network in order to fulfil their plan. The proposals sought to decentralize some investment decisions and to recalculate wholesale

24

Between failure and success

prices to bring them closer to economic realities. The reform gave enterprises a
material incentive to be more efficient by allowing them to keep a greater part
of the profits: the more money a plant made, the more it could spend on bonuses
and the welfare of its employees. Efforts to modernize production were also
rewarded with higher wages and bonuses.44 These ideas might seem modest, but
they were relatively radical for their time and place: money had traditionally been
dismissed by MarxistLeninist economic theory as a legacy of the past that would
become obsolete as society approached communism, but it seemed that the socialist
economy could not do without it just yet. This particular aspect of the reform the
greater recognition of the role of material rewards had an immediate bearing on
peoples living standards: it boosted considerably the incomes of industry employees, from engineers and factory economists to unskilled workers.
The consumer industry was placed in the front ranks of the reform. Several
enterprises in light and food industries, such as the sewing factories Bolshevichka
in Moscow and Maiak in Gorky, were the first to test the waters before the reform
was launched.45 The decision to start with light industry did not reflect a sudden
reversal of priorities in favour of Group B, and, apparently, the top government
elite took some convincing. Light industry received a head start because it was
clear that the use of material incentives to whip up efficiency was bound to put
more money in the hands of the population quickly and, to avoid inflation, the
money would need to be spent on consumer goods. Light industry, however, was
unlikely to be able to provide these goods unless it was helped first. This was clear
to many, including Nikolai Egorychev, then first secretary of the Moscow municipal Party committee, who had raised the issue at an earlier Party Plenum. At the
time, however, Kosygin let him understand that this was not the problem that the
Presidium of the Central Committee wanted to discuss.46 But the consumer industry did get the first go at being transferred to the new system of planning, and by
the time the September Plenum took place the pre-reform experiment included
83 textile plants, 120 sewing factories and 49 producers of footwear in addition to
several dozen other light industry enterprises.47 Kosygin himself indicated the
importance of accumulating enough reserves of consumer goods when he introduced the reform at the September Plenum in 1965.48 In his speech he talked about
the slowing rates of growth, decline in national income, and the fact that the development of consumer goods production had been lagging behind for a number of
years.49 Helping it to catch up was a central task of the economy.50 The prime
minister suggested that changes in the methods of economic management would
have an impact on peoples material conditions. This was certainly borne out by
the experience of Maiak and Bolshevichka: within a year both factories almost
doubled the output of new styles of clothes, which were selling like hot cakes.51

Between the factory and the store

Consumers stood to benefit from other changes that the government intended to
bring to the economy along with the new methods of planning and management. Especially to consumers advantage was the intention to see through the

Between failure and success

25

implementation of the so-called direct links arrangement ((priamye sviazi) between

factories that produced consumer goods and the retail system. Direct links
meant that factories would draft their annual production plans based on the information, or orders for specific goods, placed with them by large shops and
wholesale trading firms or warehouses (optovye bazy). The rationale was that,
since no one knew consumers better than shop workers in a country where professional market research was non-existent, factories would become much better at
producing things that consumers actually wanted if they were guided by trade
specialists. Although formally not part of the reform, this new system clearly
gained impetus from the Brezhnev administrations efforts at improving the
economy. The Council of Ministers decree on direct links dated back to 1960, but
in practice nothing had happened for four years. It appeared that Gosplan had
largely ignored it.52 But when the reform offered to give enterprises the freedom
to set some of their own targets and made the sales indicator key, the idea of direct
links with trade came to be taken more seriously. In 1964, when the two sewing
factories Maiak in Gorky and Bolshevichka in Moscow switched to the new
system of planning in the pre-reform experiment, they also began to plan their
output of clothes based on orders from shops. In the middle of 1965, the other
factories involved in testing the reform, including all sewing factories in Moscow
and Leningrad, adopted direct links in their planning.53
Specialists had high hopes for the system of direct links: it was meant to counteract the widespread tendency of factories to ignore requests for goods from
shops and wholesale firms, producing instead whatever they could manage. This
tendency not only damaged consumer interests but also cost the state dearly:
because consumers refused to buy a growing number of unattractive coats,
dresses, shoes, plates, tables, and so on, the piles of unwanted merchandise in
warehouses grew faster than sales. For example, in the first half of 1964, sales of
crockery went up by 9.2 million roubles in comparison with the previous year,
but against that the stocks of unsold goods increased by 21.5 million. In the state
economy the cost of the difference was borne by the state.54
This was a paradox that became a hallmark of the Brezhnev-era economy,
despite the efforts to reform: shortages of consumer goods coexisted with growing stocks of unsellable wares. Those wretched cups, plates and saucers filled
warehouses and depots not because of oversupply. On the contrary, shortages of
tableware were rife: in the Russian republic alone, trade agents had asked factories to supply 1,300,000 tea sets in 1964 but would receive only 788,000; they
could count on getting less than half the number of dinner sets they ordered and
only three-quarters of their order for tea cups with saucers. Like many other
branches of consumer industry, crockery-makers lacked production capacity. All
over the country the construction of new porcelain factories and expansion of the
existing ones was falling woefully behind the plan. To get themselves out of a
tight corner between the pressure of the plan and the technical inability to fulfil
it, plants resorted to making expensive but unsellable things. Since output was
calculated in the retail prices of the goods produced, it was easier to meet production targets by churning out a smaller quantity of expensive items, which people

26

Between failure and success

were reluctant to buy, than to push for a large number of cheaper goods. Between
1958 and 1963, the quantity of porcelain tableware and china produced in the
country grew by 31 per cent, whereas the total value of output in retail prices
went up by 53 per cent, meaning that growth was boosted by making expensive
goods.55 Plans were fulfilled, but products did not sell, and this had become a
typical strategy for many other manufacturers. The implementation of direct
links was expected to resolve this problem. Once the pressure was off to meet
the gross-output targets imposed from above, direct links would encourage the
enterprises to make reasonably priced goods that were in demand instead of
unaffordable luxuries that gathered dust in warehouses and on shop shelves.
It was clear that shoppers were buying less than before. According to the minister of trade, A. Struev, sales of clothing had been growing every year up to 1963,
but in that year growth stopped. Struevs explanation was that the quality, styles
and colours of the garments were poor, while consumers were becoming more
discriminating. Specialists felt that it was time, in the famous words of Lenin, to
learn to trade.56
But what did consumers want? Clearly, for the direct links to work, trading
organizations had to know the answer. The study of consumer preferences took
on new importance. The government and specialists insisted that this should now
be done properly and systematically.57 In due course, this resulted in the establishment of the first-ever dedicated national agency: in June 1965, the trade journal
Sovetskaia torgovlia (Soviet Trade) announced the launch of the All-Union
Scientific Research Institute for Studying Demand for Consumer Goods and the
State of Trade (VNIIKS) under the auspices of the State Committee for Trade,
along with its branches in the union republics.58 The purpose of VNIIKS was to
oversee and consolidate the gathering of information on consumer demand across
the country and to advise both trade and industry. It would be helped in its task
by local agents of consumer intelligence: shops, department stores and warehouses. Employees of wholesale trading firms would visit shops to see which
models of shoes or designs of fabrics were popular; stores would hold consumer
conferences to gauge opinions; exhibitions of consumer goods would reveal
which wares sold and which did not. Industry would also have its own spies
surveying the market: factories had already begun to open their own brand stores
((firmennye magaziny), which sold only their products and fed back to the factory
the analysis of sales.
These innovations received extensive coverage in the press. Trade journals
published debates on the practicalities of the new system of direct links. Pravda
ran letters from industry specialists supporting the reform proposals. Reports of
successful first experiments generated a general buzz of enthusiasm about the new
methods. In 1965, the director of a sewing factory in Lvov reported in Pravda the
impressive results of the first few months working under the new rules. Instead of
multiple plan indicators, his factory Maiak was given only two targets by the planning authorities: profit and sales (in roubles). The rest was up to them. Unburdened
by oppressive planning, the factory took advice from trade specialists and consumers and brought forward by a year its plans to make a certain style of fashionable

Between failure and success

27

coat. It was able to take account of what was hot that season, and the entire batch
of 3,000 coats sold clean out. Under the old system of planning, it would have
taken months to get the approval for such a change in plans and the factory would
have missed the opportunity.59 In fact, a year before, this same firm had complained to Pravda after attempting a similar manoeuvre to switch from unpopular
mens and womens spring coats to more popular items. The switch would have
cut the gross output of the firm by 1 million roubles, and Sovnarkhoz (the Council
of Ministers) refused to revise its annual plan.60 Matters would be different now:
We can keep up with fashions, rejoiced the Maiak director in 1965.61
The expectations of the reform and other measures were clear enough, but it is
more difficult to judge the extent of its success. The opinions of observers,
Western economists, Russian contemporaries, and historians have been divided.
Some suggest that, in the short term, the newly found independence of enterprises
and various other aspects of the reform, such as greater use of economic instruments, gave the stalling economy a boost.62 Others point out that the reform made
no difference not only because it was aborted, but also because of its inherent
limitations: it never went far or deep enough to make a substantial difference to
long-term economic performance. Enterprises got some freedom, but the plan
never disappeared; wholesale prices were made more realistic, but the price
mechanisms never changed and remained artificial; enterprises got greater controls over their profits, but this disturbed the state budget and the ministries,
which felt they were losing control; the gross-output indicator soon returned,
because it was easier to use in accounting than more nebulous indicators such as
quality. The new system of bonuses and material rewards offered a carrot for
efficiency but not a stick to punish those who failed to meet their targets.63 Even
Kosygin was reluctant to push too far: like his colleagues in the Party-state elite,
he was convinced that the command economy was fundamentally the superior
system.64 It is thus not surprising that the reform was abandoned and made little
difference to overall economic growth. Some economic historians have even
argued that growth in the eighth five-year plan occurred despite the reform, not
because of it.65 It is difficult to come to a clear conclusion because, as Mark
Harrison argues, there is no strong evidence that economic reform made growth
rates in the late 1960s higher than they would otherwise have been , or that
cancellation of the reform contributed to slowdown.66
The impact on the consumer sector, however, appears more definite. During
the eighth five-year period (196670), the growth in output of consumer goods
shot up to 49 per cent, which compared well to the 36 per cent during the preceding period (19615); for the first time ever, consumer goods production grew at
the same rate as production of industrial goods.67 Certainly, this ought to be kept
in perspective: in 1970, Group A still commanded 74 per cent of all means of
production, whereas consumer goods received only 26 per cent.68 But it was an
improvement: during the period 195160, a whopping 90 per cent of investment
had gone to heavy industry.69
The consumer sector was in a particularly poor state after decades of neglect,
and, while the reform did not solve its problems, the attention it received during

28

Between failure and success

the reform years helped a great deal. During the eighth and ninth five-year periods, the capital funds for light industry almost doubled; 560 factories producing
textiles, knitwear, clothes, footwear, porcelain and other goods were built or
refurbished country-wide. As a result, the output of textiles went up by 30 per cent;
ready-made garments by 77 per cent; shoes by 33 per cent; knitted clothes by a
factor of almost 2.5; and porcelain and china goods by a factor of 1.9 (while in
the five years 195863 it went up by only a third).70 In the Gorky region, the
capital funds of light industry grew by 1.7 times; the output of ready-made garments doubled; and the output of knitted garments went up by 1.5 times.71 Not
only quantity but also quality and variety improved throughout the region, and in
1968 its enterprises boasted 32 new kinds of goods and 1,020 new varieties of the
existing types.72 In the Saratov region in central Russia, the largest output of
consumer goods took place between 1966 and 1970, when 85 Group B enterprises were built or refurbished.73 On the whole, this was the most successful
period for Soviet consumer goods production, and especially for light industry.
Consumers benefited from these increases. Although most of their pay rises
went into savings, which rose alarmingly fast, they also led to a substantial
growth in personal consumption. Workers expenditure on consumer goods
climbed from 203.9 roubles per family member in 1964 to 283 roubles in 1970
and 360 roubles in 1975.74 Initially, the upsurge reflected primarily the increased
purchasing capacity; this worried economists, who warned that, unless production was stepped up, all reserves would disappear, creating the opposite problem
from that of unsold wares.75 Indeed, stocks of some goods fell, prompting some
trade specialists, such as store managers in the Belorussian republic in the late
1960s, to question the need for studying demand in a situation where customers
grabbed whatever was in the shops.76 But the growth in consumption cannot be
explained only by higher wages, especially when we recall the increasing stocks
of unwanted
d merchandise. Consumption continued to grow and, although shortages plagued the retail system, the reserves of goods did not disappear and Soviet
urban shops were not empty. The efforts put into reviving consumer industry
brought improvement, and there were now more goods of reasonable quality on
which buyers were prepared to spend their surplus incomes. From the consumers
point of view, the Kosygin reform did not come to nothing. Personal consumption grew throughout the Brezhnev era, but three-quarters of its growth fell in the
first nine years (196472).77

After the reform: challenges and solutions

By the early 1970s, these improvements had an impact on expectations and were
reflected in consumer choice. When reports came in of low reserves of particular
goods, this referred to fashionable or high-quality items. For instance, the
Belorussian republican footwear trading firm Belobuvtorg reported to the authorities in 1973 that reserves of footwear in the republic were below the norm and
had dropped further since the previous year by almost a million roubles, despite
an increase in supply worth more than 10 million roubles over the previous year.

Between failure and success

29

Obviously, demand was high, but, unlike the situation in the late 1960s, this was
no longer a case of grabbing whatever was in the shops: customers turned away
from unappealing shoes and boots made of artificial leather for example, footwear made of calf leather (iuft, or Russian leather). Instead, shops were low on
such fashionable and quality items as fur-lined winter boots, smart womens
shoes in patent leather and light colours, and shoes that followed the latest trends
for thick platforms and cork heels.78 Although the republics shops received less
footwear of popular styles than they ordered from industry, they did get an
impressive range of novelties, from hot stilettos and elastic knee-high boots to
mens boots with ribbed detailing and even moccasins for young girls.79
Belorussian shops were not unique.80 Shortages had existed in the 1930s, and they
still existed in the 1970s, but they were qualitatively something else entirely.

Political consequences of the reform

Certainly, the slowing down of growth after 1973 tells us that the effects of the
reform were insufficient and short lived. But its immediate success or perceptions
of its success had long-term political consequences. The achievements of the
eighth five-year plan in consumer goods production gave the government confidence to turn up the volume on their pledges of improvement in living standards.
At its next congress in 1971, the Party boldly proclaimed the following five years
(19715) to be a five-year period of upsurge in peoples prosperity. In his report
to the Congress, Brezhnev stated that the new five-year period was realistically
likely to see the complete fulfilment of popular demand for consumer durables such
as TV sets, refrigerators, radio sets and washing machines.81 During a discussion of
the draft report at Brezhnevs dacha in Zavidovo in February 1970, radio and television boss S. G. Lapin had expressed unease about making such promises; his
view was that the government was unlikely to manage to fill the market with
consumer goods. Its quite obvious we wont, retorted Brezhnev, and mused: I
often wonder We really do need to satisfy the needs of the people, [and I] ask
myself: where is the limit to these needs? It doesnt exist, the Central
Committees chief consultant A. E. Bovin pitched in.82 Not only did the General
Secretarys report go ahead and include the optimistic passage, but it was echoed
by Kosygins speech, which set for the next five years the tasks of providing more
families with household electrical appliances and ensuring that a wide selection of
clothes and shoes, especially for children, was available to consumers.83
Brezhnev and the others were set on boasting of the achievements of the previous five-year period. When the cautious Lapin suggested at the Zavidovo meeting
that, perhaps, the report should not claim that the previous five years had been a
near incomparable success, others objected that it was a fact and should be
reported.84 This euphoria had consequences. The then head of Gosplan, Baibakov,
recalls how he and his colleagues also fell under the hypnosis of the positive
outcomes of the eighth five-year period and used its optimistic indicators as a
basis for projecting the economys targets for the next five years. As a result, they
set the growth of consumer production at higher rates than industrial production.85

30

Between failure and success

The leadership was bound to take advantage of the successes of the preceding
five years because it saw this as a political necessity. Its conviction was bolstered
by the so-called Polish events: strikes and demonstrations in Gdansk and Gdynia
in 1970, which had been caused by deterioration in living standards and price rises.
The Polish Party leader, Wadisaw Gomuka, called in the troops, 44 people were
killed and over a thousand were wounded.86 The main conclusion that the Soviet
leadership drew was that concern for the material conditions of the population had
to remain the general line of the Party. Brezhnevs assistant A. Aleksandrov wrote
in a memo to the General Secretary days after the tragedy: The Polish events are
a strong argument in favour of this policy of ours.87 A few months later, Brezhnev
himself warned the delegates to the XXIV Party Congress that consumer goods
production was now being taken seriously by the Party and that the days of neglect
of consumer needs were gone: What was explicable and natural in the past when
other tasks, other matters were a priority is no longer acceptable in the current
conditions. Those who failed to appreciate it would be falling short of the Partys
expectations.88
This meant that growth in consumer goods production would somehow have
to be maintained in the coming years. Political considerations merged with economic ones, as wages continued to rise for all groups of the population. And,
although the rate slowed considerably after 1973, personal consumption continued to grow during the entire period up to 1985.89 The problem, however, was
that, for all the governments boosterism, the output of consumer goods during
19715 fell short of the set targets. This was partly a result of the collapse of the
reform and partly down to bad luck: poor harvests struck in 1972, 1974 and 1975.
Incomes, on the other hand, grew faster than planned.90 This discrepancy was
becoming a serious issue, especially after the results of the previous five years. A
disproportion between incomes and spending had been a problem from the start
of the reform. Deposits in savings banks had risen by 104 per cent between 1965
and 1968 as compared to 44 per cent between 1961 and 1964.91 The reform was
over, but incomes and savings continued to rise. In 1970 alone, savings grew
by 21 per cent.92 By the end of 1973, the state bank in the Gorky region alone held
1.1 billion roubles in personal accounts, while people were thought to have an
additional 400 million savings on their hands.93 Country-wide, personal savings
in the banks swelled from 10.9 billion roubles in 1960 to 46.6 billion in 1970, and
they would continue to climb further in the next decade and a half, reaching 156.6
billion in 1980 and a massive 202.1 billion in 1984.94
The trend owed much to the shortages of consumer goods, especially in the
second half of the 1970s and the early 1980s, but this should not be taken to
mean the absence of any purchasable goods. Growth in savings, or the socalled suspended demand, was determined by the fact that consumers rejected
substandard things and held on to their money until the right item came along.
The problem was not that there was nothing to buy in the shops, but that often
people did not want to buy what was there. As we have seen, this was already
the case with clothing in the mid-1960s and footwear by the mid-1970s. But
in the early 1970s consumers turned more selective on a lot of other things.

Between failure and success

31

Reports from Moscow and Latvia inform us that demand for radio sets stayed
high only for top brands which offered superior sound, FM reception, durability, bright colours and attractive looks. As a result, unsold stocks of basic
models of transistor sets in Moscow nearly tripled in just three years between
1971 and 1973.95 Across the country, old models of washing machines were
falling out of demand and unsold stocks began to grow.96 Excess stock of furniture was also piling up as consumers waited for better quality and a greater
variety of designs.97

A bargain? Oil and imports of consumer goods

In 1972, under the combined pressure of harvest failures, the faltering of the
reform and consumer industrys persisting problems, the retail trade failed to
fulfil its main plan for the first time in eight years.98 The rest of the five-year
period continued to be a struggle. But politically and rhetorically the choice had
been made in favour of consumer prosperity. Encouraged by the results of the
eighth five-year period, bold declarations about a plethora of consumer goods had
been made. The reform had been dropped, but earnings would continue to rise.
Retail statistics showed that people were coming to expect shops to offer better
brands, prettier styles, fashionable and durable goods, and more advanced technology. Backing out of the adopted consumer rhetoric was not an option politically.
But, when industry was not coming up to scratch, how was the government to
sustain its promise of more high-quality consumer goods?
The solution for which the Brezhnev administration reached was to buy more
consumer goods from abroad. Between 1970 and 1980, the value of Soviet
imports of consumer goods doubled.99 As the historian of the Soviet oil industry
Mariia Slavkina has observed, the turning point came in 1973, the year after the
failed retail plan, when the influx of some consumer goods from abroad, such as
clothes and leather footwear, began to climb steeply. Until then, imports had
grown at only a modest rate: the amount spent on clothes and footwear went up
by about $65 million over the five years between 1968 and 1972, but in 1973
alone it jumped by over $70 million, and it continued to rise in leaps thereafter,
exceeding $1 billion worth of clothes and shoes per year in 1981 and 1982.100
The government was able to afford the luxury of buying goods abroad because
at around this time the country got lucky with oil.101 The Soviet Union discovered dozens of new oil wells in Western Siberia, matched by enormous supplies
of natural gas; its extraction of oil increased tenfold between 1970 and 1980,
reaching 312 million tons, while the extraction of gas grew by a factor of more
than 16.102 As oil prices on the world market rocketed during the 1970s, the
Soviet oil industry began to bring in large flows of hard currency. This allowed
the authorities to continue to deliver on pledges of consumer prosperity, despite the
slackening rates of growth.
Unfortunately, the oil fortune had several negative consequences. It allowed
the government to dodge structural reform.103 After the difficulties with the measures attempted in 1965, many in the leadership grew even more allergic to the

32

Between failure and success

idea of substantive changes. Baibakov recalls several occasions when Brezhnev,

Kosygin and their colleagues in the Party and government responded to economic
failures with denial. In March 1975, Gosplan sent a report about the alarming state
of the economy to the Central Committee of the CPSU, but at a Politburo meeting
the report was met with displeasure rather than concern, and Brezhnev especially
expressed disappointment that our best five-year period was being described in
such gloomy terms. His plaintive remarks aroused a chorus of consoling exclamations from the Politburo members along the lines of surely, its not as bad as all
that, and this was the end of discussion.104 According to Georgii Arbatov, an
economist and the former director of the Institute for American and Canadian
Studies, who acted as the governments consultant, Brezhnev was often indifferent
to economy-related suggestions or even suspicious of them, while many other
Central Committee secretaries and Politburo members strongly opposed new
ideas.105 Archival evidence suggests, however, that Brezhnev was aware of the dire
straits in which light industry found itself by the mid-1970s.106 But this did not lead
to a search for radical solutions. Even Kosygins openness to frank discussions of
problems had its limits.107 After a decade of relatively lively economic debates and
experimentation, specialists were discouraged in their attempts to put forward new
ideas. In 1979, the prominent academician V. A. Kirillin led a group of specialists
who had been asked by the Council of Ministers to compile a report on the state
of the Soviet economy. Kirillins group had the courage to present an honest
diagnosis, which outlined the comprehensive problems with the economy and
pointed towards the need for radical reforms. Not only were their findings
ignored, but Kirillin himself was dismissed from his post, and the report was classified for the next ten years.108 To face the economic problems in their entirety
meant to acknowledge that the economic system was flawed, and this would
require a reassessment of the very fundamentals of MarxismLeninism, something that the leadership was not prepared to contemplate.
Sticking-plaster solutions were much safer ideologically: large quantities of
hard currency, generated by the booming oil exports and by sale of other natural
resources, were channelled into patching up the holes in Soviet own production
of consumer goods. During the Brezhnev years, foreign trade expanded, especially with the capitalist countries.109 Into the Soviet Union came English mohair,
French blouses, Italian shoes, Yugoslav furniture and many other consumer
delights. The export of oil would help to fill the shops and keep consumers at
bay, while the structural or technical problems of domestic consumer industry
could be pushed further onto the back burner.110 Although another set of economic reforms was attempted in 1979, these never got off the ground. By this
point Kosygin was an old man in poor health whose relationship with Brezhnev
seemed to have deteriorated. Even putting personal dynamics aside, the infirm
General Secretary had no interest in an overhaul of anything. By the end of the
decade things began visibly to fall apart: both the retail system and light industry
were failing plans with disturbing consistency. In 1979, light industry fell short
of output targets by the equivalent of 42 million roubles.111 In 1983, failures in
the consumer sector seemed more common than successes: for instance, out of

Between failure and success

33

70 trade organizations in Moscow, only 11 managed to pull the plan off, and the
state had to swallow losses of 1.1 billion roubles.112
Consumer industry also derived little benefit from an opportunity to purchase
new technologies and equipment abroad. Although the country spent some of its
currency on foreign machinery for instance, to kit out the refrigerator plant in
Minsk this never comprised more than a modest portion of its export revenues.113
It was not that the leadership necessarily preferred the import of consumer goods
to that of equipment, but the highly bureaucratic nature of the economic system
made cooperation with foreign companies extremely difficult. Even the General
Secretary complained that trade deals with capitalist partners got stuck in the
administrative mud and required his personal intervention.114 When the Soviets
imported technology and equipment from the West, they could not import the
skills and working culture on which these technologies depended for success. In
such circumstances, something as basic as providing a building to contain the
new machinery could pose a problem. The director of a Belgian construction
company recalled working on a project to build a new textile factory in the Soviet
Union in the early 1980s:
At the start of the negotiations I cancelled the construction part of this project, believing it would be irrational for the [Soviet] ministry to spend hard
currency on bricks and nails which were in abundant supply in the Soviet
Union. But the ministry persuaded me that if we did not bring our own
bricks and nails then the high-tech equipment that we were offering them
would turn to rust waiting for Soviet specialists to complete construction.115
There were ample examples to prove his partners right: the Soviet landscape was
still littered with large unfinished construction projects, the same dolgostroi that
had been criticized by Kosygin almost 20 years earlier. Imports of high-quality
consumer goods from the West helped stave off the effects of these problems, but
their increasingly common presence in Soviet shops also made for an unfortunate
contrast with their less well-made Soviet counterparts. This was another unintended
consequence of the decision to rely on imports. It is not surprising that the perception of all things Western as superior to domestic wares was so widespread in the
Soviet Union: at no other point in its history did ordinary Soviet people have as
much access to foreign goods. From this perspective, it is hardly surprising that
their concept of what constituted a high-quality item should change and their
expectations should rise. Moreover, this was a phenomenon almost entirely of the
authorities own making.
Consumer expectations were also likely to rise because, despite its aversion to
meaningful reforms, the Brezhnev government continued to tinker with various
measures to improve matters in the consumer sphere. However superficial these
might have been, the government advertised its efforts widely, as it never gave up
the claim that the material well-being of the population was the Partys priority.
The mass media were permitted to carry criticism of consumer industry and
bash the quality of goods in their articles and by printing letters from disgruntled

34

Between failure and success

consumers, while government speeches regularly lamented problems with light

industry and trade. Apart from the limited efforts to modernize light industry, the
1970s saw a steady stream of decrees which sought to improve production and
make it responsive to demand. The Council of Ministers in 1968 increased the
amount of fines that factories would have to pay if they violated a contract signed
with a trade organization. In 1969, new regulations on supplying consumer goods
sought to discipline producers further.116 In 1974, another decree criticized light
industry for insufficient attention to consumer preferences and called for improvements in planning. It granted factories the right to choose, in consultation with
trade organizations, which goods they wanted to produce and in what quantities,
provided they fulfilled the plan in retail prices. But within a few years it became
clear that this had only encouraged further the custom of making expensive goods
to fulfil the plan quicker.117 The same decree proposed to study consumer demand
through a network of brand stores and authorized the issuing of hard-currency
loans to the Ministry of Light Industry so that it could buy abroad high-quality
supplies and even know-how. Two years later the Central Committee of the
CPSU produced another document which criticized light industry for poorly
organized management, the ineffective use of labour and resources, and the low
quality of output, demanding that these shortcomings be addressed.118
Without structural reforms, decrees and directives had predictably little effect.
Direct orders were a norm by the early 1970s, but they never offered a true solution to the problem of producers disregard for consumer demand. Factories often
changed the terms of contracts with trade organizations after they had come into
force, or simply presented their trade partners with a fait accompli by shipping
goods other than those previously agreed. In other cases, suppliers shipped fewer
goods than stated in the contract. As the above-mentioned decrees stipulated, they
were liable to pay fines for these violations of terms, but it was often cheaper and
easier for a factory to pay up rather than manufacture the required goods. A typical example of utter indifference as to whether output fitted demand is provided
by the Moscow textile factory Raduga (Rainbow). In the early 1970s, Raduga
was producing considerable quantities of bolonia raincoats. A few years earlier
these items had enjoyed enormous popularity with consumers, but by 1971 fashions in Moscow had moved on, and city shops accepted only a limited amount of
bolonia raincoats from the factory a modest 10 per cent of its total output. The
rest of the coats, worth approximately 90 million roubles, were shipped to other
regions. However, Moscow desperately needed more coats, just of a different
kind woollen and flannel ones. Raduga planned to produce these, but too few
of them: up to an amount of 13 million roubles, whereas Moscow needed at least
60 million roubles worth. In a desperate bid to satisfy consumer demand, the
Ministry of Trade began importing flannel coats from other cities, venturing as
far as Khabarovsk in the Far East, while the Raduga factory next door absolutely
refused to change its output.119 The factory with a colourful name turned out to be
a hard-core repeat offender. Several years later, Moscow GUM also complained
about Raduga: it sabotaged sales by supplying coats in unpopular colours and
patterns, and ignored GUMs numerous orders for the padded raincoats that were

Between failure and success

35

120

popular with consumers. A clothing factory based right in the capital of the
country was able to go on for years routinely violating its trade agreements. This
was business as usual.
Factories continued to complain about short supplies of fabric, dyes and trimmings. Even labour was a scarce commodity. In 1968, in the Russian republic
alone, 39,000 workers, or 2 per cent of the entire labour force in light industry,
were taken to work in the collective farm fields to help with the harvest and that
was just in one month.121 By the mid-1970s, industry also lacked qualified specialists: in the Gorky region, for example, 45 per cent of all directors and their
deputies at sewing factories were practitioners rather than trained specialists,
while a quarter of all engineers in the sector in fact had no specialist training.122
Although the 1974 decree gave factories the right to choose what kinds of
goods to make, in practice this choice was often made for them by the suppliers
of whatever materials happened to go into their final product. For example, in the
1970s, employees of one clothing plant in Kiev for years faced a dilemma deciding what to sew from an apparently hideous material they received with unenviable regularity from a textile plant in Ivano-Frankovsk, also in Ukraine. They did
not have the heart to make childrens garments out of a fabric in such a dirty and
faded colour; for men it was considered to be too bright, while for women it
would be too unattractive. Eventually, they decided to use the material to produce
pantaloons: tens of thousands of pairs of ugly long knitted pants.123 This was not
their preference.
Shops were supposed to be the guardians of consumer interests, but, given the
general conditions of shortages and the hegemony of producers over sellers, they
often felt compelled to accept whatever factories offered. They were also under
pressure to fulfil their own sales plans, and refusing a batch of goods from a
supplier at the last moment, given the practice of storming at factories, would
jeopardize their own plan fulfilment and bonuses. Ultimately, the consumer
suffered. For example, when a sewing factory in Belgorod found itself under
pressure to fulfil its annual plan in 1978, it used the fabric intended for womens
dresses to produce curtains. Making a curtain was much quicker: workers simply
cut the material into pieces of the required size and stitched them round the edges.
The curtains were then shipped to shops, where customers bought them to
make dresses from the curtains that looked so attractive.124

Improvements in Soviet trade

While the examples above paint a miserable picture, they also suggest that some
efforts were made to get the system to work. It was not unheard of for factories
to be attentive to the requirements of trade. In his report to the State Committee
for Peoples Control, the deputy minister for trade in Belorussia cited several
instances in 1972 when the republics furniture factories even revised their plans
upwards in response to requests from retail specialists.125 When things did not go
well, factories complained to the authorities and the press in a bid to get suppliers
to improve their wares; shops and wholesale trading firms sought to discipline

36

Between failure and success

producers who violated terms of agreement through fines. For example, in 1974
the arbitration court of the Saratov regional committee examined 2,548 cases of
this kind and issued fines to the total sum of over 4 million roubles.126 The cases
could reach as high as the State Arbitration Tribunal (Gosarbitrazh), as happened
with a dispute between the Moscow furniture trading company Mosmebeltorg
and the Moscow-based furniture plant No. 2 in 1969. This story is particularly
interesting because it suggests that consumers were not always automatically disadvantaged. Trouble erupted when in the middle of the year the plant received an
additional special order for furniture from none other than the Kremlin, which
requested fittings for a new Central Committee facility, the Council of Ministers
building in the Kremlin, and the Lenin Museum. Clearly, plant No. 2 was not in a
position to refuse such a client, and instead it warned Mosmebeltorg that it would
be unable to deliver some of the wardrobes for which it was contracted because of
the special order. But the trading firm would have none of it, and the regional
trade authorities backed it up. The plant then went to Gosarbitrazh, confident that
the special order would get priority, but to its furious surprise Gosarbitrazh ruled
in favour of the trading firm. Special order or not, the plant had to deliver its wardrobes to Mosmebeltorg. To the appeal from the plant that such a decision was
politically incorrect, the chief arbiter of Gosarbitrazh responded that the law is
the law, and the contract with the firm had to be honoured. The most likely outcome of the dispute was that the plant would have to pay a fine and the shops
would not get all of their furniture, while the Kremlin would, but, in principle at
least, the final arbitration was in favour of the consumer.127
Time and resources were spent on studying what consumers wanted. Wholesale
firms and shops compiled annual, quarterly and even monthly reports on sales
and the demand for various goods and forwarded them to the republican branches
of VNIIKS and other relevant authorities. Shops set up exhibitions where new
goods could be bought and organized consumer conferences: for instance, in the
Minsk region, the marketing section of the republican footwear firm Belobuvtorg
held four conferences in 1966, asking a total of 2,000 shoppers in villages and
towns to comment on the quality and variety of samples of footwear made by
different factories.128 There were regular local campaigns, called the day of
unsatisfied demand, when shops polled specifically those customers who left the
shop without making a purchase to find out the reasons. Letters to newspapers
were not only read by their staff but were reported by editors to the Central
Committee. Extraordinarily, when some of the most desperate or optimistic
consumers wrote to trade ministries asking for help in getting this or that item,
their requests were sometimes granted.129
Considerable energy was also expended on checking the quality of produced
goods and filtering out faulty items. In 1973 alone, 8,000 inspections in the shops
of the Russian republic rejected 20 per cent of examined goods and foodstuffs. In
the same year, state control agents visited 1,788 factories of light industry and
found that well over half of them were producing goods below the accepted
standards.130 These examples certainly tell a story of low quality, but they also
suggest that the state agencies took steps to deal with the problem. The Committee

Between failure and success

37

for Peoples Control, which had a designated department for trade and catering,
also paid attention in its inspections to the layout of merchandise and the general
set up of shops.131
The experience of shopping for consumer goods could still be a nightmare,
but by the 1970s it had improved, especially in cities and towns. The retail network tried to address problems of service and organization. The exhausting and
humiliating over-the-counter system in shops was gradually being replaced with
self-service. Instead of standing in three lines to buy one item (one queue to view
it, another to pay for it, and finally a queue to collect it in exchange for the
receipt), customers would need to queue only once to pay at the exit for all the
goods they picked up in the store. Putting merchandise on open access saved
shoppers time, but it also helped to spare them some of the irritation and rudeness of the shop assistants, who would no longer fume at a picky customer for
having the temerity to ask to be shown this or that item at the counter, while a
long queue of others looked on, waiting for their turn. By the summer of 1972,

Figure 1.1 Open-plan shopping facilities: clothing section of the Belarus department
store in Minsk, 1983.
Iu. Ivanov, RIA Novosti. Used with permission.

38

Between failure and success

Moscow alone had 1,300 self-service shops, including some big department
stores and food shops.132 These shops were not just the privilege of the capital:
the much smaller Saratov saw the opening of 164 self-service stores between
1966 and 1971, and by 1975 their number grew further by a factor of 2.4.133
Stores began to offer additional services for instance, tailoring and alterations
as did 225 stores in Moscow in 1972. Patrons could take a break from the rigours
of queuing in a caf or even a restaurant. The Moscow trade authorities were
especially proud of the department store Pervomaiskii, a two-storey spacious
building staffed by 500 sales assistants, which also included a self-service food
hall, a restaurant, a canteen, and a caf which could seat 400 persons. Moscow
had traditionally been a location for a handful of model shops, whose function
was to showcase the future modes of socialist trade, but this sort of thing was no
longer exceptional. In 1972, 200 shops in the capital had cafs serving hot coffee,
cakes and fresh rolls.134 Furthermore, cafs were found not only in the major cities: even a rural department store might boast a coffee shop, not to mention those
in towns. As in contemporary Western societies, shopping in such places could,
theoretically, become a form of leisure and even a kind of a family outing.
Shopping was afforded a festive status by another remarkable practice: the
tradition of holiday trade ((predprazdnichnaia torgovlia) holidays in this case
often referring to ideological celebrations such as the anniversary of the October
Revolution. Other important political events, such as Party congresses and elections, also had a direct impact on shop stocks: the head of the Moscow trade
department spoke in an internal memo in 1971 of the necessity for improved
consumer service in the days in the run up to and during the XXIV Congress of
the CPSU.135 On the eve of such events shops were filled with goods in short
supply from the trade ministrys special reserves, usually various kinds of garments and footwear, and especially imported ones: French cardigans and Japanese
sweaters, British woollen scarves and jersey coats, West German shoes and mens
nylon shirts. Internal reports on holiday trade occasionally remarked that trade
is proceeding calmly, as if the authorities were expecting unmanageable crowds
of goods-hungry shoppers storming the stores for consignments of newly arrived
defitsitnyi (i.e., in short supply) merchandise. There were in fact exceptions to the
rule of public calm when particularly hot items appeared on sale: in some
Moscow shops in October 1967 customers demanded that trade in highly popular
goods continued even after the daily norms had been exhausted.136 But, mostly,
people were just glad of an opportunity to obtain coveted items.
The tradition of holiday trade did much to encourage the mentality of paternalism and reliance on the state to provide material benefits, but for the Party it
was a way of buying support to ensure legitimacy: in exchange for celebrating the
regime, its citizens got material rewards. The fact that holiday trade offered
mainly imported goods a special and much desired gift to Soviet consumers
adds irony to this method of gratifying citizens: loyalty to socialism was acquired
by offering the seductive products of capitalism. But these practices gave additional weight to declarations of the Partys concern for the material prosperity of
the citizens, while also boosting further consumers expectations.

Between failure and success

39

The policy of holiday trade was complemented by price reductions. There

were a number of campaigns to bring down retail prices, the first of them launched
as early as the spring of 1965. On 25 April, prices were lowered for a range of
consumer goods, such as photo cameras, trendy bolonia raincoats, skirts and
blouses, textiles, and also foodstuffs. This was widely advertised on the radio and
in the press and, unsurprisingly, elicited a warm response from consumers. For
a certain Kalinovskaia, who came to the department store Detskii mir (Childrens
World) in Moscow, a drop in the price for a girls dress from 28.80 to 16.16 roubles
meant that she could buy two dresses for her daughter instead of one. That this was
intended as a gift from the state was not lost on shoppers: Kalinovskaia commented that the price reductions are a great gift for the [May Day] holiday.
Residents of an apartment block on Podmoskovnoe Avenue even delegated a neighbour, Comrade Dobrosklonskii, to make a note in the comments book of a local fish
shop where prices were lowered: We thank the Party and the Government for caring for the people. Thank you for giving us great joy on the eve of such a major
holiday.137 Another campaign of price cuts followed in May. All in all, lowering
prices in 1965 benefited the population by 1.2 billion roubles and also helped to
warm citizens hearts to the new administration.138 Prices for various consumer
goods were also lowered in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974.139
Keeping prices stable became a hallmark of the Brezhnev regimes relationship
with consumers. Khrushchevs successors learnt this particular lesson from the
domestic disturbances of the early 1960s, and were reminded of its importance
again by the unrest over the price hikes in Poland in the 1970s. The commitment
to stable prices was declared in public speeches at the September 1965 Plenum
and at the 1971 Party Congress and reported in the press, where both Brezhnev and
Kosygin told their audiences that retail prices could only go down and never up.
According to one propaganda brochure, the average price index during the period
1965 to 1980 went up by only 2.1 per cent, and indexes of consumer goods prices
rose by less than 1 per cent.140
In reality, the prices of many consumer goods crept up over the years. Factories
producing these goods tended to respond to ever higher plan targets by concentrating on more expensive items instead. During 19713, production of shoes in
Russian light industry went up by 1.2 per cent in monetary terms, while the actual
quantity dropped.141 Between 1968 and 1973, the average price for an item of
outer wear went up by 1.69 roubles; television sets got more expensive by almost
30 roubles; radios went up by over 18 roubles on average, and refrigerators cost
27 roubles more.142 The introduction of new and improved models also provided
opportunities to get a higher price tag assigned to products by the State Committee
for Prices, even if the actual changes to the item were insubstantial. Even shops
were at times tempted to display incorrect prices, as inspections of price control
commissions were rare.143
People complained. In December 1969, the Minister for Trade, A. Struev, had
to go on state television to dismiss the rumours that the government was about to
raise prices. His appearance caused several viewers to write angry letters and
accuse the minister of lying: prices had gone up in previous years, they said, with

40

Between failure and success

or without the government admitting it. The references found in one letter to the
Stalin years, when there were more goods and [they were] cheaper, must have
made its readers in the Central Committee uneasy.144
In order to keep the prices down the Kremlin had to fight battles not only
against factories and enterprises but also against their own government agencies,
such as the Ministry of Finance, Gosplan and, ultimately, the Council of
Ministers. In June 1971, the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers
issued a decree which criticized the union ministries, the republican councils of
ministers and other state institutions for failing to follow the official policy on
prices, for allowing prices to be inflated, which was seen as especially intolerable, and for setting prices for new goods that were disproportionate to their
value.145 The decree had limited effect. In December 1974, Brezhnevs assistant
V. Golikov complained in a memo to his boss that the Council of Ministers was
yet again scheming to increase prices for vodka and wine, petrol, plane tickets,
taxi fares, and so on, and that Gosplan and various ministries were constantly
seeking ways to push retail prices up in violation of the Partys decisions. This
was not the first time that Golikov had raised the alarm. He argued that the ministries used the price hikes to cover up for their failures, and the money they
gained as a result was effectively taken from the pocket of the state and the
people. Not only was such a strategy economically unsound, but also, he warned,
politically, ideologically (both domestically and internationally), we stand to
lose a lot from such a policy.146
The upward progression of prices was, however, inevitable. The modernization of industry was proceeding slowly, yet plants were expected to produce
goods of increasingly high quality and technological sophistication. The cost
was bound to climb, and the factories had no choice but to pass at least some of
this on to the consumer. According to a report from Belobuvtorg, the introduction
of better models of shoes and boots and the use of new fashionable materials
had pushed retail prices up from an average of 9.53 roubles per pair in 1975 to
10.36 roubles three years later. The most expensive were, of course, shoes and
boots made of genuine leather: on average, these cost 13.81 roubles a pair in
1975 and 14.39 roubles in 1977.147 This might have contravened Party policy and
preferences, but the real impact of such trends on the consumer should be kept
in perspective. Prices were climbing, but so were wages, benefits and bonuses.
Consumers concerns in the 1970s and early 1980s were less about prices and
more about the availability and quality of consumer goods.148 After all, they did
want things that were better designed, more fashionable, more sophisticated and
made of quality materials.
To some extent such things were already supplied by imports (bad for light
industry, but good for consumers), and Soviet producers, willy-nilly, had to keep
up. Rather than inventing the wheel, light industry made use of foreign goods to
improve its own products: copying foreign designs, often without troubling with
copyright, was a routine procedure. For instance, when trading firms in Belorussia
received imported shoes which looked attractive, they invited designers from
the Minsk shoe factory Luch to copy the designs and put them into production

Between failure and success

41

149

at the factory. Soviet fashion specialist Iren Andreeva recalls that, from her
very first trip abroad in the mid-1960s, she brought back a small dark blue handbag she had bought in Lyons. She took it straight to a Moscow design laboratory
so that they could make a copy. With some modifications, the style became a hot
sell for years to come.150 Sooner or later, most Western fashions made their way
into the Soviet Union, and not just to the black market. Admittedly, it took them
some time, but in 1973 light industry even launched its own version of that ultimate article of capitalist fashion: jeans.151 Not everything was the result of piracy:
oil-generated hard currency was spent also on licences, for instance, to produce
the West German Adidas running shoes in 1979.152

Concluding remarks
The efforts described above do not change the fundamental truth that the Soviet
regime did not create the same everyday prosperity that many consumers in
postwar Western societies enjoyed. But they do show that, in the Brezhnev era,
the situation for consumers changed in important ways. The regime came as
close as it had ever been to creating normal modern conditions for personal
consumption. The material benefits that the Brezhnev regime bestowed on its
consumers might have been modest by some Western standards, but these were
major improvements in comparison to the Soviet life of just a few years earlier.
In that sense, the 1970s were both a time of prosperity and
d a time of difficulties
for consumers. It is this combination of success and failure that was key in shaping late Soviet consumer culture i.e., the specific conjuncture of practices and
attitudes towards material goods characteristic of the 1970s. The positive benefits of the Kosygin reform may have been limited, but for Soviet light industry,
which had suffered neglect for decades, they provided an unprecedented boost.
Soviet shoppers had more money at their disposal (also, in part, thanks to the
reform), and Soviet shops had more goods to offer them. When the reform led
to improvements in the performance of light industry, it emboldened the government to pledge ever better results in consumer goods production and boosted
popular expectations. But it also meant that subsequent failures bred frustrations.
To prevent these frustrations from boiling over, the government tried to keep
prices relatively stable and spent precious hard currency on importing large
quantities of consumer goods from the West, Yugoslavia, and other socialist
countries. The regime did not rely exclusively on imports: trade agencies and producers were perpetually struggling to make the Soviet system work. Meanwhile
the regime bombarded people with promises to solve the problems and do ever
more for its consumers. Holiday trade, often in imported goods, encapsulated
these messages particularly well.
It is hardly surprising that in these circumstances consumer expectations were
steadily rising. This fact, of which the ideologues were simultaneously proud
and wary, was due almost entirely to the decisions that the Brezhnev leadership
had made on consumer policy. Partly, of course, it was also the legacy of the
previous leadership, which had brought popular prosperity to the centre stage of

42

Between failure and success

domestic politics. But, mostly, consumers came to expect better goods from the
shops because they now had more money, because the press and the politicians
were constantly telling them that they were entitled to these, and because there
were in fact now more decent goods than before, including some from abroad.
Foreign goods enabled even those people who had never set foot in a Western
country to make some unfavourable comparisons between their own and the
capitalist way of life.
The prevailing view of historians is that the mistake of the late socialist regimes
was to compete with Western states on their home territory of personal consumption when the bulk of Soviet expenditure continued to go on defence and on
expanding Soviet engagement with the Third World. But it is also worth remembering that Soviet ideology did not plunge headlong into copying the West in
lifestyle without adding anything of its own to the model of modern consumption.
To distinguish themselves from the capitalist philistines, the Soviets introduced
an Enlightenment-inspired concept of rational norms of consumption based on
rational needs, and the rhetoric of improvement in living standards was balanced
by criticism of materialistic preoccupations, which grew into a veritable war on
consumerism in the 1970s. One way in which the Brezhnev regime responded to
rising material aspirations was to try and cater to them by tinkering with industry,
trade and imports, but another way was to curb these expectations by highlighting
precisely the differences between Western and Soviet philosophies of consumption. It is to these efforts that I would like to turn in the next chapter.

Redefining the norms of socialist

consumption

In 1974, the national satirical magazine Krokodill (Crocodile) offered its audience
two cartoons with very different takes on the place of consumption in Soviet
society. The first shows two groups of cheerful demonstrators: one carries a
sign for Group A, representing heavy industry goods, while the other holds
the placard Group B, a term for consumer goods. The Group A bunch is
marching ahead and urging Group B to catch up (see Figure 2.1). The cartoon
is an illustration of the Brezhnevs governments pledge to increase the rates of
production for consumer goods so that they would eventually catch up with
heavy industry. Growth in production, of course, implies growth in consumption, for which this image signals official approval. Yet, only a few weeks later,
Krokodill ran another cartoon which depicted a lanky youngster dressed in bellbottoms and cowboy-adorned jumper, reclining lazily on a couch, while his
mother addresses his father: You have to get a second job: the child has grown;

Figure 2.1 Your group is falling behind Catch up!, Krokodil, no. 12, 1974.
Source: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

44

Redefining the norms of socialist consumption

his needs have increased The foreign liquor bottle, pictures of naked girls
in the background, and restaurant bills and fines in the hand of the mother make
clear that material consumption means vices: alcoholism, debauchery and
delinquency (see Figure 2.2).
These two contrasting images were typical of the ambivalence that permeated
public discussion of material goods in the Brezhnev era. Promises of abundance
were a permanent feature of Party declarations, while the press regularly praised
fussy consumers. On the other hand, preoccupation with personal material comfort
was seen to pose a challenge to Soviet ideology. One could see the lad depicted in
the second cartoon as representing the Soviet consumer: to satisfy his growing needs the
paternalistic state now had to work much harder; yet this child did not resemble a
proper communist. Measures had to be taken to offset consumptions negative
effects. As a result, citizens received mixed signals from the authorities. They were
told that constant improvement of their material well-being was the chief task of
the Communist Party. Together with public attention to the successes and failures
of consumer industry, this legitimized their aspirations for a better material life.
However, these aspirations were simultaneously restricted by attempts in the press,

Figure 2.2 You have to get a second job: the child has grown; his needs have increased
, Krokodil, no. 17, 1974.
Source: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

Redefining
d f
the
h norms off socialist
l consumption

45

propaganda, and even cinema and literature to depict consumption as a dangerous

breeding ground for materialism and a host of other immoral qualities.
The official line on consumption had never been free of ambivalence.
Communist propaganda was not entirely averse to prosperity. Julie Hessler notes
that the Bolsheviks took a favourable view of material comforts even in the
1920s, but, when economic conditions deteriorated later in the decade, this support was out of necessity replaced with the revolutionary ethic of austerity.1 In
the mid-1930s, there was an abrupt rhetorical reorientation away from asceticism
and back towards prosperity. Enjoyment of material goods was promoted within
the framework of the kulturnost campaign, which encouraged an interest in
possessions and legitimized consumption by tying it to culture.2 Celebrating
consumption amidst chronic shortages might seem perverse, but scarcity was
compensated by images of abundance in advertising, by the emphasis on luxuries, and by the publicized shopping expeditions of model consumers such as
Stakhanovites.3 Socialist consumption was welcomed as a tool of modernization:
Soviet citizens were expected to develop the skills and habits of modern consumers.4
In the postwar era, the positive connotations of consumer comforts were revived
with possibly even more vigour when the taste of the Soviet middle class of
Party-state functionaries for sophisticated, expensive and lavish lifestyles,
involving such things as carved furniture, imported perfume, elegant ties, liquor
and opera, was publicly encouraged and hailed as cultured.5 Yet, this apparent
embracing of consumerism under Stalin was not unproblematic. While concessions
were made, they had to stay within the theoretical boundaries of Marxism
Leninism and remained largely unsupported by production efforts. Consumers
were not left free to indulge: they had to be educated and monitored by the state.
As Hessler points out in regard to the 1930s efforts to develop socialist cultured
trade, the Stalin-era approach to consumption was didactic and incorporated the
dichotomy which subsequent Soviet governments were to face in the decades to
come: on the one hand, consumption needed to be guided and, on the other,
consumption needed to grow.6
Khrushchevs policies threw this dichotomy into even sharper relief. Official
legitimization of consumption was pushed further when the new Party Programme
of 1961 linked material abundance with communism.7 Whereas Stalinist discourse locked the spotlight on Stakhanovites shopping in exemplary stores such
as TsUM (the Central Department Store in Moscow), under Khrushchev the
transition to mass production of consumer goods and mass construction of individual housing meant that the rest of the toiling masses were also welcomed to
modern consumption.8 The notion that the consumer had a degree of entitlement
took shape in the press, even if this was only rhetorical.9 At the same time, there
were important discursive checks on potential mass consumerism. The consumption promoted by Khrushchev was far more modest than Stalins vision of
abundance. It had little place for luxuries, and its new aesthetic norms renounced
excess.10 Less emphasis was put on privacy and more on public control.
Khrushchev-era consumption was more than gratification for a population at
the end of its tether; in the absence of more violent means of coercion, it was

46

Redefining the norms of socialist consumption

envisaged as a way of controlling citizens through taste, norms, and the use of
objects contained in the most private of spheres, the home.11 As Victor Buchli argues,
the state increased rather than diminished its efforts to dominate the private sphere.12
The greater polyphony of voices on socialist norms of consumption those of
designers, producers, planners and state officials, often locked in institutional competition with one another might have made it more difficult to enforce official
norms,13 but it also meant that attempts at state paternalism increased in comparison
with the Stalin era.
Ambivalence in defining the place of material goods in socialist society was
relatively innocuous as long as the threat of mass consumption remained in the
future. This was certainly the case in the Stalin period and to a lesser extent even
in the Khrushchev decade. But the growing prosperity of the long 1970s made
these issues much more urgent. The Brezhnev-era authorities were keen to take
credit for the boom in personal consumption but also anxious to control rising
consumer expectations during the late 1960s and the 1970s. As a result, the
boundaries between permissible consumption and materialistic excesses became
increasingly blurred. Yet, these boundaries were important in order to distinguish
Soviet alternative modernity (and its prosperity) from its consumerist bourgeois
counterpart. To complicate things even more, the official position on consumption was entangled with a host of other issues, such as Cold War politics, public
legitimization, the end of de-Stalinization, Russian nationalism, and dtente.
Discourse on consumption was often inflected by policy objectives in other areas
of political and economic life something that is illuminated by the case study of
home furniture in Chapter 6.
The first port of call for examining the dichotomy in official approaches to
consumption under developed socialism is contemporary discussions in the
press. But other media, such as cinema and literature, also had much to say about
consumerism and attitudes to material goods in the Brezhnev era. For the first
time, anxieties about the material aspirations of ordinary people came to occupy
a central place in literary and cinematic treatments of modern Soviet society,
reflecting the degree to which consumerism had penetrated socialist culture in the
1970s. This strand of public discourse is representative of the views of the cultural intelligentsia, whose own relationship with materialism was in many ways
contradictory. Not only were many public voices now speaking out on material
life, but they failed to present a convincing unified position on modern socialist
consumption at a time when the regime needed it most.

Definitions and socialist consumption in Brezhnev-era

Marxist discourse
Before we delve into public discussions of proper and improper consumer behaviour, we should examine how theoretical Marxists viewed consumption in the
long 1970s. A glance at definitions is also worthwhile because there were significant differences in the meanings of the term consumer in comparison with
its Western usage. In the Soviet Union, consumer ((potrebitel) was ascribed a

Redefining
d f
the
h norms off socialist
l consumption 47
much narrower and somewhat different meaning: it contained the implication
of culturedness (kulturnost), as the word was used mostly in the context of
cultured consumption that is, consuming in a healthy, polite, informed and
politically correct fashion.
However, some notion of consumers as a group with certain rights began to
develop under Khrushchev. As Elena Bogdanova has shown, the press began in
the 1960s to speak of consumers as a group with legitimate interests.14 Jane
Zavisca notes that Khrushchevs attention to living standards solidified the place
of the consumer as a permanent constituent and symbol in Soviet politics.15 This
notion was reflected in Soviet consumer associations (potrebitelskie
(
obshchestva) and in the system of peoples control (narodnyi kontrol), which
inspected the quality of consumer goods in the retail network and factories in a
bid to defend Soviet buyers rights to satisfactory products. Nevertheless, the
words potrebitelskoe obshchestvo never meant consumer society as a sociocultural entity, nor did potrebitelskaia kultura mean consumer culture as a set
of values and beliefs. When the issue of consumer interests arose it was usually
expressed in terms of citizenship: the right to have modern, quality goods was
identified as part of Soviet citizens entitlement to high living standards. In these
cases, the tag citizens would be the preferred choice; the word buyers ((pokupateli)
was also often used.
In the years of mature socialism, concerns about consumerism brought to the
fore another, negative meaning of the word potrebitel. Given the right context, it
could join the ranks of such derogatory (in the USSR) terms as sobstvennik
(proprietor), meshchanin (philistine), priobretatelstvo (acquisitive urges) and
veshchizm (obsession with things). These were ideologically loaded concepts, of
course, and the fact that the word potrebitelskii could describe a philistine and
petty-proprietary mentality just as easily as it could convey the perfectly neutral
connotations of consumer reflected the dichotomous position that consumer
issues occupied in public discourse under Brezhnev.
Marxist thinkers conceived of consumption in terms of the satisfaction of
material needs, which was defended not just on the basis of economic necessity
but as an essential measure of material abundance, the main precondition for the
transition to communism. Detailed discussions of personal needs (potrebnosti
(
cheloveka) featured in such authoritative political journals as Kommunistt and
Voprosy ekonomiki (Issues
(
in Economics), which stressed their important place in
the project of constructing communism.
Differences from the Khrushchevist position on consumption began to show as
early as 1965, which is not very surprising in the context of political succession.
Kommunist, the leading ideological journal and a mouthpiece for all ideological
shifts, explicitly rejected Khrushchevs frugal approach to consumption in an article
published in February 1965. While the journal avoided naming the former premier
and referred instead to opponents of scientific communism, its allusions were
clear. The articles authors categorically renounced any notion of ascetic socialism, arguing that communism is incompatible with asceticism. Furthermore,
egalitarianism was once again renounced, because communism was incompatible

48

Redefining the norms of socialist consumption

with the crude levelling of needs and life interests of people, something that had
also characterized Khrushchevs efforts in the field of living standards. Instead, the
authors drew on Lenins wisdom to declare that the individualistic implications of
the growing material well-being were nothing to be feared, and that the entire purpose
behind the construction of communist society was to create full material provision
for all its members. Material demands could not be the same for all citizens because
peoples tastes and characteristics differed.16
These pronouncements can be interpreted both as a sanction for, and a selffulfilling prophecy of, the looming individualism of late Soviet society. However,
they did not mean that Marxist thinkers were happy to leave future communists to
their own faculties. Like the Western capitalists whom they accused of exploitation and manipulation of consumer needs, Soviet Marxists also firmly believed
that human needs and, by extension, consumption had to be manipulated.
Partly, this was to do with ensuring economic efficiency; the management of needs
was an instrument for influencing consumer demand in the planned economy. As
the economist A. Levin argued in Voprosy ekonomiki in 1973, the cultivation of
taste and active propaganda of rational norms in the acquisition of food and consumer goods could help guide consumption into the reasonable confines of normal needs.17 These arguments showed some continuity with the traditional
kulturnost discourse and demonstrated that the concept of rational norms, which
had received a major boost from the Khrushchevist philosophy of ascetic consumption, was not entirely abandoned by Brezhnev-era theoreticians.
Indeed, it was stressed that cultivation of rational and healthy needs is an
important part of building communism. Consumption was proper only if it was
based on rational needs. In turn, rational needs could be defined as those that
correspond to the attained levels of development of production and whose satisfaction contributes to ones development and enhances ones physical and spiritual
qualities. Two issues become clear from this. The first is the dynamic nature of
the rational needs concept: as in the Khrushchev era, it was assumed that needs
would be allowed to grow as the economy expanded. As the Kommunist articles
authors argued, of course, a persons needs are subject to constant development
and refinement, but one must not forget that the means of satisfying them also
incessantly get developed and perfected.18
Second, rational needs, and hence socialist consumption, had an important
ethical component. This component was reflected in two fundamental principles
actively promoted by late Soviet Marxists. One was that, as the above definition
implied, a citizen should not ask society for more material benefits than it could
presently provide. This postulate, expressed in the phrase the needs of the communist man must be morally justified, was also closely linked with the second
principle: consumption could only be legitimized through labour. To deserve
material benefits, man had to contribute to their production. Two founding
Marxist slogans were invoked in this regard: the socialist dictum from each
according to his abilities, to each according to his labour, and the communist
principle from each according to his abilities, to each according to his need.
The second maxim received greater emphasis, suggesting perhaps societys

Redefining
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h norms off socialist
l consumption 49
perceived (or alleged) proximity to communism. This seemingly unlimited
promise, however, was qualified: The principle of communism to each according
to his needs does not at all mean that a person will receive everything without
making any effort.19
These characteristics combined to form the idealized concept of what some
Marxist theorists called the new consumer. In their view, communism presupposed
the existence of a new type of consumer who was different not only from his
capitalist counterparts but also from his socialist brethren: he was someone who
has learnt to make his needs match the existing level of public wealth, societys
possibilities, and its attained level of material and spiritual development.20
Definitions of socialist consumption were formulated, typically for the Cold
War context, through ideological juxtaposition to the consumer society of the
West. This contrast helped define socialist consumption in terms of what it was
not: in the West, peoples needs were manipulated to create the consumer sapiens
(chelovek-potrebitel), a pliant dupe in the hands of capitalist exploiters. The
capitalists ideological ploy of consumer society gave rise to artificial and crippling needs that impoverish ones personality [and] suppress ones spiritual needs
and political activism.21 Needless to say, socialist consumption was different.
Soviet public discourse often avoided the term consumer goods altogether;
the Russian equivalent can be translated verbatim as goods for popular consumption (tovary narodnogo potrebleniia), which somehow implied a collectivist
underlay to socialist consumption.22
The idea that the new consumer had to be cultivated, as his rational needs would
not develop of their own accord, received more emphasis in specialist discussions
when anxieties about the rampant Soviet consumerism increased in the course of the
long 1970s.23 As was becoming clear, not only it was difficult to encourage real-life
consumers to abide by rational needs, but the fluid nature of these needs, which
were supposed to grow with societys prosperity, also made it tricky to decide what
the limits of rational needs at any given moment might be. With the rising material
aspirations of Soviet people, it became clear by the late 1970s that the ideal communist consumer was far from materializing. Ideologues insisted that the growth of
material well-being had to be anticipated by cultural and spiritual development;
otherwise, Soviet citizens would turn into philistines. Ideological work had to be
intensified to supervise the growth of material consumption and neutralize a possible
(and in places already occurring) negative social effect: the danger of consumerist
attitudes [and] parasitic attitudes towards society.24
Several social trends were linked to the problems with consumption.
Urbanization was blamed for making it more difficult to exercise public monitoring of individuals.25 The dissolution of millions of Soviet citizens in the sea of
faceless separate-flat apartment blocks in the densely populated cities undermined the kind of social (obshchestvennyi) control that had been traditional in the
Russian village community and was actively promoted by Khrushchev. Another
source of trouble lay in the corruptive potential of private property. Although it
could not be a source of exploitation under socialism, in conditions of growing
prosperity it could become an object of fixation [and] inspire envy and snobbery

50

Redefining the norms of socialist consumption

and a false sense of prestige, turning a person into an auxiliary of material

goods.26 While Soviet consumption still lacked the worst attributes of capitalist
consumption, such as class exploitation, it was dangerously approximating the
Western model in its negative social effects.
In summary, Soviet Marxist theoreticians working under developed socialism
were far from ignoring consumption, but naturally they were keen to develop
socialist definitions and theories of consumption that would stress the systems
differences from that of the capitalist West. Yet, the theories diverged painfully
from reality. Social processes taking place in late Soviet society had both similarities to those of the West and some distinctive features, which were no less
disheartening for the Soviet project.

The press on the importance of consumer satisfaction

Theoretical journals such as Kommunistt were certainly important for setting the
tone on consumption, but the main forum for transmitting the official line to a
broad audience was the mass media, and especially the press. The very first
weeks of the new administration saw Pravda inform its readership of the firm
intention of the Brezhnev government to continue and improve on its predecessors consumer policies. This was conveyed by bold titles and optimistic articles
such as the front-page leader on 15 November 1964 entitled More goods of great
quality and variety! or a selection of reports on low-quality goods under the heading Interests of consumers to the centre of attention!, which ran on 12 November.
These articles highlighted existing shortcomings in the consumer sector and
hinted at upcoming improvements, soliciting popularity for the new leadership
and ultimately preparing the ground for announcing Kosygins economic reform.
Perhaps they also reflected some genuine faith in the possibility of improving the
consumer industry: for instance, Pravda predicted in 1968 that a privately owned
car would soon become a basic necessity.27 Much of the 1970s saw similarly
confident pronouncements in the national and local press. As they had done under
Khrushchev, newspapers and magazines continued to run articles with resolute
titles to help consumers feel the Party cared: Commodities to the People; More
Necessary and High-Quality Goods for the People; The Consumer Is Always
Right!; Improve Quality, Increase Variety of the Products of Light Industry;
The Main Goal: The Eighth Five-Year Plan and the Peoples Well-Being.28 The
capitals daily newspaper Moskovskaia pravda claimed in 1971 that in its efforts
the Party invariably gives priority to its fundamental goal represented by the formula: Everything for the sake of man and for his benefit [vsio vo imia cheloveka,
na blago cheloveka].29 Such oft-repeated pledges turned into clichs, but they
served to legitimize peoples interests in material goods and highlighted the fact
that the regime assumed responsibility for providing them.
Naturally, these publications reflected the official line. As we have seen in
the previous chapter, the years 19715 were officially dubbed the five-year
period of upsurge in peoples prosperity.30 Party directives for these years
emphasized that the improvement of living standards was the economys main

Redefining
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l consumption 51
task, and they also mentioned the specific consumer goods that this implied
(domestic appliances and childrens clothing, for instance).31 When the new
constitution was adopted in 1977, it contained a separate article proclaiming
that the more comprehensive satisfaction of peoples growing material and
spiritual needs was the highest goal of socialist production.32 Various publications continued to stress the importance of researching consumer demand, and
such surveys were conducted regularly, with their findings reported to relevant
agencies. In the 1970s, consumer rights protection entered the legal code as a
number of laws were passed to that effect.33
Letters of complaint from consumers were also printed regularly in newspapers.34 Ambitious consumers received praise. The contemporary customer,
according to many publications, was demanding and hard to please, and these
attributes were fully approved. In one example, Pravda, the national mouthpiece
of the Central Committee of the CPSU, supported the desire of women to own
fashionable hats, stating that women are not interested in having a pile of hats
[shliapnyi val]. They want to buy fashionable and beautiful hats, those that look
good on them and suit their age.35 Rather than chastise those who paid too much
attention to looks and the trendiness of their purchases, newspapers presented
these suspect developments as signs of the countrys economic progress. Being
demanding was not a remnant of philistine mentality but a sign of increase in the
cultural level of the population.36
For decades, official discourse had lambasted the philistine mentality while at
the same time putting forward a vision of the ideal Soviet consumer as possessing
impeccable taste. From the Stalin-era campaigns for cultured consumption to the
Khrushchev-era efforts to modernize everyday life, the authorities encouraged
the development of the cultured, quality-seeking, thinking consumer. However,
specific ideas of what such a consumer could legitimately want changed a good
deal over time. From the mid-1930s, and well into the postwar era, a discerning
consumer was one who sought luxury, ornamental household objects and handmade finery, and some contemporary commentators even lamented the fact that the
earlier emphasis on collectivized daily practices, such as dining in public canteens,
had prevented consumers from developing individual taste.37 Under Khrushchev,
such desire for luxury was condemned in no uncertain terms, and notions of the
modern consumer harked back to the minimalist ideals of the late 1920s.38 In sartorial terms, discerning shoppers of the early 1960s were expected to strive for a
minimal wardrobe of easily combined pieces that could be diversified by simple
accessories.39 Occasionally references to fashion slipped in, but they were fenced in
by the tight boundaries of simplicity, restraint and stability of styles.40 Nevertheless,
interest in consumption remained legitimate: consumers were encouraged to
develop taste and give thought to their wardrobes and domestic furnishings.
In the Brezhnev period, those long-standing contradictions in approaches to
socialist consumption intensified. The limits on approved consumer desires
expanded a good deal, now including such parameters as sophistication and
lavishness of design, decorativeness, fashion, and the latest technology in
household durables. The focus shifted from what consumers should want to

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what they actually wanted. In 1968, the deputy head of Gosplan, Nikolai
Mirotvortsev, told Pravda readers that shortages were not the only problem
with consumer goods; quality was another.41 And quality, as his article made
clear, no longer meant only the absence of defects but included an appearance,
design, and packaging that are pleasing to the eye. Similarly, the illustrated
magazine for urban women Rabotnitsa (Female Worker) criticized light industry for interpreting quality merely as durability, compliance with production
standards and lack of visible flaws, but not necessarily as beauty, trendiness
and contemporary looks.42 Fashionable acquired a much stronger presence on
the list of desirable characteristics. Expensive was a sign of bad taste in the
early 1960s,43 but a decade or so later it was seen as a sign of quality, at least
in furniture.
Shoppers who were prepared to spend time and effort in seeking out goods that
conformed to such extravagant requirements were increasingly seen not as an
ideal, but as a norm. In 1968 Pravda hinted at a changing climate in retail:
Previously, there were not enough [consumer] goods and any commodity
would be gladly snatched as soon as it got unloaded from a truck. But
now the picture has changed the variety of goods is growing fast, and
sometimes we even have excessive stocks.44
The sense that consumer standards had transformed was firmly established by the
mid-1970s. Ten years ago life demanded more goods and priority was given
to greater quantity, reasoned Rabotnitsa in 1975. Now, when there is a lot of
everything, when there is choice, a consumer is fussier and more selective.45
These developments were welcomed, but they inevitably appeared in tandem
with reports of problems in industry and trade, which both encouraged consumers
to expect more and simultaneously confessed to the regular failures of industry to
meet those expectations. By the 1980s, even public discussions made clear that
things were not going well on the consumption front. Never mind fashionable
garments or stylish furniture producing enough toothpaste was such an embarrassing problem that it merited mention in Brezhnevs speech at a Central
Committee plenary session in November 1979.46 In 1981, the specialist journal
Sovetskaia torgovlia (Soviet Trade) admitted: The problem of satisfying consumer demand for everyday consumer goods has been aggravated in the past
years. This was more than an economic predicament: Defitsitt [shortages] is in
fundamental conflict with the objective laws of socialism.47
Such reports might have been tolerated as a safety valve for consumers frustrations and as a smokescreen for the Party-states inability to find effective
solutions, but this was a dangerous gamble. An entire generation grew up surrounded by the upbeat promises of a socialist consumer paradise, where material
comforts were a prerequisite for communism. It is symbolic that a young protagonist in one popular 1984 comedy film describes her dream as an improvement
in well-being, using the standard phrase of contemporary propaganda.48 Like this
fictional character, many young Soviets gained the confidence to seek creature

Redefining
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l consumption 53
comforts and fashionable looks, viewing them as an entitlement for which the
Party-state was responsible. Soviet citizens in the 1970s might have developed a
mental habit of blocking many a propaganda clich, but unwavering improvement of material well-being was one official motto that sank in.

The press on the dangers of consumerism

But the Soviet regime was far from embracing consumerism in the 1970s. The same
developments that gave the authorities grounds for public self-congratulation
i.e., the presence of the discerning consumer on the shopping scene also made it
imperative to define the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable attitudes
towards material possessions, especially now that the population enjoyed unprecedented spending power. Rational needs were very well in theory, but what did this
mean for the daily practice of wanting, buying and using material goods? Where
did the demanding consumer end and the rotten materialist begin?
The Brezhnev-era press devoted thousands of column inches to exposing the
problems of over-indulgence. Journalists coined a word to describe unhealthy
preoccupation with things, which gained wide currency: veshchizm combined

Figure 2.3 Marriage of convenience according to 1970s ideas: The mother is houseproud, the father is from the intelligentsia, and the apartment is spacious.
Alright, Ill marry!, Krokodil, no. 10, 1974.
Source: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

54

Redefining the norms of socialist consumption

the Russian word for a thing (veshch) with an ending that hinted at ideology
(-ism). Unintentionally echoing the English meaning of consumption as a
disease, the Russian veshchizm was described as a virus which could consume
those who were not careful. It is a serious illness, veshchizm, claimed
Rabotnitsa. Complications arising from it entail family discord, the collapse of
friendships; they turn a person into a stranger in his collective; render his
thoughts and feelings primitive, and destroy his character.49 Newspapers and
popular magazines were full of stories about conflicts fuelled by consumerism.
Neighbours got into a fight because one was careless with the others car; children quarrelled with their parents over an antique piano or reduced their mothers
to tears over a fashionable suit; people queuing in a grocery store humiliated a
war veteran over two kilos of tomatoes 50 Generational conflict was often
defined in terms of a clash between materialism and old spiritual values.
Special condemnation was reserved for materialistic considerations in marital
decisions: the press deplored the tendency to look for prestigious spouses.
These were urbanites with high-status jobs (thats what I call a fianc a real
Muscovite working in foreign trade), with separate apartments, connections
and decent incomes (see Figure 2.3).51 Such marriages could never last, readers
were told: Real happiness wont come to a house where materialism, acquisitiveness and pettiness reign and where money and things serve as the only
measure of love and sympathy.52
The press also linked consumerism to crime. A judge from Tomsk claimed in
1978 that money, avarice, and the desire to accumulate played a fatal role in
turning good citizens into criminals.53 The state had traditionally viewed profiteering as a dangerous economic transgression. In the late 1970s there were
official campaigns to intensify the fight against speculation in goods.54 In 1975,
local courts were told to toughen their attitude to such cases. Consumers were
encouraged to give profiteers a wide berth are the most fantastic boots [or] the
best umbrellas worth risking your good name, making a deal with your conscience, and encouraging acts alien to our ethics?55 Such strong rhetoric was,
however, undermined by the fact that, in practice, legal sanctions were not that
intimidating in the Brezhnev era: a fine of up to 30 roubles for purchasing goods
from foreigners and a 50-rouble fine for a repeat crime were unlikely to deter black
marketeers in the lucrative business of fartsa (illegal trade in foreign goods),56
while the all-union campaigns for tougher punishment of economic crimes often
came to little on the local level due to the lack of resources and will.57
If the line between legal and illegal was more or less clear, at least in theory,
the line separating socialist from unsocialist behaviour in everyday life needed
more explanation. As in Marxist discourse, in the press the most logical way of
defining a rotten consumerist was by describing the socialist consumers ultimate
Other: the Western consumer. Ample derogatory references were made to
Western society as a society of mass consumption where obsession with things
was linked to moral corruption, the erosion of human relations and various other
vices sexual looseness, drugs, alcoholism and violence. For instance, the Soviet
weekly glossy Ogonekk (Little Light) told its readers that, during Christmas

Redefining
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l consumption 55
holidays, affluent Americans racked their brains over what presents to buy for
their rich friends and relatives but remained completely indifferent to poverty, unemployment and racial problems in their country.58 Trying to arouse disgust in its
readers over capitalists obsessive consumerism, the article offered telling details
and described New York shops selling mink coats for pets, ladys guns for girlfriends, and automated sticks to mix cocktails in a glass for friends. The choice
of examples did not aim to inspire awe at the Wests material prosperity (even
if it probably achieved precisely that). Instead, it took aim at moral vices: wastefulness, violence and alcoholism. Lest its message go unheeded, Ogonek ran
another story on the heels of this one, about a Soviet sailor who defected to the
West during one of his trips abroad in search of a glamorous life. Instead, he slaved
on foreign ships, fell ill, and died because his ships captain refused to divert from
the route to take him to the nearest port for treatment, arguing that no one would
reimburse the costs of the detour: the sailor was no longer a Soviet citizen. As the

Figure 2.4 How strange: there is plenty of everything, but my soul feels empty. . .,
Krokodil, no. 14, 1968.
Source: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

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storys title, Overboard, suggested, the defector found himself outside the
socialist societys caring community because he chose materialism, and materialism was what killed him.59 While such stories were rare (it would be politically
unwise to suggest on a regular basis that Soviet people could or wanted to defect
to the West), they indicated the most extreme degree of personal catastrophe that
materialism could entail.
How were Soviet readers to apply such lessons at home, especially once their
own incomes began to grow? They were told to prioritize. Wanting material
comforts was not a problem, but making fulfilment of those desires ones top
priority in life was. The press emphasized that, by improving citizens living
standards, the state did not strive to attain a bourgeois model of respectable
life.60 To feel compelled to have a set range of consumer goods in order to be
considered decent (prilichnyi
(
) was wrong. This sort of emulative consumerism
forced people to waste their time on futile pursuits at the expense of spiritual
development. Prosperity was but a foundation for spiritual development, enabling citizens to grow culturally by attending museums, enjoying the arts and
reading books. Without cultural development, material benefits could bring no
true happiness: Man becomes poor, shallow and, finally, blind and deaf to all
that is most beautiful in life if things are what matters most for him (see
Figure 2.4).61 Such poetic but vague explanations, however, left many questions
unanswered. Was the desire for comfortable furniture or imported clothes acceptable if combined with visits to museums? According to press reports on discerning
consumers, beauty could and should be found in material objects. What exactly
was wrong with respectability? After all, wasnt good taste also an attribute of the
modern Soviett consumer and, thus, a sign of respectability? How could Soviet
shoppers remain discerning and at the same time not spend much time thinking
over their choice of goods? And how were people to avoid spending too much time
shopping when retail failed to offer hassle-free shopping something which even
the press admitted?
Young people, as the future of the socialist order, were a particularly important
target for anti-consumerist rhetoric. Here, too, contradictions became apparent.
The default position of Soviet commentators was to insist that capitalist observers claims about Soviet youth turning consumerist were maliciously slanderous.
But, by the late 1970s, the authorities were getting anxious about the acquisitive
moods of the young generation. Cold War developments since the Khrushchev
era had given them a reason to worry about youths susceptibility to Western
propaganda, but in the 1960s, as Komsomol confidential reports demonstrate, this
focused mainly on the impact of foreign works of literature and art, on Western
criticism of the Soviet political system and its economic, national and foreign
policies (such as the crushing of the Prague Spring or crop failures), and on the
propaganda of Western democracy. Western-inspired philistinism was occasionally mentioned among many other things Komsomol bosses worried about, but it
was certainly not the centre of their attention.62 By the mid-1970s it was. In 1974,
an internal report to the Komsomol Central Committee focused on hippies and
young followers of foreign fashions and music, as well as youth alcoholism, drug

Redefining
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l consumption 57
abuse and other kinds of anti-social behaviour.63 Among the necessary steps to
counter these dangerous developments, the report proposed to increase pressure
on light industry and trade so as to produce more handsome shoes, clothing and
other goods for young people, and to open specialized stores for youth.64 In other
words, to fight the influences of Western consumerism, Komsomol effectively
encouraged the Soviet own brand of materialism. In 1977, a set of proposals on
improving ideological work, sent by the Partys Central Committee to the
Komsomol propaganda department, betrayed an even greater sense of anxiety
about youth consumerism. Unlike the 1960s Komsomol reports focusing on
political propaganda, this was concerned with the impact of Western advertising
of the prosperous capitalist way of life. But it also suggested that the rise in prosperity at home, coupled with the lack of proper upbringing, often contributes to
the development of parasitism and consumerist attitudes among youth.65
These new anxieties were reflected in the press. In 1983, Moskovskaia pravda
admitted on its front page that the dangerous fungus of philistinism that gets into
the youth community cannot but cause alarm.66 In 1977, the legal journal
Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost (Socialist Legality) reported the cautionary tale of
a teenager from a well-to-do family who became entangled with profiteers and
attempted fraud in pursuit of a pair of highly fashionable jeans.67 His actions had
all the classic symptoms of consumerism: the boy envied his classmates new
jeans, abandoned his plans to buy a stamp collection (a laudable cultural purchase) to have money for the jeans, and his only regret, when he was swindled by
profiteers, was over the missed opportunity to show off his new purchase at
school. Regular readers of the journal would have noticed that this was not a
unique case. An article printed earlier that year linked juvenile delinquency with
ideological sabotage from the West and reported that 28 per cent of criminal justice workers who monitored juvenile offenders noted that these young people
strove to imitate Western standards of behaviour and appearance.68
Even wearing Western T-shirts with insignia could be seen as an ideological
crime; without their owners realizing it, their logos could carry apolitical or
even anti-Soviet messages, such as Better Dead than Red, and they constituted,
in the eyes of vigilant ideologues, anti-Soviet propaganda.69 Foreign consumerism had to be counteracted decisively and aggressively with communist spiritual
values to prevent the corruption of Soviet youth. However, by the 1980s this
rhetorical solution was clearly failing to stop many youngsters from turning to
the black market in search of fashionable Western goods. Propaganda workers
sought other methods. Some suggested in the press that foreign insignia and
portraits of foreign sportsmen and dodgy film stars be replaced with Soviet
logos to cultivate patriotic feelings and the Soviet way of life, and to reflect the
multinational culture of the USSR.70 Paradoxically, once again, consumerism
was to be counteracted with consumerism, but of a different political colour.
Furthermore, as the 1977 Central Committees internal memo indicated,
youth consumerism could not be blamed exclusively on Western propaganda.
While Komsomol and other agencies were told to step up their own propaganda, the press advised parents to teach their children to be economical and to

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Redefining the norms of socialist consumption

limit their material demands. In line with the concept of rational consumption
norms, such self-restraint was part of internal discipline, it was argued, without
which man is like a ship without a helm.71 The press also addressed young people
directly. Teenagers were targeted by numerous articles discussing in an intimate
tone always addressing their readers using the informal ty (you) the pitfalls of
veshchizm. In one example, Rabotnitsa sermonized to youth: There are several
simple truths one should repeat to oneself and others. Needs must be reasonable.
A commodity must know its place. Unrestrained needs are to be ashamed of and
suppressed before they devour you.72
In sum, the Brezhnev-era press offered confusing guidance to its readers on
attitudes to material goods. It trumpeted achievements in living standards and
praised discriminating consumers, but it also criticized home-grown consumerists
and at the same time tried not to betray to the watching enemies abroad the fact
that socialist society was in trouble. As late as 1983, newspapers such as
Leningradskaia pravda could insist that materialism was dangerous, but also a
foreign phenomenon for us.73 This claim, however, seems over-optimistic when
one considers the significant attention that the problem of consumerism received
not only in the press but also in other public forums. It is to some of the most
influential of them, cinema and literature, that we now turn our attention.

Fiction on consumption
In a justly renowned study, Vera Dunham used works of postwar fiction as evidence to support her hypothesis of the Big Deal an accommodation between the
Stalinist regime and the Soviet social stratum of educated professionals and state
administrators, which saw the regime accept and promote the middle-class values
of private happiness, materialism and careerism in exchange for political loyalty.
Impelled by the regime, literature sought to introduce the new social compromise
to the public and to encourage the spread of middle-class philistine ethics. It also
held out the promise of a comfortable life by letting the audience glimpse the
world of Soviet elites. These functions of Soviet orthodox fiction allowed
Dunham to argue that it was the best available source for certain kinds of information about the postwar social landscape.74
As a literary scholar, Dunham might have had a personal preference for fiction
as a historical source, but she also had little choice in the matter: around the mid1970s, when her book was published, Soviet archives were still mostly closed to
foreign researchers, and sociological surveys had not existed in Stalins time.
Fortunately, this is not the case with the Brezhnev era. Nonetheless, late Soviet
literature should not to be discarded as a source. Literature was a forum with a
mass audience, where the issues of consumption, consumerism, and the Soviet
citizens relationship with things were under constant discussion.
What kind of forum, though? Brezhnev-era fiction continued to be perceived as
a vehicle for ideology by editors, censors and literary critics, who demanded that
literature foster official values. Censorship remained in force, and ideological
restrictions on stylistic expression applied. Therefore, like Dunhams middlebrow

Redefining
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literature, many published works of late Soviet fiction could be viewed as a mirror
reflecting officially accepted values.
There were, however, important differences between Brezhnev-era and Stalinist
literatures. Late Soviet works were subject to fewer constraints. As Katerina Clark,
Geoffrey Hosking and N. N. Shneidman have shown, authors were not obliged to
stay within the suffocating canons of socialist realism to the same extent as had
been the case under Stalin.75 The threat of physical violence also became remote,
and even the curtailment of Khrushchev-era liberalization fell short of reinstating
the Stalinist atmosphere of terror. As Hosking observes, a number of writers were
able to say much that they wanted to in officially published form and in ways
that the informed and sensitive reader cannot fail to understand.76 In a society
where Aesopian language was part of everyday life, such understanding was likely
to extend to a fairly large audience.77 Shneidman, in his contemporary survey of
Soviet literature in the 1970s, also points to an important difference between 1970s
fiction and late Stalinist fiction in their understanding of truthfulness: in the
1940s, it implied the depiction of reality as it should be rather than as it is,
whereas today many Soviet writers give a truthful picture of reality and they
emphasize the negative aspects of Soviet life.78
Greater scope for social criticism was afforded especially by the so-called bytovaia (everyday) prose. Bytt (the everyday, domestic life) was an important subject
in late socialist literature, just as it had been in the fiction discussed by Dunham,
but in a different way. Whereas in the postwar period the portrayal of domestic life
served a promissory function and had to be executed in positive and optimistic
terms, in the Brezhnev period the everyday became a literary instrument for
depicting contemporary social problems, and the tone was often pessimistic. As
Clark notes, byt prose was concerned mainly with the moral problems of ordinary
people and the corruption of society: Its authors bear witness to the sorry state of
Soviet man, to the problems of parenthood, to rampant acquisitiveness, moral
indifference, alcoholism, self-seeking and philistinism.79 In other words, it failed
to comply with the requirement that negative phenomena should be shown as
exceptions in Soviet society rather than the rule. Shneidman points out that not
only did bytt prose, and especially its subdivision dealing with life in the city, show
characters with various moral inadequacies, it also contained remarkable social
diversity: Among the weeds [of society] are encountered people from all walks of
life; simple workers and leading scholars, writers and painters as well as Party
dignitaries.80 Bytt prose, with its less varnished depiction of contemporary society,
was also the literary mainstream of late socialism. As one Soviet critic, Natalia
Ivanova, observed: It is, in my view, a pointless business to divide writers into
those who write about bytt and those who write about something else.81
Wherever one looked in bytt literature, the issues of personal gain and consumerism featured prominently. Urban prose portrayed the city as a scene of
bourgeois lifestyles and acquisitiveness.82 Village prose was also anti-materialistic
and opposed the purity of the traditional rural community to the philistine values
of the city. In the words of Richard Stites, it offered a vision of the village as a
radiant past characterized by simplicity and selflessness.83 As the growth in

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prosperity began to affect social values, literature increasingly came to associate

bytt with consumerism and materialistic selfishness.
That these works were not simply a tribune for state propaganda is corroborated by the fact that critics often did not welcome their realism. As Josephine
Woll notes, bytopisanie that is, depicting everyday life stripped of its larger
social (and socialist) context was a serious charge levelled at a number of
popular writers in the 1960s and 1970s.84 Critics claimed that these works
besmirched socialist reality, and they also feared that literature portraying
urbanites in a negative and unethical light would provide readers, especially
young people, with poor role models that would help them justify their antisocial
behaviour and selfish motives.85 At the same time, Soviet ideologues themselves began to express concern over the problem of growing consumerism, as
we have seen in the previous section, and literature was undoubtedly seen as a
powerful propaganda weapon in the struggle.86 Some literary critics could not
help admitting that literature was accurately reflecting a social malaise; for
instance, Nina Podzorova wrote of a materialistic and greedy character from
Andrei Skalons story Ready Cash (Zhivye dengi, 1972) that he is a social type
taken from real life.87
Who were these literary voices that sounded the alarm about Soviet consumerism
and how did they communicate their concerns to readers? The dominant genre here
was urban prose. While village prose also took shots at the materialism of city
residents, including the intelligentsia, it did so primarily by associating the preurbanized past in the countryside with freedom from consumerism. One of the most
important representatives of this genre, Valentin Rasputins novella Farewell to
Matera ((Proshchanie s Materoi, 1976), blamed urban modernity (and implicitly its
promoters, such as the urban technical intelligentsia) for cruel destruction of the old
but honourable ways of village life.88 Others could be more explicit. Essentially a
village-prose short story in an urban disguise, Crickets (Sverchki), by Anatolii
Kurchatkin, shows how a talented painters return from a life of petty moneymaking into the world of high art is strangely brought about by crickets who invade
his city apartment. Their loud chirping forcefully reminds him of his childhood in
the country, a bygone life when demands and pleasures were simple like a potato
pie. Before the crickets showed up, he says he was squandering [his] talents on
trifles i.e., selling sketches to make money: money is needed to pay for the
cooperative [apartment], to eat, to dress money, the devil takes it, is always
needed.89 With the crickets singing comes nostalgia for the old simplicity, and
suddenly the painter gets a second chance when his drawings catch the attention of
an influential art professor who arranges for a personal exhibition.
By contrast, literary works that focused on daily life in the contemporary city
often examined the relationship of urbanites to material life without reference to
the village as the custodian of moral virtue. The most significant, acutely observed
and artistically accomplished contribution to the anti-philistine genre of city prose
was made by the Moscow-based author Iurii Trifonov. Deming Brown describes
him as the premier purveyor of the life and mores of the Soviet urban educated
classes who, in the 1960s and 1970s, became the most prominent chronicler of

Redefining
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the lives of what might be called the Soviet middle class.90 He was also widely
read and discussed by his contemporaries.91 Trifonovs development as a writer
encapsulates the transition Soviet fiction made in its treatment of everyday life,
including attitudes to material goods, during the decades between the late
Stalinist years and the Brezhnev period. In Hoskings eloquent juxtaposition, in
Trifonovs first novel, Students (Studenty), published in 1950,
bytt is the red carpet that leads into the future, its smoothness and attractiveness a proof that it is indeed the highway to magnificent prospects; whereas
in the second one [The House on the Embankmentt (Dom na naberezhnoi),
published in 1976], bytt is a vicious fluid, a sticky, invincibly present hereand-now that overwhelms and drowns nearly all the characters.92
For mature Trifonov, bytt is a complex and indispensable artistic instrument. As
Woll has shown in her profound investigation of Trifonovs prose, the ordinary
trifles of daily existence have huge symbolic importance in his novels both for
the present and for the past. They are part of the Aesopian language that Trifonov
deploys so skilfully to communicate with his readers (while also managing to get
his work past the censors).93 Everyday issues are used to bring forth the ethical
problems and dilemmas of his characters, and they serve as a litmus test for measuring their moral integrity. Trifonov himself called bytt the great test.94 Thus,
seemingly trivial objects of daily material life houses, apartments, furniture and
icons come to constitute a form of moral trial. Trifonov remains pessimistic,
and his stories suggest that material success has a spiritual price.95
Two short novels in particular stand out for their discussion of the way in
which material possessions can test moral calibre: The Exchange (Obmen) and
Preliminary Stocktaking (Predvaritelnye itogi). In The Exchange, a scientist,
Dmitriev, finds himself in the middle of a protracted conflict between his mother
and his wife, where each woman represents a different system of values. The
wife, Lena, is a typical representative of the new intelligentsia people who
statistically belong to but do not truly share the ideals of the old intelligentsia.96
Like her parents, she replaces spiritual sophistication with everyday savvy;
material concerns override emotional qualms. In contrast, Dmitrievs family, and
especially his mother, have little interest in material benefits; they display no
pragmatism but too much emotional delicacy. As expected, for them the worst
sin is philistinism.
The conflict culminates when Dmitrievs mother falls seriously ill and his wife
proposes they move in together, exchanging their separate rooms in communal
flats for a two-room individual apartment. In the mothers likely death Lena sees
an opportunity to expand their living space. The timing of her proposal and the
deadly resolve with which she pushes Dmitriev to talk to his mother despite his
painful reservations suggest that Lena is far less careful with people than she is
with things (she is seen covering their Czech sofa-bed with a table-cloth before
spreading the bed linen for the night, while asking Dmitriev to talk to his sick
mother about the flat).

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But the main point of the novel is not to expose the superficial and even lethal
values of the parvenus. Instead, the focus is constantly on the member of the old
intelligentsia, Dmitriev. Lena might have an excuse her consumerism is part
of her background; she was born into it. But Dmitriev undergoes a transformation. This is the story of his betrayal: betrayal of his mother, his family and his
values. It is a painful process, but he succumbs. The exchange is not that of
apartments but of two different sets of values as represented by two families.97
Dmitriev has made his choice. At the end of the novel he suffers a stroke, but the
author explicitly refuses to sympathize.
The novel, published in the thick literary journal Novyi mirr in 1969, was very
well received by readers, who found it timely and its message important. The
relevant issue of the journal quickly became a shortage item. It was rare to find
such a good novel to read, wrote one reader from Moscow, Anna Arkadevna
Kupleva, who was able to obtain a copy of the journal only a year after its publication. She praised Trifonov for his truthfulness: I enjoyed your novel precisely
because it describes things how they really are, without embellishments.98 As if to
confirm this view, another Muscovite, Vera Mikhailovna Kheifets, told Trifonov
that his story echoed her own painful experience of living together with a grownup married son, and she hoped that the novel would make many people pause and
think. Elizaveta Dvernitskaia from Leningrad was deeply moved by the work and
encouraged the author to write more about issues of morality, hinting that such
explorations of daily ethics were no less important and interesting than romantic
novels. A. Rubailo from the Petrovskaia settlement in the Krasnodar region found
The Exchange significant because, in his view, it drew a generalization that no
one has made before: about well-educated urbanites with provincial mentality,
sentiments [and] interests. Unsurprisingly, this reader blamed modernization, and
especially rapid urbanization, for the emergence of people who were grasping ,
practical, hungry only for material comforts. His conclusions were pessimistic:
people like Dmitrievs intelligentsia family had no future in Soviet society
because the younger generation was narrower. Perhaps for the same reason
V. O. Rubinshtein from Moscow felt that the novels lessons for the second
generation of readers were its main achievement, although he was more optimistic
on that account than Rubailo. In other words, readers identified The Exchange as
an important work because they saw in it a reflection of many social problems
thrown up by the era of Soviet prosperity, from generational differences to the
erosion of intelligentsia values.
The theme of the intelligentsias moral degradation as manifested in their consumerism is further pursued in Trifonovs Preliminary Stocktaking
g (1970). A
poetry translator is dominated by his wife and teenage son, who squeeze him for
money, connections, defitsitt goods and fashionable concert tickets. Although he
himself displays little interest in these matters, he is unable to resist their pressure, still less to change them. Finally, he flees the battlefield that is, he leaves
the house. However, abstaining from veshchizm but not fighting it is still unethical,
and the mans punishment is the discovery that his sons consumerism has turned
him into a petty criminal. And the worst retribution is contempt, a particular

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shock to the protagonist when it comes from his cynical son. Again Trifonov
offers no sympathy, even if he does not deliver an explicit condemnation. At least
the boy is honest in his selfishness, whereas the father compromises and yet pretends
to be righteous.
Trifonovs works are an example of the cultural intelligentsias reflections on
its own, often problematic relationship with material comforts, but he does not
limit his criticism to recent arrivals to the class, and this makes Trifonov exceptional.99 In most other examples of city prose, the focus is precisely on arrivistes
as the group misguided by veshchizm, and the theme of consumerism is connected to the permeability of class boundaries. In Inna Volskaias short story The
Birthday ((Den rozhdeniia, 1978), a consumerist library director, Alevtina, deciding on her daughters future, finds membership in the privileged stratum more
important than a vocation: [She] loves machinery but she will have to enter
the Institute for International Relations. According to Alevtinas designs, her
daughter is in for trips abroad, luxurious things, and dazzling impressions.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs! Its quite another world. Why the hell would she
need MISI [an engineering institute in Moscow]! In the course of the story we
learn that Alevtina, whose job places her firmly in the ranks of intelligentsia,
comes in fact from a semi-peasant family living in a provincial town.100
Another example can be found in Iurii Bondarevs 1985 novel The Game
(Igra), where material considerations blend with status anxiety and a sense of
inferiority. This is conveyed through one of the novels characters, a film studio
administrator, who is a first-generation member of the intelligentsia he has
made the leap from village lad to film producer at a Moscow studio in just six
years but he is consumed with envy towards the real elite. He tries hard to fit
in by wearing trim suits, shaving cleanly, tying his ties the proper way, and grovelling before the big shots, but getting an apartment and a car is not enough,
and at one point he snaps at his boss, a famous film-maker, in a tirade that
mixes the revolutionary belief in absolute egalitarianism with pre-revolutionary
class animosity:
There has never been or will be justice! You have a big apartment, a dacha,
serious money, everything! And what have I got? A tiny flat, a small car
you could die laughing, a Moskvich a sick wife and, as for money, there
is never much You are a barin [lord] compared to me, to my poor life!
You despise me, I disgust you, you tolerate me, I can feel it with my skin!101
The arrivistes are portrayed as particularly keen to reaffirm their new status
with material objects and thus embody the very essence of consumerism.
Aleksandr Maisiuks novel Amidst the Sounds of the City (V shume gorodskom,
1980) describes a Moscow chauffeurs conflict with his wife over her philistine
pretensions, which he calls posing as an educated person i.e., a member of
the intelligentsia: Look at her, a former plasterer has put on an 800-rouble
sheepskin coat!102 She comes from the working class but displays classic symptoms of emulative consumerism: she is keen to surround herself with items that

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demonstrate an elevated social standing wall-to-wall carpeting, fashionable

wallpaper, decorative figurines on shelves, books and expensive clothing.
Maisiuks novel can be seen as another confirmation of Shneidmans observation
that in late Soviet fiction no social group was exempt from having its representatives face the accusation of consumerism: workers, the usual suspects of trade
specialists (as featured in Ilia Shtemlers The Department Store [Univermag,
1984]), librarians, doctors and the artistic elite.
But the problem was not so much the omnipresence of materialism as its
encroachment on the distinctive values (and boundaries) of one particular class,
the intelligentsia. Maisiuks novel and many other works betray this, even more
important, type of social anxiety: the authors own fear of the numerous arrivals
to their class sabotaging the intelligentsias traditional anti-philistine values. They
seek to undermine the newcomers claims to membership, alleging that these are
pretensions based solely on material status markers such as furniture, apartments,
clothes and ownership (but not, in the writers view, proper appreciation) of literary works. Maisiuk makes it clear that owning an expensive coat does not turn
the chauffeurs wife into a member of the intelligentsia. In Bondarevs The Game, the
peasant-turned-administrator is not only unpleasant but also dangerous: his class
hatred, which feeds on envy of the intelligentsias material comforts, makes him
take action against the main protagonist, a high-flying representative of the cultural elite. The administrator lacks the selflessness and moral substance required
of the intelligent. Trifonov is subtler and less judgemental in his portrayal of the
arrivistes in fact, as mentioned above, his main focus remains on the older
intelligentsia, those of revolutionary lineage but his portrayal in The Exchange
of Lena Lukianova and her family, all members of the new intelligentsia, is
hardly kind.
This resentment was not just a matter of fear of competition for access to the
material benefits that the state conferred on its cultural vanguard but also a sentiment that had deeper roots in Russian history. One of the intelligentsias traditional
defining features was (and arguably still is) its proclaimed aversion to philistinism
understood as absorption in private life, trivial daily pursuits, selfishness and
narrow-mindedness.103 For the Soviet intelligentsia, who picked up the banner of
the cultural-moral mission of their pre-revolutionary counterparts, to observe their
compatriots striving to assert membership in this ideologically anti-materialistic
class by means of conspicuous consumption had to be distasteful and unnerving.
To continue to lay claim to its position as societys moral and cultural leaders, the
intelligentsia now found itself under pressure to defend both its own moral integrity as a group and its purity of values.
While literature sought to defend the image of the hereditary intelligentsia as
anti-consumerist, it also portrayed another group as stereotypically consumerist. This group was defined not by social class but by gender. Contemporary
fiction actively promoted, as did cinema, a collective image of female veshchizm. For instance, not only does The Birthday feature a female as its lead
consumerist, it also gives a description of her philosophy as explicitly feminine
and predatory:

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More beautiful things, the most refined of them! Theatre performances,
films, happy or sad, but about the dolce vita, about the high strata of
society, about elegantly and beautifully dressed women, about influential,
strong, rich men. More influential friends with status! Take! Grab! Devour!
Everything that is beautiful. Whatever there is to be had in the world, things
that [her] parents in their impoverished semi-peasant life at the outskirts of a
provincial town did not even dream of.104
The themes of gender and class are not mutually exclusive in Brezhnev-era
literary discourse. It is telling that the above gendered description of consumerism, which was written by a woman, includes a reference to the crossing of class
boundaries. If consumerism is a sin, then, almost biblically, the temptress is a
woman, and wives are often presented in the intelligentsias downfall as the
Devils faithful servants. Lena in The Exchange, the translators wife Rita in
Preliminary Stocktaking, the chauffeurs wife in Amidst the Sounds of the City,
and the protagonists wife in Iurii Dodolevs Simply Life ((Prosto zhizn, 1981)
attempt with varying degrees of success to drag their husbands into the swamp
of philistinism.105 Resistance leads to conflicts, in which consumerism erodes
personal relations and destroys families: parents and children, wives and husbands, are driven apart, a theme already familiar from the press.
For all the condemnation of excessive consumerism, byt literature in the long
1970s was not free from ambivalence present in the press. Contemporary prose
frequently depicted the material world without any evident aim to debunk it. Here
is a sumptuous passage from Vasilii Aksenovs stylistically innovative Overstocked
Packaging Barrels (Zatovarennaia bochkotara, 1968) about a young teacher
packing for a resort:
Foaming and swelling, things flew into the suitcase: dresses blue, pink, and
black with exotic net insets, Perlon, nylon, tightly fitting numbers, elastic,
corsetry, bijouterie, and on top of all this fell, like a relief map of the Gobi
plains, a breathtaking flounced dcollet gown for night-time foxtrots.106
Similar indulgence in descriptions of affluence can be found in other works,
such as Maisiuks Amidst the Sounds of the City or N. Kozhevnikovas Helen of
Troy (Elena prekrasnaia, 1982), with their detailed visualization of lush home
settings.107 Even when moralistic connotations are present in such passages, they
seem to fade against the background of these seductive fantasies of modern
everyday life.
These images remained only fantasies for many readers, who sometimes found
the abundance of works about consumption irritating: one anonymous reader
of the journal Neva described them as a manifestation of drooling envy towards
the more privileged social groups possibly betraying his own sentiments.108
Comments of this kind suggest that the accumulation in prose of the trifles of life
was perceived as something more than the mere trivialization of literary themes,
despite some critics efforts to dismiss it as such. It was not only anti-philistine

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novels that made consumption prominent in everyday prose. All elements of late
Soviet contemporary fiction betrayed the heightened symbolic values of things,
inadvertently giving a new meaning to the General Secretarys claim (made in
reference to industrial rather than cultural production) that there are no trifles
when we are talking about everyday consumer goods.109
In sum, it would be incorrect to see the anti-philistine literary discourse outlined in this section as a simple extension of state anti-consumerist propaganda;
nor should it be interpreted as projecting an opposition between an austere state
and an acquisitive society. The discussions which we have observed here were
coincidentall with, rather than part of, official anti-consumerist rhetoric. The literary intelligentsias motivation for engaging with the topic of the everyday in the
late 1960s and the 1970s and 1980s appears far too complex to be explained
merely by ideological conformity. The intelligentsia had its own tradition of antiphilistine discourse which predated the socialist state. The critical focus on the
material world of modern man matched the intelligentsias long-established
raison dtre: its mission as defender of societys moral health and culture.
Furthermore, the Brezhnev-era literary discourse on consumerism was not only
a product of intellectual tradition but also a response to the changes attendant on
industrialization, modernization and urbanization. It reflected a moment in Soviet
history when the impact of socio-economic transformations on social values and
structures had become conspicuous and problematic. The scale and pace of change
provoked nostalgia for an idealized past, whether of simple villagers or of the old
intelligentsia, and for spiritual integrity, while material paucity came to be reinterpreted as a noble freedom from things.
The change also had an effect on cultural hierarchies. Urbanization meant that
more people than ever were keen to exploit the socio-symbolic function of things
as a shortcut across the boundaries of social hierarchies. Tensions arose over the
redrawing of the lines of stratification. The cultural elites found their privileged
social space besieged by numerous wannabes. They could defend their status by
denouncing material well-being as a form of ersatz culture. The consumerism of
the urban masses was a problem because it threatened not only the cultural elites
traditional values but also their social position.

Cinema on consumption
More evidence of the complexities of the cultural intelligentsias discourse on
consumption can be found in cinema. This was another medium that stood apart
in the Brezhnev era from official anti-consumerist propaganda. Like bytovaia
proza, cinema also turned its attention to the morality of material things, and films
about everyday life contributed to the attempts to define the boundaries between
approved consumption and unacceptable consumerism.110 The period between the
mid-1960s and the early 1980s saw a larger number of films made about everyday
life. During the 1970s especially, works on contemporary themes enjoyed massive popularity and outstripped even war movies at the box office, with the
majority being also broadcast on television.111 In these films, characters material

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environment assumed not only stylistic but also ethical significance. Conversely,
the visual pornography of material abundance, which often featured in on-screen
stories of modern life, was even more alluring and powerful than its verbal counterpart in literature. This clash between attractive depictions of good living and
urgent warnings against acquisitiveness epitomizes the difficulty of defining the
boundaries between norm and excess during the Brezhnev years.
The intensity of cinemas engagement with the moral dimension of consumption grew over time. In the mid-1960s this was a fairly new subject. Limited
discussion of consumption-related themes had begun during the more tolerant era
of the Thaw, when cinema had developed an interest in contemporary social
issues and the private lives of ordinary people, and when minor social critique
had been permissible. But, during the Khrushchev period, the legitimacy of consumption was not such a preoccupation as it would become during the 1970s and
1980s. Other, more pressing, topics dominated the minds of film-makers in the
new political and artistic climate.112 Besides, in an era when the country was making a transition from postwar recovery to a phase of massive housing construction
projects and competition with the West in living standards, consumption was a
promise rather than a threat. Excessive consumption had a recognized potential
to corrupt the spirit, but as a rule its manifestations were shown as limited to a
minority of citizens and easily removable by societys positive influence.
Consumerist excess received straightforward and even comical resolution, as, for
instance, in Natanson and Efross Noisy Day (Shumnyi den, 1960), where consumerist pretensions symbolized by newly acquired furniture are literally dashed
by a grandfathers old sabre, a symbol of the revolution.
By the late 1960s, and certainly in the 1970s, the question of the relationship
between materialism and morality was impossible for film-makers to ignore.
Unlike 1920s works about contemporary life, most of which denounced the evils
of petit-bourgeois materialism in a caricatured and often unconvincing manner
and with an inevitable happy ending,113 Brezhnev-era films grew increasingly
serious, yet also ambivalent, about contemporary consumerism. As we have seen
with reference to literature, the cultural producers task of fighting philistinism
was made more frustrating by the fact that many of those who claimed membership in their own class succumbed to the very temptations they were supposed to
combat. Over the previous decade or two, the ranks of the intelligentsia had
swelled to include much broader segments of the population. By combating materialism, then, the intelligentsia was fighting both for a kind of purity and for its
right to retain its traditional perception of itself as societys moral guardians.114
Film-makers attempts to bring this struggle to public attention faced resistance
from state ideologues. Although propaganda also regularly condemned consumerism, the authorities were understandably reluctant to allow artistic projection of
that struggle onto the big screen. Materialism was a shady and ideologically
controversial area, and escalating economic problems made its discussion in such
an influential public forum even more risky. Administrators from Goskino (the
State Committee for Cinema) and studio editors reviewed scripts and film cuts,
and their reports reveal that they often did not see eye to eye with film-makers on

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the theme of consumption. As with literature, censors demanded that films on

contemporary issues encourage pride in the socialist way of life, inspire the
masses, and uplift their mood instead of depicting and thereby acknowledging
the existence of philistines in Soviet society. Paradoxically, this meant that visions
of material prosperity had to be evoked in a positive context and without moral
dilemmas, just as the traditional canons of socialist realism had prescribed.
Propaganda preferred the varnishing of reality to the blackening of Soviet life.
Neither consumerism nor frank depictions of problems with the supply of goods
were welcome.115 A glossy portrayal of daily life seemed the most acceptable
option but it gave further sanction to acquisitive pursuits.
In some ways it was easier for literary works on everyday life to reach audiences than it was for films: writers could produce manuscripts without the prior
approval of censors and keep them on their desks until an opportunity for publication arose. Literary journals might occasionally offer a loophole, being braver
in their editorial decisions than other outlets. Finally, different criteria seemed to
apply in literature than in film. Social criticism that was allowed to pass in print
was deemed unacceptable in cinema: Trifonovs novels were refused permission
to be filmed. There was never a film adaptation of Natalia Baranskaias novel A
Week Like Any Otherr (Nedelia kak nedelia), which described a typical week in the
life of a young married professional woman with her daily juggling of home
duties, work, and attempts to retain her femininity and mere sanity, a routine so
familiar to millions of women in the Brezhnev period.116 A number of popular
comedies by film-makers Eldar Riazanov and Emil Braginskii appeared in the
cinema only after their scripts had gained popularity in book form.
Treading carefully to overcome such resistance, a number of Soviet film-makers
in the Brezhnev years nevertheless managed to produce films that contained
criticism of growing consumerism. The cracks in the system of censorship in
cinema, due to the role of personal connections and patronage, the absence of
violence, and the huge number of films that had to be monitored by censors,
meant that some directors were quite successful at manipulating its weaknesses.117
Doubtless, there were limitations: censorship still placed considerable constraints
on producers, and many conformed to the prescribed ideological norms for depictions of Soviet everyday life. And yet many film-makers had more opportunities
than before to weave social problems, including the growth of materialism, into
their works. Importantly, they sought not to challenge the socialist order as such
but to engage in a debate over some of its practicalities.118 They saw it as their
duty. Eldar Riazanov, perhaps the most popular director of his time, argued that
art was to help people understand morally complex situations, to see what is
good and what is bad. Art must, I think, preach high morals, but it should do so
unobtrusively 119 Cinema had to act as the conscience of the nation, and, for
the artist, conscience and concern for the people must be the main criterion.120
Riazanov made an especially significant contribution to late Soviet cinemas
treatment of consumption by making it a major theme of his enormously popular
films. Without turning to traditional heroic topics like war or revolution, and by
focusing instead on the spectacularly unheroic settings of everyday life, these films

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communicated Riazanovs concern over an entire host of social problems, and
particularly consumerism. Moreover, the perceptible change in tone in his films
exemplified the growing alarm of contemporary cinema over the problematic relationship of Soviet society with prosperity. Over the course of 15 years, Riazanovs
films made a transition from humorous and slightly ambiguous to sinister in their
depiction of the moral corruption caused by the obsession with things.
Two films co-authored by Riazanov and Braginskii, Beware of the Car!
((Beregis avtomobilia!, 1965) and The Zigzag of Fortune (Zigzag udachi, 1968),
were among the first to address the relationship between consumption and morality. Beware of the Car! features as its protagonist the epitome of the proactive
anti-materialist, who casts the negative consumerist characters into sharp relief.
In the film a man steals cars from wealthy but dishonest individuals, sells them,
and transfers the money to the bank accounts of orphanages. Viewers are thus
presented with a dilemma: to condemn the car thief Iurii Detochkin or to admire
the desperate conscience of a man who takes justice into his own hands. In the
end, Detochkin is arrested, but his noble intentions are crucial in shortening his
prison sentence, and we see him eventually return to freedom, smiling. His main
antagonist, on the other hand, who testifies against Detochkin in court, later finds
himself receiving a prison sentence for profiteering. Consumerism in the film is
threatening but not victorious.
Beware of the Car! became a big hit with audiences: it drew 19 million viewers,
occupying eleventh place in distribution for 1966,121 and it was also appreciated
by official cinema critics, who hailed it as a clever, sophisticated, humane comedy displaying considerable talent and civic-mindedness.122 Despite Detochkins
questionable methods of fighting philistinism, the national daily Izvestiia
described his conflict with the law as a personal tragedy rather than evidence of
moral failing: Within the framework of a comedy we find unfolding before us
the drama of a human heart that holds deception, acquisitiveness [and] dirty trickery to be absolutely unacceptable.123 Another critic suggested that fighting
acquisitiveness might be important enough to ponder even illegal options in that
cause: [The film] has put forward a very complex question about the ethical right
of an honest individual to fight philistines and scroungers and even punish
them.124 Meanwhile, critics attempted to weaken the image of consumerists represented by the film by pronouncing them to be a rare species.125 Detochkin, on
the other hand, who was brought up by his mother, a devoted revolutionary who
has instilled in her son since his early childhood the slogans of the revolution,
detestation of proprietary qualities, and a proud sense of responsibility for everything that happens around him, was proudly declared to be the product of our
Soviet [society].126
But Riazanov was not so convinced, as his next film, The Zigzag of Fortune,
suggests. The critics hailed this work as one of the first feature films to bring up
the issue of money and its effect on human affairs.127 But The Zigzag of Fortune
takes the conflict between goodness of character and the temptations of wealth to
another level, discussing not just one hero but a whole group of perfectly average
Soviet people whose behaviour is changed once they catch sight of a chance for

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swift enrichment. This chance presents itself when a young photographer, Volodia
Oreshnikov, employed at a public photo studio, spends the collectives money on
a lottery ticket and wins 10,000 roubles. The news of the big scoop effects a
transformation of behaviour not only in him but also in his colleagues, who suddenly demand that the winnings belong to them all. A series of comic conflicts
ensues, and characters are tested by selfish desires. In the suddenly changed circumstances of the films lottery winners one might see a parallel with the
improvement in material conditions that Soviet people experienced at the time.
What will happen to societys morality when its prosperity rockets? The film
offers a possible answer. Yet it also contains a share of ambivalence: Riazanovs
characters are quite capable of good deeds with money just as they can behave
disgracefully without it.
Although very funny, The Zigzag of Fortune makes for sharper social criticism
than its predecessor Beware of the Car!, because here the materialistic protagonists are not just a pair of spoiled youngsters but a wide selection of ordinary
people of various ages and personal circumstances, otherwise honest workers
who can be public-spirited but, when temptation arises, abandon their civility.
This broadly drawn representation had dangerous implications. Goskino allowed
filming but decreed that it [was] wrong to portray the sarcastically peering
mug of the philistine, especially a collective one and repeatedly instructed the
authors to fix the problem that they had made almost all the characters into philistines.128 When the film was released, critics and journalists preferred to avoid
stressing its apparent verdict on the materialism of Soviet people. Although the
magazine Iskusstvo kino (The Art of Cinema) condemned the characters in no
uncertain terms (their world is petty and miserable, their ideals and goals are
worthless, their active public life is an illusion), it maintained the division
between their world and the rest of society.129 Sovetskaia kultura (Soviet
Culture) stressed repeatedly in its review that the characters materialism was but
an ugly vestige of the past and rejoiced that it was not portrayed as dominant or
central to their personalities.130 Only one reviewer congratulated the directors on
testifying to those facts of life whose discussion in works of art is still deemed
unnecessary for some reason.131 Apparently, the mainstream official position
prescribed that consumerist desires be kept separate from Soviet people as foreign and unnatural.
But cinema increasingly refused to keep up appearances. In the 1970s, and
especially in the second half of the decade, a substantial number of films on contemporary topics considered the place of consumerism in ordinary peoples lives,
and their tone was far from humorous. Introducing a new type of protagonist in
Soviet cinema, A Sweet Woman (Sladkaia zhenshchina, 1976), a melodrama
directed by Vladimir Fetin, follows the quest for happiness of an ordinary working woman of peasant origin, Anna Dobrokhotova, whose pursuit of love is
repeatedly thwarted by her even more eager pursuit of fashionable consumer
goods, often through blat. Her consumerism leaves no room for other people and
drives away the men who love her, including her only son. The film does not have
a happy ending. The last shot captures Anna standing alone and lonely in the

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evening in the dark room of her lavishly furnished apartment, watching the
brightly lit windows of houses across the street; the mood is dismal. For one
critic, the films chief value was that it raised an important problem with powerful acuteness and persuasiveness for the first time and placed the drama beyond
the scope of one persons destiny, thus linking it to the anti-social essence of
philistine spiritual hollowness.132 Cinema officials, however, were less pleased,
and their reaction was mixed. While the Leningrad Film Studio (Lenfilm), which
was producing the film, was supportive and even referred to the Party line on
consumerism in defending the script, Goskino rejected it entirely.133 It was especially disturbed by Annas original status as a high-ranking activist at her factory.
It took a number of repeat applications for approval and many changes to the
script for the film to receive permission for release. Even then the Goskino editors
were not happy with the end result.134
Yet more works on the place of consumption in contemporary Soviet society
followed all the same, and many of them, like A Sweet Woman, featured protagonists who came from the provinces and moved up the social hierarchy. One
example of a film where the hero seeks to cross both geographical and social
boundaries is Georgii Daneliias popular comedy Mimino (1978) about a
Georgian pilot who dreams of piloting international flights instead of servicing
local villages in his old helicopter. While Mimino is driven by the desire for professional development and prestige, it is also the opportunities to travel abroad,
the access to foreign goods, and the chance to move to Moscow that attract him
to international piloting. But when Miminos dream is realized he gets to fly
top-notch planes, shops in the West, and mingles with high-class pilots it does
not make him happy, and eventually he returns to his modest job and simple living in his native Georgian countryside, trading the lures of a glamorous and wellprovided life for the warmth of friends.
Not all battles with materialist desires were resolved as happily as Miminos,
and not all Brezhnev-era films about them were as artistically convincing.135 But
even works on everyday life which might be dismissed today by some film historians as unremarkable and even primitive136 attracted many viewers and
formed part of the effort to define the boundaries of the Soviet good life. A
typical example is Boris Grigorevs The Grasshopperr (Kuznechik, 1978), which
is noteworthy for its explicit condemnation of the grasping provincial arriviste.
In the film, Lena, a fresh school graduate from the provinces, has the drive and
talent to become an academic in Moscow, but simultaneously wants a plush life
and marries a young man from an old intelligentsia family. The marriage does
not last: when her scientist husband proves more interested in his work than in
parties and homemaking, Lena has an affair with an older man whose charm
consists chiefly in his fashionably furnished flat. The films ostensible purpose
is to expose philistinism, but its unintended message is more ambivalent than
that. Its juxtaposition of the scholar husband and the provincial Lena strongly
suggests that the older urban intelligentsia and recent arrivals to the class do not
enjoy the same entitlement to prosperity. Lena is an upstart from the back of
beyond, and her taste for smart living is inappropriate, but her husbands

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spacious flat with breathtaking views over Moscow is not a problem because he
was born into the intelligentsia and displays indifference to his surroundings.
When Lena leaves him he quietly turns over his flat and car to her. To become a
member of the real intelligentsia one needs to shed materialistic concerns. Yet
Lena tellingly comments that his lack of interest in material possessions comes
precisely from the fact that he has always lived well. She, on the other hand, has
always lived poorly, and now she wants to make up for it. Legitimately she asks:
what is wrong with that? Despite its intentions, The Grasshopperr seems to argue
that no one is immune from worldly delights, and even Lenas elderly philology
professor is persuaded by her stylish student to don fashionable trousers at her
venerable age. At the same time, the finale of the film shows Lena reformed
when she decides to abandon the flat and car inherited from her ex-husband and
voluntarily moves back into the dormitory, where presumably, the film suggests,
she belongs.
The theme of recent arrivals to urban modernity is further developed in one of
the most popular films of the period, the Oscar-winning Moscow Doesnt Believe
in Tears ((Moskva slezam ne verit, Menshov, 1979). The film has been accused
of varnishing reality but enjoyed immense popularity, selling an impressive 75
million tickets.137 As Viktoriia Tiazhelnikova argues, this is because the film is
a story not so much of three women as of three social types which many viewers
found recognizable.138 The main characters are all young female provincials
coming to Moscow in pursuit of happiness. Their envisaged means of achieving
happiness are different, and the film compares their humble beginnings in a
shared dormitory room with the results 16 years later. It might be schematic in
charting their progress, but a lot of viewers of the same generation could not
only recognize but also identify with these heroines. Interestingly, Moscow
Doesnt Believe in Tears suggests that making it in the big city is not easy, and
at one point the most explicitly consumerist of the three young girls, Liudmila,
gets told off by an old Muscovite for wanting it all without the required effort.
The films overall treatment of the three provincials is quite sympathetic and
sanctions prosperity for the new arrivals but only after years of toil and hardship. This is the path of two of the girls (Tosia and Katia), who end up enjoying
their well-earned material comforts, while Liudmila who sees life in the capital as a big lottery where one can draw a lucky ticket ends up in a painful
divorce and a dead-end job.
Class tensions also lurk in a comedy which aimed to expose the corruption
of trade workers during Andropovs brief tenure, The Blonde around the Corner
(Blondinka za uglom, Bortko, 1983). The protagonist Nadia is young and optimistic, but slightly lacking in education and very materialistic. She works at an
ordinary grocery store but enjoys the lifestyle of a movie star: her brother drives
her to work in a huge green Chrysler; they dine in chic restaurants and drink
whisky at something that looks like a Western health club. Nadia is used to taking care of things: she knows the right people with useful connections. When
she introduces her friends she announces their names along with their area of
competence: train tickets, spas at the Black Sea, refurbishment of flats, books,

Redefining
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etc. Her superficiality and pragmatism are contrasted with the romanticism of
the man she falls in love with. Nikolai lives with his elderly intelligentsia parents (his mother is a retired teacher) in a cramped flat where the abundance of
books contrasts with an empty fridge. Although Nikolai and Nadia are genuinely in love, inevitably their differences over what it means to have a happy
life lead to a clash.
Even a cursory glance at the 1970s films on veshchizm in contemporary life
makes it clear that, like bytt literature, cinema combined class anxiety with gender
anxiety. Most often its materialistic protagonists are female and their obsession
with things threatens the very institution they are supposed to nourish: the family.
In the credulity-straining finale of The Blonde around the Corner, Nadia and
Nikolai eventually do get married and move to the North Pole, but only thanks to
the interference of Goskino: the original 1982 script saw Nadia being punished
with heartbreak, as she categorically rejects Nikolais offer to move to the North,
but in late 1983, when the political climate had changed following Andropovs
death, Goskino editors demanded considerable amendments to the film, including
this impossibly optimistic ending.139 By contrast, in The Grasshopper, A Sweet
Woman and a number of other films, female consumerism succeeds in destroying
the family. Rapidly growing divorce rates and falling birth rates caused much
unease for Soviet demographers and policy-makers during the 1970s, and this
was reflected in the abundance of works on marital breakdown. One of cinemas
explanations for these worrying trends was consumerism, but the relationship
between family life and material needs was not always linear. For instance, in the
1977 byt comedy For Family Reasons (Po
( semeinym obstoiatelstvam), a minor
character delivers a fundamental reproach to modern minimalist furniture for
being unsuitable to congenial family life. The film as a whole suggests that it is
the lackk of material comforts (i.e., good furniture and living space) that causes
tensions in families.
Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s saw consumerism also as a youth problem,
paralleling the concerns about youth acquisitiveness in the press, propagandists
reports and sociological surveys.140 In The Blonde around the Corner, Nadia is
explicitly described as a member of the young generation; not only does her
Nikolai come from a different social background, he is also older and belongs to
an age cohort allegedly alien to Nadias blatant consumerism. This is highlighted
by a dialogue between the two, where Nikolai tries to explain the fascination he
feels towards this new breed of people that Nadia represents: There were no such
girls in my time, after the war. You are a child of another time, you are too brave,
too strong. Another representative film of the time, The Most Charming and
Attractive (Samaia obaiatelnaia i privlekatelnaia, 1985), flags up a similar
generational divide when it features a debate between colleagues of an engineering bureau about whether people should marry for love or for money. The older
generation defends love, while the younger engineers argue that material benefits
are important.
As the above examples suggest, film-makers of different calibres and genres
engaged with the problem of consumerism under Brezhnev, and by the late

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1970s and early 1980s discussions of, or at least references to, consumerism had
become so frequent in films on contemporary topics that this petit-bourgeois
virus seemed omnipresent under mature socialism. This was the message of
the film that offered perhaps the most powerful indictment of materialism of the
era. Riazanov and Braginskiis The Garage (Garazh, 1979) portrays avarice as
an illness which has spread far and wide in Soviet society and threatens its integrity. Compared with the directors previous comedies, The Garage is a much
graver take on the destructive force of greed. After all, Beware of the Car! and
The Zigzag of Fortune are essentially entertaining comedies. The massively
popular An Office Romance (Sluzhebnyi roman, 1977) also touches upon materialism in a number of ways, but in the end its most unpleasant character,
Samokhvalov, gets his comeuppance. The Garage is different. Although it starts
off as a comedy, quickly it becomes clear that greed and materialism are no
laughing matters.
The Garage forcefully, intelligently and courageously engages with a whole
range of issues, from single motherhood to the social acceptance of blat. The
characters in the film represent a wide assortment of social groups, among them
scientists, musicians, trade workers, and even a war veteran. By implication, the
social problems discussed in the film had penetrated all levels of society, including
its supposedly most virtuous groups, such as war veterans and the intelligentsia.
There is little action in the film, as the entire picture is shot in one room, where
members of the garage-building cooperative of a research institute hold a meeting
to exclude four of its members on account of an unexpected shortage of the land
earmarked for the garages. No one is willing to give up their garage spaces, and
heated debates and protests arise. The lack of physical action is amply compensated by sharp dialogues between the characters.
The Garage shows the damaging results of consumerism for an entire society, not just individuals. A previously peaceful collective is torn apart. With the
exception of a small group of defenders of justice, everyone defends their own
interests. Everyone is happy on their own, notes one protagonist. But because
each person does not want to sacrifice his or her happiness, the whole affair
enters deadlock, and the meeting drags on into the night, leading to unpleasant
revelations and conflicts. A gathering of civilized people (appropriately
located in a zoological institute) turns into a jungle full of wild animals, as
its two young participants remark. In short, individual consumerism produces
collective torture.
Such painfully honest depictions caused considerable alarm among the censors.
Although the XXV Party Congress formally encouraged more honest criticism of
various shortcomings, the film industrys officials sent messages that strongly
advised restraint. The head of Goskino, Filipp Ermash, told his colleagues at the
Second All-Union Conference of Cinema Professionals in 1978 that films containing an impoverished depiction of the [Soviet] material environment or featuring
people engrossed in petty concerns presented a distorted image of Soviet reality
and of the history of our society.141 Another influential official, the director of the
Moscow-based Mosfilm studio, N. Sizov, charted a middle-of-the-road course in

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his 1979 article for Iskusstvo kino. He admitted that his own studio produced too
few films exposing consumerism and that doing so was the duty of Mosfilm
professionals. But, on the other hand, he feared that some of his colleagues had
misunderstood the true meaning of the Party directives about social criticism when
they took too keenly to portraying the dark sides of life. This was a primitive
understanding of the truth, Sizov said. His conclusion was that socialist realism
can include neither blackening nor irrational optimism.142
In practice, the right balance was hard to achieve. Editors might promote their
studios output as useful for speaking to young people, as was the case with The
Grasshopper,143 or for combating occasional relapses into petit-bourgeois mentality, as, for instance, with A Sweet Woman.144 But on-screen images of material
desires and moral dilemmas that came too close for comfort to real life or were
ideologically sensitive made censors baulk. Many films, from Riazanovs The
Zigzag of Fortune to Fetins A Sweet Woman, faced demands from the Goskino
censors to tone down their message. As we have seen in the case of the latter, it
was taboo to show that a hard-working proletarian with an excellent public profile could be a consumerist underneath it all. Minor turns of phrases or even
intonation could also provoke displeasure. In The Blonde around the Cornerr the
censors demanded the removal of Nikolais mothers comment Nikolenka is
totally incapable of doing shopping. He always claims that there was nothing in
the shop. Instead, they were satisfied with Nikolenka is totally incapable of
doing shopping. Overall, he is very passive. The authors had to re-edit a scene in
Nikolais home to strengthen the impression that the absence of food in the fridge
is the fault of the unorganized family members rather than the state with its empty
shops.145 The much more powerful The Garage struggled to be released, even
though its director himself did not see this film as an expression of political opposition to the regime and, as his interviews and memoirs make clear, did not seek
to blame the moral corruption of individuals on the socialist (or any other) order.
Even when it was grudgingly released elsewhere, the film was banned for distribution in Ukraine.146 Similarly, The Blonde around the Cornerr had to overcome
stiff opposition from apparatchiks before it was released.147
Cinema officials were not unjustified in demanding ideologically correct onscreen treatment of contemporary life: films could potentially attract very large
audiences. Indeed, all of the films discussed above were seen by millions of viewers. In the first 12 months after its release, A Sweet Woman was seen by over 20
million people.148 Mimino boasted 24.4 million viewers. The Blonde around the
Corner also attracted over 24 million cinema-goers, while The Most Charming
and Attractive was a huge success, scoring an impressive audience of 44.9 million, which secured it first place in the distribution charts for 1985. Riazanovs
films had been steady favourites, with 23.8 million seeing The Zigzag of Fortune
and 28.5 million attending the showings off The Garage.149
The popularity of these films strongly suggests that the audiences were not
merely entertained by them but could identify with their message. The actress
Natalia Gundareva, who took the role of Anna Dobrokhotova in A Sweet Woman,
was voted the actress of the year in 1977 by the readers of the popular magazine

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Sovetskii ekran.150 Even ten years after its premiere, The Most Charming and
Attractive was the most popular film of the week when shown on the Russian
channel TV6 in 1995.151 The Garage produced something of a furore: Lynne
Attwood recalls that, on a trip to Moscow in the spring of 1980, I found the city
buzzing with amazement over Eldar Ryazanovs Garage.152 Riazanov received
thousands of letters from viewers.153 He also reported that the audience applauded
several times during a showing that he attended.154
The question is, however: which message was the audience identifying?
Cinemas engagement with consumerism, for all its urgency, remained highly
inconsistent. Theoretically, consumerism is disapproved of and even punished
on screen, whether by loneliness, collapse of family life or criminal charges.
But it is also clear that virtue does not need to be poor. It is not wrong to enjoy
modern comforts if one somehow manages to be indifferent to them. Hereditary
membership in Soviet societys elites, especially the intelligentsia, also entitles
one to good living, whereas new arrivals from the provinces are cautioned to
restrain their ambitions and focus on earning their status through long years of
work and education. Lena in The Grasshopperr is redeemed by abandoning
personal wealth and rejoining the slow path of hard work. Another female protagonist makes a similar return to her husband in a communal flat in the film
Two in a New House (Dvoe v novom dome, 1978). Luck and semi-legal activities are no substitutes for honest labour. In The Zigzag of Fortune, the monetary
prize brings no happiness because it is won in a lottery. Mimino realizes his
dream by a fluke and suffers from it. Yet none of this means that such material
happiness cannot be achieved even by the provincial arrivals. The authors of
Moscow Doesnt Believe in Tears, for example, seem to approve of a sort of
healthy, undemanding and almost peasant-like pragmatism where benefits
come hard-earned: they show that, 20 years on, Tosia and her husband continue
as a happy and solid family whose material circumstances are not at all bad.
These films do not always make it easy to condemn their materialistic heroes.
Liudmila from Moscow Doesnt Believe in Tears is a loyal friend and arouses
sympathy rather than irritation. Young Nadia in The Blonde around the Corner is
caring, sincere and straightforward, energetic and devoted and honest in her
ambition. Ultimately, her efforts are for the benefit of her dear ones; she tells
Nikolai: I am doing it all for you. However materialistic, at their core youth
possess inner goodness.
Women like Nadia might be jeopardizing family harmony with their acquisitiveness, but for many of them consumer goods were also the means of finding
personal happiness. A number of films, such as The Zigzag of Fortune and most
forcibly The Most Charming and Attractive, suggested that stylish and fashionable clothes could assist a woman in her search for a man. Even Moscow
Doesnt Believe in Tears, whose main point is that material well-being is not a
substitute for happiness, fails to be consistent. On the one hand, its main protagonist, Katia, yesterdays provincial and a single mother, remains unhappy,
despite her comfortable life, nice young daughter and very successful career,
until she falls in love with a decent man. That may be so, but the substantial

Redefining
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material comforts that she has acquired on her way certainly do not prevent
Katia from finding happiness. She is not poor by any standards: her apartment
is a model of the ideal modern Soviet home, and she is a single mother who
drives a good car. Her high professional standing might scare off her suitor
(Katia is a director of a factory), but her plush home and stylish clothes certainly
do not have that effect on him. In fact, the relationship between consumption
and family life projected on the big screen was downright confusing. The modern home in particular seemed treacherous terrain: women were simultaneously
guardians of the hearth and consumerist temptresses, but they were also themselves tempted. Fashionably furnished apartments were frequently the sites of
a heroines sexual fall (e.g., The Grasshopper, Two in a New House, Moscow
Doesnt Believe in Tears).
The most visible contradiction in cinematic discourse, however, was the tendency
to show contemporary everyday life steeped in attributes of lavish consumption:
well-furnished homes with modern household appliances, antiques, fashionable
clothes and cars. These were powerful advertisements for consumer modernity.
Varnishing was nothing new to the Soviet film industry, but combined with higher
standards of filming it gained new persuasiveness. In the 1970s and 1980s, these
screen images were not only ubiquitous; they were also, beguilingly, in colour. It is,
of course, difficult to discuss consumerism without showing the actual objects of
desire. But Brezhnev-era films went beyond the necessary: anti-consumerist or not,
they indulged in the lip-smacking visualization of the consumer dream. A particularly stunning example is Vadim Abdrashitovs The Turning Point (Povorot
(
, 1978),
a film about a young Moscow intelligentsia couples comfortable world turning
upside down after they fatally run over an old woman on the drive home from a
holiday. Seen by over 10 million people,155 the films unabashedly capitalist-style
opening scene on a luxurious cruise ship confronted the audience with a waterborne bacchanalia: Hollywood-like images of the Moscow intelligentsia enjoying
extravagant holidays complete with cocktail parties, elegant evening gowns and
plush cabins. Even when the tone becomes grave as during the couples visit to
the Moscow home of a lawyer the setting is still lavish and drawn in notable
detail. In The Turning Pointt there is a stark contrast between the prosperity of the
(guilt-ridden) intelligentsia and the poverty of the sombre working-class family of
the dead woman. However sympathetic the audience might feel towards the latter,
they are unlikely to want their sort of lifestyle.
Another example of awkward juxtaposition between visual effect and the
explicit moral message comes in The Blonde around the Corner. The scene of
Nadia visiting Nikolais family flat for the first time and unpacking her grocery
bags stuffed with delicacies probably left the contemporary audience as mesmerized as Nikolai and his parents are in the film. The contrast between the rickety
modesty of the latters home and Nadias glamorous and carefree lifestyle, with
her outings to the whisky-serving, Western-music-playing health club with sauna
and swimming pool, again provides inadvertent but highly effective propaganda
for consumerism, not for abstinence. Finally, the classic fairy-tale Moscow Does
what Believe in Tears might advocate the laborious and honest path to material

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well-being over the quick fix of marrying for money, but the ultimate reward is,
nonetheless, material well-being.
Goskino censors found some of the representations of plush living in supposedly anti-consumerist films too much to take. For instance, after viewing The
Grasshopper, the ministrys editors complained that the film lacked sharp and
explicit disapproval of consumerism and instead was too focused on displaying
good living: There is an excess of prettiness (pretty landscapes, pretty interiors,
pretty outfits of the protagonist), which creates an impression of something saccharine and fake.156 Maintaining the right balance, which Mosfilms director
recommended in 1979, was clearly a hard trick to pull off.
In sum, cinema both reflected and added to the complex and ambiguous contemporary discourses to consumption. Like bytovaia proza, the films discussed
here could not be considered part of state propaganda, and their anti-philistinism
owed more to their directors sense of social responsibility than to the Party line.
As was the case with writers, however, there was more to the film-makers
motives. Underneath humanism lurked status anxiety provoked by the consequences of modernization namely, the encroachment of the quickly expanding
mass intelligentsia on the artistic elites cultural prerogatives and on its special
position in the social hierarchy. In this context, cinemas anti-consumerist stance
can also be seen as the expression of the cultural intelligentsias eagerness to
make self-affirming distinctions between legitimate and false culture.
Moreover, attempts to project an effective anti-consumerist message in films
were compromised by their portrayal of a modern life plentifully adorned with
desirable possessions. Colourful images of the most up-to-date items simply could
not work as condemnations of consumerism. Instead, they propagated a new modern vision of everyday socialism, which promised a consumerist paradise open to
all. Unrealistic as these portrayals of the Soviet material world were, in an era of
urbanization and growing consumption they were likely to make a strong impression on their audience. As one A. Sheiko, an employee of the Izhorsk Factory in
Leningrad, told Iskusstvo kino, if film-makers were not explicit enough in their
anti-consumerist (and other) messages, then there was no telling what immature
viewers like herself might make of their films.157 Like Party pledges, images of
fashionable clothes, comfortable interiors and sleek cars legitimized consumption
and were bound to provoke both anticipation and irritation in audiences. It is telling that, for all its enormous popularity, it was the depiction of a single mothers
implausibly plush living quarters in Moscow Doesnt Believe in Tears that attracted
most criticism at a public discussion of the film.158

Concluding remarks
The Brezhnev-era authorities sought to create a competitive version of Western
consumer modernity but without making the command economy prioritize consumer industry. In the conditions of the Cold War, shaking off the dominance of
the defence complex was inconceivable. Instead, the solution was sought through
a combination of modest reforms, consumer imports and careful propaganda. In

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79

terms of propaganda, the rhetorical balance had to be maintained between trumpeting whatever achievements the economy did manage and urging restraint on
consumers. Pledges of abundance went along with depictions of consumerism as
destructive and foreign. If collective materialism could be justified, personal
materialism could not. In practice, however, this distinction was difficult to make,
especially when changing living standards and popular attitudes turned the
boundaries of permissible consumption into moving goalposts. This much is clear
from contemporary discussions in the press, which in the long 1970s were a
chorus of many different and often conflicting voices. As we have seen, the
efforts of the artistic intelligentsia brought no resolution of the problem.
In short, public discourse offered little firm guidance to a society that was
rapidly modernizing and urbanizing and that was, consequently, itself rather confused about consumption. How did literary and cinematic depictions relate to
ordinary Soviets attitudes to consumption and their everyday behaviour? How
did audiences interpret the conflicting and confusing messages of state propaganda and how did they respond to the economic changes that these messages
accompanied? In other words, how did socialist consumers themselves feel about
the role of material objects in their lives and society? The chapters that follow
turn to these questions.

Shopping as a way of life

The experiences and values of Soviet
consumers

Shortages are a powerful engine of special social relations, opined the hero of
one of the most famous monologues in Soviet stand-up comedy during the 1970s.
This sketch, titled Shortage Goods ((Defitsit), made a case for shortages. Written
by Mikhail Zhvanetskii and performed by the phenomenally popular comedian
Arkadii Raikin on Soviet television and elsewhere, it is well remembered today.
In just a few strokes the monologue paints an accurate picture of the perverse role
that shortages of consumer goods played in late Soviet society. But what is often
overlooked is its suggestion of what shortage goods meant in the 1970s.
Imagine, Raikin tells his audience, through the shop director, through the warehouse chief, through the shops stock manager, you have obtained defitsit [a
shortage item]. What it is exactly we never learn, but we are told it is something
that melts in the mouth, has special taste and that no one else has it.1 Such a
description is telling. In the 1930s, scarce goods had meant bread, meat, milk,
butter and vegetables, as well as shoes, clothes, pottery, baskets, thread, needles
and even buttons to name just a few.2 In the 1970s, according to Raikin and
Zhvanetskii, scarce goods implied delicacies, something that Western advertising
would probably call exclusive.
Of course, things far more ordinary than delicacies could be in short supply in
the 1970s. Ailing Soviet agriculture, exacerbated by droughts in the first half of the
decade, caused interruptions in provision of various kinds of groceries.3 Popular
memory testifies, for instance, that good cuts of meat were hard to get in provincial state shops in the mid-1970s; they could be bought at the market, but at
double the price. Visitors flocked to the cities at weekends hoping to buy decent
salami and cold meats, giving suburban trains the nickname of salami trains.4
Dairy products, eggs, fresh vegetables, and sugar during the jam-making season
took turns to disappear without warning, and other foodstuffs required some
searching and queuing. A whole host of minor household goods could pose a
challenge to a shopper, although not everywhere simultaneously. At various times
and in various places, people complained of not being able to buy rubber boots,
cotton towels, gloves, cheap cups and saucers (rather than the fancy tableware
available), small pots, and other basic necessities.5
These shortages, however, were not nearly as endemic as in the earlier decades
of the Soviet regime: everyday life had improved even in comparison with the

Shopping as a way of life 81

6

Khrushchev years, not to mention the 1930s. In Chapter 1, we saw that state policy
had an impact on the consumer goods industry. It certainly affected consumers.
Consumption of food and commodities rocketed under Brezhnev. The basic structure of personal consumption had changed. People were especially keen to spend
more on clothes, furniture, electric durables and other commodities rather than just
on food. For instance, between 1976 and 1980, sales of non-comestible goods
grew twice as fast as food sales. Rising wages made this possible. The average
monthly wage of workers and office employees (sluzhashchie) went up from
just over 80 roubles in 1960 to 122 roubles in 1970, and to over 168 roubles in
1980, with rises occurring annually.7 In 1984, the average worker or office
employee received 184 roubles a month, more than double what their parents
would have earned in a comparable job in 1960.8 In 1965, only 4 per cent of the
Soviet people had an income of 100 roubles or more per family member, but in
1981 half the population belonged to that category.9
We also saw in chapter 1 that higher incomes were as much a problem as they
were a benefit. Demand for many kinds of consumer goods exceeded supply,
while savings grew, and this meant that money had less value than high-quality
consumer goods. Therefore, rising wages and greater spending rates do not tell
the full story of late Soviet consumer culture. It is the changes in attitudes and
expectations that are even more important. This chapter explores the ways in
which Soviet urbanites emerged as relatively autonomous and modern consumers, comparable sometimes in their behaviour to their Western brethren and yet
shaped by the peculiar marriage of improving living standards, on the one hand,
and shortages, bad shops and rude service, on the other. On this fertile soil grew
late Soviet consumerism. Consumption of material goods had several different
dimensions in the Brezhnev era. It gave expression to generational conflicts; it
played a key role in redefining social hierarchies and notions of prestige; and it
offered opportunities for personal fulfilment in an environment where politics
was meaningless and open to a select few, while creative careers also had their
limitations. It has been suggested that preoccupation with consumption signifies
a withdrawal from the public sphere. But Soviet consumption also had a strong
public aspect, and it constituted a field where people engaged with, rather than
withdrew from, the state.

What did Soviet consumers want?

What made the Soviet consumers heart beat faster in the Brezhnev era? How was
she different from her Khrushchev-era counterpart? One feature that marked
Soviet urban consumers in the 1970s and early 1980s from their predecessors was
higher standards in their choice of clothes, furniture, music players and other
offerings of modern life. This is well illustrated, for instance, by the example of
trade in shoes in the Belorussian republic. In 1957, customers of the republics
shoe shops were prepared to buy almost anything as long as it was not faulty. The
list of things that did not sell well was very short: womens rubber galoshes, slippers made by a factory in the town of Lida, and some very expensive imported

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shoes costing between 300 and 400 roubles a pair. Everything else flew off
the shelves, and calf-skin footwear and felt boots were especially popular. In the
regional centres of the republic, there were no stock reserves to speak of. One
exception was the boots made by the Kalinin Factory in Minsk, but even they
sold, specialists reported, because there were few alternatives. When on 25
September the Brest Department Store in western Belorussia received a batch of
footwear worth nearly 300,000 roubles, most of it sold out in a day, or, as sales
assistants put it, momentarily. Three days later all the store had left was 150
pairs of boys school boots, a small number of womens court shoes in very large
sizes, a handful of other models, and summer shoes which were out of season.10
Fast-forward to 1966, and the situation had changed little, so that specialists from
the central footwear warehouse in Gomel, a major city in the Belorussian republic, told their bosses in Minsk: Footwear is in short supply [obuvi malo], and the
population buys whatever is out there, without any particular complaints.11 But
when we compare this to 1977, a meeting of the Belorussian House of Fashion
(Dom modelei) reported a very different state of affairs: Customers have raised
expectations when it comes to shoes, and when the same models are on sale for
two [consecutive] seasons they are psychologically perceived by customers as
unsellable stock [zalezhalyi tovar].12
Soviet shopping was still far from a relaxed affair, and there was plenty of
agitation when desirable goods appeared in a shop, but consumers now often
chose to wait for such goods to turn up. For instance, in the mid-1970s market
specialists reported that only one-third of the existing consumer demand for
domestic refrigerators was satisfied, although there were plenty of fridges in the
shops.13 This would have been unthinkable in 1960, when only four out of 100
families were lucky enough to own a refrigerator or a washing machine. Now
customers waited for more advanced, capacious and handsome models. For
refrigerators, they predominantly wanted compression technology with a capacity
of over 200 litres, despite the fact that these made up only about 4 per cent of
all output in the early 1970s. Semi-automatic washing machines in 1971 comprised less than 20 per cent of output, and although this might not have been a
problem in the second half of the 1960s, when sales grew, sales began to drop
nationwide in 1970. The saturation of the market and lack of new models
accounted for declining sales of washing machines in Ukraine in the early
1970s.14 Buyers were refusing to invest in what they saw as substandard things
often enough to make trade specialists anxious about the rising stocks of unsold
merchandise.
This new level of selectiveness came to be the defining feature of the Brezhnev-era
consumer. The authorities had been pronouncing the arrival of a more discriminating shopper on the Soviet trade scene for decades indeed, it had been a rhetorical
trope since Stalins times but it was now becoming a reality. Consumers increasingly went after more expensive, high-quality goods that offered brighter colours,
contemporary designs, and enhanced comfort. Contemporaries recall that these
changes became especially obvious in major cities by the end of the 1970s. In
Moscow, which represented perhaps the most extreme case, wealth was on display

Shopping as a way of life 83

long before the post-Soviet era of the nouveaux riches. Lilianna Lungina recalled
the new look of the capital in the late 1970s:
[the rich] stopped hiding [their] affluence; it became demonstrative. There
came Mercedes Benz cars with Russian [sic] licence plates; girls were sporting
silver-fox fur coats: they were either daughters of nomenklatura or hardcurrency prostitutes serving foreigners. Restaurants were besieged by the
ever growing crowds who could spend hours waiting for a chance to enter
and squander a fortune.15
As Lungina suggests, these were certainly not your common Soviets, but changes
in the same direction were conspicuous at other levels of social and geographical
hierarchies. By the 1980s, demand for goods that had previously been considered
luxuries, such as rugs, furs and crystal ware, boomed across the country.16 In 1973
in Leningrad, one could purchase a colour TV set without too much difficulty by
visiting a few central shops to choose a better-quality brand, but in the 1980s getting any brand seemed an impossible task: with more cash and more advanced
models on sale, everyone was after a colour set.17 An extensive all-Union survey
conducted by the Academy of Sciences between 1980 and 1981 showed that
people were especially eager to obtain colour TV sets, furniture sets, expensive
tableware, carpets, stereo music players, books and fashionable clothes, with the
emphasis being on expensive, fashionable and technologically advanced models.18
The changes in demand implied transformed expectations. For instance, in 1968
only 1 per cent of parents of schoolchildren in Cheliabinsk, a major industrial city
in the Urals region, named the cassette player as an important and necessary possession; yet, only ten years later, over 30 per cent of adults polled in a national
survey named a cassette player among the priority goods they wanted to buy.19 The
regime had pegged its rules of good consumption to the idea of rational needs,
but the very notion of need was being redefined: by 1980, two-thirds of consumers
bought new lampshades not because the old ones had broken but because they had
become outdated the phrase used was emotional amortization (moralnyi
iznos).20 Specialists talked about entire brands of radios and styles of clothing as
needing to be scrapped because they were emotionally outdated (moralno ustareli).21 This new emotional element in defining needs, which had traditionally
been formulated as rational, meant that, in addition to utilitarian considerations,
buyers could begin to indulge their ideas about prestige and attractiveness. Their
improved incomes meant that they could better afford to do so.
At the same time, shortages of desirable goods, problems with quality, indiff
ferent service and the lack of shops, as well as geographical inequalities in the
distribution of goods, gave consumption under developed socialism its edginess
and made Soviet consumer culture distinctive. Its distinctiveness, therefore, was
the result less of ideology than of a befuddling combination of shortages and
windfalls. This resulted in many paradoxes. People might have disapproved of
obsessing about material goods, but they had to spend much time and effort chasing them. Financially, ordinary urbanites were not rich, especially compared to

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Shopping as a way of life

the Western middle classes, and yet consumer goods were more valuable than the
money they cost.22 In one young Moscow divorcees case, a pair of Western-made
jeans was not only an adequate substitute for but even preferable to an alimony
payment from her ex-husband: He paid me with the jeans instead of money, and
I accepted them with the greatest pleasure.23
Undoubtedly, having money was important, but its lack could be overcome if
an opportunity for an important purchase presented itself. When Iren Andreeva, a
Soviet fashion expert, unexpectedly got a chance in the early 1970s to purchase
a Zhiguli car, she was facing a bill of 5,500 roubles, while her monthly salary
amounted to 225 roubles. To gain the necessary sum, and fast, Andreeva drew on
various sources: her own modest savings, a timely book commission, the employees fund of mutual assistance at work, a pawnshop and, finally, her parents.24
Those from less well-to-do backgrounds simply had to rely on a wider circle of
friends and family, who served as interest-free banks in the absence of a properly
functioning lending system. It was simpler, of course, to finance smaller purchases. Given the rising wages of the Brezhnev era, it was not financial poverty
but relative financial comfort, however modest by Western standards, buttressed
by job security and offset by shortages of desirable goods, that helped fuel the
complex phenomenon of Soviet consumerism.

Socialist consumerists: material goods in the

system of values
The growing appetite for high-quality consumer goods caused alarm among
Soviet ideologues, sociologists and other observers. As we saw in the previous
chapter, unsocialist preoccupation with material comforts had become a central
topic in contemporary cinema and fiction, pointing towards its prevalence in real
life. Especially embarrassing for the authorities was the fact that Western journalists and visitors who had spent any length of time in the USSR came to the same
conclusion.25 By the 1980s, observations by the Soviet Unions own sociologists
made it more difficult to dismiss these claims as lies, damned lies. The results
of a national survey in 198081 made sociologists admit that excessive acquisitiveness [priobretatelstvo
[
] has become a common problem, which consists
mainly in an eagerness to obtain scarce and expensive goods that is often connected with a whole syndrome of antisocial phenomena.26 In 1985, a report in the
professional sociology journal Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, which was based
on a survey conducted in Leningrad, noted that obsession with things [veshchizm] becomes visibly prevalent among part of the population when people buy
things only for the sake of having them.27 Material well-being was taking an
important place in the Soviet peoples hierarchy of values: in the early 1980s,
over 38 per cent of the survey respondents said that to live well meant primarily
to be prosperous (materialno obespechennyi), making this the most popular
answer, whereas considerably fewer respondents revealed a more collectivist
understanding of a good life; for instance, only 1.7 per cent understood it as
attaining the respect and recognition of other people.28

Shopping as a way of life 85

Materialist values were particularly evident in changing attitudes to labour. In
spite of what the propaganda machine had tried for decades to impress upon the
minds of its captive audience, labour for the sake of labour was not a sufficient
motivation for many Soviets, and in addition to benefiting society they wanted to
benefit themselves. Sociological studies in 1978 among industrial workers, collective farmers, the technical elite, civil servants and scientists revealed that, in
all the groups polled, the direct or hidden influence of the material interest factor
is noted.29 This factor was strongest among agricultural and industrial workers
(the vanguard class!) and engineers. Another study conducted among young
people in major cities showed that 20 per cent of participants admitted that good
pay was a priority factor in their choice of profession.30
Another telling indicator of the attitudinal shift was the rapid growth of the
social prestige of professions in commerce.31 Previously, a job in trade suffered
from the comparison with conventionally appealing and exciting vocations such
as piloting, military service, teaching, scientific research, or labouring as a qualified industrial worker. Although the state generally recognized trade workers as
legitimate contributors to the socialist project who had a part to play in citizens
cultural education, retail professionals also suffered bad press due to corruption,
blatt and rude service. Stereotypes found their reflection in popular culture, which
in turn served to strengthen them further. In one famous comic dialogue devoted
to the arbitrariness of trade workers, an exasperated customer calls a bureaucraticminded ticket seller a murderer.32 Corrupt shop assistants and directors featured
in many popular films. Let us recall that, in the well-loved comedy Beware of the
Car!, the heros main antagonist is a corrupt retailer, as is the protagonist of the
film The Blonde around the Corner. This negative publicity was so often confirmed by consumers personal experiences that the popular image of a shop
assistant was that of a dishonest and unprincipled individual. In an episode
described in the womens magazine Rabotnitsa in 1967, a customer is quick to
accuse a shop assistant selling carpets of cheating and feels no need to apologize
when proved wrong, commenting: No big deal. Sensitive people dont come to
work in trade. Everyone knows what attracts people to trade 33 The story
might be fictional, but its publication points to the existing stereotype. This was
not a career choice considered to be exciting or gratifying. In the mid-1960s there
was a shortage of trade workers, and in November 1964 Pravda felt obliged to
run an article defending the profession.34 As the retail network expanded in the
1960s and 1970s, even shops in the major cities such as Moscow and Leningrad
struggled to recruit enough employees, and in 1971 the Soviet trade system was
over 120,000 specialists short.35
However, a growing number of people in the late 1970s and the 1980s saw a
job in retail as prestigious. This was evident not only from the results of opinion
polls but also from the fact that the competition for places in trade faculties at
technical colleges, professional schools and universities had intensified; conversely, the volume of applications to technical universities had decreased in
recent decades, while engineering departments were struggling to recruit enough
students.36 Young people were increasingly keen to work in places where they

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Shopping as a way of life

could be responsible for the distribution of consumer goods or other items of

material value and have direct contacts with clients.37 In addition to retail positions, prestigious jobs included being a barman and waiter, a taxi driver, or a
worker at vegetable supply depots (ovoshchnye bazy); securing a job in these
places often required additional efforts or the right connections.38 Working in
trade or services had additional attributes that made it even more appealing. For
instance, in 1979, final-year school pupils in the Siberian city of Krasnoiarsk
associated the trade and services specialists lifestyle mainly with the availability
of [personal] connections, useful contacts and the possibility of obtaining
sought-after goods and services, and linked this with a happy family life,
popularity with the opposite sex and ownership of a car, dacha and fashionable
items.39 In many respects these observations were accurate, as trade professionals themselves were more optimistic than those in other professions in assessing
their relative material status.40
The consumerist ethos, moreover, seemed to be spreading far beyond a particular
professional group. People began to perceive their own communities as consumerist. Over half of the respondents in the early 1980s national survey said the majority
of people around them were largely interested in obtaining consumer goods or were
concerned only with their own personal well-being, and a further 12 per cent said
that nearly everyone around them was consumerist or self-centred.41
These data also suggest, however, that the respondents did not approve of such
a state of affairs. Here was another paradox of late Soviet consumer culture.
Many people had internalized official rhetoric: consumerism was criticized in
virtually every public forum, from the TV screen to school gatherings, and this
had some effect. Too much interest in clothes or home fittings smacked of materialism, and materialism was bad. The future TV journalist Viktor Shenderovich
fought off the temptation to choose a shopping run for Levis jeans over a trip to
an art gallery during his visit to Budapest in May 1980 because he was worried
it would undermine his reputation as a cultured lad.42 Some 30 years later, when
the historian Anna Tikhomirova interviewed women from the Russian provincial
town of Yaroslavl about purchases of furs in the Brezhnev era, her respondents
felt compelled to stress that clothes did not have much importance in their lives
then, unlike cultural pursuits such as theatre, cinema and concerts or organized
tourism and demonstrations. This was talk reminiscent of the official phraseology. Having made that disclaimer, most proceeded to tell Tikhomirova how they
chased fashions all the way to Moscow, used the black market, and took great
care to dress stylishly, offering comments such as I think that to have a fur coat
[shuba] is the greatest dream for women of any age. In other words, they testified
that clothes did in fact play a very important role in their lives, and they displayed
strong interest in material things and forms of prestigious consumption.43
Generations of Soviet people knew that materialism was to be frowned upon in
principle and in public, but, once an economic opportunity emerged in the
Brezhnev period, it was hardly ever spurned.
In a sense, the authorities had only themselves to blame. As we have seen, Soviet
shoppers were discouraged from obsessing over fashions and washing machines,

Shopping as a way of life 87

but they were also encouraged to be demanding and fussy consumers; indeed, they
were encouraged to want more. The regime repeatedly promised good living to its
citizens. Many took this seriously and held the state responsible for failures.
Problems with consumer goods and services were at the forefront of citizens grievances during the Brezhnev era. In a national survey of 1975, the absence of desirable
items was the most common complaint about consumer trade.44 Disgruntled customers wrote letters to trade departments, the editorial offices of newspapers and
directly to the government, posing questions with political implications. In 1968,
for instance, a report on citizens letters to the Presidium of the Supreme Council of
the USSR indicated that weaknesses in trade give rise to unhealthy moods and
various rumours.45 Hinting at the connection between economic issues and legitimacy, one dispatch from Moscow stated: Soviet power has been around for 50
years. Much has been done, but not the most important thing the quality of foodstuffs and manufactured goods remains very low.46 P. M. Malinova from the town
of Kemerovo asked the government in 1980:
Where have all kinds of necessary little things gone, from tooth brushes to
radio sets? All these seemingly trifling items give a reason for the people
to grumble [roptanie naroda]. As a communist I feel embarrassed to
listen to the various rumours 47
Perhaps the most unexpected and convincing testimony to the perceived precedence of consumer interests over everything else lay in some peoples readiness
to forgo even space exploration, the much advertised pride and joy of the Soviet
Union in the international arena. We do not need 300 sputniks in space, flights
to Mars, the Moon and Venus; instead, make life better here, on your own territory, wrote one Muscovite only eight years after Gagarins space flight.48
Decisively brushing aside such celebrated criteria for governments popular
legitimacy as scientific victories, B. Shvakuliak, from the town of Rovenki in the
Voroshilovsk region, declared:
Our social order has today many successes and will go on to reach
Venus, Mars, etc., but if ordinary people in its own country on Earth will
be half-dressed and half-starved, then I daresay this order is not worth an
old song.49
Was this narrow-minded consumerism? Or were these the legitimate demands of
citizens who had been told that communism meant abundance? The usual dichotomy of selfishness versus altruism was not especially helpful when daily exigencies
dictated their own ethical rules. Bulk-buying, for instance, was publicly decried as
irrational and wasteful, but in practice it was an eminently rational response to the
constraints of the system. When a shopper chanced to come upon a sale of soughtafter goods, she had to remember the needs of her relatives, friends and colleagues;
those people might take offence at failure to do so.50 Several foreign observers
marvelled at the talent of Russian women for remembering the birthdays, sizes,

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Shopping as a way of life

favourite colours and tastes of numerous family members and acquaintances.51

Hoarding was bad, but remembering others at the critical and often stressful
moment of obtaining valued goods constituted an expression of care and friendship,
quite contradicting the image of the hyperactive consumer as greedy and selfish.
The peculiar features of the shortage-based Soviet consumer culture rendered
socialist norms less straightforward.
Consumer self-fulfilment made people active and optimistic in their own lives
and their interaction with others. In a survey conducted in the early 1980s, the
over 70 per cent of respondents who negatively assessed their current life situation and prospects were those who found fashionable clothes largely beyond their
means. On the contrary, among those who were happier with the way their life
was going, only a quarter had financial difficulties when buying clothes, and over
60 per cent experienced no such difficulties and could even make savings.52 While
we might think such a relationship natural, decades of Soviet ideological work
had been aimed at encouraging people to think otherwise and find satisfaction in
collectively orientated experiences. But the circumstances were now fundamentally
different, and people could increasingly afford to invest time, energy and money
in the pursuit of material comfort and fashion. Essentially, the authorities
accepted this and now allowed the population to get on with their lives and
careers without too much meddling.53
Clearly, then, consumption was occupying a more central place not only in
peoples daily preoccupations but also in their identity and perceptions of success.
But this did not mean that Soviet citizens came to be disengaged from the regime.
On the contrary, consumption was a field where people actively engaged with the
system, and improving living standards meant that they had greater opportunities to
do so. Sheila Fitzpatrick has argued that, in the 1930s, acute shortages and widespread poverty made material things matter enormously in peoples lives.54 Four
decades later, more disposable cash and better stocked stores only enhanced their
importance. In the Brezhnev era, as we have seen, aspirations were revised upwards
because they had a better chance of being fulfilled. The improved opportunities to
acquire consumer goods were undermined by shortages, but they still meant that
people as consumers took a more minute interest in the workings of the system than
before. Soviets might complain to the authorities about the shortcomings of industry and trade, but they still relied on them to provide the goods. Soviet citizens
might have limited their involvement in political rituals to the formalities, but they
interacted with the regime in earnest as consumers: by navigating state shops, by
taking part in organized exhibitions, consumer conferences and state-sponsored
marketing surveys, by writing letters to newspapers and Party-state offices, by
choosing certain goods over others and, finally, by choosing not to buy at all.

Urban shopping in the Brezhnev era

Modern consumers in the capitalist system might be seen as passive and manipulated, but that image is difficult to pin on the Soviet shopper. Shopping was
notorious for being a laborious and elaborate pursuit; even the Soviet press made

Shopping as a way of life 89

no secret of it. Queuing could be mind-numbingly slow, but it was only part of a
more complex process, which could involve combing the stores for necessary
goods, travelling to another town, staying up all night, or seizing an unexpected
opportunity to purchase something valuable.55 In a sense, an ideal Soviet consumer
was like a Young Pioneer, whose motto was Always prepared! (Vsegda gotov!).
In the early 1980s, around half of all families who had savings kept them for
unexpected expenses, reflecting the unpredictable nature of Soviet retail.56 The
famous string shopping bag, avoska, was a new word in the 1950s, according to
the writer and linguist Kornei Chukovskii, but it remained indispensable to the
1970s shopper.57 Soviet shops did not oblige its customers with plastic or paper
bags, and the success of an expedition could depend on having a suitable receptacle. The importance of a shopping bag, amounting to an emotional attachment it
was almost a partner, a friend is conveyed in the poignant short story With a
Shopping Bag (S koshelochkoi), by Fridrikh Gorenshtein (1981).58 In the early
1980s, sociologists reported that consumers spent between 30 and 40 per cent of
their total shopping time queuing to buy consumer goods (non-comestible), and
paying for their purchases swallowed a further 20 per cent. Shopping took
women more time than taking care of their children.59 Soviet people spent 30
billion hours per year in the mid-1970s searching for goods and queuing to buy
them, and by the mid-1980s this figure had grown to 37 billion hours per year.60
In one impressive but not unusual instance, customers wanting to buy furniture
in the Crimean city of Khersones organized a 2,000-strong waiting list at one of
the citys furniture stores. The store ignored their queue, and after three years
they resorted to more decisive measures and instituted night watches to prevent
unregistered people forming a live queue at the shop before its morning opening.
They also checked the lists to make sure no additional names were sneaked in.
But these night shifts began to take their toll. In 1971, 100 representatives of the
Khersones waiting list complained to the editors of the newspaper Sovetskaia
torgovlia (Soviet Trade):
After sleepless nights at the shop we return in the morning to the factory
floor, to the teachers desk, to the shop counter and to our posts by hospital
beds. Many of us fall ill more often and have to miss work, which damages
the production process.61
If these customers tried to bring fairness and order to queuing, others deployed
creative strategies to beat the queue: one female profiteer specializing in shortage
goods from the Moscow GUM invested in a couple of crutches to guilt-trip the
crowds gathered for the morning opening of the store to let her enter first. It
always worked: people unfailingly stepped aside to allow the invalid to get to
the front of the queue, but, as soon as the doors opened and she got in, the profiteer dropped the crutches and dashed to the counter. Luckily for her, the GUM
had many entrances, so she could avoid being recognized.62 Occasionally, an
opportunity to avoid a long waiting list for a furniture set or a refrigerator presented itself unexpectedly when a relative or a colleague, who had signed up for

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Shopping as a way of life

it some time ago, finally received a postcard notification to collect the item but
no longer needed it. Such a card, a valued possession in itself, could be given
to a relative, friend or colleague (although the original customer would need to
be present at the purchase, because technically the place on the list was nontransferable).63 The lucky beneficiary would need quickly to find a large sum of
money to pay for the unexpected item, organize the removal or sale of their old
furniture set or refrigerator, and possibly stand in line with other people with their
notification cards in hand: queuing could not be avoided altogether.
The stereotypical image of people standing in a long, slowly moving line
obscures another feature of socialist shopping that is hard to square with the
notion of Soviet consumers as passive. Shoppers regularly had to be on the move.
For all sorts of things, from furniture sets or a good pair of boots, to baby clothes
or a decent suit, people travelled not only across the city but all over their region
and beyond. Provincial residents travelled to Moscow to shop because the capital
was known to be better supplied than any other city in the Soviet Union.64 Shops
in republican capitals, such as Minsk or Kiev, offered a greater variety of goods
than those in regional centres or small towns. These shopping trips could vary in
distance between local and regional, such as the 280 kilometres from Yaroslavl to
Moscow, but they could be much longer. They were made easier after the five-day
working week was introduced about 1968, and apparently they became a reason
why children began to miss Saturday classes at school. Rabotnitsa reported that,
according to the headmaster of school No. 4 in the small town of Losino-Petrovsk
near Moscow, after the introduction of the five-day working week, going shopping to Moscow became a stated reason for pupils to miss school, sending a
dangerous message about the precedence of consumption over education.65
Visitors from less privileged urban areas were joined by rural residents, who,
by the early 1980s, made up to 40 per cent of their consumer goods purchases
in towns.66 A humorous song by the popular bard Vladimir Vysotskii about a
shopping trip to Moscow satirizes the seriousness and quasi-military nature of
the operation: its protagonist, as the least drinking candidate, is entrusted with the
responsibility of fulfilling the orders of his many relatives, given a large sum
of cash which he sews into his coat lining, and handed an eight-page list of
requests which he memorizes and swallows to prevent it from falling into enemy
hands.67 It is easy to see how these trips could be stressful and even intimidating,
and they were not guaranteed to be successful. For instance, an entire collective
of cashiers from the Saratov passenger train station travelled to Penza when they
heard that its shops stocked fur coats in large sizes. Unfortunately, the trip was
not successful: having paid 25 roubles per ticket, they all came back emptyhanded. Such was their disappointment that a husband of one wrote a letter to
Pravda to complain about this and other shortages.68
Other factors determined regional differences in the quality of material provision and thus dictated the routes of shopping migrations. Places such as
Leningrad, Odessa and Lvov attracted shopping tourists because of their proximity to the West: sea ports saw a lively trade in foreign goods brought by sailors
from abroad, while Lvov and other towns in western regions close to the state

Shopping as a way of life 91

border had an influx of tourists from Poland and even Western countries, who
brought with them foreign goods which then found their way from the local flea
markets to the other corners of the country, often in the bags of visiting young
people.69 The Baltic republics were the ultimate Soviet abroad, and offered
visitors not only things rare or unavailable elsewhere, such as the first Soviet
chewing gum or quality knitwear, but also visual lessons in stylish Western dressing, interiors and urban leisure.70 Other locations were privileged for political
reasons: for instance, closed cities built around strategically important enterprises
or military research centres were considerably better supplied with groceries and
consumer goods. For instance, residents of the closed town of Novouralsk in the
Sverdlovsk region, home to one of the secret atomic projects, had 7 per cent of
all private cars in the region, as well as the largest concentration of radio and TV
sets in private ownership. By the 1970s, residents of these towns came to take
their privileged position for granted: for example, they tended to demand only
imported clothes, shoes and other goods of high quality. They also took advantage
of their special access to such goods and exported them (illegally) for a premium
outside the limits of their closed settlements.71 Although these places were off
limits to the majority of the Soviet population, residents of neighbouring settlements found ways of getting to their shops, often with the help of those living
inside the permit zones.72
Clearly, then, there were many alternatives to Moscow and the republican capitals as attractive shopping destinations, and it was a peculiar feature of the mature
socialist period that the vector of consumer migration no longer pointed exclusively towards urban centres. Paradoxically, in the 1970s and 1980s there was also
movement in the opposite direction, when some seasoned urban shoppers went to
small villages and hamlets in search of desirable goods. In the hungry postrevolutionary years starving townsmen might have travelled to the neighbouring
rural areas in search for food,73 but now it was those starving for fashionable
clothes who combed rural stores. According to Andreeva, the cooperative trading
organization called Tsentrosoiuz, which had a network of rural and suburban
shops, sometimes purchased quality clothing from capitalist countries, and consequently a lucky visitor to a village store could stumble upon an Italian-made woollen
suit, an English mohair coat or even a pair of Italian boots amidst the usual assortment of shovels, buckets, galoshes, packets of flour, buckwheat and kerosene lamps.
These treasures were first discovered by female members of the Moscow artistic
elite during their sojourns in the professional unions holiday homes (Doma
(
tvorchestva) scattered in the countryside around the capital. Soon this became a
standard itinerary, followed, among others, by profiteers.74 Contemporary testimonies also suggest that smaller towns and regional shops away from the big cities
could be better supplied with electric gadgets, such as tape recorders, possibly
because the demand was lower there than in the capitals.75
Shopping in state retail required, therefore, mobility and flexible thinking,
but it also demanded a range of other skills, the most important of which were
people skills: charm, sociability, persuasiveness, persistence, and so on. Western
shopping has been described by historians as a form of individualistic leisure, and

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Shopping as a way of life

Soviet ideologues warned of its isolationist character, but they need not have
feared: obtaining consumer goods in the USSR was very much a social activity.
The value of having a wide network of friends and contacts has been well documented by contemporaries and historians, and the famous Russian proverb
advised that it is better to have a hundred friends than a hundred roubles (ne imei
sto rublei, a imei sto druzei).76 Soviet shopping was a magnificent illustration of
the truth of this dictum. Befriending sales clerks in shops or second-hand stores
(komissionki) gave one an advantage over other customers. Andreeva recalls that,
in the late 1950s, she spotted an under-the-counter transaction in a shoe shop and
confronted the shop assistant involved. By confronting, however, she did not mean
calling the police: instead she told the sales girl with a smile and a wink that she, too,
wanted such a pair and was ready to pay extra. The result of her quick thinking and
charm attack was a years-long relationship whereby the girl rang Andreeva up every
time the shop received a batch of fashionable footwear, and Andreeva paid her for
this service.77 As we can see, this practice was not unique to the Brezhnev era, but
when in the late 1960s and during the 1970s shops began to receive desirable goods
more often, and money became less of a problem for customers, such contacts
were bound to become more common. Blatt transcended social boundaries, and
every social group was involved in it, often seeing nothing particularly immoral
about it.78 As one concerned citizen, N. P. Korolev from the town of Orel,
described the situation to the Pravda editors in 1972: To the question where they
obtained a nice thing the only answers one gets [from people] are: through blat;
I gave five or ten [roubles]; relatives got it for me, etc. Unfortunately, such
answers are also given by communists.79 As we saw in Chapter 2, these practices
were also depicted as commonplace in cinema and fiction.
Not everyone was keen on this way of shopping, of course. N. V. Kiselev, visiting Moscow from Khanty-Mansiisk in Siberia, was shocked by his experience
in GUM, where a sales clerk offered him an excellent suit from a rack hidden in
the back room and demanded a commission fee of 15 roubles. I have to labour
for two days to earn this money, fumed the visitor. That means working in the
taiga, in freezing temperatures of minus 40, and living in a tent. And this rascal,
living in the capital, in a comfortable flat, makes 15 roubles in seven minutes!80
Besides the social resentment to which this letter gives expression, it demonstrates that even the ultimate model store of the Soviet Union was plugged into
the network of the grey economy. Blatt continued to meet with public condemnation from the authorities, but it was also clear that such practices were a product
of the regimes own failure to create a problem-free environment for personal
consumption. This softened popular attitudes to informal networks and profiteers.
As one Leningrader explained, in her professional circle of engineers those colleagues who had contacts in trade and could use them to help one buy a hard-to-get
item were not condemned, even if they made a bit of money out of it. On the
contrary: We were grateful to them for helping us buy [things], we did not have
the opportunity.81 Iren Andreeva says the same about profiteers in her memoirs:
Thank you! Without you, it would have been even worse!82 Even those who
might not have wanted to use blatt felt they had little choice.83 For others, the

Shopping as a way of life 93

experience of obtaining successfully a hard-to-get item unavailable to most other
people must have been gratifying and provided a sense of privilege.84 In the
1970s, the popular stand-up comedians Roman Kartsev and Viktor Ilchenko
delivered a memorable dialogue on the desirability of special access to a closed
source of consumer goods, claiming: the main dream of our [Soviet] man is to
get into the warehouse. Into the goods depot. Inside.85
Trade workers were not the only kinds of friends that mattered for solving shopping tasks. Hairdressers, beauticians, masseurs and bath-house workers could be
sources of desirable goods or connections, thanks to their extensive clientele.86
Dental and medical practices, nurseries, bars and other kinds of service points got
plugged into the unofficial network of consumer goods circulation. Those who
serviced the elites and thus had access to privileged shops and warehouses were
especially important, but well-informed friends, regardless of their profession,
served one well; for instance, they could point in the direction of a promising and
little-known outlet or facilitate access to a closed shop. Andreeva recalls taking
a friend to a shop specializing in unusual and foreign furniture in Moscow, the
existence and address of which were revealed to her by a friend.87 A young university student at a radio-technical faculty knew from chatting to his fellow students
that a good stereo receiver, which was not to be found in Leningrad, could be
obtained somewhere in the Novgorod region.88 The ability to develop and maintain
a wide circle of friends and acquaintances was, therefore, an important consumer
asset as much as anything else. In the early 1980s, almost half of the respondents
in the national poll cited above said connections with useful people were important to succeed in life, and 63 per cent also named family connections in that
regard.89 The Soviet consumer was a dynamic and skilful social operator, not a
loner browsing boutiques or departments stores at her leisure.
As the above indicates, the realm of purchasing activity extended well beyond
state stores, and much has been written about the Soviet second economy.
Historians have pointed out that non-state economic activity under Brezhnev was
not only much greater in scale than previously but also much more complex in
scope or multi-coloured, as one economist put it than a binary division into legal
and black markets. There were many areas of illegal, semi-legal and even legal
private activity, such as housing rental, private tuition, repair services and live-in
domestic service, even if the term private was denied existence in Soviet law.90
For consumers, encounters with profiteers, semi-legal private services, such as
tailoring or automobile repairs, fartsa and various forms of blatt required them to
be active and resourceful and even to take certain risks. Profiteering became
widespread: as Gilles Favarel-Garrigues found, between 1966 and 1984 the number of cases recorded by the police in the Russian republic more than tripled. It
would appear that the increase was especially marked from the mid-1970s
onwards. By the second half of the decade, profiteering featured more prominently in internal police communications and began to merit special reports.91
Other evidence points in the same direction. In the period between 1975 and
1980, the amount the urban population was spending on privately sold goods
went up by 45 per cent.92 Things sold by fartsovshchiki (traders in foreign items)

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Shopping as a way of life

and profiteers were considerably more expensive than those in the state shops: by
1980, sought-after goods sold by profiteers cost between 30 and 80 per cent more
than in state retail, and sometimes the difference exceeded 80 per cent, according
to official sources.93 In fact, the profiteers prices could top their state equivalents
by several times, particularly for imported goods.94 Despite prohibitive prices,
many found in the black market an answer to their problems. In the early 1980s,
more than a third of all purchases of consumer goods were made on the black
market and those are the official data, which suggests that in reality the proportion was greater.95 In 19846, at least 34 per cent of Leningrad residents were
buying consumer goods from private persons.96
A more specialized branch of speculation in consumer goods, fartsa orr fartsovka, also flourished under the Brezhnev regime. The business of illicit trade in
foreign goods began to grow thanks to Khrushchevs thawed relations with the
West, especially after the 1957 Youth Festival,97 and the boost in imports financed
by oil dollars in the 1970s did little to extinguish it. Imported clothes, especially
jeans, were the chief article of trade, but turnover also included music, books,
stereo equipment, watches, perfume and other commodities.98 Foreigners still
constituted an important source of goods for entrepreneurial fartsovshchiki. An
American exchange student, Andrea Lee, described how she was aggressively
approached by a young female fartsovshchikk who visited her room in the Moscow
State University dormitory uninvited and went through her wardrobe, making
offers for various items. I have friends who would sell themselves for the chance
to go through the closet of an American, she said to Lee.99 Dealers actively
sought out contacts with foreigners, be they tourists in hotels or even visiting
students, and persuaded them to sell their possessions at high prices, normally in
roubles. Even the press reported such instances: in one case, the newspaper
Vechernii Leningrad (Evening Leningrad)
d fumed about a young man, a former
professional athlete, who obtained a low-paid job as a hotel bellboy so that he
could have contact with foreign tourists and solicit their clothes.100
One important consequence of the expansion of the grey area of the Soviet
economy in the late socialist period was that it blurred the distinction between
profiteers and ordinary consumers. Certainly, a number of black market dealers
operated on a large scale and had ties with the criminal world; for instance, hardcurrency prostitutes used their contacts with foreigners for fartsa and currency
speculation. There were several high-profile cases exposing corruption among
trade workers and suggesting links to high-ranking officials.101 But many profiteers were pensioners or disabled people who supplemented their incomes by
combing stores during the hours when most other people were at work.102 More
importantly, a great many ordinary Soviets, who certainly did not make either
profiteering or fartsa their full-time or even main occupation, routinely participated in transactions which were on the margins of or outside the legal retail
system. People brought things to sell at their workplaces (most often in offices),
offering colleagues the make-up, perfume or garments they had bought in a shop
or obtained through other channels. Friends sold each other shoes and clothes that
did not fit; for instance, Andreevas colleague sold her a pair of ultra-fashionable

Shopping as a way of life 95

knee-high boots which her father, an export organization employee, had bought
for her in France but in the wrong size.103 Shopping at workplaces, and even more
exotically in womens toilets at workplaces, was a routine operation in the long
1970s, as is reflected in memoirs of contemporaries and many late Soviet films.104
Not only fartsovshchiki but also regular passers-by could be caught accosting
foreigners for their possessions. Lee reported: Wherever I go, people eye my
ordinary outfits with rapacious interest and try to buy things off my back.105
More than 4,000 young people were detained in 1973 for harassing foreigners in
Moscow and Leningrad and around 300 of them were Komsomol members.106
In the 1970s, the newspaper Komsomolskaia pravda openly called for the rapid
completion of the first Soviet chewing gum factory in order to put an end to
schoolchildren begging for chewing gum near hotels.107
Nor did foreign visitors to the USSR and professional fartsovshchiki hold a
monopoly on extra-retail trade in imported goods. They faced increasing competition not only from official imports, whose volume grew from the early 1970s
onwards, but also from the rising numbers of Soviet citizens going abroad, either
for work or for pleasure. In 1965 almost 1.2 million tourists went abroad; in
1975 about 2.5 million travelled, and in 1985 the number of visitors exceeded
4.5 million.108 These travellers brought back to the USSR not only things for their
personal consumption but also items for sale. Predominantly this applied to members of the nomenklatura, diplomats, specialists travelling on business, journalists,
sports delegations, and the academic and cultural elite, who went abroad on a
relatively regular basis. When Andreeva was looking to buy a new pair of shoes
with fashionable thick heels sometime in the mid-1970s, her friend offered to
help through her husband, an orchestra conductor who was about to go on a tour
to Western Europe. All Andreeva needed to do was choose a pair of shoes from a
Western catalogue and provide the conductor with the required sum of US dollars.
Clearly, this was not a one-off for the helpful musician: not only did he have the
catalogue ready before the trip, he also received a discount from the shop for bulk
buying: Andreeva was not his only client.109 Mariia Arbatova recalls that the
Moscow Philharmonic had a veritable market of its own, trading in goods brought
back by artists from foreign tours. At one point her husband, a musician with the
orchestra, suggested [we] buy boots for me at the Philharmonic, as if it were a
department store.110 Sportsmen took advantage of championships abroad to buy
or barter consumer goods.111 Komsomol workers and KGB officers travelling
abroad brought back Western goods, including records, cassette players and video
tapes.112 Here were perfectly respectable citizens indeed, the flower of society,
and supposedly its most ideologically sound members engaging in operations of
questionable legality. Andreeva points out that she broke the law when, after some
agonizing, she bought the required amount of dollars from another acquaintance
this time, at the Moscow House of Composers (Dom kompozitorov) but for her
artistic friends this was a routine thing.113
Tourists also took advantage of the opportunities presented by a short stint
abroad, as subsequent reports from their tour leaders testify.114 In 1969, the
Commission for Foreign Travel at the Gorky regional Party committee complained

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Shopping as a way of life

about tourists and specialists engaging in excessive shopping or even speculation

during their trips. Its report cited the case of G. F. Lbov, an engineer from a local
factory, who was sent to France on business but spent a large portion of the time
shopping, while another example featured the shop assistant M. D. Kniazeva,
who illegally exchanged currency and took advantage of sales to purchase not
one, but 15 pairs of shoes during her cruise along the Danube.115 In 1976, the
Gorky regional Party committees report on foreign travel again cited examples
of citizens caught exchanging currency or engaging in speculative machinations
while abroad.116 Leaders of tourist groups from Dniepropetrovsk complained
regularly during the 1970s that their charges were more interested in shopping
than in sightseeing.117
Bringing consumer goods from abroad became more common, but it was not a
straightforward endeavour. Despite the enticing proximity of well-stocked shops
and bazaars, shopping overseas could require even greater effort and dexterity on
the part of Soviet visitors than at home. Money was a problem: as the historian
Anna Ivanova has observed, the authorities placed strict limits on the sums available to Soviet citizens travelling abroad on state business and were reluctant to
spend precious reserves of foreign currency on their upkeep. Indeed, touring
performers or scholars invited to work in the West themselves became a source
of currency for the state, which demanded high payments for its ballet stars and
academicians from capitalist hosts but kept most of their income. So meagre were
the allocated rates per diem that artists, scientists and even officials complained
to the authorities, pointing out that the resulting poverty was humiliating and
damaging to the international prestige of the USSR. But the authorities were also
concerned about profiteering. When they demanded that scholars and performers
give up to 70 per cent of their foreign earnings to state coffers, the explanation
given was that excessive cash led to citizens buying goods for resale at home.118
The sheer embarrassment at Soviet visitors displaying unbecoming agitation over
foreign consumer delights might also have prompted limits on currency. Comrades
going overseas were advised in the official instructions issued by the Central
Committee not to get carried away with buying various goods and valuables,
and if they were spending considerable periods abroad they were to live and
behave modestly. Those going to capitalist and developing countries were also
warned that foreign spies were ready to exploit any manifestation of acquisitiveness for their hostile purposes.119 Leaders of tourist groups tried to enforce the
rules and reported instances of excessive interest in shopping and any suspicions
of profiteering upon their return home; this could result in a ban on all future
foreign travel for the culprit.120 Customs regulations permitted returning holidaymakers no more than one pair of jeans and one denim suit.121
Thus, even abroad, long-suffering Soviet consumers faced considerable obstacles, but here too they demonstrated great skill and determination. For one, they
were prepared to economize, either by living on supplies brought from home or by
imposing on their hosts, and even going hungry at times in order to save their
allowances for shopping.122 The celebrated ballet star Maiia Plisetskaia recalls that
her colleagues from the Bolshoi Theatre resorted to eating dog food as a cheap

Shopping as a way of life 97

and nutritious substitute for normal meals when provisions brought from home
ran out. As one of her dance partners put it when turning down an invitation to go
to a caf: [when] Im eating a salad, I feel like Im chewing a shoe for my son.123
The Russian cardiologist Vladimir Metelitsa recalls how, during a work trip to
Yugoslavia in 1969, his senior colleague, who was a more seasoned traveller,
decisively forbade Metelitsa to spend any money received from their Yugoslav
hosts on tasty delicacies and sweets and instead instructed him to keep all of it
until the end of their two-week trip: this ban was only lifted before their departure, when their Yugoslav host took the two doctors to cheap shops and helped
them choose clothes and presents for themselves and their relatives.124 Even such
a top-ranking Party member as Anatolii Cherniaev, the deputy head of the international department of the Central Committee, when visiting New York in 1979 was
grateful to his Soviet colleagues from the UN mission, whose wives supplied him
and others with homemade victuals for two days and thus allowed him to save the
daily allowance and buy a fashionable leather jacket.125 Andreeva recalls the shock
of a ministerial accountant to whom she brought back the tiny sum of money
advanced to her for a work trip to France in 1968. Andreeva had been handsomely
paid by her French hosts, which obligated her to return the advanced allowance;
besides, she had been wined and dined by her French colleagues, who showered
her with lavish presents, and she had little time for shopping. And yet to return
from Paris without having spent alll the money was clearly deemed abnormal.126
Usually, Soviet visitors sought to boost their purchasing ability by smuggling out
such universal currency as bottles of vodka, tins of caviar, coffee and other things
which could be readily converted into local cash or exchanged for goods.
Tourists were prepared to risk the displeasure of their group leaders and the
authorities back home rather than miss a chance to buy things for themselves and
for selling at home, which might even cover the cost of the expensive trip. They
also had to find ways of getting their trophies past the Soviet customs. One leader
of the group from Perm who travelled to Yugoslavia in 1971 complained that his
charges were buying Yugoslav mohair wool despite the official ban on importing it,
telling him they would do so even if they got shot for it. Defying all his warnings,
women knitted blankets and shawls out of the banned yarn with a view to converting them back into thread at home. Other tricks included hiding things in luggage
and piling up clothes on ones own person for instance, by wearing several pairs
of jeans at once.127 As Sergei Zhuk reports, on average each tourist group travelling
abroad from Dniepropetrovsk between 1972 and 1984 had three to ten cases of
smuggled foreign goods or broke the rules of foreign currency exchange.128 And
those were just the ones who got caught. Things were much easier for travelling
members of the nomenklatura, who also used the opportunity to stock up: their
privileges seemed to include unfettered passage through border control.129 But even
for those Soviet citizens who were not so highly placed, customs officials could
relax their vigilance: it would appear they often were concerned more with pornographic pens and postcards than with clothes and mohair yarn.130
Despite all the obstacles, travelling members of Soviet society added considerably to the pool of goods available to urban consumers in the Brezhnev era.

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Things brought from work trips and holidays could be sold though a chain of
personal contacts or at work, as we have seen. They could also be turned into cash
via second-hand shops or the so-called commission shops (komissionki).
Commission shops were known to sell foreign items even before the Brezhnev
period for instance, after the war, when trophies brought by the Red Army officers returning from Europe could on a rare occasion turn up there.131 But then it
was unusual, whereas now Bolshoi dancers, major orchestras and ensembles,
circus troupes or sports delegations, in addition to journalists, diplomats and sailors, were expected to bring in new batches of things, with the dates of their return
from abroad being duly noted by commission shops (and relayed to friendly
customers) as if these were scheduled deliveries from reliable suppliers.132
The case of second-hand shops shows how the boundaries between legal and
illegal economic practices might overlap in the late Soviet Union. Komissionki
were a perfectly legitimate part of the state trade system, and those citizens who
wanted to sell their personal possessions were entitled to use them as lawful
intermediaries, for which the shops received a small commission. Using komissionki to sell things brought from overseas with the intention of making money
was quite another matter and was condemned by the authorities, while tipping
customers off about such deliveries or holding items back for them was illegal
and implicated the shop assistants in this illicit business activity.
Berezka stores are another case in point. Officially they were off limits to
ordinary consumers because they sold goods in exchange for special cheques
that could only be obtained with foreign currency. As such, they were outlets
available only to foreigners or diplomats, international journalists, and other specialists spending long spells abroad and paid in hard currency or special currency
cheques. But in reality access could be gained by others. Metelitsa recalls receiving a sum of dollars as payment for his participation in an international conference
organized by the World Health Organization in Moscow in the 1970s: the money
was given to him directly (literally, in an envelope) by the organizers, and
Metelitsa rushed to the Berezka store with his wife in order to spend the money
before the Soviet representatives could take it away. That this was a fluke was
proved by the second such conference, where Metelitsa was asked by a Soviet
Ministry of Health official to sign the receipt but saw no money.133 Even less
entitled to shopping in Berezka stores were fartsovshchiki, who nevertheless
managed it indirectly, through a complicated chain of contacts which sometimes
included Westerners. But, on occasion, Berezka cheques and admission to the
store could be gained by those who had nothing to do with foreign currency or
visitors. Andreeva recalls obtaining such currency certificates through a friend
and setting off for the Berezka. This was illegal: a guard at the door requested to
see a document confirming that she was entitled to the cheques. It may be that
Berezka guards were experienced visual readers of social status, but the amount
of Andreevas ill-gotten cheques was so small that the guard decided not to bother
and let her pass.134 What this example suggests is that illegal access to a closed
source of goods could only take place with the consent of those entrusted to keep
people out. The cooperation of state retail agents komissionka shop assistants,

Shopping as a way of life 99

Berezka personnel, and so on was required for the alternative sources of goods
to function. Even the officers of the OBKhSS, the organization charged with
combating theft of socialist property and speculation, were prone to take advantage of their routine access to shops, their directors and shortage goods.135
Thus, Soviet shoppers did not eschew state retail altogether but took the initiative to adapt it to their needs for instance, by persuading sales clerks to hold
back high-demand goods for them and to supplement it by acquiring things
imported by individuals rather than official trade organizations, and yet all of
these channels linked back to the state system either through state shops and
komissionki, work-related trips abroad, the allowances made by the customs
officers, or the better supplied closed cities, and so on. Consumers became
increasingly enmeshed in a complex network of goods circulation that did not
necessarily involve a simple visit to a shop but which, nonetheless, was not disconnected altogether from state retail as well as other state institutions.
The formal and informal sectors were so interlocked that the second economy
was, in effect, an essential pillar of the Soviet system. The substantive reduction
in the use of state violence reflected this situation. Fartsovshchiki have been
called economic dissidents and rebels against totalitarianism for their flouting
of the prescribed legal and social norms,136 but in the long 1970s profiteers came
to be treated more leniently than in earlier decades and not nearly as harshly as
the political dissidents.137 Despite the calls to step up the fight against economic
crimes and a number of official campaigns to that effect, a range of milder penalties for the most common types of economic crime, including profiteering, was
adopted by the police and courts in the late 1970s and early 1980s.138
A number of Western observers concluded that such tolerance of alternative
economic practices by the government was perhaps intentional and constituted
what James Millar has termed a Little Deal. As the authorities turned a blind
eye, citizens gained some leeway to use non-socialist methods of improving their
personal material well-being, thereby filling the gaps left by the ailing economy
and making the Soviet regime more sustainable. Millars own experience during
his stay in Moscow in 1979 suggested his intentionalist conclusions. Having
observed and even used Soviet private services, he was struck by how little effort
was made to conceal them, as when he watched how petrol was drained from
state-owned chauffeured limousines right under the windows of a Moscow apartment block whose residents included high-ranking officials and Party members,
as well as military and police officers.139
Recently, however, the emphasis on intentional flexibility has been questioned
by an archive-based study of the late Soviet policing of economic crime, which
finds little documentary evidence to support the idea that the failure to crack down
effectively on economic crime was the result of orders from above. The expanding
black market may have helped the regime to muddle through not because the
leadership sanctioned it to do so but, rather, because the authorities on the ground
were unable to put a stop to it. The regime had been in denial about the persistence
of economic crime in the Soviet Union for decades because it was embarrassing
for a society that was supposed to treat private property with indifference, but from

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the mid-1970s it was forced to start paying attention. The authorities took a number of measures against economic crime, from stepping up police campaigns to
revamping research into its causes. Chronic offenders still faced harsh penalties.
However, pragmatic considerations on the ground were winning the day: it was
clearly becoming impossible for the penal system to accommodate the ever growing numbers of profiteers and other small-time perpetrators, and so both local
courts and the police adjusted their approach. As Favarel-Garrigues argues,
changes to the Criminal Code and to court practices made during the late 1970s
and early 1980s, which brought in a range of more lenient definitions and punishments for economic crimes, reflected tentative adaptations to obvious social
changes but also highlighted the inability of the system to cope on account of the
scale of the problem.140 In fact, success in this struggle was impossible: alternative
economic practices would persist as long as problems with consumer goods persisted. As the economic situation deteriorated further in the early 1980s, even the
top leadership, namely Andropov, came to realize that combating underground
practices through police action would have little impact without serious changes
to the entire economic system.141
If some members of late Soviet officialdom wanted to see an end to alternative
economic practices, others were less keen, or at least ambivalent. There is
ample evidence to suggest a different kind of connection between the Party-state
and the second economy: officials, from local elites to the most high-ranking
members of the political establishment and their families, could be directly
involved in its operations. Some within the nomenklatura acted as valuable suppliers to profiteers thanks to their own privileged access to desirable goods at
home, via closed shops, and abroad, where they were not subject to the same
constraints as their ordinary comrades. Plisetskaia saw her official tag-along on
the dancing tour to Italy in the early 1980s push 11 large boxes through the Soviet
customs diplomatic exit without any difficulties; she was later told they contained TV and video equipment.142 Even the very top nomenklatura and their
families seem to have participated in underground operations. Andropovs close
associate I. E. Sinitsyn tells the story of Brezhnevs wife visiting a well-stocked
military base store in Milovice during her holiday in Czechoslovakia: the shop
had a special Generals Room where privileged customers could choose crystal
tableware and chandeliers, pieces of the famous Czech glass, and jewellery; other
rooms were well stocked with clothing, tights and other goods. The First Lady
allegedly filled a mini-bus with her shopping, taking everything she fancied without worrying about the limits of her admittedly generous allowance; she had no
intention of paying at all.143 It was unlikely that she needed all those goods for
personal or even family consumption only. Brezhnevs niece Liuba claims in her
memoirs that, among the top elites, everyone who went abroad knew a black marketer who would pick up the merchandise and leave the money very discreetly, of
course. The wives had their own buyers, who took dresses, cosmetics, socks,
handbags and brand-name diaphragms.144
Domestic sources were also used. There was speculation in Berezka cheques.
Brezhnevs daughter was implicated in a scandal over jewellery speculation in

Shopping as a way of life 101

145

1981. Children of diplomats and other prestigious parents were frequent guests
off fartsovshchiks.146 The links were not limited to Moscow-based elites or to trade
in foreign goods only. As Favarel-Garrigues points out, underground workshops
producing desirable consumer goods could not have been organized without the
support of administrative officials or members of the local elite, who could
facilitate the provision, production and sale of goods at no great risk to themselves.147 The Party-state establishment also fed the black market indirectly
through the staff of its closed shops and distribution points, who used their
proximity to valuable stock for their own enrichment and status-building.148
The black market had existed throughout the Soviet period, including the war
years, but several things were different in the Brezhnev era. One was the expansion of alternative practices of consumer goods acquisition. Further, in urban
areas the black market became orientated primarily towards high-quality consumer goods, many of which came from abroad. The expansion in foreign travel
and the rising purchasing ability of Soviet urbanites brought more people into the
unofficial network of consumer goods provision. It seemed the entire hierarchy
of Soviet urban society was involved. It may be that representatives of all social
strata participated in illicit transactions, but the more frequent and skilled participants were likely to be the middle classes and the intelligentsia rather than
industrial workers: offices provided a more congenial setting for transactions in
consumer goods than did factory floors, and the middle classes were more likely
to travel abroad as professionals and even as tourists, whereas workers found
such trips expensive.149 The stability and ease of life for top Party-state functionaries, who now had to fear neither state-sponsored terror nor constant reshuffles,
further contributed to the blurring of boundaries between the black market and
the regime itself.

Concluding remarks
Many commentators on the late Soviet era have talked about Soviet citizens turning towards their own private pursuits, away from the public world. All of this
feeds into the notion of social stagnation, made even more convincing by the
familiar image of consumers as passive, standing in long queues, stoically waiting.
However, closer analysis requires important qualifications to all these points.
Soviet shopping, whether in state retail or by other means, was an occupation that
required energy, a variety of skills and, most importantly, active engagement with
the state and society. Consumption forced people to connect with the state: this
was hard to avoid. Citizens interacted with the state as consumers by shopping in
the state retail system, by entering into correspondence with trade agencies and
other Party-state organizations, and by deciding how to dispose of their state
income. This might not seem a very political form of engagement, but in the Soviet
Union consumption was inherently political not least because, by the Brezhnev
period, it was a cornerstone of the Communist Partys legitimacy.
Even the second economy was never entirely disconnected from the state
system. Not only did it owe to the state economy its raison dtre, it also relied

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Shopping as a way of life

on that economy for the supply of goods, facilities, contacts, resources and the
cooperation of many state agents at various levels, from top nomenklatura to shop
assistants and local OBKhSS officers. If anything, these links between the legitimate and illicit economic spheres brought Soviet urbanites more tightly into the
orbit of the existing system. In fact, where the state system ended and society or
the black market began was often unclear.
Late Soviet society was by no means a rich society, despite the progress made
in only a couple of decades, but urban consumption of goods was no longer simply a question of survival and the fulfilment of basic needs. It was a field of
activity where self-expression was possible indeed, where it could be more
satisfying because access to consumer goods was constrained and differentiated.
The satisfaction derived from a successful shopping operation might be more
multifaceted than in a prosperous market economy, where access to goods is usually a matter of financial means and, according to Pierre Bourdieu, cultural
knowledge. Under mature socialism, it also required money and, more importantly, the ability to gain access to goods, through privileges, information, luck or
a variety of skills. Consumption was an arena for demonstrating ones abilities,
be they organizational or interpersonal. Having a large network of useful contacts
and knowing how to work it produced the desired results for scores of people who
did not have unfettered access to closed shops. As Raikins comic monologue
observed, obtaining shortage goods was one way of earning good opinion: I
respect you, you respect me: we are respectable people. The improving living
conditions of the Brezhnev era inflated the social value of blat, as consumption
became also about satisfying ones social needs publicizing ones special status,
achievements, privileges, or the fact of being well connected. It is to these functions of material goods that we turn in our next chapter.

Structures of consumption
Class and generation

When mass consumption began to materialize in the more prosperous Brezhnev

years, practical difficulties began to emerge. Instead of ushering in the sort of
sedate consumer culture that the authorities had hoped for, it allowed Soviet
people to let rip with what propaganda considered their baser instincts (as
described in the previous chapter). It also exposed various kinds of division and
stratification in Soviet society. Firstly, it undermined official claims about the
disappearance of class divisions. As opportunities for acquiring clothing, home
fittings and other goods increased, so did the range of models for emulation, which
created new social hierarchies and made the real structure of late Soviet society fit
even less well with the official paradigm. Secondly, consumption brought generational conflicts into sharp focus. The regime had denied the existence of the
generation gap in socialist society, claiming that, unlike in capitalist societies,
young people born and bred under socialism had no grounds for conflict with their
elders. But, during the 1970s and early 1980s, concerns regarding the materialism
of young people, and their extravagant tastes in music and fashion, made that illusion difficult to maintain. In fact, the generation gap was articulated primarily with
reference to consumption.

With us everyone is equal: class and consumption

Marxist philosophers imagined communism as a stage of social development without class exploitation and divisions, when all citizens would form one community
free of class-based antagonisms. A classless society was at the core of the Soviet
regimes identity. By the time the USSR achieved what its leaders called developed
socialism, the authorities were still unable to claim that classes had disappeared,
but they did argue that social distinctions were melting away, and the official line
was to continue to seek their full erasure. Whichever class disparities there may
have been, the authorities were keen to downplay them.1
Personal consumption, on the contrary, helped reinforce them. People read
the possessions of others to recognize the very differences in social standing that
state ideologues were trying to gloss over. As in so many other places, in the
Soviet Union, things clothes, household objects, cars and dachas all played a
role in marking social distinctions. Vitalii Korotich, the Soviet writer and former

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editor-in-chief of the popular magazine Ogonek, recalls the various messages

associated with consumption in the era of late socialism:
For a long time, a person with a video recorder was deemed more important
than a person with a simple LP record player. If in the evening you could
enjoy not a glass of the native moonshine but a Scotch, then your social
status jumped three steps up. And if, additionally, before dinner you could
have a drink of Gin and Tonic 2
A flat furnished with Finnish- or Yugoslav-made pieces suggested that its resident
might belong to the Party-state elite with access to imported furniture via closed
warehouses. By contrast, the room of a Moscow limitchik, a labour migrant from
the provinces, was more likely to feature Soviet-made items: a sofa bed, a simple
wardrobe with a mirror and a rug on the wall.3
Outside the home, clothing signalled the status of its owner to strangers and
passers-by. One example of this was furs. While this luxury became generally
more accessible to urban consumers by the Brezhnev years due to the statesponsored efforts to democratize furs, it still sent out eloquent social signals, as
Anna Tikhomirova has found in her interviews with 24 women from three
Russian cities. Natural furs were more prestigious than artificial ones. Size mattered, and so did the cut: one could tell if a coat was tailored especially for its
owner at a good atelier. The type of fur made a big difference. The expensive
mink coat was imagined to be the privilege of wealthy elites famous actors,
scholars or big-time bosses. These suppositions were correct: Kosygins daughter Liudmila, for instance, was photographed in 1962 wearing an impeccably cut
short mink jacket. Regional Party bosses kept warm in beaver caps, politicians of
a smaller calibre wore the more affordable reindeer ((pyzhikk) hats, while provincial workers had to be satisfied with rabbit-fur caps. In the words of a respondent
from Yaroslavl, one could tell where a person worked by his hat. When in the
1970s Lilianna Lungina ran into someone she had known as a minor Komsomol
official in the 1930s, she guessed he might be a diplomat not only because the
meeting took place in central Moscow near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but
because the man was dressed very well, with an expensive [fur] hat the sort
that was sold only in closed shops. The type of fur could also help tell a fresh
arrival to the city from a seasoned urbanite: one woman told Tikhomirova how
she came to Moscow from her native village in 1970 aged 19, wearing a winter
coat with a beaver lamb collar bought especially for the occasion, only to find that
she stood out like a country bumpkin among capital residents wrapped in coats
with fluffy polar fox or even mink neckpieces.4
Sheepskin coats (dublenkas) were another conspicuous symbol of material
wealth and an ultra-hot fashion item that, by the early 1980s, marked out not just
adults but even youth from well-to-do families. A retired leading engineer from a
small town in the Crimea complained in 1982 that his many years of dedicated
work in the North had not afforded him or his son a dublenka, while the children of
local Party bosses and trade workers were all clad in new sheepskin coats.5 The

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105

younger generation of the elite seemed more blatant about it all: one youngster from
a provincial nomenklatura family, in a provocative letter to the youth magazine
Smena (The Rising Generation), in which he unreservedly endorsed social privileges, boasted about the ease of buying a sheepskin coat at a closed store.6
The existence of material privileges for the political and administrative elites
was known to Western observers at the time,7 but a re-examination of the issue
highlights a number of important points. One is that, in the Brezhnev era, social
distinctions arose not so much from having things as from having things of particular quality and within easy reach. The privileged young brat whose letter so
troubled the editors of Smena that they passed it on to the Komsomol authorities
knew that it was perfectly possible for a young worker to buy a sheepskin coat if
he invested a lot of time and money in it, but the difference was that he, the son
of a provincial big cheese, could obtain a dublenka of the best quality and to his
exact specification even down to the colour of thread at a much cheaper
price, and with no effort at all (all I need to do is take a note from my dad and go
to the warehouse).8 The fact that modest but comfortable material circumstances
were now enjoyed by many meant that social distinction was communicated by
qualitative rather than quantitative differences in consumption. This is evident
also in the case of jeans, another symbol of late Soviet cool. A pair of denims was
unusual and prestigious in the 1960s, whatever its make, but in the 1970s jeans
were far more common thanks to state imports, the black market and foreign
travel, and the USSR even began to produce its own brand. By the mid-1980s, to
borrow the words of one 1985 film character, even the most backward sections
of the population have donned jeans.9 Consequently, not all jeans were considered prestigious: in fact, a whole hierarchy of coolness sprang up: the top prize
was awarded to certain brands of Western jeans, while Indian and Bulgarian jeans
hovered somewhere in the middle and the Soviet Tver brand occupied last
place.10 Equally, not all fur coats spelled prestige or guaranteed acceptance. For
young Moscow hippies like herself, the aspiring writer Mariia Arbatova looked
the height of cool in her tattered sealskin coat accessorized with a fur-trimmed
mans hat and a textile shoulder bag with a portrait of the Beatles, but a sympathetic elderly female writer who fixed her job interview at the Russian Writers
Union told her to go and change into something decent You look like a scarecrow.11 Eventually, similar hierarchies obtained even within the select caste of car
owners. In the 1950s, car ownership was indubitably a mark of high status, and,
even though the owner of a Pobeda might look down on the owner of a Moskvich,
in those days any car was a rarity and usually a perk of the job rather than someones personal property. In the 1970s, by contrast, there appears to have been, as
Lewis Siegelbaum informs us, a considerable degree of status-consciousness
about models.12
In this sense, late Soviet culture was not much different from modern Western
cultures, where, as Pierre Bourdieu, Thorsten Veblen, Jean Baudrillard and many
others have observed, objects had social meanings and functions.13 In the USSR,
too, consumer goods could serve as markers of their owners social standing. But,
far from being a rebellion inherent in modern consumption, this was often the

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result of the regimes efforts. Objects became associated with a social position or
cultural capital because the authorities encouraged those associations. For
instance, the association of the intelligentsia with a certain lifestyle rather than
just formal education had its roots in the 1930s campaign for kulturnost. In
essence, the kulturnost campaign promoted emulation of the intelligentsia lifestyle because it stressed the external attributes of a cultured class: manners,
hygiene and the ownership of cultured objects such as books, cutlery, bed
sheets, tablecloths and lampshades, which were as important as having some
basic cultural knowledge.14
For all its theoretical resentment of social hierarchy, in practice the socialist
regime was the driving force behind the social distinctions created by consumption. There were several reasons for this. Consumption was an instrument of
social and political engineering. Before the new Soviet state could start to eradicate the boundaries between classes, it had to ensure that it had the right classes
to work with. Sheila Fitzpatrick has argued that, after the 1917 revolution, the
new regime sought to declass and reclass society in line with its ideological postulates, both applying violence and handing out rewards. Consumption played no
small part in helping draw the social boundaries in this new order.15 During industrialization, access to consumer goods, and especially provisions, was a useful
way of structuring the states relationship with its citizens and motivating labour
in difficult economic conditions. The Stalinist government created whole hierarchies of consumption built around access to state food stores and cooperatives
and linked to the perceived importance of categories of people and regions to the
Soviet project.16
Even when material conditions began to improve from the mid-1950s onwards,
privileged access to goods continued to define social position in the Soviet Union.
The elites enjoyed not only closed food stores but also dedicated clothing and
furniture shops, special spas and hotels, larger apartments, cars, easy access to
train and plane tickets, and so on. It was not simply a question of separating the
rulers from the ruled; social distinction was no less important and perhaps even
more so within the state elite. Lilianna Lungina recalls how her sons girlfriend,
a fashion student, was given the task of designing pyjamas for the guests of a spa
for Party members: she was instructed to include little decorative elements in her
designs that would help distinguish the really important guests from the less
important ones, and thus ensure that the latter did not stray into the luxurious
sectors reserved for the former.17 Even in a most intimate setting the socio-political
hierarchy was to be maintained.
Obviously, this pecking order fitted poorly with the political ideals of the
socialist state. According to official declarations, the process of eliminating
antagonistic classes from socialist society had been completed by the mid-1930s,
and the 1936 constitution officially proclaimed the division of the Soviet people
into three mutually friendly classes: workers, collective farm workers (kolkk
hozniki) and the intelligentsia. State and Party officials (nomenklatura) were not
singled out as a distinct category, largely because, despite being in the vanguard,
they were to be seen as servants of the people and so an inseparable part of the

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people. Although their place in the social hierarchy, including their status as consumers, was in reality very distinctive, officially the nomenklatura was never
defined either as a separate class or as part of another one.18 By the Brezhnev era,
the official three-class system seemed to have become a two-plus-one structure:
in public discourse the intelligentsia was presented not as a class but, rather, as an
extra-class social stratum (vneklassovaia prosloika), which seemed to include,
indiscriminately, all white-collar occupations, from academician to secretary.19 It
might have been a simple formula, but it did not reflect the much more complex
social reality of the late Soviet period.
Ironically, but not illogically, it was these two groups which did not even make
it to the full category of class in the Brezhnev years the nomenklatura and the
intelligentsia that were traditionally associated with special levels of consumption. The concept of high social status in the Soviet context often draws on their
features. The more straightforward case is that of the nomenklatura, whose attraction as a model of good living is selff explanatory, and much has been written
about its privileges.20 The story of the intelligentsia is more complicated. It defies
clear definitions throughout Soviet history, and especially under developed
socialism. Yet this group, however ambiguously defined, was frequently seen as
a model for emulation, not least thanks to the legacy of the kulturnost campaigns
and because the regime since the 1930s had sought to adopt the cultural norms of
the nineteenth-century intelligentsia in its official discourse.21
More important, though, was the fact that belonging to the Soviet intelligentsia
meant better living standards. Initially, the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia had to
survive the animosity of the new regime as a result of the alien class background
of its members, but, after a turbulent and often violent period of re-forming, reeducation and replenishment with new members from proletarian backgrounds,
this expanded group was confirmed as a legitimate class in Stalins constitution.
The intelligentsia came to be pampered by the state, which sought to retain the
loyalty of the intellectual and cultural elites in exchange for material rewards.
This contributed to some tensions within the group, however, when descendants
of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia began to look down on the newcomers for
their philistinism and materialism. As a result, two divergent tendencies emerged:
on the one hand, a trend towards expansion and attenuation of boundaries and, on
the other, particularization within the group.22
From the late 1960s through the 1980s, more newcomers of worker and peasant origins swelled the ranks of the intelligentsia. The boundaries of this group
became even more porous: according to the official view, education and profession determined ones membership in the mass intelligentsia, and so obtaining a
university degree or changing job to a white-collar occupation would do the trick.
Special privileges, including scholarships and quotas, for young villagers and
workers seeking to enter universities were meant to make it easier for people
from a non-intelligentsia background to move quickly into the intelligentsia stratum, at least formally.23 In practice, however, things were more difficult. The
above policy was only partially successful. Some of the more radical steps
adopted to promote educational equality under Khrushchev were quickly scrapped

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by the Brezhnev administration, and, while complete school education became

available to a large majority by 1970, competition for university entrance was
dominated by the children of the intelligentsia.24 As a result, the overwhelming
majority of Brezhnev-era scholars came from intelligentsia families.25
All of this made it even more imperative for recent arrivals in the intelligentsia to confirm their new social position quickly with the help of status-marking
commodities television sets, music players, valuable tableware and objets dart.
Furniture, home fittings and, especially, antiques played a similar role (see Chapter 6).
Books were another common indicator of belonging to the circle of the educated
and cultured. In fact, they were so often employed to project the image of
culturedness that they eventually lost their potency as a marker of status: their
acquisition was increasingly seen as motivated by considerations of display rather
than by an interest in reading.26 Eventually, the consumption of culture in material
form, contrary to the views promoted during the Stalinist kulturnost drive, began
to be seen as manifesting philistinism. This even resulted in the introduction of a
new term, intellectual philistinism (intellektualnoe meshchanstvo), which meant
the tendency to accumulate knowledge for the sake of having it a sort of
intellectual consumerism.27
Clothes also played an important role in marking out a true member of the
intelligentsia. Note the association between status and tasteful dress in the following diary entry by the Soviet painter Valerii Kudrov during a trip abroad in
1966: We travelled through Sweden. [It is] a country of rich people. No hoi
polloi, like we have here. Everyone has the appearance of intelligentnyi and
well-dressed people.28 This also implied a norm that diverged from the official
standard of modesty: Kudrov mentioned with approval girls made up like
proper movie stars. The intelligentsia had to dress not necessarily modestly but
well. Academics, artists, writers and other elite groups of the intelligentsia could
serve as pioneers of fashion, especially those, like Kudrov, who travelled abroad.
There is a photograph, taken as early as 1962, of the film director Andrei
Tarkovskii dancing rock n roll in jeans, when jeans were still a rarity even in the
capital.29 The idea that the intelligentsia dressed and generally lived better than
other social groups was commonplace in cinema. In the 1979 feature film The
Turning Point, Moscow lawyers and scientists are dressed in smart suits and
fashionable turtlenecks and sport elegant evening gowns at a party, while workers
wear plain shirts or white cotton vests and old-fashioned dresses. Prominent members of the intelligentsia TV stars, for instance could help legitimize controversial
styles. When one young girl was publicly reprimanded for wearing trousers to a
dance club, she allegedly retorted: Even actresses perform wearing trousers,
and they are watched by thousands of viewers.30 A smart outfit marked the welldo-to member of the intelligentsia. A law student about to graduate and move to
the prestigious Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk with her mathematician husband
said: Now that we are about to embark on our careers as academics, we cant go
around dressed every which way.31 For people from other social backgrounds
who entered the stratum of the intelligentsia by virtue of university education,
clothing became an important element in their new status. This was especially

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109

the case for those who came from a village background and thus were attempting
to cross not one, but two social borders.32
The arrival of scores of new members provoked unease and resentment among
representatives of the intelligentsia elites. Some of them worried that the arrivistes
were interested only in material benefits, seeing their consumerism as a threat to
the groups traditional selff assigned role as the moral vanguard of society. But
others were threatened by the potential competition. Far from all members of the
cultural or academic elite displayed noble indifference to creature comforts.
Korotich described how
masters of the brush, pen and camera fought for apartments in privileged
houses, for the right to purchase furniture out of turn, for fur hats, and trips
to southern spas Writers came on the scene who were better at obtaining
than writing.33
Members of the cultural elites had long competed over privileged access to
goods, both because resources were not unlimited and because these elites had
their own internal status structures. During her time at the RSFSR Union of
Writers, Arbatova witnessed authors jostling for access to better shops, more
prestigious spa trips and apartments in better locations, all of which depended on
how much a writer had published and on his or her good relations with those
charged with distribution of such benefits.34 In these circumstances, it is no surprise that not everyone welcomed new contenders. Those who themselves had
moved up the social ladder from modest backgrounds could be particularly jealous of new blood. Arbatova recalls a story one famous writer told her in the
1980s about how he had permitted a young man of promising talent to bring his
manuscript for advice to the writers home but did not let him into the flat. Such
behaviour offended his visitor, but the writer felt no remorse: the young man
from the provinces was attempting to break into Moscow high society and
should have expected such treatment. When Arbatova pointed out that the writer
himself had once been such a provincial arriviste, he replied: Yes, but I have
made it now. And it was precisely because I did not throw a fit when I was kept
outside the front door.35
Tensions between the cultural elites and the newcomers to white-collar occupations might not be very surprising in a modern society with expanding educational
opportunities, especially in view of the state-sponsored system of privileges. In the
1970s, however, a new social trend emerged. The rise in incomes across the social
spectrum meant that soon there were other social groups who could afford to live
well and even imitate the intelligentsia lifestyle. Income differentiation between
the scientific elite and the rest of the population diminished: in 1960 the average
salary in science was 1.37 of the average salary in the country, but in 1980 this
ratio was much lower 1.06 and, furthermore, hierarchies were breaking down
within the stratum of the academic elite.36 Some groups of the intelligentsia, such
as engineers, ceased to be associated with material privileges, while other, nonintellectual professions gained this cachet. Contemporary surveys showed that

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families of workers and middle-class university-educated specialists (teachers and

engineers) earned comparable incomes, although the intelligentsia families possessed more of such cultural goods as radios and music players and luxury items
such as jewellery, crystal, china and furs.37 This disparity, however, was down to
the fact that such items were passed down from previous generations, and many
members of the group did not perceive themselves as particularly well off. When
asked about their standard of living in the early 1980s, Leningrad families of
workers and trade and services employees were more optimistic about their conditions than the intelligentsia. Most teachers and engineers said they had enough
income to cover daily expenses but buying clothes posed financial difficulties,
whereas most respondents working in trade and services, as well as industrial
workers, claimed their families had enough money to put aside savings, even if
major purchases were still difficult.38 Teachers and engineers might not be the
most privileged representatives of the intelligentsia, and taken as a whole this was
certainly not a poor class for example, it was mainly the intelligentsia who were
driving their own cars in 198339 but these surveys highlight the fact that higher
education on its own was not necessarily a ticket to a materially comfortable life.
As a result, the intelligentsias collective image as a class enjoying material prosperity and symbolizing the good life was somewhat undermined in the Brezhnev
years. In fact, a number of recent arrivals to the educated middle class from
working-class backgrounds in the 1980s moved back to skilled worker jobs precisely because these now offered better material conditions.40
It is also telling that other groups declared satisfaction with their material conditions. What traditionally mattered more than income in the Soviet economy was
access to shortage goods, and under mature socialism channels of access multiplied. New groups emerged with special access to consumer goods, including the
expanding range of people travelling abroad for work. The privileged were no
longer limited to artists, academics, top Party functionaries and KGB and army
officers. Apart from trade workers, groups which represented favourable access
to material benefits included interpreters, hotel managers, flight attendants, trade
union employees, and so on. Their access was not an institutionalized privilege
granted by the state but, rather, the consequence of their job, and of the fact that
it became easier to take advantage of their position under Brezhnev, when controls over state resources weakened substantially.41 For instance, those employed
in the vast apparatus that served the Party-state elites in their closed shops,
sanatoriums, canteens, clinics and other facilities also had access to shortage
goods designated for the elites, and they used their opportunities to benefit themselves and supply the black market.42 Ironically, even a job with the agency
charged with combating economic crime was considered prestigious, not only
because it offered an opportunity to serve the country but also because it allowed
regular contact with shops, warehouses and sought-after consumer goods. In
other words, officers charged with preventing unauthorized distribution of goods
became part of it.43
These changes in the social prestige of various professions were reflected in
popular culture and in readers letters to the press. A correspondent from the

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111

Crimean city of Dzhankoi complained to the editors of Smena in March 1983 that
the current moral and material incentives for engineers, especially young ones,
are not appropriate for the work of an engineer.44 Others also linked social status
directly to material benefits. A 26-year-old land surveyor from Tashkent commented bitterly that where he lived the only prestigious professions were in retail
and in the militsiia, who received bribes for turning a blind eye to trade personnels black market activities.45 A frank dispatch from Riga laid bare the rationale
behind these changing notions of prestige:
Why should our young people strive for higher education when a mechanic
makes more money than an engineer (or a doctor, teacher, and so on)? I know
that about 40 per cent of taxi drivers in Riga are qualified doctors, engineers
[or] teachers. I am 30 years old, and I have a university degree. I spent three
years working as I was supposed to in the field Id been trained but then,
through personal contacts [po
[ blatu], got a job as a waiter in a restaurant
where I work now. My university friend works as a barman in a pub. We are
both well off. There you go!46
Being a waiter in a restaurant or a bar also meant access to wealthy and wellconnected clients, as well as foodstuffs, and this added to the financial attraction
of the job. It is telling that the author had to pull strings to become a waiter.
Undoubtedly, the dubious prosperity of trade workers and the old privileges
of the nomenklatura aroused resentment. The archives hold plenty of letters to
the press expressing irritation on this account, such as one from a citizen in
Rostov-on-Don to Literaturnaia gazeta in 1969: None of the leaders is concerned about [workers complaints]; they have lost touch with the people and
are drowning in luxury.47 The resentment seems to have been more widely
expressed in the early 1980s, which could be connected to the worsening
shortages in the country.48 But it is difficult to estimate how widespread or
acute this resentment was before the late 1980s. Iren Andreeva remembers
how she took for granted the fact that hard-currency Berezka shops were off
limits to ordinary consumers: unlike some foreign visitors, who were embarrassed by its exclusivity, she was not offended in the least by the fact that she
could not shop there.49
Paradoxically, for all the social distinctions created by shortages and uneven
access to goods, consumption also worked as a mechanism of social cohesion, a
kind of social glue. In conditions of shortage, reliance on personal contacts
(blat) to obtain desired goods meant that members of very different social and
occupational groups were connected through complex informal networks that
centred on common acquaintances working in the retail system or other points of
goods and services distribution. A dentist could maintain a combination of personal and business contacts with a shop assistant in the shoe department of GUM.
The dentist could then introduce her patient, a TV mechanic who was interested
in buying winter boots, to the shop assistant and thus secure in return guaranteed
future servicing for her own and the assistants television sets. Whether such

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relations were based on personal connection that facilitated business or whether

business connections developed into friendship varied according to circumstances.50
But it remained the case that the quest for goods in unfavourable shortage conditions encouraged more interclass association than was likely to happen otherwise.
As is so often the case, cinema has eloquent illustrations of the theme: in Eldar
Riazanovs The Garage, the director of a market is initially seen as a valuable
member of the garage-building cooperative of a zoological research institute to
which she has no formal affiliation; here the intelligentsia and trade workers are
linked by their common interest in securing parking facilities for their cars.
Contemporaries offer real-life corroboration. One Leningrader, who worked at a
closed engineering firm, recalled how a young female engineer established a sort
of permanent partnership with a mechanic from the same firm, who regularly
offered her beautiful garments for sale which he was somehow able to procure
through his contacts.51 The playwright Viktor Slavkin offers a dramatic illustration
of how consumption worked as a determinant of the pecking order during a sudden
supply crisis in 1979:
The Soviet [washing] powder disappeared entirely; imported brands had
not been purchased [by the state] People rushed around Moscow. A shop
assistant at one store for household goods then declared: Finally, my time
has come! Shop assistants in dirty blue robes suddenly acquired their
own clientele, their cubby-holes [in the shops] were now crowded with
writers, actors, television hosts, athletes 52
Even published surveys of the late Brezhnev period openly admitted that consumers tended to compare their material circumstances with those of others and
sought to emulate the better off.53 But it is important to note also that these desires
were not always expressed in terms of belonging to a specific elite group. Some
sought to be on the same level as everyone else, to fit in with what they saw as
a general standard. This was evident, for instance, in some peoples approaches
to furnishing their homes and to fashions: one Muscovite sold her recently purchased and perfectly good suite of furniture because her friend had obtained a
better one.54 Yet others had an equally non-class-specific goal of being different
from everyone else.55 These considerations were especially evident in the late
1970s and the 1980s, when sociologists recorded a sharp growth in demand for
commodities that could help consumers express themselves and shape new identities as well as embellish their homes.56 Such items included fashionable clothes,
but also TV sets and other electronic equipment, crystal, furs, carpets and furniture. Even if items employed for such ends did not fit current ideas of what was
fashionable, they effectively communicated the owners ability to stand out from
the general masses.
Last but not least, vertical emulation was supplemented by horizontal or geographical emulation, as opportunities to imitate urbanites increased for rural
residents. Muscovites and residents of other capital cities were seen as an elite
vis--vis the provinces; towns were ahead of villages. Proximity to the capital

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113

could also count. Fashion-conscious residents of Yaroslavl, for instance, saw

themselves as provincial compared to people in Moscow, but they also thought
that those in towns further removed from the capital than theirs were even more
provincial in their dress habits; at least the Yaroslavl women could travel to
Moscow shops (and even fashion shows) to keep up with the trends, including
foreign ones.57 Visitors from Moscow to the more distant regions or holiday
resorts were scrutinized for the latest styles. Fashion specialist Andreeva recalls
that, on a work trip to Sakhalin in the 1980s, she was eagerly questioned by local
fashionistas about the latest styles in the capital. When she told them instead
about the fashionable coats she had found in their local shop, they were evidently
disappointed. Not all novelties from Moscow went down a treat in the provinces.
Andreeva remembers several glitches with clothing deliveries: in one instance the
ultra-hot Swedish blazers sent from Moscow to Novosibirsk in the early 1970s
were mistaken for railwaymens uniforms by local retailers, who sent the blazers
back indignantly. In some parts of the Soviet Union womens fashions emerging
from Moscow were not practical and could be adapted almost beyond recognition
to fit with local traditions, as was the case in parts of Central Asia.58 But, generally, residents of the capital were seen as trend-setters almost anywhere, with the
exception of the Baltic republics. A famous scene at the flat of a fartsovshchikk in
the 1985 comedy The Most Charming and Attractive illustrates not only the
profiteers role in promoting fashions but also the stereotyping of provincial consumers as non-elite: when the main protagonist reveals ignorance of foreign
couturiers, the fartsovshchikk addresses her friend: Why, is she from the Urals?
(Ona chto, s Urala?).
As we have seen, the meaning of class in the late Soviet period shifted away
from sociological abstractions to specific professional affiliation. Social relations were defined not vis--vis the means of production but by tensions arising
in the milieu of consumption. At the same time, consumptions increasingly
prominent role as a vehicle for social mobility served to soothe social frictions.
Fashion and consumption substantially de-classed society, as people strove to
be like everyone else or to belong to groups whose composition defied the
usual Soviet class categorization, such as the more traditional and officially
acceptable stratum of the intelligentsia. It is perhaps a fitting illustration of consumptions social power that black market profiteers, those important actors in
the theatre of late Soviet consumption, were connected to such a diverse range
of people, from underground artists and fashion models to sons of diplomats and
Party bosses.59

The importance of being imported:

the role of Western goods
The status of consumer goods in the Soviet Union was determined not so much
by price as by shortages. As foreign travel was restricted, things that came from
abroad were in a category of their own. For the authorities, by contrast, foreign
items that found their way into the USSR outside the safe channels of state

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retail raised all sorts of concerns. Although the Soviet state boosted imports of
consumer goods during the 1970s, by then it had a history of viewing all things
Western from jeans to music as potential weapons of enemy propaganda and
was quick to interpret a keen interest in them as a sign of political unreliability.
Increased contacts with foreigners in the post-Stalin era did nothing to assuage
these concerns. For instance, a 1965 KGB report on the incorrect behaviour of
some members of the intelligentsia worried not just about these citizens passing embarrassing information to foreign visitors but also about presents from
foreigners to members of the intelligentsia. Iu. L. Kuleshova, a secretary of the
Department for Western Europe of the Soviet Friendship Societies Union,
attracted officials attention for receiving gifts and being taken to restaurants by
foreign guests. The KGB was also alarmed by the practice of Italian filmmakers involved in joint SovietItalian film productions of making presents of
clothes, shoes, gold bracelets, hairdryers and cosmetics to virtually every
Soviet colleague involved in their project; Italian film companies, apparently,
had special budget allocations for all these gifts in their financial plans.60 Soviet
tourists and specialists abroad were discouraged from indulging in too much
shopping and reprimanded for receiving gifts from foreign hosts.61 At home,
those who shopped in Berezka currency stores were subject to surveillance and
periodic checks by the police, a practice which could sometimes yield a major
scoop in the hunt for corruption.62
Despite all these warnings, restrictions and suspicions, the magnetism of
Western-made goods was irresistible to Soviet consumers. Even children knew
this. The deputy minister for education Liubov Baliasnaia admitted at a public
roundtable that her sons first question about any present was Is it imported?,
and he begged her to allow him to tell his friends that it was, even if it was Sovietmade. Baliasnaia was concerned with this fetishism of foreign things but could
see where it came from: We produce sputniks but we dont have pretty underwear for women.63 This was not a particularly controversial statement. The
Soviet press did not shy away from recognizing the superiority of many Western
products and habitually emphasized the need to keep up with the West in the quality of consumer goods.64
But Soviet consumers did not need the press to tell them that capitalist was
better when it came to fashion, shoes, perfume, stereo players or home fittings.
They got plenty of chances to see for themselves, as the post-Stalinist Soviet
Union cautiously began to open up to the outside world. In the late 1950s, the
Moscow Youth Festival and the American Exhibition in Moscow were the first
international events to bring glimpses of Western consumer culture to the general
public, but they were not the last. Both foreign guests and foreign exhibitions
kept coming in the Brezhnev era. For instance, in 1967 there was the First
International Fashion Festival in Moscow, which brought to the capital collections by Chanel, Pierre Cardin, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and other stars
of French, German, American and British design, as well as collections from
Yugoslavia and other socialist countries. The shows lasted for two weeks, and the
Palace of Sports in Moscow was filled to the brim with 10,000 viewers every

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day. The capital was not the only venue for such events. In summer 1965, Minsk
hosted an exhibition called Architecture of the USA.66 Yugoslavia, Hungary,
Poland and the GDR also brought their best consumer goods for display to the
Soviet public in the 1970s and 1980s.
These exhibitions gave consumers an opportunity to see Western consumer
delights, but they were not the main sources of information about them, nor did
they always elicit a predictable response.67 In the 1970s, however, increased
imports of goods from the capitalist countries enabled more people to buy them.
Western, Yugoslav, Hungarian, Polish and East German goods raised the bar for
home-made things and reinforced the impression that foreign goods were better.
Although imported goods were more widely available, they had not become commonplace. The thriving black market suggests that many Soviet shoppers were
willing to pay considerably more for a foreign label.
Western goods might have been attractive on account of better quality and
design, but this was only part of the story. They were prestigious because they
were associated with the forbidden capitalist world, with the unfamiliar but
intriguing life in a foreign country and, most importantly, with trips abroad which
enabled one to experience those things, however briefly.68 As Anne Gorsuch notes
in her study of Soviet tourism under Khrushchev, opportunities for foreign travel
increased in the post-Stalin era, but it was mainly the privileged groups who
took advantage academics, cultural workers, Party functionaries and factory
managers. Only 17 per cent of those heading for Eastern Europe in 1961 through
Intourist, the state agency for foreign travel, were workers. Access to Western
Europe was even more restricted: gaining permission to travel to a capitalist destination required, among other things, political connections and considerable
financial resources.69
Although in the Brezhnev years tourism to foreign countries became much
more widely available, reaching about 4.5 million travellers a year by 1985,70
the majority of those who travelled still seem to have come from the middle
classes. For instance, in 1968 the Gorky regions trade unions sent a total of
1,725 tourists abroad, but only 142 of them were workers and 30 were collective farmers. Of the remaining number, 1,385 were employees, of whom the
overwhelming majority (905) were engineers, doctors, lecturers, trade union
and Party functionaries, and those working in literature and arts. The head of the
regional council of trade unions noted that the high cost of foreign trips to socialist countries prevented the wider participation of workers and shock-workers.71
Only certain groups travelled for work: top Party members, diplomats, the artistic
elite and academics, senior government officials, interpreters, top-class sportsmen and women, plus select specialists such as engineers, bankers or designers
sent on professional exchanges. In 1975, over 60 per cent of Soviet citizens who
went abroad for work had a university degree.72 Tourism to capitalist countries
was not forbidden although it involved an intimidating application process
which offered ample opportunities for rejection but it was expensive.73 In
sum, travel abroad became more common in the Brezhnev era, but it remained
a class-based affair.

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Consequentially, foreign trips were a firm marker of a well-paid job and high
social status. Trophies brought back home symbolized the prestige that access to
such trips implied. Unsurprisingly, shopping was an indispensable part of any visit
to a foreign place, and especially to the West, despite the limited supply of currency and time afforded by the tour programme.74 The immediate experience of
Western material culture could be overwhelming. When the Soviet painter Kudrov
visited Norway in December 1965, he was much impressed by the bright neon
advertising and lavish Christmas decorations in the streets: I was somewhat flabbergasted by this astounding effect but we didnt show that we felt emotional
inside.75 Kudrov was not even a newcomer to Western urban landscapes. His first
expedition to the West was an official visit to Finland in 1962, and he was equally
impressed with shops and private homes then. The artist wrote in his journal:
I went for a walk. The shop windows are stunning. Heaps of consumer goods.
Of course, excellent ready-made dresses, and other things and shoes.
Everyone is dressed very well, in a sporty fashion and elegantly. Shops are
filled with all sorts of goods; one doesnt know where to look first. And the
main thing is that everything is of high quality.76
However, another feeling was mixed in with fascination bitterness. Alas,
[Ive got] no money and thats very frustrating. A few days later Kudrov
expressed the same annoyance: Everything is fine but not enough [Finnish]
Marks; meanwhile there is stuff to buy for you [his wife] and for me. When his
Finnish hosts later took him shopping and presented him with nylon shirts, underwear, and stockings for his wife, the painter seemed genuinely glad: I declined
at first [[polomalsia nemnogo] but accepted, of course, happily.77 Funds were
limited partly to save precious hard currency, and partly to prevent unbecoming
fuss over material delights on offer in capitalist stores.78 For some tourists, however, the temptation was too strong, as for Comrade Denisov, chairman of the
Russian Consumer Union, who was detained by the London police for allegedly
stealing cardigans from a Marks and Spencer shop and released only after the
energetic intervention of the Soviet consulate.79
Any trip abroad was a big deal, but even here a kind of hierarchy took shape.
Tourism to the West was most prestigious, and Yugoslavia, because of its special
status, was in many ways equivalent to a Western destination.80 Among the East
European countries, Hungary, Poland and East Germany were more popular for
shopping purposes.81 The Soviet cardiologist Vladimir Metelitsa described Berlin
shops, which he first visited in 1971, as offering wondrous abundance for us,
citizens of the great Soviet Union. During his trip he discovered consumer venues whose existence he could not have imagined before such as a specialized
clothing store for expectant mothers.82 Bulgaria and Romania were more
affordable and thus more common destinations.83 While clothing, shoes and even
trinkets from capitalist countries were the most prestigious, objects from Eastern
Europe were also highly valued. This is how Metelitsa described his return home
from Yugoslavia in 1969:

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117

I burst into the flat like a meteorite and the first thing I did, having given
everyone a kiss, was to spill out my suitcases contents onto the sofa (or
perhaps it was the table). They froze for a moment, mesmerized by the multitude of new things, and that was my intended effect. Then came the deafening shrieks of the children and the celebration began.84
Besides quality and prestige, Western goods represented an encounter with the
mysterious and still largely unattainable Other: the capitalist world. Symbols of
this world aroused the fascination of those who did not have a chance to see it first
hand, and in the Soviet Union of the Brezhnev era opportunities for second-hand
encounters with Western material culture increased, not least thanks to dtente.85
This is how Slavkin remembers such chances in the 1970s: Our general secretary
would travel there [to America], become friends with their president and there
you go, we got something out of it, too. Suddenly, there were more of their films;
jeans got thrown out in GUM; a programme on jazz flashed by on television;
Pepsi was being sold in the street 86 Soviet readers took an avid interest in
stories about life in the West which appeared in the press. A 1973 survey of readers of the newspaper Literaturnaia gazeta (The Literary Gazette) showed that 88
per cent of its subscribers read the International Life section, with stories about
the moral system of the bourgeois press, radio and television and on the bourgeois image [i.e. way] of life being the most popular.87 Those who travelled to
the West also became a source of stories for others.88
For the small price of a cinema ticket anyone could catch a glimpse of Western
life through foreign films, which became more numerous in the 1970s.89 In a letter to the Partys Central Committee, the editorial office of the newspaper
Sovetskaia Rossiia (Soviet Russia) argued, citing numerous readers responses,
that even Western gangster movies, instead of exposing the evils of capitalism,
attracted audiences with visions of la dolce vita and thus dangerously propagated the Western way of life.90 Even more damage was done by films about
contemporary life over there. Foreign titles such as the French Un homme et une
femme ((A Man and a Woman, 1966), Le Jouett (The Toy, 1976) and Le Grand
Blond avec une chaussure noire (The Tall Blonde Man in One Black Shoe, 1972)
became blockbusters in the USSR in the 1970s and advertised to their enraptured
audiences luxurious home settings, restaurants, fast cars and foreign fashions.
Rather than decaying, as propaganda promised, that world was aging rather
gracefully. Although no doubt the authorities sought to pick those films that were
critical of contemporary social ailments abroad, the effect was questionable. A
Man and a Woman gave the Soviet Union a long-lasting fashion in sheepskin
coats.91 The Toy told the story of a spoilt rich kid who was misbehaving because
he was neglected by his businessman father, but it also stunned Soviet audiences
with big-screen images of the unbelievable luxury of Parisian upper-class homes.
The Tall Blonde Man in One Black Shoe was a spoof spy comedy ridiculing the
invasive and paranoid French security services, something that should have resonated with Soviet audiences, but, as Leonid Parfenov has observed, it shows off
the elegant Parisian lifestyle: suits that fit perfectly, restaurants, cool cars, and

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enviable flats with modernist furniture, collections of antique musical instruments

and fur skins.92 The American film Tootsiee (1982), shown in the USSR in the early and
mid-1980s, is about an unemployed actor and should have ticked the propaganda
boxes by portraying an American economic and cultural crisis, but, when the
action moves to a flat of a working single mother, it shows a home that was
beyond the wildest dreams of almost any Soviet cinema-goer.
Then there were foreign glossies and fashion magazines: young people, and not
only they, were avid readers of Amerika and Angliia, for example. A small minority had relatives abroad and could be lucky enough to be allowed to receive an
occasional package from them. The Leningrad actress Kseniia Fedorovna
Komissarova relied on her sisters family in Switzerland to send her outfits and
fabric, which were important for her both professionally and emotionally. These
packages are my salvation in life, she wrote to her sister. The fact that I
have preserved my image as an artist, rather than as a housewife, is due to your
kindness.93 It became easier to receive packages from abroad in the 1970s:
Andreeva recalls getting regular parcels with clothing from two friends who had
married Italians and left the Soviet Union. From the 1950s onwards, her own
Italian-married aunt began to visit, and each time she came she brought suitcases
loaded with clothes for all the relatives.94 Others could also benefit from such
contacts: some of the clothes that Italian friends sent to Andreeva were intended
for sale. The money was to be given to their Jewish friends to assist them in emigration from the USSR.95
All of these occasional second-hand encounters, stories and images grew into
the collective picture of life in the West as more prosperous, glamorous and
sophisticated in its everyday manifestations than life at home, even (or especially)
for those who had not experienced it first hand. Lilliana Lungina recalls welcoming
in Moscow in 1964 an old childhood friend from France whom she had not seen
for many years. Lungina was nervous because it had been such a long time: they
parted as schoolgirls more than 30 years previously, and now they were married
women; Lungina had two kids. But she also felt compelled to give her home a
make-over because, she said, she was ashamed that our flat [did] not look good
enough for Europeans. She realized later that it was complete folly (their
French friends were so delighted to see them they could not have cared less about
the furniture), but not before she and her husband had spent the night before the
meeting refurbishing their two armchairs.96
The prestige of Western trinkets, made even more alluring by a greater number
of films, foreign fashion magazines and Western souvenirs, was occasionally even
mocked in popular culture. In one comedy, The Diamond Arm (Brilliantovaia
(
ruka, Gaidai, 1968), a straight-laced, public activist-type woman melts when her
neighbour, who has just returned from a holiday abroad, offers her a little box a
souvenir. She immediately assumes before opening the box that it must be French
perfume, and exclaims How charming!, but is bitterly disappointed when it turns
out to be a silly toy. Even more explicitly, The Most Charming and Attractive is
full of Western consumer references. Calvin Klein, Pierre Cardin and Christian
Dior are practically household names; the characters speech is peppered with

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foreign terms koton (cotton), leibla (label, i.e., brand). In one scene, the heroines
female colleague proudly declares: My friends, thank goodness, know a thing or
two about fashion: we flip through the pages of the Burda Moden magazine every
month! Yet these are not members of a subculture like stiliagi, but ordinary middleclass urbanites (engineers). The film does not try to explain these brand names to
its audience; everyone is expected to understand.

Youth and consumption

As we have seen in the previous chapter, ideologists and cultural producers were
especially concerned about youth and its vulnerability to materialist temptations.
In many ways, this concern was justified. Although adolescents were mostly not
financially independent, they could be no less determined and resourceful than
adults in procuring desirable consumer goods. Schoolchildren and students
dependent on their parents were focused primarily on fashionable clothing,
accessories, records and music players. 1970s teens were better off than their
predecessors, if only because of the rising wages of their parents, who could now
afford to buy their offspring a fashionable coat or a tape recorder. In that sense,
the situation was similar to that of Western economies during the 1960s, when the
rising prosperity of middle- and working-class families enabled young people to
keep whatever they earned or to receive spending money from parents, thus
feeding a whole industry that catered for teenage consumer interests.97 But if,
say, for a British teenager, money was the only real obstacle between her and the
latest disc by The Who or a Mary Quant dress, in the Soviet Union cash was not
the main problem.
As novice consumers, youth in the 1970s took the initiative to seek out desirable goods. Some acquired early experience in dealing with the black market and
profiteers. Those who lived in the provinces asked their friends in big cities to get
them real Western jeans or hot records. Others cut out the middleman and took
themselves to places where they could obtain popular items. The availability of tape
recorders in the 1970s took the business out of the hands of the black market professionals: any kid with a recorder could now travel to a flea market, such as those
in Riga or Lvov, and buy a record, bring it back to his home town and sell copies
to his friends in order to cover the expenses and enable him to buy more tapes.98
Like their parents, teens travelled to regional centres and all the way to Moscow
in search of jeans or other fashionable clothes. Boys made alterations to their
garments to bring them in line with fashion, and girls knitted their own tops and
scarves; one woman who was a teenager in Perm during the 1970s recalls her
female schoolmates knitting under their desks during classes.99
Teenagers worldwide were thinking of fashionable clothes and chasing popular
records. The problem was that Soviet youth were supposed to be different in their
daily behaviour and long-term aspirations. Even more disturbingly, there was
mounting evidence that their consumerism extended beyond fleeting fashions for
jeans and records. Their values were changing, and during the course of the 1970s
a new kind of youth emerged on the Soviet generational scene. In the late 1960s,

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material well-being held a modest third or fourth place in the hierarchy of youngsters life values.100 A decade later, surveys showed that school graduates gave top
priority to university education, trips around the country and abroad, and a high
salary. Schoolchildren associated a desirable future with separate apartments,
high earnings, and opportunities to obtain scarce sought-after goods and services.101 There was nothing like this in the 1960s, complained a resident of
Okha, a town in the Sakhalin region, to the editors of Pravda. We lived more
modestly but were more straightforward and principled.102 Occasionally, young
people shocked pollsters with phrases such as I want to achieve a lot to live
and work for my own well-being, and, although sociologists could dismiss such
answers as belonging to a tiny minority, many of their young respondents, like
their parents, testified to the consumerist moods prevailing among their peers,
even if they (theoretically) disapproved of them.103
Where did young people get such un-Marxist notions of good living? Soviet
propagandists and other adults blamed it on too much exposure to the capitalist
way of life. This exposure did not necessarily come through immediate contact
with foreign countries, although many more youngsters did get to travel abroad
during the Brezhnev years than ever before. Mostly, their information came
from secondary sources from foreign radio broadcasts to glossy magazines
and especially films. In the mid-1970s, a whopping 75 per cent of youngsters
in major cities told Soviet pollsters they enjoyed watching American and
Western European movies. Furthermore, 19 per cent were regular readers of
illustrated Western magazines such as Amerika and Angliia. These statistics
prompted the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee to devise in
1977 a series of measures for the Komsomol to implement in order to counter
bourgeois propaganda.104
But ideological instruction from the authorities had never been consistent. As
the generation of children with no first-hand experience of war or postwar hardship, younger urbanites could take inspiration not only from foreign films and
magazines but also from the promises and declarations of propaganda at home.
With young audiences especially, Party rhetoric on consumption was backfiring.
As the British journalist Michael Binyon, who spent the years 1978 to 1982 in the
Soviet Union, observed, expectations have been unleashed that cannot now be
controlled. A younger generation is chafing at the slow pace of change [and]
the absence of those consumer goods so often promised for tomorrow.105
Binyons comments were confirmed by the Soviets own sociological research.
As the Brezhnev era drew to a close, young people in their twenties emerged as
the most consumption-oriented section of the population. The younger representatives of this group were particularly keen on buying stereos, gold jewellery,
cooperative apartments and cars, while those over 25 were most interested in
furniture sets and fashionable clothes.106
Youth consumerism grated especially on the generation of grandparents, whose
own young years had been marked by very different experiences of daily life.
Generation conflict, whose existence in socialist society was doggedly denied by
Soviet ideology, emerged sharply in the 1970s, and consumption was the main

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bone of contention. As we saw in Chapter 2, literature and cinema frequently

expressed the generational gap in terms of diverging attitudes to consumption. In
the 1970s and 1980s, media reports on such tensions also appeared with adamant
frequency.107 These reports were echoed by elderly citizens, many of whom
shared the states concern that the veshchizm of the young generation was a sure
path to ideological deviation. In 1972, an elderly Party member (and ex-Komsomol
member in the 1920s) from Voronezh raged in a letter to the editors of the main
youth newspaper, Komsomolskaia pravda, in response to an article that proposed
tolerance of current fashions:
It is well known that enemies of communism aim to corrupt our young
people. Many of our fashion fans , dazed by philistine toxins, have
forgotten or perhaps never even tried to understand THE MEANING
OF PATRIOTISM AND THE DIGNITY OF THE SOVIET MAN. Upon
seeing on television or somewhere else a new fashion of the bourgeois
barbarians, they immediately try to ape it and copy foreign idiocy in
their appearance.108
Another veteran member (since 1912) of the Communist Party, Comrade Butko
from Chernigov, connected the political passivity of young people with foreign
fashions:
Many boys and girls [born in] the 1960s and 1970s do not understand their
duty before the motherland, before the Party and the people, and fail to
assume an active, spirited position in life. They are smitten by foreign
bands and clothes [and] talk about prestigious friends 109
There was nothing fundamentally new in equating the appreciation of Western
fashions with anti-socialist morals. The Soviet regime had customarily responded
with hostility to what it perceived as explicitly Western influences in youth
fashion and entertainment. These had been decried in the interwar period as
remnants of the bourgeois order, even though their actual presence in the isolated
country was limited. After the war, when trophy films, records and clothes were
brought from Europe by the demobilized Red Army soldiers, fragments of Western
material culture entered Soviet mainstream youth culture, while subcultures such
as stiliagi went much further in their adoption of Western trends. The Stalinist
regime responded by worrying about the apolitization of impressionable youth,
by ridiculing fans of foreign fashions in the press, and by virtually ignoring the
stiliagi and other subcultures in public fora.110 A few years later, Khrushchevs
policy of relative openness gave new impetus to official anxieties. Efforts were
made to hound and re-educate those who displayed a preference for Western
fashions over conventional home styles. Members of the general public also
began to display aggressiveness towards those who were too trendy for their
own good. In 1957 a crowd in Lvov severely beat up a young girl and nearly
tore apart her three friends for wearing clothes the attackers found offensively

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foreign.111 But stiliagi were a minority. The reason why they were so disliked is
because they stood out (intentionally), and most young people in the 1950s were
nott like them. Furthermore, a section of their peers actively helped the authorities to fight improper fashions: Komsomol volunteer brigades (druzhinniki)
arrested and bullied their deviant peers and forcibly cut their trousers and long
hair, while other youngsters wrote indignant letters to the press denouncing the
delinquents.112
The youth of the Brezhnev era took a more ambivalent stance on the relationship between consumption and morality. For one, young people in the
1970s were far less willing to police the styles of their peers or be judgemental
of their choice of fashions.113 Also, those who seemed to be falling prey to
Western influences in clothes and music could no longer be consigned to a
minority subculture or defined neatly as a group of outsiders. There were hippies, but they were not the only ones who wore jeans or listened to the Beatles
or hard-rock records.114
In these conditions, the traditional tenets of appropriate behaviour were under
threat as never before. Young boys and girls were supposed to take interest in
collectivist and cultural pursuits, while displaying indifference to possessions.
Those who paid too much attention to clothes, talked about shopping and dance
parties, or dreamt of comfortable flats and fast cars were criticized as being shallow, parasitic and unintelligent. But young peoples own experiences were often
at odds with these notions. Many of those who enjoyed trendy clothes were good
students at school or universities; well-educated children of middle-class parents
had the means to dress well. On the other hand, someone from a relatively modest
family background, such as a young female college student from the small town
of Kungur in the Perm region, might be motivated to work hard at college so that
she could get a larger stipend and afford nice clothes. She was told by her mother:
If you study well and receive a stipend, then you can buy clothes. If you dont,
then youll have to wear the things youve got.115 If universities and colleges
were prepared to reward diligent students with money, why should they not spend
it on fashionable clothes? The official line maintained that beauty lay in the spiritual domain rather than in pretty clothes, and modest outfits suited young people
best.116 Yet, even in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the press ran letters from
young people which suggested that fashionable clothes could give a young person
an edge in social life.117
Youth had been warned that consumerism turned one into an individualist.
Yet former Moscow hippie Mariia Arbatova recalls that, in the mid-1970s, her
girlfriends solution to the problem of having a very fun life but very little
beautiful clothing was to share the clothes they had with one another.118 In
their world, consumerism and communalism went hand in hand. Contrary to
another official stereotype, young fashionistas were not all loafers: some
worked during summer holidays to earn money for a tape recorder or a trendy
jacket. Arbatova, then a 16-year-old high-school student who received little
financial support from her mother, worked one summer in a clerical job at a
medical centre, and with the money she bought the first decent drags in [my]

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119

life. The economist Viacheslav Petrovich Storozhenko observed in 1973

that children often considered paid work in order to earn money for clothes,
records and photo cameras or to fund their trips to Lvov and Leningrad.120
Youth worked on their looks in another way: they took sartorial matters into
their own hands and made or altered their garments. In the words of one
mother, her 17-year-old hippie son and his friends were excellent at sewing.
At the same time, they certainly did not see themselves as consumerist: hippies,
after all, preached indifference to things.121
A number of experts, journalists, public figures and parents were in favour of
a more flexible approach to youth consumption. This is illustrated by the transcript of a roundtable held in April 1973 by Komsomolskaia pravda, at which
journalists, teachers, other specialists and parents gathered to discuss the problem
of childrens relationship with material things. The first deputy editor opened the
proceedings by emphasizing that times had changed and a new approach was
needed: Anyone would say today that the relationship between children and
things is not as simple as it was ten years ago.122
The participants certainly took a fairly enlightened view. Specialists and
parents agreed that there was nothing wrong with material well-being or, for
that matter, with young peoples interest in consumer goods and money. The
economist Storozhenko argued that this was not philistinism: The characteristics of philistinism have changed these days. On the contrary, disrespectful
attitudes to material things would breed wastefulness and lack of concern for
other peoples labour. The philosopher Valentin Tolstykh also noted that looking back was not sensible: In our times, we didnt chase after possessions
[and] we walked around in patched-up trousers; and to this our kids reply: that
was in your time. A writer for the newspaper (the mother of the 17-year-old
hippie mentioned above) called for compromise and flexibility in grown-ups
response to teen fashions. She pointed out that part of the problem was that
industry fell short:
They all enjoy wearing the ultra-fashionable noodle tops [ribbed knitted
tops]. If industry produced them, no one would be stitching patches [onto their
trousers]. Where we manage to strike the right chord with youth, they dont
ask for anything else and dont try to aggravate our taste. But when we dont,
thats what happens.
These opinions stood in stark contrast to the hysterical criticisms of some
members of the older generation. But, for theirr cohort, the middle-aged participants of Komsomolskaia pravdas roundtable were not unusual. Unlike the
revolutionary-minded grandparents, unequivocal in their denunciations of consumerism, the middle generation often took a more flexible and sometimes
inconsistent position on youth materialism. An old revolutionary survivor of
Stalinist labour camps told Hedrick Smith, a New York Times correspondent in
Moscow in the early 1970s, about the new mood of materialism among working people in their thirties and forties, mostly from poor backgrounds, whose

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appreciation of the improvement in their economic conditions made them more

materialistic, more compliant with the regime, and less interested in politics:
Today, their attitude is, Give us food, a roof over our heads, and work and
do whatever you want politically. Give us the material minimum. We wont
ask for more. They all know how much better they live now than during
the hungry years of the war and after the war. They simply cannot imagine
that life could be any better.123
Victor Zaslavsky describes the same arrangement as part of an organized consensus, whereby coercion and deprivation were complemented by rewards to
keep the population contented.124
For many parents, the contrast between their impoverished young years and
the relative prosperity of the 1970s inclined them to have a more relaxed attitude
towards youth consumption. Certainly, acquisitive adults could set an example
for their offspring. But even non-consumerist parents could contribute to youth
materialism in a more direct way. Under Brezhnev, it became economically easier
for adults to spoil their kids using the mottos All the best things go to the children
(vse luchshee detiam) and You dont economize on children (na detiakh ne
ekonomiat). Remembering the deprivations of their own childhood, survivors of
industrialization, war and postwar destitution wanted to ensure a different experience for their offspring. They wanted them to have a prosperous childhood, and
that meant satisfying more than just basic needs. It became important to provide
a child with fashionable clothes and other sought-after items. If such things were
still difficult to afford, many families tended to find a way of paying for them by
forgoing necessary purchases for the adults. A 1978 country-wide survey showed
that over 50 per cent of parents were willing to buy their children scarce (defitsitnye)
and prestigious goods even at the expense of their own needs.125 In her deeply
researched study of Soviet childhood, Catriona Kelly writes that children brought
up during the 1960s and 1970s on average lived in considerably greater comfort
than their parents had two or three decades earlier.126
However, some contemporaries saw this as a problem. Arguing that parental
indulgence turned youth into philistines, deputy minister Baliasnaia noted at the
1973 roundtable: We sacrifice too much in relations with our children.127 By
the end of the decade sociologists worried that youth adopted an expectant attitude towards their parents. In 1978, 67 per cent of school seniors relied solely
on their parents to satisfy their raised consumer requirements, which meant that
parents were the source of trendy clothes, record players, and so on.128 A specialist
on child psychology argued that, as a result of the populations growing material
well-being, contemporary teenagers are used to wearing adult watches, high
boots, fur coats, and sheepskin coats without pausing to think how much their
parents had to work to get all this.129
Soviet teens were not very different from their contemporaries in the West in
that their parents prosperity was reflected in their consumption patterns, but
in the Soviet Union the bewildering mixture of improving living standards and

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the frustrating shortages that dogged the consumer sector produced peculiar distortions. For example, expensive items and durables were often bought in
advance for children as a kind of dowry while they were still very young. Some
parents thought it wise to seize an opportunity to buy a useful piece of furniture
or a rug when it became available instead of waiting for the time when the need
actually arose. One Muscovite remembers her friends young daughter having a
hard time learning to play the piano because access to the instrument was somewhat obstructed by a bulky wall unit obtained by the mother for her daughters
still very distant marriage. Since the prospect of a separate apartment for the girl
was equally distant, the family had to put up for years with the massive item that
took up the little free space there was in the room.130
When children grew up, many continued to be supported by their parents.
Trendy clothing and accessories were then replaced by other, more costly items.
In the early 1980s, in many young families, expensive items, such as carpets,
furniture sets, china, fridges, washing machines and other durables were purchased by the young couples parents, or at least with their financial help.131
Many parents of young adults by the 1980s reported feeling deep satisfaction
about the moral and material well-being of their childrens families and were
pleased that there was prosperity in the family and that children will live better and be better provided for than their parents.132 Still, a few contemporaries
at the turn of the decade found this state of affairs lamentable. A 57-year-old
woman from Cheliabinsk told the editors of the magazine Iunost (Youth) that
the postwar generation turned out to be decent people, despite the deprivations
of their formative years, but they were doing their children a disservice by being
overprotective. As a result, young peoples helplessness, [excessive] ambitions
and consumerism are a sorry sight.133 Her conclusion was not unusual: for
instance, the editorial office of the youth magazine Smena received several letters from readers in 1982 in response to an article about a worldly youth, in
which the readers blamed parents for the materialism of contemporary kids.134
Some young people took the same view. One letter sent to Smena in June 1981
conveyed well the sense of the three-tiered generational divide. An 18-year-old
university student from Karaganda in Kazakhstan wrote about her late grandfather,
a war veteran, who had told her she was squandering her time and talents on silly
pursuits. Like him, she blamed her parents: My granddad must have been right: my
parents have spoiled me, praised me too much, but they have not taught me to work.
I have not learnt!135 Another youngster from Naberezhnye Chelny came to a similar
conclusion about his entire cohort:
We are reaping the bitter fruits of the mistakes of our parents, who lived
through the horrors and misery of war, but got their kids used to an easy
and carefree life [and] raised 30- and 40-year-old parasites whom they
provide for, and the state has to nanny them, too.136
But many young people did not object. Children of 42 per cent of the respondents in a national survey were pleased with the fact that their fathers and mothers

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kept working precisely because of the support it enabled them to receive.137

Contrary to what the letters to the press suggested, this was not necessarily a
product of parasitic attitudes on the part of young people. Many Soviet youth at
the turn of the decade found themselves relying on parental support even after
they had reached adulthood because they had little choice.138 Young peoples
incomes were at a low level compared with those of the rest of the population
the overwhelming majority of young people aged between 20 and 30 earned less
than the average wage and they could sustain only modest living standards.139
Furthermore, almost 60 per cent of those in their twenties were paid less than 140
roubles a month, and the salaries of nearly one-third did not even reach the
benchmark of 100 roubles. The overwhelming majority of other age groups, over
80 per cent, earned more than that, with the highest incomes at the disposal of
families whose members were aged between 35 and 39 and 45 and 54. Sociologists
uneasily observed that this pushed many young people to seek additional incomes,
useful connections and blat, and jobs that gave access to goods. According to
sociologists, the gap between expectations and actual opportunities to acquire
goods contributed to the development among young people of consumerism, petitbourgeois mentality, corruption and individualism.140
These observations and the frustrations that the situation entailed are well
illustrated by a letter received by the editorial office of Smena in February 1982. Its
author, a young mechanic working at a construction site in the town of Kokchetav
in Kazakhstan, was bitter because his wage of between 160 and 170 roubles a
month was not enough to sustain the quality of life to which he felt entitled:
What can you afford with that? The wife needs warm clothes: a coat, a fur
hat, boots. You do the maths [and figure out] how much this costs even at
state prices! But we want to buy fine, imported things, which other people
for some reason can afford very well. We, the masters of the richest and largest country in the world, have to chase imported goods And so the working
man is forced to go moonlighting to make an extra kopeck.141
This young correspondents grievances were not exceptional: the editors received
other similar letters that month and later which defended young adults ambitions
for financial and material prosperity.142
It is not that this generation was somehow poorer than their predecessors on
the contrary. But they now expected to be richer. As one anonymous Muscovite,
who had spent ten years after graduation working as an engineer, explained:
I have not earned enough money even to buy furniture, whereas my 25-year-old
mate, a German from the GDR, has bought a car with his hard-earned money,
plus he has a nice large flat, whereas mine is small and leaks at every corner.143
That life had improved compared to his parents young days was simply not
enough for him; he compared his situation to that of his German friend. Rather
than accepting their young years as a time of modest material needs, adolescents

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127

and young adults of the late Soviet period developed the same sense of entitlement to a well-provided life as their parents (and possibly even stronger). In the early
1980s, young people complained regularly to the youth press about the absence of
consumer goods in the shops.144
Many young people wrote to the press to express their views on the material
side of life because they discovered that the official values and promises on which
their cohort was brought up were painfully at variance with the reality of late
Soviet society. Letters in the archives suggest that those who might have internalized official anti-consumerist values had to face the fact that many of their peers
did not share them. A few, unsurprisingly, declared their resistance to material
temptations, like a law student from Leningrad, who claimed that
the majority of my friends believe that to own a Zhiguli [car], a dacha with
strawberries and at the same time to be indifferent to ones work, to earn
money on the side, to moonlight and to find happiness in supreme comfort
means to live cynically and immorally.145
But even such decisive letters came with qualifications: no one rejected comfort on
principle. As I. V. Cherniaeva, a 30-year-old university lecturer in economics from
Kalinin, put it: We all want to dress fashionably and handsomely, but [its another
matter] to make it ones aim and achieve it by indecent means.146 But it was one
thing to object to consumerism in theory and another to abstain from questionable
practices in everyday life. One young resident of the small town of Gorodnia in
Ukraine lamented the fact that life has turned into business and everything is for
sale, but confessed that it was difficult not to follow the general trend:
Im a common man, of the masses. Im writing as a witness and a participant (why
pretend otherwise) of various forms of scheming and obtaining. How can we
explain to people that this is no way to live? Even my 16-yearr old brother underr
stands that without money and connections you are absolutely nothing, a zero.147
In fact, youths opinions could be just as inconsistent as the official rhetoric. It
was possible to disapprove of black market dealers, and shun contact with them,
and yet to have no qualms about buying a pair of jeans from profiteers occasionally or indirectly through a friend.148
They might not wholeheartedly defend the black market, but a number of young
people wrote to the press to contest openly the officially promulgated canons of
indifference to material benefits. One female reader from Kurgan told the editors
of Smena in 1982 that a bit of careerism and selff interest in a young specialist
would not hurt society and even might help improve things, because then,
perhaps, there would be fewer shortages in the economy and in production,
and the shops would be free of piles of souvenirs that nobody wants to
buy, of coats costing between 300 and 400 roubles, which are embarrassing
even to try on, and of discounted dresses that no one cares for.149

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The topic of consumption came to dominate editorial correspondence during

the mid- to late 1970s and early 1980s. Young people readily responded when
prompted by the press to weigh in on questions of consumerism.150 Newspapers
and magazines could be seen as agenda-setters, but they, too, often acted on a cue
provided by a controversial letter from a young reader. In that sense, we can say
that the agenda was set by young people themselves: they both led and actively
participated in the discussion of their relationship with goods, fashion and money.
Consumption and the world of goods became the defining issue of their times: it
was as if the marginal stiliagi of the postwar era had become the mainstream of
youth culture.
Young people saw the state as the provider of material benefits. One Soviet
study in 1985 showed a link between the growing consumerism of the young and
their views on the legitimacy of the political regime. It found that youth tended

Figure 4.1 I dont want ABBA get me corduroy jeans! Krokodil, no. 11, 1981. Although
the baba is obviously old, the fairy-tale setting suggests that the intended audience
might be younger. The state is the Goldfish that makes wishes come true but up
to a limit.
Source: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

Structures of consumption

129

to associate socialism with a system that provides young people with all the
necessary things and bears full responsibility for them. The propaganda emphasis on the privileges that socialism bestowed upon its members led to an image of
the state as a kind uncle and guardian and resulted in a consumerist (potrebitelskii
(
)
attitude to life whereby young citizens assessed the state by its ability to provide
material benefits (see Figure 4.1).151
Admittedly, there is evidence to suggest that many young people did not
question the validity of the overall goal of building communism or the sustainability of the political system that promoted it. The American exchange student
Andrea Lee, who spent 19789 in Moscow, recalls two young Soviet friends
who were fascinated with the American way of life and yet were convinced of
the imminent fall of capitalism; Alexei Yurchak has argued that, until at least the
mid-1980s, Leningrads middle-class youth was convinced that communism
would last forever (which, upon its fall, was immediately replaced with a sense
that the collapse was logical).152 Indeed, the fact that young people wrote to
official publications, even if it was to question traditional tenets, suggests that
they did not reject all authority associated with the state but were willing to
engage in a dialogue. But the authorities seemed to derive little comfort from
this and were wary of youth materialism. This is reflected in Komsomol documents of the mid-1970s, which, as we saw in Chapter 2, had much to say about
consumption and its attendant problems. The Party and Komsomol were not
only anxious about the susceptibility of young people to Western propaganda
of high life but also worried that rising prosperity at home would turn Soviet
boys and girls into spongers and consumerists unless proper educational steps
were taken.153
Undoubtedly, young people of the Brezhnev era, especially towards the 1980s,
were more assertively materialist in the sense that fashionable clothes, tape
recorders, portable radios, mopeds and other trappings of consumer modernity
were a much greater part of their lives. Even though they were not clamouring for
another revolution, they were already refusing to accept that their more mundane
interests were entirely insignificant or politically incorrect. Many demanded to be
better informed about popular Western music and told the consumer industry to
get its act together. Concessions made by the authorities, such as launching the
production of jeans, chewing gum and specifically adolescent fashions, or promoting Soviet pop music, often came too late and never really produced a match
for Western counterparts. As sociologists warned in 1985: The difficulties society
encounters at the current stage of socialist development are perceived by part of
youth as the contradictions of socialism.154 This could result, they said, in doubts
about socialism, social apathy, and even aggression, as happened in Poland. This
last reference to the Polish unrest hinted that some kind of revolution could not,
after all, be completely ruled out.
Youth consumerism also pointed towards the ineffectiveness of communist
propaganda. Not only Party bosses but also ordinary citizens, including even
young people, blamed the Komsomol for failing to put up an effective fight
against consumerism and capitalist fads. It was also becoming obvious that

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Komsomol members were often no different from anyone else in their pursuit of
goods. As one 18-year-old Komsomol member from Pskov put it:
What a shame to see boys and girls in brand jeans swaying in a hypnotic
trance at the sound of Western mass culture. One feels sorry not only for
them but also for us [Komsomol members]: we, too, sport imported garments, listen to foreign records. All one hears these days is conversations
about where to obtain imported goodies.155
Entire political institutions that were supposed to promote moral purity instead
helped to instil new values in the young. For instance, the Higher Party School
(HPS) recruited its students by tempting them with the high life. The prominent dissident and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov described the process
of enrolment:
A large group of good graduates from various institutes of the country was
assembled for a month in Leningrad (Komsomol members, of course) They
were wined and dined in the best restaurants, entertained in various ways and
all for free. In short, they were given a chance to live in clover. And then they
were asked: do you want to live like this always? Enter the HPS!156
Embarrassing social inequalities were thrown into sharper relief by youth consumption. Young people could observe the better clothes, apartments, and even
cars of their more privileged peers. School uniforms might have masked some of
these differences, but in universities, where students from different backgrounds
met on a daily basis, material disparities produced resentment. One student of the
Nukus State University of the Karakalpak autonomous republic in Uzbekistan
reported in 1983 how she and other students of humble background felt excluded
by the majority of the student body, who were children of privileged parents:
Few people talk to us and they treat us with disdain. Not surprisingly: we
dont have a Zhiguli car, we are not dressed nicely. Some students come in
wearing expensive new clothes every day and even manage to change their
clothes twice a day! They buy a new car every year.
This letter to the editors of Smena had a more personal agenda than abstract
condemnation of consumerism: its author denounced the perpetrators and
named a few of the privileged kids, including the offspring of the republican
minister for trade, the chairman of the supreme council and the republics chief
prosecutor, suggesting that their parents prosperity was earned not by hard work
but by stealing and taking bribes. Their privileges did not end with fancy
clothes and new cars:
Their daddy will sort everything out for them; they dont need to worry
about a work placement after graduation; their places are already reserved

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131

for them, and they all know where theyll be working. They will follow
in their parents footsteps in snatching the most from society and giving
nothing in return.157
Whatever its intended result, the letter shows that what made blatant material
inequalities in the youth milieu especially painful was the fact that they were
hereditary rather than earned. Rich girls have not got their things by means of
hard work, sweat and tears. This philistine wealth of theirs comes from the pockets of their mums and dads, who are bosses or underground kulaks, argued
another writer to Smena in 1983. He went as far as to conclude that it was alright
for poor girls to steal from bosses daughters, since all bosses were crooks.158 For
all its revolutionary rhetoric, this was hardly the sort of response that the press
and propaganda workers hoped for.
It was no less embarrassing when a representative of the privileged cohort
chose to write to the editors of the magazine only to say how unapologetic he
was about his prosperity and special benefits. It is worth returning here to the
letter mentioned at the opening of this section, in which a privileged youngster
from Kazan contrasted his experience of buying a fashionable sheepskin coat
with that of his working-class peer. Not only could he easily get a better-quality coat
from the closed warehouse, but it would be sold to him, he said, as faulty
i.e., four to five times cheaper. The lad concluded: Is it nice? You bet. Almost
like communism. When he thought about those who did not have such privileges
and were anxious to eradicate profiteers and parasites, he said, it made him feel
even better about his special status.159

Concluding remarks
The changes in material conditions of Soviet urban residents in the 1970s might
have been modest by Western standards, but they produced momentous social
consequences. Consumption practices and new values came to confuse the familiar social divisions and hierarchies and made society fit even less well with the
three classes prescribed by MarxismLeninism; they redistributed social prestige
and challenged the previous system of social coordinates, notably the dominant
status of the intelligentsia. Since the heyday of kulturnost, striving for the intelligentsia lifestyle was at least acceptable because it was a pathway to higher
culture. It also fitted fairly painlessly into the ideological scheme of projected
social change: the class of the intelligentsia was supposed to disappear because
everyone would become the intelligentsia: workers and peasants would be sufficiently cultured and well educated to erase any social distinctions.160 But when
the intelligentsias role as a vanguard of comfortable but also cultured living
came to be undermined by other models for emulation, things got awkward.
When young people said they wanted to live like a shop director, what kind of a
socialist role model was that?
There was also the question of social equality. In his 1982 work The NeoStalinist State: Class, Ethnicity, and Consensus in Soviet Society, Victor Zaslavsky

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commented that inequality in contemporary socialist society was growing partly

because access to consumer goods was so stratified. Specifically, he suggested:
It can reasonably be argued that the relative size of highly privileged groups and
strata has increased significantly, while at the same time, the gap between highly
privileged and nonprivileged groups has become more pronounced, although he
added that the respective dimensions of these two processes remain to be determined empirically.161 From the vantage point of three decades later, it appears
that the picture is somewhat different: the greatest growth in prosperity and in
access to goods during the long 1970s took place among consumers of the middle
strata. More professional categories could enjoy at least some consumption
privileges, including new opportunities such as travel abroad. The result was
greater social fragmentation rather than straightforward polarization. Yet, while
improvements in general prosperity may have had some diffusive effect on social
tensions, the latter were certainly not gone: material aspirations fuelled especially
by economic improvements in the early part of the Brezhnev era made inequality
grate hard on the less privileged groups.
In other words, the arrival of a sort of consumer modernity to late Soviet society might be seen as an achievement and the authorities certainly were
extremely vocal about improving living standards but it also laid bare a number
of problems in the regimes efforts to shape society in a proto-communist fashion.
The ideological decision to follow the Western model in living standards was
problematic not only because the Soviet Union was economically unable to compete effectively, but also because whatever successes it did achieve in providing
its citizens with material comforts meant that Soviet attitudes towards material
goods came to resemble those that existed in contemporary capitalist societies.
These developments were not simply politically embarrassing but also began to
challenge the social and even generational goals of the Soviet regime.

From modest to modish

New attitudes to clothes and fashion

There was hardly any other consumer item in Soviet history that aroused as much
controversy and passion as clothes. In the anxious post-revolutionary months of
1917, one could be shot for wearing the wrong outfit.1 In the 1950s, public bullying and even arrest could befall those who transgressed accepted norms.2 Youth
interest in Western styles of dress had been a source of public anxiety that ebbed
and flowed since the NEP (New Economic Policy) era.3 Garments could be seen
as a political statement even if their owner did not intend them as such.
The Soviet Union sought to convert the entire population to socialist styles of
dress. Soviet ideologists had always struggled to accepted fashion as a legitimate
phenomenon: its associations with the antagonistic capitalist culture remained
strong. Socialist or not, fashionable clothing was not fully recognized as part of
legitimate consumer demands until the Brezhnev period, even though Soviet
citizens right to high-quality clothing had been championed publicly at least
since the 1930s. But if keeping fashion off the agenda was relatively easy under
the conditions of economic scarcity and instability that characterized much of the
Stalin period, it proved more of a challenge the further Soviet urbanites moved
away from the hungry postwar years. The more prosperous and better-informed
consumers of the late 1960s and the 1970s were far more likely to think about
fashion before parting with their money, and the authorities were forced to reconsider their neglect of this factor. The pressure was turned up by the competition
with foreign trends that increasingly influenced popular notions of what was
hot. This chapter discusses the changes in consumers relationship with fashion
under Brezhnev and the authorities attempts to redefine the place of fashion in
discourse and production.

Soviet fashion from the NEP to the postwar years

With Western observers habitual focus on shortages and the poor quality of
clothes in the USSR, it is easy to forget that the Soviet state was not anti-fashion:
a distinctively socialist style was a preoccupation from the early years of Soviet
power.4 If in 1918 the main concern was the revival of the clothing industry, 1923
saw the launch of a Centre for the Development of the New Soviet Attire (Tsentr
po stanovleniiu novogo sovetskogo kostiuma) in Moscow. Its task was to design

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truly Soviet clothes for mass production in order to fight the philistine trends in
clothing.5 Although the centre soon had to give up the idea of directing national
mass production, in due course this idea would be revived as a cornerstone of the
Soviet fashion industry. For decades the state would promote proper sartorial
habits for the population with the help of its fashion experts, the press and
monopolized production.
After the prohibition of private entrepreneurship, which eliminated any serious
competition for state production by the 1930s,6 official advice on clothes focused
initially on cleanliness and hygiene, which became the main theme of the Stalinera kulturnost campaign.7 For the time being taste boiled down to tidiness. The
clothing made available by Soviet light industry could not possibly inspire more
sophisticated aesthetic cultivation. This point was made by the Soviet satirical
masters Ilia Ilf and Evgenii Petrov in a commentary published in Pravda in
1934 about two beautiful young people who fell in love at the beach but were
mortified and disgusted when they saw each other fully dressed in the evening
(after that, they never met again in their lives).8
After the mid-1930s, official views on dress relaxed further as part of the
propaganda for a more cheerful life sanctioned by Stalin. Military uniforms
were replaced with civilian clothes; women were encouraged to wear more feminine styles, and silk stockings were back in vogue (although available chiefly to
the elites). Padded shoulders and rolled-up sleeves were to demonstrate the
physical health of the Soviet nation, which also implied spiritual health. Good
clothes meant suits made out of Boston cloth, cheviot and fine broadcloth, elegant and well-sewn dresses out of silk or wool, according to the newspaper
Trud.9 None of this meant that the authorities gave up the notion of directing the
sartorial tastes of the population. The Central House of Fashion was set up in
Moscow in 1934 in order to oversee the development of Soviet fashion, although
its activities were more an exercise in art and propaganda than a practical policy: its
output was largely unavailable to ordinary consumers.10
After the war, the state-run clothing industry had to reckon with a population
that had glimpsed some of the relative abundance of East-Central Europe and had
correspondingly raised expectations. But Soviet people did not even need to
travel to see Western styles. As Juliane Frst has noted, thousands of demobilized
Red Army conscripts brought home with them sartorial trophies from Europe,
and some of these items were then sold through state second-hand shops. Young
people were especially susceptible to the lure of such goods, not only buying but
also copying Western styles with the help of their mothers, sisters, tailors and
anyone else who knew how to use a sewing machine. The new availability of
Western goods, including clothes, boosted the emergence of new groupings such
as the stiliagi in postwar youth culture.11 While the authorities frowned on the
more blatant expressions of fashion-consciousness, they also made concessions.
Designs publicized in the popular illustrated magazine Ogonekk in 1949 shared
common features with contemporary Western looks: rectangular-silhouetted
three-quarter-length coats, closely fitting dresses cut below the knee, and high
heels.12 Moderately risqu styles even found their way into film. Grigorii

From modest to modish 135

Aleksandrovs Spring (Vesna, 1947) builds its plot around two women who look
identical (they are both played by the film star and Aleksandrovs wife, Liubov
Orlova) but could not be more different in their approach to dress. One is a scientist wearing a dark-coloured closed English suit; she is well respected but
considered perhaps a little too upright. The other is a beautiful actress clad in
more frivolous outfits, yet far more likeable. Their encounter results in the more
serious woman relaxing her views on appearance (and life in general) and adopting some of the lighter styles of her double.
The transition from a drab suit to extravagant gowns might have been unproblematic on screen, but in reality things were more difficult. Certainly, elegant
styles were available to the families of top officials and the cultural elite, but this
was not the experience of the majority. In the postwar years, when foreign fashion
began to exercise its pull on youngsters in various parts of the country, state
industry struggled. Despite the efforts to push factories towards mass production
of quality clothing, postwar hardship resulted in severe constraints.13 Even in the
early 1950s, such privileged locations as Leningrad were poorly supplied with
shoes and clothes.14 Thus, a more realistic portrayal of typical Soviet female attire
of the era than that offered by Spring is Aleksandr Laktionovs celebratory painting Moving into a New Apartment (1952), which shows a woman in an eclectic
outfit comprised of a mans jacket, an urban polka-dot skirt and a peasant headscarf. As state shops had little to offer, ordinary people often had to fend for
themselves, mending and remaking their pre-war clothes, sometimes trying to
remodel them according to those pre-war Western fashions they had glimpsed in
war-torn Europe or in trophy fashion magazines.15
Postwar production difficulties and the increased presence of Western clothing
within Soviet borders undermined the ability of the Stalinist regime to shape a
properly socialist taste. But the ambition was not abandoned. On the contrary, as
Sergei Zhuravlev and Jukka Gronow argue, the postwar years marked an important new stage in the development of the Soviet concept of fashion and the system
of its production. This systems key features, which would remain in existence
until the 1980s, were established at this time. The state established close coordination between the Houses of Fashion and clothing factories, whereby the latter
had to produce only the designs offered to them by the former. The number of
Houses of Fashion grew, although their network became truly nationwide only in
the late 1960s. The Moscow House of Fashion (Moskovskii dom modelei)
launched its first fashion show for the general public in 1945, and in 1947 alone
such events attracted over 12,000 visitors. When factories failed to put the prescribed designs into production, the Ministry of Light Industry responded by
launching a Union-wide inspection in 1947 and 1948, which checked output for
quality but also for fashionableness.16
Not only state factories but also ateliers serving individual customers were
encouraged to work with designs sent to them by Houses of Fashion rather than
draw inspiration from foreign fashion magazines. But here, too, the state lacked
the resources to enforce its will. Other contradictions emerged. Although its
task was to create socialist fashion, the Moscow House of Fashion was also

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charged with studying current foreign styles. While designers sought to create
stylistic features that would be uniquely Soviet, their designs were to build on
the latest international trends.17 Ideologists were apparently torn between wanting to fit in with the leading global trends and insisting on being different from
them. This ambivalence in the relationship with Western fashion would remain
until the end.

Fashion and Khrushchevs reforms

Things were to get even trickier in the Khrushchev decade. De-Stalinization
and the new emphasis on living standards in domestic politics made the state
refocus on the clothing needs of the population. Fashion designers, producers
and trade organizations were repeatedly instructed by the government to
increase the output of beautiful, comfortable and stylish clothes. However, the
results were not very satisfactory: all sorts of basic items, from fabric to
shoes, were in short supply, and fashionable clothes remained largely beyond
the capacity of Soviet producers. By no means everyone was committed to the
concept of fashion: while designers insisted that it was an important tool for
cultivating proper taste, presenting their designs as rational and democratic,
economists and producers viewed fashion simply as a nuisance that jeopardized plan fulfilment.18
All parties agreed that the Soviet people had to be shielded from the incorrect
attitudes to fashion that were characteristic of Western societies, but efforts in this
vein were undermined by Khrushchevs policy of greater openness to the West.
Soviet designers began to travel abroad to learn from their Western counterparts,
while foreign designers brought their collections to the Soviet Union. The
Christian Dior house in Paris was visited by three official delegations between
1957 and 1965.19 Such experiences enabled Soviet specialists to incorporate fresh
ideas into their work, but they also brought Soviet design closer to its Western
nemesis. The same could be said of the 1957 International Youth Festival in
Moscow, which demonstrated to thousands of ordinary Soviet participants the
inferiority of their dress compared to that of the representatives of the decadent
West. Many were astonished to see the variety, bright colours, comfortable cuts
and casualness of outfits sported by foreign guests.20
Clearly, the Cold War turned clothing into an ideological weapon. In the late
1950s America and West Germany launched a programme of shipping gifts of
quality consumer goods, including smart clothes and leather bags, to East
German youth in a bid to convince them of capitalisms advantages.21 Khrushchevs
new policy of openness offered further opportunities for propagating Western
consumer goods through student exchanges, artistic visits, cinema, radio and
commercial contacts. In addition to missiles, the Soviet authorities had to worry
about pointy shoes and rock n roll.
To counteract capitalist fashions, Soviet designers redoubled their efforts to
promote socialist fashion, and from the late 1950s the countries of Eastern
Europe joined the effort.22 The resulting designs reflected the Khrushchev-era

From modest to modish 137

aesthetics of restraint. Good taste meant no stylistic excesses and a capsule
wardrobe. Like other spheres of applied arts, the everyday fashion propagated in
the press was more sombre, strict and modest in design and pattern than the
styles of the late Stalin era. Clothing was to be functional, whereas pursuing
fashions was irrational and smacked of capitalist wastefulness. While the cultivation of taste remained important, a distinction was drawn between good taste
and fashion.23
Still, for all the emphasis on rationality, Soviet designers could not and did
not want to get away from Western influences. This was evident in the countrys
brief flirtation with the New Look style in the late 1950s and the subsequent
approval of Coco Chanel designs, which did fit well with rationalist ideals.24
Even Soviet norms of good taste drew on some of the principles of Western
fashion, such as matching accessories to the dress.25 The official view also
accepted, and even encouraged, an occasional need for luxury in dress
(reserved for special occasions). In a variation on a Stalinist theme, luxury that
was accessible to all was presented as evidence of the Soviet democratic way
of life.26
Yet, at the same time, the state adopted a more vigilant position on deviation
from the norms of socialist propriety. Instead of ignoring provocative styles, as
the authorities preferred to do in the postwar Stalin years, under Khrushchev they
responded by persecuting those who followed Western fashions too enthusiastically.27 Defiance of proper norms was treated as ideological disobedience. The
jazz musician and stiliaga Aleksei Kozlov recalled that, during the 1950s and
early 1960s, narrow trousers, [improper] length of hair or thickness of shoe soles
was sufficient to get one kicked out of the Komsomol and university; appearance
was a matter of principle; [it] was a marker.28
During the Khrushchev decade, then, the status of clothes in official discourse
and in public perception became yet more problematic. Western influences
found their way to the Soviet market, often thanks to the regimes own policies. But, while Soviet designers were encouraged to learn from their European
counterparts, Soviet people were actively discouraged from following foreign
styles. The most effective instrument of discouragement was not the press, but
industry. All the efforts of designers to compete with capitalist fashions were
negated by their inability to convert designs into mass production. On the
whole, fashionable clothing was not to be found in state shops, and fashionconscious consumers had to resort to private dress-making,29 which could be
expensive and required them to obtain suitable fabric, designs, and access to a
good tailor.
All in all, the extent of Western influence on Soviet urban culture during the
1950s and early 1960s is easy to exaggerate. Landmark events such as the 1957
festival were attended by only a small minority.30 Few Soviet people could afford
to follow Western trends too closely: the 1962 price hikes for basic foodstuffs
forced people to spend more on food and less on clothes and fabric.31 In the rather
militant and puritanical Khrushchev era, Western fashions were a long way from
dominating the Soviet market. But this was about to change.

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Clothes and fashion under developed socialism

The famous childrens writer Kornei Chukovskii, who collected various amusing
pronouncements by small children, recorded the following conversation in the
late 1950s:
Is it really worthwhile for you to keep these shoes for Natochka? In
a years time they will be out of fashion.
MOTHER: We do not chase after fashion!
NATA[SHA]: We are only after peace and friendship!32
NEIGHBOUR:

This rapport between mother and daughter, so befitting the spirited builders of communism in its dismissal of fashion, might have seemed promising. However, little
girls like Natasha grew up into members of a much more fashion-conscious
Brezhnev-era society. Urban consumers, whose incomes were steadily rising during
the long 1970s, were in a much better position to pursue fashion than their predecessors in the postwar or Khrushchev eras. Although not rich by Western standards,
financially they were able to take advantage of exposure to Western styles through
the press and cinema, growing opportunities for tourism, and the flourishing black
market. Modest improvements in the performance of light industry only whetted
their appetite. The public came to be more tolerant of deviation from propagated
norms, as a veritable cult of imported clothes developed. All of this greatly complicated the efforts to force the modest Soviet style upon the ever more demanding and
sophisticated population. New government measures, such as importing an unprecedented quantity of consumer goods, especially clothing, also made it difficult to
counter the appeal of sartorial invaders.

Trouble on the shop floor: consumer practices and

popular attitudes to fashion
In the 1970s, as statistical surveys show, urban people could and did spend more
on their appearance. In 1964, an average urban family spent between 160 and 200
roubles per year on clothes, footwear and textiles.33 By 1970, expenditure on
these goods in the families of workers and office employees jumped to 578 roubles a year, and nine years later it was 754 roubles, almost tripling compared to
the mid-1960s.34 In relative terms, spending on clothes grew much faster than
spending on food: between 1970 and 1979, urban families food expenditure went
from under 1,300 roubles to just over 1,500 roubles per year, while the share of
food in family budgets actually dropped in the 1970s, from 41 per cent to 37.5
per cent.35 Aside from groceries, the largest proportion of income went on dress.
Clothing, shoes, underwear and textiles claimed nearly 20 per cent of peoples
disposable incomes.36
Consumers could also afford better quality. This inevitably began to affect their
choices and expectations, causing frustration when industry failed to meet them.
Soviet people are not only spiritually beautiful, they also want to look beautiful,
wrote a Saratov resident to the Pravda editors in 1969, complaining that his wife

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37

could not find a fur coat of the right size. Our light industry has a whole army
of designers and experts, so how can it produce such ugly shoes for our women?
We take it as mockery, one I. Shishkova from the Belorussian town of Bykhov
told the newspaper Trud. Will there ever come a time when we can buy freely
with our hard-earned money whatever we need in the shops?38 The retail network
found that quantity alone no longer guaranteed quiet customers and fulfilment of
trade plans. By the 1970s, urban shops were hardly empty: for instance, in 1971
a major department store, Gostinyi dvor in Leningrad, had surplus goods worth
close to a quarter of a million roubles.39 This, however, was not a result of the
high output of light industry but a testimony to the discrepancy between that
output and consumers requirements. An exit poll in one Moscow clothing shop
in 1969 found that only 54 per cent of customers were happy with the selection
of mens shirts, although, according to the pollsters, the shop was filled with
them.40 Comparable results were reported by a study in Ukraine in 1970. The
survey showed that 2,200 out of 4,680 customers who came to buy a shirt left
without making a purchase, despite the shelves in the shop being packed with
shirts. People were picky about the fabric or colour of the garments, their size
and their overall quality.41 A decade later, a nationwide survey of about 5,000
respondents revealed that a third of consumers were unhappy with the selection
of womens clothing on offer, and 25 per cent were dissatisfied with mens garments.42 A typical comment from a shopper in the early 1980s was: There are lots
of goods, but there is nothing to buy.43
Even more dramatic was the changing role of fashion in consumers definition
of good quality. They wanted to be dressed la mode and voted with their
purses: frumpy garments and shoes accounted for 57 per cent of all excess stock
in 1972.44 When the Moscow Trade Department registered a slowdown in sales
of clothes and a simultaneous amassing of unsold merchandise in 1971, it
explained the problem by a dramatic change in fashion for which Moscow
clothing factories turned out to be unprepared, failing to supply enough trendy
items.45 The Leningrad quality control committee mentioned in its 1973 report the
increased emphasis that consumers placed on the fashionableness of goods.46
Consumer surveys showed that approximately two out of five respondents bought
new clothes because fashions changed.47 In 1980, an economist reported that half
of customers left shoe shops without buying anything because the stocks did not
conform to their aesthetic requirements, and the lions share of unwanted
merchandise consisted of goods that were unfashionable.48 Not only had Soviet
urbanites become more fashion-oriented in their purchases of clothing, they also
began to expect state shops to provide what they wanted. Studies of the
Khrushchev era suggest that those who wanted to be fashionable did not rely on
the retail sector but turned to private and state dress-makers. Those who shopped
regularly in stores tended to be people with conservative tastes.49 In the 1970s,
attitudes changed, and the trade network paid dearly for failing to adjust to the
new expectations of its customers. Fashion had become mainstream.
Trade reports from the Belorussian republic dating from the mid-1960s to the
late 1970s are also useful in illustrating the change. Even in the early days of

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the Brezhnev period, fashion seemed, at best, a secondary consideration for

consumers trying to match their modest incomes to the limited stocks in state
shops. For instance, in spring 1966, shortages of footwear in Grodno caused
customers to buy unseasonal goods, such as womens winter boots (sapozhki).50
In Vitebsk, all footwear for men and women was selling out, despite the fact
that shoe factories ignored designers instructions on cut, style and colour; by
October 1966, the city warehouse had no supplies left.51 But, in 1973,
Belobuvtorg observed a very different crowd of shoppers, who preferred shoes
in new and improved styles, made of novel materials and corresponding to the
latest fashions.52 As supply improved later in the decade, customers demands
only grew. A trade report from 1978 noted that female shoppers prioritized
fashion over all other qualities when choosing footwear.53
But what was fashionable? What were the points of reference for those who dismissed perfectly decent garments as outmoded? Much to the dismay of producers,
Western fashions were exerting significant influence on popular ideas of what was
trendy. This was due to the greater access to foreign fashions that Soviets enjoyed in
the Brezhnev era. Many sources of information which had first appeared during the
Khrushchev decade reached a much wider audience in the long 1970s.
As we saw earlier, far more people had a chance to travel abroad and bring
back not only impressions of foreign styles but actual garments for their own use
and for sale. There was also a steady trickle of more specialized information.
When the Leningrad actress Kseniia Komissarova offered her dress-maker some
fashion magazines which she had received from her sister in Switzerland, the
dress-maker, she said, snapped them right out of my hands.54 For private tailors
and their clients, such magazines were priceless. If state ateliers were discouraged
from offering their customers foreign designs, private tailors with such tools on
their hands were unofficial authorities on good taste and fashion.55
Komissarovas dress-maker might have had additional reasons to value Swiss
fashion magazines. Amidst the developing cult of foreign labels, even private
dress-makers were facing increasing competition from the ready-made imported
garments that now made their way into the USSR in greater quantities than
before, either through state shops or via the black market. Instead of imitations,
many consumers preferred the status of foreign brands.56 For many fashion-lovers,
fartsovshchiki and profiteers rather than dress-makers were the authorities on
what was hot. Their business was certainly helped by the increased availability
of video recorders in the late 1970s, which made foreign cinema (with its display of
fashions) more accessible: by 1985, up to 450 foreign titles were available though
the black market.57
But it was the state and its agencies that played the key role in bringing foreign
designs to Soviet consumers. Imports of clothing grew exponentially from the
early 1970s onwards; between 1973 and 1985, the inflow of foreign-made garments increased by 6.4 times and of leather shoes by 5.5 times.58 The official
distribution of foreign films in the USSR expanded, making them more accessible
to ordinary viewers across the country. By October 1970, the Soviet state film
collection boasted 150 movies from capitalist countries, compared with 1,200

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Soviet-made ones, while, in 1973 alone, 150 more foreign films from 70 countries were bought for distribution.59 In creating Soviet styles, state designers were
told to begin by learning from foreign fashions. At the two main institutions
charged with issuing guidance to the rest of the countrys designers and producers, preparations for a new biannual collection invariably began with an analysis
of the latest Western trends.60 Although the results were often mutilated by the
production process and came with a delay of several years, the fact remained that
Soviet fashion modelled itself on its capitalist counterpart. In 1972, retail specialists were told by their professional journal, Sovetskaia torgovlia, that fashion was
an international phenomenon: That is why Soviet fashion cannot exist and
develop in isolation or avoid the influence of new trends from other countries. We
must take on everything useful and rational, while rejecting the trivial.61
Unsurprisingly, this confused some budding specialists: when asked during an
examination about the main distinctive feature of Soviet fashion, one student at
the Institute for Textile and Light Industry for Non-Resident Students fired off:
Imitating the West!62
This was far from a facetious supposition. For all the bashing of Western jeans,
in a landmark event in 1973 manufacturers launched production of the first Soviet
jeans; even though they were no competition for imported denims, output reached
16.8 million pairs by 1975.63 Licences were purchased for production of other
kinds of clothing. The Ministry of Light Industry bought the technology to make
Mackintosh raincoats from a company in the Netherlands and invited Dutch specialists to supervise the reorientation of production at the Moscow factory
Raduga; it also started making mens coats after the model of a French firm.64 A
licence to produce the highly popular running shoes of the West German company Adidas was purchased in 1979, on the eve of the Moscow Olympic Games.65
Albeit with considerable delay, Soviet-made thick-heeled shoes and knee-high
boots, mini-skirts, flared trousers, and long-collar shirts were appearing in shops.
Fashion-lovers who were not label-conscious could bypass industry and state
shops by purchasing dress patterns directly from Houses of Fashion. Women
from other cities travelled to Moscow to buy the dress patterns of designs made
at the All-Union House of Fashion,66 accessing the very styles which had been
inspired by international trends. Patterns were distributed in large numbers
through retail, popular magazines and even wall calendars.67 The House of
Fashion in Moscow even offered young people lessons in making jeans.68 It also
continued with its demonstrations for the general public: in the 1960s and 1970s
it offered three shows a day.69
Consequently, in the 1970s and 1980s it was almost overwhelmingly capitalist
trends that informed notions of what was fashionable. It was difficult to find a
fashionable item that did not arrive from abroad: jeans, running shoes, miniskirts, maxi-skirts, womens trousers, T-shirts with insignia, Jean Cacharels
womens shirts (known in the Soviet Union as batniks), thick-heeled knee-high
boots and stilettos, blazers (bleizery), corduroy trousers, metallic-yarn (Lurex)
tops, and turtlenecks. More fashion-hungry citizens satisfied their ambitions via
the black market and through friends in addition to buying from state retail and

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second-hand shops. Many took matters into their own hands: in the 1980s, a third
of respondents in a survey (which included men and women) said they regularly
sewed or knitted their own clothes.70 In offices, fashionable women who got tired
of their dresses or tops sold them to colleagues: trendy items were always in
demand.71
Often, it was the Soviet near abroad that acted as the immediate conduit for
fashionable items. Clothes from Yugoslavia were reckoned to be of significantly
higher quality than the products of other socialist countries.72 Well-made mens
suits from Finland became a status symbol and these, too, were imported by state
retail.73 One female Leningrader recalled that Soviet-made winter boots, an important item in the citys cold climate, were spurned for Yugoslav and Czechoslovak
boots, while those made in Finland topped the popularity charts: it took either good
connections or long queuing to get hold of a pair.74 Very fashionable were Angora
jumpers and cardigans, which could be made by crafty consumers themselves. This
might explain why the tourists from Perm who travelled to Yugoslavia in 1971 were
prepared to risk much to bring some mohair wool back from their trip.75 Quality
mohair was produced by Baltic factories. An Angora item was an enviable possession: Iren Andreeva, who knitted for herself a dress from Latvian wool, was advised
by her sons class teacher to avoid wearing it to parents meetings because it so
upset other teachers that they took to giving the boy low marks.76

Figure 5.1 Demonstration of the new seasons fashions at the All-Union House of Fashion
in Moscow, 1972.
V. Akhlomonov, FotoSoyuz. Used with permission.

From modest to modish 143

Figure 5.2 Down-to-earth styles gather crowds of onlookers, mainly women and children,
at a fashion show in the town of Kropotkin in Krasnodar region during a local
holiday, 1980.
V. Akhlomonov, FotoSoyuz. Used with permission.

There were, of course, regional differences, sometimes substantial, in what was

fashionable and when. The artistic levels of the republican Houses of Fashion varied
a great deal, with those from Riga, Tallinn, Leningrad and Minsk setting the standard.77 But Soviet regions were not isolated from one another. Not only did provincial
women go to Moscow to buy patterns, but Moscow-based designers travelled with
their collections and recommendations to the remote regions to cultivate taste and
spread current fashions. For instance, specialists from the All-Union Institute for the
Assortment of Light Industry Products (VIAlegprom) journeyed as far as Komsomol
construction sites in Siberia.78 So did fartsovshchiki. Holiday resorts were places for
exchange of knowledge on latest trends, and some such places those on the Baltic
sea coast were in themselves trend-setters. The Baltic republics resorts and major
cities offered displays of Western-like styles and fashions in the streets and in shops.
Their residents had equal or even better access to contemporary Western culture than
Moscow.79 The Baltic coast became the new popular destination for fashionable
vacationers.80 Other border regions played a similar role in spreading knowledge
about Western fashions: Lvov, for example, supplied Polish fashion magazines as
well as the usual staples of the black market.81
If the authorities sought directly to combat Western influence, they were wielding a double-edged sword. Articles in Krokodill ridiculed the hippie movement in
the West but also provided Soviet hippies with a useful source of information on

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the movement and its styles.82 In the popular comedy An Office Romance, a
fashion-conscious but likeable secretary to the director of a research institute
shows her female boss a pair of winter boots and asks her opinion on whether she
should buy them. The masculine-looking director, dressed in a buttoned-up colourless suit devoid of any hint of fashion, replies tersely that the boots are too
provocative (vyzyvaiushchie) to which the secretary immediately murmurs:
Excellent boots, then, Ill take them. Incidentally, the secretary is already dressed
very fashionably (Figure 5.3); in the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet films continued to be
a source of fashion ideas for their audiences, as their overly optimistic visualizations

Figure 5.3 The fashionable secretary instructs her unfashionable boss on the art of
femininity in An Office Romance, 1977.
RIA Novosti. Used with permission.

From modest to modish 145

of modern life included not only spacious flats, stylish furniture and private cars
but also fancy garments.
By the mid-1980s, foreign trends were firmly lodged in the fabric of Soviet
society. In a gesture that was more symbolic than practical, Rabotnitsa published
in January 1983 a vocabulary of fashion, which explained the meanings of the
plethora of foreign words that had been imported into the Russian language,
together with the garments and styles they denoted. It included such terms as
bleizer, anorak and hammer pants, which Soviets called banany (bananas).83 This
linguistic assistance, however, came a little too late: most urbanites already knew
perfectly well what these words meant, and many even had the relevant items.
Instead of being educational, the article signalled the defeat of Soviet puritan
clothing norms at the hands of global fashion.

Disdain and respect: the shifting discourse on fashion

Given the ideological significance that successive Soviet governments had
attached to clothes, it is worth considering how they went from equating jeans
with treason to publishing a vocabulary of foreign styles in a national womens
monthly.84 After all, it was one thing to allow Soviet designers to study international trends as a starting point for their creations, but it was quite another to
publish untranslated names of the hottest items of capitalist attire.
In 1973, a book titled Fashion: Pro and Contra came out in Moscow.85 Its
appearance signalled a new chapter in the relationship of the Soviet regime with
fashion. Previous publications, whether newspaper articles, books or brochures,
were part of the campaign for good taste in dress; they tended to warn against
excessive interest in fashion and encouraged readers to rationalize and minimize
their wardrobes.86 Publications of the early Brezhnev years saw much continuity
with the generally negative approach characteristic of the 1950s and early 1960s.
Rabotnitsa advised its readers in 1968 that people of other professions [than fashion designer] should not give [fashion] too much time and effort.87 Another article
stressed Soviet consumers independence from fashion: Nobody calls it: your
majesty. Each one of us is busy doing her own job, and considers that the most
important business.88 Fashion was the opposite of good taste, according to another
specialist: It is unfashionable now to be too fashionable. It is evidence of poor
taste, an inability to think independently and make decisions.89 Fashionable things
such as high-heeled shoes could be detrimental for health, and, worse still: The
love of fashionable footwear can cost one even the happiness of motherhood.90
Fashion: Pro and Contra was different. It was a collection of essays by sociologists and philosophers who took a more considered view. They suggested that
fashion was a social phenomenon that plays a significant role in social life, arguing
that it was worthwhile for us, people of socialist society, to gain an understanding
of its nature, rules and fancies, and use it even more actively and purposefully in
our economic, ideological and aesthetic interests.91 The publication of the book
signalled an understanding at the official level that, perhaps, it was time to reconsider
the states approach. As unwanted dresses and coats piled up in the shops, and

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Western jeans were finding their way through the Iron Curtain, it seemed timely to
formulate, in the authors words, a correct attitude to fashion.
Certainly, Soviet people did not wake up one morning after the publication of
Fashion: Pro and Contra to find that fashion was wholeheartedly embraced by
ideology and industry. Even this book issued warnings against excessive adherence to fashion and suggestibility, especially for those suffering from consumerist mentality.92 And yet, the tide had turned. In the early 1970s, the government
publicly pronounced fashion to be one of the important needs of Soviet consumers. In 1972, Prime Minister Kosygin declared at a session of the Soviet Supreme
Council: The retail network must always have a variety of contemporary fashionable goods and cuts.93 After that, Rabotnitsa started telling its readers that
moda (fashion) was their friend and calling it much respected.94
There were two chief reasons for this change of tune. Firstly, consumers growing reluctance to buy unfashionable clothes was causing serious economic damage.
In 1972 alone, unsold clothes cost the state over 5 billion roubles.95 This triggered
a new kind of critique in the press. If in the 1960s the issue was mainly the quality
of garments, in the 1970s and 1980s the problem was described as a lack of fashionable clothing. For instance, Rabotnitsa wrote of one Moscow shop in 1972:
What fashion are we talking about! Fashion designers might be inventing
something, the sporty style might be competing with the romantic style, skirts
might grow longer or shorter, fashionable silhouettes might set in but here it
is the kingdom of average clothes of an average cut for an average consumer.96
In the same year as the book on fashion was published, Rabotnitsa claimed that
there was now a new dimension to consumer demand: We have become picky:
we no longer wish to buy things that are simply high in quality. We require them
to be beautiful [and] to measure up to the latest ideas on fashion and good taste.97
Departing from earlier orthodoxy, the journalists conclusion in 1976 was that
fashion is a serious economic category which cannot be discounted today.98
Secondly, Khrushchevs reforms and the Brezhnev governments own initiatives
in domestic and foreign policy rendered the prohibition of fashion, especially
Western styles, increasingly ineffectual. Peoples aspirations for fashionable garments were legitimized by the Brezhnev leaderships pledged commitment to the
improvement of material well-being, as well as the actual increases in peoples
living standards. From this perspective, the desire for trendy clothes could not be
discouraged because it reflected our increased living standards, high purchasing
power and demanding taste.99
Dismissing fashion altogether was also seen as dangerous in the circumstances
of the Cold War. Specialists argued that,
in the conditions of existence and struggle of various social systems, it
[fashion] can be and is being used for ideological purposes. This fact
obliges us to pay greater attention to the content and behaviour of fashion
from the perspective of the socialist ideal and way of life.100

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The output of light industry needed to change because words, even the most
convincing and eloquent ones, will not solve the problem.101 The increased contacts with the West emphasized the public role of clothes as mobile billboards.
Attractive outfits helped shape a positive collective image of the Soviet people
for the growing numbers of foreign visitors and the home audience. Foreign
guests could make judgements about the success of socialism by observing people in the streets. The professional design journal Dekorativnoe iskusstvo urged
its specialist readers to pay great attention to this aspect of clothes.102 The newspaper Trud lamented that, while in many other areas the Soviet Union had
become a world leader, this had not been achieved in dress:
If we have some of the best planes in the world, the most unique computing
machines, miraculous space ships If our doctors perform the most complex heart surgery, eye surgery, [and] even sometimes bring a person back
to life. If If If How many times one can say if followed by we
have the best! Then why dont we have the best clothes and shoes in the
world that would look beautiful on our Soviet person?103
On the eve of the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, leading Soviet designers were
engaged to create garments that would turn those Soviets who were allowed to stay
in the capital for the show into a bright, smartly dressed mass. Together with
Moscows spruced-up streets and buildings, this would make a favourable impression on foreign guests and reporters in the best Potemkin village tradition.104
The new romance with la mode became ideologys latest twist on kulturnost.
Fashion was now incorporated into discourse on good taste and culture. One
expert noted: A serious and detailed conversation about fashion is, to a certain
degree, also a question of cultivating the new man.105 Policy considerations
eventually raised the status of fashion to that of a need, not a whim. By the 1980s,
rational norms of consumption prescribed that citizens wardrobes be renewed
and replenished according to the reasonable requirements of fashion.106 This
meant that clothes could justifiably be discarded and replaced just because they
fell out of vogue. This was no small achievement for fashion in the USSR.107
Although a degree of ambivalence in public discussions remained (note the
vagueness of the term reasonable), fashion held a much more secure position by
the end of the Brezhnev decades. In the late Brezhnev period, members of the
Central Committee received permission to wear leather jackets to work. These
jackets had become very fashionable, and now the regime sanctioned their presence even in the corridors of power literally.108

Design and production

To what extent did the new rhetoric on fashion impact design and production? As
had become the practice in the postwar years, the clothing industry was supposed
to be guided by the recommendations of Soviet fashion designers. At various
points in the period under discussion, there were between 25 and 38 Houses of

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Fashion in the countrys republican and regional centres. At the apex of the fashion
design system were two competing institutions: the All-Union Institute for the
Assortment of Light Industry Products (VIAlegprom), which had a small department for design of fashionable clothing, and the All-Union House of Fashion in
Moscow. These institutions shared the task of forecasting developments in fashion
and issuing guidance for industry for the next two years. Both were under the
auspices of the Ministry of Light Industry. Every year the ministrys Aesthetic
Commission held conferences where all Houses of Fashion presented their new
collections. VIAlegprom and the All-Union House of Fashion set the tone. Their
theoreticians reported on the latest Western trends, predominantly French ones,
while their designers demonstrated models representing the future trends. These
recommendations were to be followed by the regional Houses of Fashion, which
also brought their latest collections to the event. As a result of the conference,
albums with drawings, photographs, samples and descriptions were put together
for the benefit of industry. Once the designs were approved by the artistic councils
of VIAlegprom, the House of Fashion and, eventually, the Ministrys Aesthetic
Commission, they became models (etalony) for factories to put into mass production. The All-Union House of Fashion held meetings especially for producers and
trade specialists, where representatives of factories could select samples with the
accompanying set of instructions for production.109
Clearly, fashion was a highly centralized industry in the USSR. The All-Union
House of Fashion employed up to 60 artists, which is not much if we consider that
their designs were to direct the entire Soviet clothing industry. In 1966, for example, it provided factories across the country with 3,814 designs and 4,491 sets of
manufacturing instructions (tekhdokumentatsiia). The fashion department of the
VIAlegprom was even smaller: half a dozen designers plus a dozen tailors. And
yet they were creating a guiding collection of clothing for the whole country
and took charge of the two national fashion magazines, Zhurnal mod (Magazine
(
of Fashions) and Modeli sezona ((Designs of the Season). The two-year recommendations of VIAlegproms department of fashion theory, which was created in
the mid-1960s and led by Iren Andreeva, had to cover everything from fabric and
clothing for both sexes to footwear and accessories. Such heavy concentration had
its consequences. There was no room to consider the different climates of the
countrys regions or its ethnic and social diversity; for instance, there was no clothing specifically for farmers. Youth were another neglected group: only in 1980 did
the Ministry of Light Industry order the All-Union House of Fashion to create a
collection for young people. It is also worth noting that, while the work on guiding
collections began with the analysis of the past years trends abroad and at home,
it did not include a survey of consumer demand. The Soviet fashion industry was
meant to shape the taste of the population rather than respond to it.110
The system of design may have had its problems, but it was far from dysfunctional and cannot be blamed for consumers dissatisfaction with stock in the
shops. Rather, the biggest obstacle to the fashionably dressed Soviet citizen was
the discrepancy between the aspirations of the fashion industry and the realities
of Soviet mass production. For a start, there were problems of capacity. The

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lowly status of light industry within the Soviet economic system is a familiar
story, and it was only exacerbated in the early 1960s by wrong-headed predictions that consumer demand for clothing would slow.111 In the late 1960s, even
in the capital, many clothing factories were poorly equipped, and much of the
work was still done manually.112 Kosygin sought to address some of these problems by putting the consumer industry, and clothing and textile factories in
particular, at the forefront of his reform in 1965.113 As we saw in Chapter 1, the
reform had some revitalizing effect on the clothing industry, which benefited
also from greater investment in hundreds of factories. But these efforts,
although they improved somewhat the capacity and output of the industry in the
1970s, did not result in a complete overhaul of the long-neglected sector. This
is evident also from the memoirs of Andreeva, who visited scores of factories
across the country in her capacity as a fashion theoretician. She recalls seeing
modern and well-equipped textile factories which provided their weavers with
headphones and light music to protect them from the deafening noise; but she
also remembers factories where ancient machines were fine-tuned with a bash
of a wooden bat and where manual work was carried out despite health risks.114
The investment made possible by the petro-dollars of the 1970s was not allocated wisely. At a time when consumers preferred to buy ready-made garments
rather than fabric, the state was spending ten times more on equipment for the
textile industry than on the sewing industry.115 Even if quantity could be
expanded, quality remained a problem. In the first nine months of 1969, defective clothes and shoes produced by Moscow factories alone cost the state 18
million roubles.116 Various reports indicate that the volume of faulty garments
and footwear grew throughout the period, causing distress to consumers and
inflicting considerable damage on the state budget.
By the late 1970s, the limited positive effects of the reform had worn off, and old
problems became more acute. In 1979 the industry came short of the planned output
for ready-made garments by 42 million roubles.117 In 1985, the countrys shoe factories possessed less than half of the equipment they required, and only half of
machinery conformed to international standards.118 On the eve of perestroika, the
shoe industry managed to meet less than 72 per cent of requests from retail outlets
for footwear.119 Such failures were especially painful because they now affected
consumers whose expectations had changed so much during the 1970s.
The problem was not so much the lack of capacity for production as the lack
of incentive to put fast-changing fashions into mass manufacturing. Plan and
fashion turned out to be incompatible. Technological changes were hampered by
the bureaucratic hassle involved in receiving official approval for them.
Paperwork had to be sent to Moscow, where it awaited its turn in a queue to
receive authorization, a process which could take between ten months and three
years up to five times longer than the manufacturing and industrial testing of
the garment.120A related problem was that particular items of clothing or footwear came with fixed norms for fabric, leather and other materials: producers
were bound by them, whatever the style. This is why Soviet factories, for
instance, resisted the mini-skirt fashion: they feared that, once this trend passed,

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the allocations of fabric for womens skirts would remain the same, making it
hard for them to fulfil their production plans.121
When factories took on new designs, this did not guarantee fashionable products. Manufacturers were guided by the availability of materials rather than the
artists recommendations. If a factory was out of the azure silk prescribed by a
designer for a dress but had abundant supplies of purple cotton, then purple cotton
it was. Often these alterations transformed a perfectly fine design into a scarylooking piece devoid of any appeal to consumers. Commentators were justified
in noting that there is an abyss between ideas of high fashion and their practical
implementation.122 Alla Shchipakina, a specialist in the All-Union House of
Fashion, recalls that, when, in the 1980s, factories finally began to produce
long-awaited collections of clothing for young people, their output had little
resemblance to the original designs.123 The press often blamed designers for these
lapses, insisting that it was their responsibility to monitor production and fight
with manufacturers for strict adherence to design specifications. For instance,
designers from the House of Fashion in Moscow were supposed to make monthly
visits to factories to check on the production of their designs.124 But they lacked
any meaningful instruments for enforcing standards because, for the enterprises,
the ultimate authority was not the designer but the plan.
In fact, two type of plans existed for clothing and footwear factories, one of
which specified changes in their assortment of goods, while the other prescribed
the quantity of output in monetary terms (in retail prices).125 Quantity, however,
always held the upper hand: enterprises in light industry had some freedom to
choose what types of goods they produced as long as they fulfilled their plan in
monetary terms. Here was the root of the problem: the manufacture of fashionable garments and finely crafted shoes was often too laborious to be cost-effective.
A specialist from a Moscow clothing plant with the misleading title Zhenskaia
moda (Female fashion) candidly explained to a reporter that a simple old-fashioned
dress took between an hour and an hour and a half to make, whereas producing a
new design required four hours: Twice the time, twice the labour. The factory
could not double the price, and in order to fulfil the plan it had to stick to producing the frumpy dresses.126 The director of another Moscow factory, Krasnyi
Vostok (Red Orient), admitted that, unfortunately, the demands of consumers
exceed the production possibilities. We are unable to keep up with fashion.127
Many other factories preferred to flood stores with unwanted merchandise and
fulfil the plan rather than risk bonuses in an attempt to keep up with fashion. Even
licensed products could be victims of the plan. The Mackintosh raincoats mentioned earlier had to be modified at the order of the Ministry of Light Industry
to increase output and speed up the production process, despite the ensuing damage to quality and design.128
The dictatorship of the monetary plan is evident from the ways in which producers sought to fulfil their other plan: for renewal of output. As we have seen,
designers regularly offered new designs to industry, and factories could choose
those they wished to put into production. It is at this point that designers began to
lose control over the fate of their samples. Several veterans of the Soviet fashion

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industry recall that, when representatives of factories came to the so-called distribution of designs meetings in Houses of Fashion, they picked those cuts and
styles that were easiest to make rather than those that were fashionable. Moreover,
they haggled with designers to have all embellishments and complicated elements
of design removed, including such tricky features as two breast pockets on
mens shirts (it was, they argued, too difficult to achieve symmetry).129 Also,
producers wanted only those designs whose production could fit into the existing
norms of fabric expenditure.130 This could be an upsetting experience for the artists,
but there was not much they could do.
There was little institutional pressure on factories to produce trendy goods,
despite the new emphasis on fashion in the press and government speeches. This
is well illustrated, for instance, by the existence of the Special Bureau for
Artistic Design (SKhKB) of the Russian republic, whose task was to create fashionable designs made of unsellable fabric, including that which was currently
produced by factories. This was seen as a patriotic drive to save producers of
unpalatable materials from complete financial collapse, but it encouraged factories
to continue churning out their substandard goods.131
The Ministry of Light Industry found fashion inconvenient for the same reason
as did individual factories: it prevented the fulfilment of the plan. This is clear
from the episode with Andreeva in the late 1960s, when she was due to give a
report as a VIAlegprom representative at one all-Union fashion conference in
Minsk. As Andreeva made her way to the tribune, she was stopped by a shout
from the deputy minister for light industry, seated in the presidium on stage, who
was enraged by her outfit: a mini-skirt and high elastic boots which reached
above the knee an ultra-fashionable item at the time. In front of a 600-strong
audience, the deputy minister loudly demanded that she change right away into
something decent. Andreeva politely refused, and the Belorussian officials persuaded the deputy minister to let her get on with the report to avoid a scandal.
During a break in the proceedings, the deputy minister privately explained to
Andreeva the reason for his annoyance: he was worried that her propaganda of
knee-high boots at such a public event of specialists would lead to mass demand
for them and each pair takes more leather than five pairs of shoes.132 Possibly
for the same pragmatic reasons, the ministry deemed that only 7 per cent of all
output should be fashionable.133
Such attitudes could occasionally be mitigated by a more sympathetic approach
from Party bosses, especially during the 1970s. Designers conferences were often
attended by high officials: secretaries of the Central Committee, representatives
from the Council of Ministers and others. Experts could be invited to the Central
Committee, and on occasion the latter could even come to them for instance, in
the shape of a dignitary such as K. T. Mazurov, a member of the Politburo and
deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, who paid a visit to VIAlegprom in
the late 1970s.134 But this did not always translate into meaningful assistance.
Andreeva recalls an audience with chairman of the Council of Ministers
N. A. Tikhonov, who had replaced Kosygin in 1980, where she and the minister
of light industry tried to convince Tikhonov to sanction the construction of a new

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factory producing fabric for rainwear. After eloquent arguments delivered by both
specialists, plus a small fashion show demonstrating the advantages of the new
fabric, the only response from the ancient chairman was No, do without it.135 The
removal of Kosygin, the man whose administrative roots went back to light industry, may have had a further detrimental effect on clothing production.
Retail had slightly more leverage over industry at least, this was the idea
behind the system of direct links between producers and shops, which was
actively promoted in the Brezhnev years. It was envisaged that shops and warehouses would place orders with factories only for those goods that were popular
with buyers. But this did not work as expected, either. Shops also had a plan to
fulfil, which meant that they could be forced to take on whatever the factories had
to offer. Trade specialists who selected goods for their warehouses and stores did
not always have an understanding of what was fashionable; the fear of failing the
sales plan meant they played it safe and could reject things that were deemed too
trendy.136 The hectic quality of service typical for Soviet shops in the 1970s did
not encourage experimentation with orders. In one instance, the popularity of
divided skirts (or trouser-skirts, iubka-briuki) suffered because, in overcrowded
Moscow shops, harassed sales assistants had no time to explain to each customer
that these were in fact trousers, not a skirt (i.e., one leg into each trouser leg, not
both into one!), and puzzled consumers left these odd skirts alone. As a result,
shops could not shift their supplies and rejected these garments in the next season.137 It would appear, in the words of Andreeva, that, apart from designers and
the so-called population, fashion was a nuisance for everyone else.138
Prominent among the exceptions were black marketeers. Plenty of goods were
leaking out of the state retail system. According to a 1969 state prosecutors
report in the RSFSR, in one in every four stores inspectors managed to uncover
violations; among the worst performers were the regions of Vologodsk, Gorkii,
Kirov, Kalinin, Magadan, Saratov, Orlov, Tiumen, Cheliabinsk, and the cities of
Moscow and Leningrad. In just 12 Moscow shops inspection teams found more
than 1,200 different types of sought-after goods being withheld and hidden in the
back of the stores for personal gain. For instance, two assistants from the Moscow
shop Smena regularly sold the highly desirable bolonia raincoats under the counter. In just a few days they managed to sell 32 coats, which earned them the
considerable sum of 200 roubles (almost double the average monthly wage,
which in 1970 stretched to only 122 roubles a month).139
In sum, official policy struggled to cope with fashion in the long 1970s. The
response to the rise of a style-conscious Soviet public was partly rhetorical
(the public legitimization of fashion) and partly economic (the rise in imports of
fashionable clothes and footwear). Neither approach was satisfactory in the long
term: imports could not continue indefinitely, and legitimization of fashion
implicitly sanctioned the black market that thrived on industrys failures. But
perhaps the leadership was not too concerned about the long term. Besides their
venerable age, they perhaps saw fashion as a temporary irritant: Marxism
Leninism still held that, under communism, fashion would disappear.140 While it
was worth accepting it for now, fashion had no future.

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Clothing as a youth problem

In one respect, however, fashion already had a future. It had achieved perhaps
its most striking impact on Soviet young people, the next generation of builders
of communism. By the time the authorities turned a more sympathetic ear to
fashion, it had become emphatically a youth problem. Thanks to the greater prosperity enjoyed by their parents and the much greater availability of fashionable
clothes (through the black market, or even through state stores), smart garments
and shoes were objects of desire for the younger generation as never before. Of
all age groups, fashion held the greatest sway over those who were between 18
and 29 years old: a substantial majority of them were likely to buy new coats,
dresses, shoes, and so on, because of changes in fashion. For instance, 75 per cent
of women aged between 18 and 29 would buy a new coat once a new fashion had
firmly set in; 6 per cent more would rush to get a new one at the first signs of a
new trend, and only 19.3 per cent were totally indifferent to fashion. By way of
comparison, more than 50 per cent of women aged between 30 and 55 claimed
indifference to fashion.141 A contemporary from Leningrad remembers well a
generational change in attitudes: judging by her young female colleagues, who
joined the workplace in the late 1970s and the 1980s, aspirations were greater,
including in clothing, and they combed the stores or were serviced by suppliers
[profiteers] at the office something that the older employees were apparently
less prone to do.142
While youth fashion-consciousness is nothing unusual in itself, it was a problem in the Soviet Union because young peoples desires to be fashionable had
traditionally been viewed with less sympathy than those of older people. The
most powerful men and women in the country were not necessarily indifferent
to stylish outfits: Khrushchevs wife and daughters had a taste for French haute
couture, while Brezhnev, the proud owner of a Cadillac, a Lincoln Continental
and a sporty Chevrolet Monte Carlo, was quite sophisticated in matters of
attire. But even he, like many others in the Soviet geriatric leadership under
his chairmanship, was unlikely to have much sympathy for patched-up jeans
and T-shirts. Even for the more youthful and less privileged Soviet middleaged adults, notions of fashion tended to gravitate towards classical styles.143
Unlike in Western societies, where producers had begun tapping into the commercial advantages of a separate youth market in the late 1950s and the
1960s,144 in the Soviet Union a clothing industry catering to the needs of teenagers did not exist until the 1980s. As late as the mid-1980s there remained
some capital and major cities that had no specialized clothing shop for young
people.145 What state industry eventually had to offer did not inspire confidence. One youngster complained at an exhibition of a new youth clothing
collection in Moscow in 1983: The choice of goods is limited and better
suited for people over 40.146
This might not have been a problem before, but in the 1970s and 1980s it was.
Young people wanted something different something contemporary. They
associated fashion with progress and with being modern, and some even identified hip outfits with the future. As one observer noticed, covers of science fiction

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books often featured young lads wearing jeans that had become some kind of
symbol of the 1970s.147
What was hot for young Soviets? Girls liked mini-skirts in the late 1960s and
maxi-skirts in the 1970s. As in the West, during the 1970s youth fashion became
androgynous. Girls began to wear trousers, despite much resistance and even
verbal abuse from elderly (and usually male) members of the public. The new
flared shape of trousers became popular with both sexes. To make their bellbottoms last longer, pragmatic fashionistas sewed halves of zippers onto the edge
of their trousers, adding a distinctively Soviet element to the trend.148 Boys and
girls sported colourful fitted shirts in paisley patterns, popularly referred to as
gherkins (ogurtsy), which featured exaggerated pointed collar tips. Both sexes
climbed into shoes and boots on bulky platforms of dizzying heights.149 They
wore polo necks and tightly fitting ribbed jumpers nicknamed noodles (lapsha).
In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, fitted polo shirts with foreign words or canvas
bags were ultra-trendy.
Both sexes craved jeans. Soviet youth of the 1970s had a special relationship
with denims. These garments ignited controversies, featured as a symbol of youth
consumerism and West-worshipping in countless cartoons in satirical magazines
and didactic stories in the press, and cost a small fortune on the black market or
even in state shops. And yet they seemed to be omnipresent: jeans are everywhere
in literature and memoirs from the long 1970s. Denim became a symbol of youth:
for many young people it was a dream, but, by the mid-1970s, fashion-conscious
youth insisted it was a basic necessity. Mariia Arbatovas memoir of her hippie youth
in the 1970s is full of young Muscovites wearing jeans, with one truly stylish couple
even getting married in denim. For Arbatova, jeans were an obligatory attribute of
the bohemian world located somewhere between the legal and the anti-Soviet.150
But subcultures no longer had a monopoly on jeans. For the writer and journalist
Vitalii Korotich, for instance, a denim outfit meant that its young wearer was a boy
from an influential and well-connected family.151 Nor was it just a Moscow
thing. One lad from a remote Siberian town, asking his friend in Leningrad to buy
him Western jeans, pleaded that in summer jeans are indispensable.152 Youth
showered the House of Fashion in Moscow with letters demanding advice on
where to obtain jeans.153
They could, of course, be bought on the black market, provided one had
between 150 and 200 roubles to spare (more than the average monthly salary of
an industrial worker or office employee in 1970). By the early 1980s, jeans could
be bought in Soviet shops in major cities and in smaller towns at what was still
a relatively prohibitive price of 100 roubles. Soviet-made denims under the illconceived brand name Tver (an ancient town north of Moscow) cost even less:
78 roubles. But Soviet youngsters were not after any old jeans: in the 1970s not
all denims were created equal. Authentic Western jeans of almost any brand were
the most prestigious. They had to have a leather brand label at the back and lots
of metal poppers and zips, and they had nott to be colourfast. Such items were
hard to come by in state shops, but not impossible: one needed connections or
luck to chance upon a pair. In Moscow, where youth from nearby regions travelled

From modest to modish 155

to hunt for denims, a sale of Western jeans at the Soviet price of 100 roubles
could gather large crowds: a contemporary remembers seeing a queue of nearly
200 people hugging the perimeter of the square next to the department store
Moskva in order to buy Rifle jeans in 1985.154 The store had clearly expected
such a turnout and arranged to sell the madly popular items from a counter at its
side entrance so as not to let people flood the premises and disrupt trade in other
departments. In less visited areas the supply could be even better: contemporaries remember that, by the mid-1980s, jeans and corduroy trousers costing 100
roubles were available relatively freely in Minsk shops, although the choice of
sizes was limited.155 Next in the hierarchy of jeans were those that were made
abroad but not in the West Indian denims and those made in the socialist countries.156 Finally, there were Soviet-made jeans and substitutes made of denim
fabric, which could be of reasonable quality and even more comfortable than
the original tough denim, but for a discerning young customer they simply didnt
cut the mustard.
The authorities might despair over young people hankering after foreign styles,
but they helped make it possible. In Moscow alone, the numbers of Komsomol
members who travelled abroad grew tenfold between 1960 and 1970, from 800 to
8,000 people.157 In 1973, the Moscow Komsomol section sent close to 10,000 people abroad.158 It might not seem a lot in absolute terms, but the rarity value of such
trips meant that the word spread 80 per cent of schoolchildren polled in Moscow
said their sources on fashion were mostly foreign, and, of these, 70 per cent knew
someone who had travelled abroad.159 Significantly, these respondents did not come
from specialized language schools where this rate was likely to be even higher.
Other cities and towns sent their young tourists abroad. In 1977, a total of 815
youngsters from the closed city of Dniepropetrovsk crossed the Soviet border as
tourists, mostly to Eastern Europe; by the 1980s the Dniepropetrovsk region was
sending over 1,000 young people abroad each year.160
Fashionable clothes were not cheap, but for young people they were one of the
more affordable categories of consumer goods. For a group that had the lowest
level of earnings and often still had to rely on their parents financially, the easiest
way to indulge in good living was to buy trendy garments.161 A car was out of the
question for anyone but the most privileged; it was a luxury even for the majority
of urban adults. Also, the near impossibility of getting separate accommodation
and moving out of their parents home meant that items such as furniture and
electric durables (with the exception of tape recorders and later video players)
were of less urgency for unmarried young consumers than jeans, coats, shoes and
trendy shoulder bags. Many teens could also count on their parents to finance
their love of fashion. A pair of jeans could be a gift on the occasion of graduating
from a music school or being drafted in the army.162
There was an element of adventure in pursuing fashion, especially the foreign
variety. Since many garments were obtained on the black market, the process
added to the thrill and created a sense of exclusiveness. Most fartsovshchiki were
themselves young people aged between 25 and 30 and often university students.163
They had contacts with such useful people as flight attendants, diplomats, Party

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activists, fashion models and artists, and so knowing them could lend a frisson of
affiliation with the world of bohemia.164
Consumerism was an inescapable daily reality for young people. This is evident from a variety of published letters in Rabotnitsa over the years, allegedly
from young people discussing the role of fashion in socialization. Expressing at
the very least the magazines view of the situation but also most likely drawing
on real letters to the editor, these articles suggest a heightened degree of insecurity born of the imperative to emulate. In one such letter a schoolgirl from
Moscow argued that wearing a uniform to classes was an anachronism (perezhi
(
tok),
k but she had difficulties being accepted by her female classmates who, in her
view, were plain jealous of her fashionable things. The letter suggested that sartorial distinction could be a source of conflict but also a key to membership in a
more exclusive, fashionable group of friends.165 Fashion was not only about
standing out: other published letters suggest that trendy outfits were important for
fitting in.166 As one girl put it, we did not pay much attention to this [preoccupation
with fashion] before, but as time goes on we start feeling it more acutely. That is
why I have stopped going to parties, dances and discos.167 Many published letters
revealed that a few youngsters, not unreasonably, expected a trendy get-up to
increase their appeal to the opposite sex and expedite their entry into adulthood.
One girl wrote:
I am almost seventeen. My friends are wearing decent 70-rouble boots and
fashionable coats with big fur collars, while [my parents] dress me like a
teenager. But I want to get attention in the streets, in the cinema, just
like the others. I want boys to like me. Whats wrong with that?168
Publicizing such views in the press, whatever the intention of the editors, might
well have had the effect of adding to the pressure on young readers. It was even
harder to ignore stories like the one told by a girl named Inna about a style makeover improving her personal life:
I used to come and sit on the bench [at the dance hall], waiting, waiting for
someone to invite me [to dance]. But I would go away empty-handed.
Then I started work and obtained stilettos, fashionable dresses. I started
doing my nails and getting mop hairdos [in the style of Brigitte Bardots
heroine in Babette Goes to Warr (1959)]. And what do you think? I have
become the queen of the dance floor. Now every lad sees it as an honour to
invite me to dance.169
Even more of a break with traditional ideals was a report Rabotnitsa ran about
a male student from Voronezh having a style make-over. He complained that his
girlfriend broke up with him because of his unfashionable looks and then wanted
to resume their friendship after his older brother, a sailor, began to supply him
with imported clothes. In fact, this impressed not only his girlfriend: It is amazing, but I have begun to notice quite a few respectful glances directed at me. At

From modest to modish 157

first I was puzzled but then realized: it was respect for the rags!170 Certainly,
published opinions on such matters were not unanimous: some letters were
clearly meant to evoke a critical response from readers. But even those letters
which laid into unhealthy interests demonstrated that the problem had become
widespread and, thus, indirectly legitimized the situation. It was not always obvious whether one was meant to condemn or sympathize with the writer, and the
magazine often refrained from commenting.
To be sure, old attitudes died hard, and there is some evidence of Khrushchevstyle harassment of extravagant dressers. In 1969, for instance, Rabotnitsa
reported that two girls from Zhdanov (Mariupol) were pestered by fellow passengers on the tram for wearing shorts.171 Female students from Leningrad told
the newspaper Smena in 1975 that it was impossible to wear [maxi-skirts] in the
city: some passers-by consider such skirt length indecent.172 More tragically,
the Moscow ex-hippie Arbatova recalls that her friend was arrested in Moscow
in the early 1970s for wearing jeans and accused of prostitution, which led her
to attempt suicide.173
All the same, there was less agreement than ever on what the line on youth
fashion should be. A good illustration of the confusion and conflict to which the
subject gave rise in the 1970s is the controversy over young women wearing
trousers to work or university. As more women braved the new look, some public institutions introduced written rules against letting trouser-wearing females
in. In the early 1970s, Andreeva was refused entry to the Ministry of MediumScale Engineering in Moscow on the basis of this rule; ironically, even the
Ministry of Light Industry, whose designers created and advertised trouser suits
for women, banned trousers for its female employees.174 But the press was not
necessarily on the side of the bureaucrats. Perhaps the most radical newspaper
in that regard, with a record of liberal views on youth fashion, was Komsomolskaia
pravda. As early as 1965 it was reprimanded by one of its mature readers,
V. Gribanov from the city of Ufa, for being too soft on young girls wearing
trousers: Free thinking might be all very well somewhere [else] but not in our
press, which is called on to educate people in the spirit of communist morality.175 In 1972, the newspaper attracted more criticism from elderly readers for
defending fashionable youth.176 A veritable scandal erupted after it printed a
letter from a young woman named L. Movshina, who reported how the receptionist at the Institute of Culture in Leningrad refused to let her into the building,
where she had been invited for a consultation, because she was wearing a trouser
suit. Movshina called such an outdated approach barbaric (dikii), and the newspaper ran the story on its front page.177 Several professors from the institute
complained about the article to the Partys Central Committee, but the editors
stuck to their guns and supported Movshina.178 Even the Komsomol bosses were
unhappy with the way this newspaper and some others were handling the issue
of trouser-wearing girls. When in 1971 the Ukrainian paper Molodaia gvardiia
(Young Guard)
d published a satirical piece ridiculing Kiev State University for
forbidding female students to wear trousers to lectures, it elicited the displeasure
of both the Ukrainian Central Committee and the Ukrainian branch of the

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Komsomol.179 In 1971 and 1972, Ukrainian Komsomol bosses were complaining

that Komsomolskaia pravda regularly took the side of fashionistas against
Komsomol workers who tried to shame them. The First Secretary of the
Dniepropetrovsk Regional Committee of the Komsomol explained the problem:
We cannot speak with youth in different languages; it is not right to put us,
Komsomol workers, in a position where we are constantly criticized for having
archaic views and no taste.180
The press and the Komsomol were not the only participants in a debate on
youth fashion: also involved were schools, parents, economists, writers, and so
on. For instance, the contributors to the roundtable organized by Komsomolskaia
pravda in April 1973 questioned schools conservative and rigid approach to
youth fashions, suggesting that it was misplaced and futile. Children might
comply with rules at school, but after classes they changed into the clothes they
liked. An economist argued that the constant fight against trends which were
rapidly changing was pointless because it is impossible to beat it [fashion].
V. I. Tolstykh, a philosopher and a parent, agreed: Fashion is stronger than us.
No moralizer, no moralizing has ever defeated fashion. It has always emerged a
winner.181 As Andreeva noted in an interview to Rabotnitsa published in 1979,
for many decades already, youth fashion around the world has been developing
according to its own laws.182
This lack of a united front as regards youth fashion undoubtedly made it
easier for young people to defend their right to be fashionable, even when this
involved Western styles. Unlike their more dutiful predecessors, youth of the
1970s and 1980s were far less inclined to censure one another for their choices
in clothing: surveys showed that young people came to be more tolerant of the
appearance and tastes of others.183 In 1984, legal experts lamented the indifference and apathy towards profiteers shown by university students and factory
workers in the Rostov region, who not only failed to object to the conspicuous
activities of two student peddlers but even placed orders with them for jeans
and velvet skirts.184 Without the help of young people in policing their peers, it
was more difficult for state agencies, such as schools, to enforce proper standards and fight alien practices. Young people also actively participated in the
public debate on fashion by writing to the press. Articles in Komsomolskaia
pravda drew hundreds of letters in response.185 Many defended their right to
fashion by asking for advice and protection, as did three girls from Riazan,
who pleaded with the editors of the youth magazine Smena in 1976: Dear editors, we are finding life unbearable, we should leave [our] families because our
old folks (grannies, grandfathers, fathers and mothers) have made life impossible
for us because we love foreign fashions.186 Increasingly, it seems, young people
viewed the opportunity to dress as they liked and be safe from harassment as a
right, not an act of defiance.
When they saw the emulation of Western fashions as an ideological threat, the
authorities may have been missing the point. For many youngsters, Western fads
were not about political defiance; it was more a matter of socialization. Moscow
schoolchildren told sociologists that it was the handsome appearance of Western

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Figure 5.4 Young girls sport mini-skirts and maxi-skirts at a dance party in the provincial
town of Ust-Ilimsk in Siberia, 1978.
Iurii Rybchinskii, FotoSoyuz. Used with permission.

fashions that attracted them.187 There were exceptions when a dress code was part
of explicit non-conformism, as was the case with subcultures such as hippies, but
here too important qualifications are due. Even these subcultures were not always
in opposition to the regime.188 Hippies in Moscow, who were regularly rounded
up by the militsiia, dressed differently in explicit defiance of public norms, but
they were often children of the elite, not ordinary Soviet youth, and few were
political dissidents.189 There were also very few of them: in 1974 the Moscow
Komsomol section believed there were only 70 hippies in the capital.190 The attitudes of these subcultures to Western fashions were not straightforward. In the
1960s, Riga beatniks read samizdat and other banned literature and emphasized
their non-conformity in dress, but they were decisively nott into Western clothes;
they preferred to make their own.191 Latvian hippies of the late 1960s and 1970s,

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From modest to modish

who seemed to have sparked the movement in other cities and who occasionally
engaged in public protest, similarly preferred self-made clothes, which were
an improvisation on styles glimpsed from foreign sources and variations on
Latvian folk costume.192 This was a very different approach from mainstream
fashion-lovers elsewhere in the country, who cherished precisely the authenticity
of an imported item and the prestige of its brand. A focus on minority subcultures
distracts us from the fact that the majority of youngsters were not broadcasting a
coherent message of defiance or alienation when they pursued foreign fashions.
They were, however, making small but important choices in favour of a different
set of values than those prescribed by the Soviet regime a development no less
problematic for the authorities.

Concluding remarks
It is doubtful that it was a lack of fashionable clothes alone that brought down
the Soviet regime. But an examination of fashions progress in the long 1970s
brings interesting insights into the relationship of the Brezhnev regime with its
citizens. It shows Soviet urban consumers of the Brezhnev era becoming more
autonomous, more selective and more open to global influences. The preconditions for these developments were, of course, created by the regime itself, but
consumers implicit pressure on the retail sector resulted in tangible economic
damages and forced the authorities to seek solutions. Although the command
economy was not sufficiently flexible to adapt, Soviet propaganda was showing
signs of considerable accommodation. The states changing position on fashion
is an excellent example of compromise and adjustment in response to new social
realities and pressure from below. If anything, it points to the possibility of survival of the system, not its downfall, and suggests that material problems would
not spell the end of Soviet communism just yet. By the 1980s, fashion had
received full recognition as an important economic force and one of the rational
needs of Soviet consumers. Public views on what was socially acceptable in
dress relaxed a great deal, especially in regards to Western trends, which now
enjoyed a far greater presence in urban wardrobes. Even the relatively conservative Rabotnitsa, which had traditionally advocated modest socialist attire, came
round to new social realities when it admitted in 1984 that for many buyers the
label Made in was the best advertisement for the item, a guarantee of its
quality and fashionableness.193
But where did flexibility end and ideological erosion begin? The new treatment
of fashion threatened several fundamental principles of socialism. For one, it
legitimized conspicuous consumption. At least the relative poverty of the postwar
years had made everyone look equal; this was not the case in the 1970s. Pursuit
of fashions often meant using connections, informal networks and the black
market did the official acceptance of fashion extend to the means of its acquisition?
The esteem in which Western clothes were held was another insult to a Soviet
regime that faced daily advertisements of its failure to create a competitive socialist fashion walking up and down the streets of most towns and even villages.

From modest to modish 161

What made it worse was the fact that Soviet urbanites never did look like their
Western counterparts. Foreign fashions were amalgamated into Soviet aesthetics
and adapted by individual consumers, whose knowledge of Western styles and
access to foreign items had improved but was still only partial. Instead of the style
mediated by state designers, it was an unmonitored, eclectic, often flashy and
socially emulative medley of foreign things combined with Soviet-made items.
Such was socialist fashion by the mid-1980s.
The decades-long attempts to shape proper socialist taste in dress failed for a
number of reasons, not least because the official ideas on what was socialist in
fashion became rather confused and unconvincing in the long 1970s. Clothing,
however, was but one area of everyday life in which Soviet people were encouraged to develop good taste as a prerequisite for becoming modern communists.
Another was the home, which ideologues had traditionally identified as an
important instrument for shaping communist mentality in everyday life. The
next chapter turns to the fate of that project under developed socialism.

Closing the door on socialism

Furniture and the domestic interior

The home was at the heart of Soviet efforts to build the communist utopia. It
was a political problem, an instrument of ideological exertion and a cultural
construction site. Its importance became apparent right from the start, when
the newly proclaimed socialist state began to gain legal control over the
housing stock. Measures may have been gradual and even chaotic at first,
ideological fervour mixed with compromises and reversals, but housing
became increasingly a state affair. This started with the sequestering of large
residential buildings and some smaller properties by local soviets and the
nationalization of factories along with their employee dwellings. The Soviets
own industrialization programme, launched in the late 1920s, pushed the
state to start building homes to accommodate the influx of workers to new
industrial sites. However, the process was enormously accelerated with the
launch of an unprecedented mass housing campaign under Khrushchev. This
was a bold attempt to breathe vigour into the Soviet project and solve one of
its thorniest problems. Enormous resources were poured into the campaign,
whose results changed the Soviet urban landscape for decades to come. It
also confirmed the predominant role of the state as a provider of homes.
Until the 1960s, one-third of all urban housing was still in private hands, but,
in 1980, 77 per cent of urban stock belonged to the state, which was responsible for 91 per cent of all new building. Under Khrushchev, the pledge of
adequate housing for all turned from a propagandistic leitmotif into the governments central claim to legitimacy. The subsequent governments of
Brezhnev and Gorbachev felt compelled to adopt and reiterate it. 1
But there was more to Soviet housing than concrete, bricks and mortar: homes
had to be made socialist on the inside. A number of recent studies of the home
under Stalin and Khrushchev investigate the home as a vehicle of communist
upbringing. The organization of domestic space was seen to play a significant
part in the creation of the new Soviet man and woman (and consumer). From
the 1930s onwards, notions of appropriate socialist domesticity had been at the
core of the states modernization efforts and its consumption rhetoric. Vera
Dunham, for example, has shown how literary descriptions of the home signalled to people new state-sponsored ideals of middle-class propriety and
kulturnost:

Closing the door on socialism

163

An orange lampshade, scalloped and fringed, invites solicitous parents to

read to their children; and that was laudable, for the family had to be
strengthened. An opulent room with heavy drapes and a grand piano kept
young people off the street. That was good too; upper-class youth had to be
protected from the roaming riffraff.2
These, however, were Stalinist cultural norms, and they were contested indeed,
energetically attacked in the next phase of Soviet history. Against the model
Stalinist home, which was luxuriously spacious, richly furnished and decorative,
Khrushchev promoted a different definition of comfort: minimalist, economical
and functional. Beauty was defined by utility. Rationality stepped forward as the
main guiding principle in design, and domestic space was expected to yield to
mass production, just like the blocks of flats where it was located. The Stalin-era
ideall home had room for privacy, even if the reality of cramped barracks and
communal flats rendered this a distant dream. Under Khrushchev, the privacy of
a separate apartment became reality for millions of citizens, but simultaneously
the official rhetoric on the arrangement of this private space grew more intrusive
and patronizing.3
In the Soviet Union, furniture, like most other things, was a political issue.
Khrushchevs modernization and asceticization of the home was closely tied to
his de-Stalinization campaign and the will to drive the Soviet project onwards.
The above ideas were not inventions of the Khrushchev era: functionalism and
rationality harked back to 1920s constructivism, while the principles of separate
apartment construction were discussed by Soviet architects as early as the 1930s
and again after the war. However, they received a huge boost in the mid-1950s,
becoming a part of the Khrushchev governments push to rekindle ideological
vigour in a post-Terror society.4
These are now relatively familiar themes. Much less familiar is the direction
which the discourse on the home took subsequently. What happened after
the energetic assault of Khrushchevs design revolution? The upheavals in the
domestic sphere of the 1950s and 1960s have been so captivating that scholars
have not yet paid much attention to the period that followed.5 Here, as so often,
the Brezhnev era has suffered from its reputation of stagnation. It is all too easy
to assume that discourse simply ploughed the same furrow, but with considerably
less vigour. Indeed, that is what some have suggested.6 The reality, however, is
rather different.
Soon after the removal of Khrushchev, the ideal of the modern home promoted
under his patronage was attacked. His successors subjected Khrushchevs administration to heavy criticism, and in a few years the Brezhnev government moved
to put an end to de-Stalinization. Discourse on the home became a convenient
tool to signal and implement the rejection of Khrushchevs legacy. Brezhnev-era
views on home design resembled those of the 1930s and the postwar years, and
styles of furniture that had previously been disparaged as excessive (read,
excessively Stalinist) were now welcomed back. On the other hand, many austere
aesthetic principles of the late 1950s and early 1960s were publicly criticized in

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Closing the door on socialism

the media, while cinema and literature were allowed to mock the impersonal
monotony of standard flats. Furniture remained a continuation of politics by other
means, but it turned out to be a flexible instrument which readily served the
agenda of a new government.
The story does not end here. De-Khrushchevization of furniture gradually
developed beyond the rehabilitation of Stalinist taste norms. The very idea of
didactic interference in domestic space came under fire in the 1970s. For the first
time in its history (and well before Gorbachevs perestroika), the Soviet regime
gave up on its ambition to shape citizens habitat; the consequence was the eventual
de-politicization of the home.

Changing visions of the socialist home

The evidence for Brezhnevs domestic counter-revolution emerges from three
broadly defined types of public forum. Specialist publications were the first to
signal the attack. The change of orientation in the popular press would take
longer, and the late 1960s and early 1970s saw something of a contest between
two visions of the home, with the post-Khrushchev model gaining the upper hand
by the mid-1970s. The mass media, such as the popular magazine Rabotnitsa or
the daily newspaper Moskovskaia pravda, were joined in the 1970s by cinema
and literature, which weaved criticism of standard interiors and modern furniture
into their portrayal of contemporary life.
In the professional circles of designers and architects, discussion of the modern
bareness of Khrushchev-era furniture began immediately after Brezhnevs
accession. The editor-in-chief of the trend-setting professional journal
Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR (Decorative
(
Art of the USSR, hereafter DI SSSR), a
publication which itself had been founded under Khrushchev, fired the opening
shots as early as January 1965. He argued that the dominance of pure rationality
spells an inevitable dead-end for artists. It resulted in the overstocking of ugly
goods that cost billions and represented an insulting neglect of the sense of
beauty that is natural to the majority of Soviet people.7
This was a very different view from the prevailing line of the Khrushchev
decade, which saw aesthetic demands in furniture design as secondary to the
requirements of economy, technology, rationality, comfort and hygiene. This had
been stated as recently as 1962 in one typical volume by designers and architects
entitled Prikladnoe iskusstvo i sovremennoe zhilishche ((Applied Arts and the
Contemporary Dwelling).8 The book promoted new furniture by drawing on the
very notions of simplicity and rationalism that were about to fall out of favour a
few years later. This style was explicitly opposed to Stalin-era forms: the book
identified with precision the moment of its arrival as 1956, which clearly tied it
to the Twentieth Party Congress. Confidently, the authors declared: The winners
today are, ultimately, purposefulness and common sense, which are the basis for
contemporary architecture.9
Three years later, in new political circumstances, these principles of home furnishing were redrawn. The mid- and late 1960s saw specialists dismantling such

Closing the door on socialism

165

fundamental concepts of Khrushchevist home design as minimalism, rationality

and standardization. One designer, V. Glazychev, writing for DI SSSR in 1966,
claimed that standard interiors clashed with the structure of contemporary Soviet
society, which was not homogeneous but consisted of different strata according
to the level of education, culture, professional prestige, and so on. Far from decrying this seemingly unsocialist phenomenon, Glazychev instead attacked standard
interiors as unsatisfactory for the modern consumer, whose requirements of the
home were not limited to a standard set of amenities.10 Glazychev continued to
argue his point in 1968, when he wrote that Soviet culture contained many different
subcultures: it would be a crude mistake to try to bring them all to one standard
even if one calls this standard the ideal.11 Given that principles of egalitarianism
had been at the core of Khrushchevs social policies, the appearance of such arguments in a public forum not only constituted a frank assessment of social realities
but also signalled a new turn in social policy.
Other specialists began to express concern that sameness in furniture would
negatively affect the future citizens of communist society. For instance, the furniture designer M. Ladur warned during a workshop in the House of Architecture
in 1966 that standard houses and standard apartments with their standard furniture and compulsory wall hangings and Dymki [folksy] toys [dymkovskaia
igrushka] would extinguish any trace of personal taste and choice.12 As Soviet
propagandists became more concerned about the dwindling political involvement
of citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, the anxiety over standardized interiors intensified.13 Of course, mass production of standard furniture continued in the 1970s
and 1980s, but seeing standard interiors as a problem was new. Only recently they
had been hailed as an achievement; now they were seen as a failure.
Overall, the concept of the modern residence in the Brezhnev era came to differ
from the Khrushchev era in two important ways. The first difference can be
described as a move from collective rationality to individual spirituality. If, under
Khrushchev, personal development in the home was to be effected by exposing
people to the rational clean lines of a modern apartment, which disciplined residents for the collective cause,14 in the 1970s it was important for homes to acquire
elements of the irrational, eclectic and unique. These elements would infuse the
home with spirituality (dukhovnost). Spirituality was the new buzzword of professional discourse. One commentator praised the entrants to a national furniture
competition in Moscow in 1975 for striving to treat a person not as an object
with a standard set of known parameters but as an individual with a complex set
of spiritual needs, which was, he claimed, what set this contest apart from its
antecedents in the Khrushchev era.15
Spirituality was not given a definition by its advocates, but its use seemed to
imply a withdrawal into the private world of emotion amidst the hustle and bustle
of modern life, with the home offering a sanctuary from external rationality.
Instead of being a pristine and ascetic science lab, a more intimate image of the
home gained ground. Consider this description of a Moscow flat by its resident,
published in DI SSSR: The kitchen is my office, a visitors room and a dining
place. But in the evenings we gather in the room. You sit yourself down in the

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Closing the door on socialism

armchair, open the liquor cabinet and turn on the music Nice!16 The residents
depiction of his evenings was nothing if not decadently bourgeois, even isolationist, yet it earned no reproach from the journal.
The notion of the home as shelter from the modern world had had some currency under Khrushchev, but then it was to do mainly with the problem of urban
noise and the poor sound insulation of mass-constructed apartments rather than
their aesthetics. As Steven Harris has demonstrated, a war on noise was declared
in the late 1950s, but the states primary concern then was the perceived health
risks and adverse effects on labour productivity.17 The dominant view of the
Khrushchev decade rejected the notion of the home as a sanctuary. Our home is
not a fortress defending man against the external world; it is not a small isolated
world where people hide from lifes worries, declared Prikladnoe iskusstvo i
sovremennoe zhilishche in 1962.18
By contrast, in 1968 the furniture architect V. Rybitskii was telling his colleagues at a DI SSSR-sponsored roundtable that a dwelling must meet the needs
of the family, and the main one is the need for space, isolation and tranquillity
for each person.19 The designer Glazychev claimed that the home had special
meaning when man needs to recover from the tiredness [inflicted on him] by the
hubbub and chaos of the modern city, when he needs to be alone.20 The campaign against noise really intensified under Brezhnev, in the mid-1960s and
1970s.21 Its proponents, usually health experts, argued that this had nothing to do
with unhealthy individualism,22 while at the same time home designers pushed
the notion of residential privacy even further. In a complete reversal of
Khrushchev-era fantasies of domestic space as an extension of industrial space,
DI SSSR now argued that the resident is a person, and not a participant in the
process [uchastnik protsessa], and the home is not a workplace, and therefore
we object to turning man into the operator of a kitchen unit.23
This crusade against standardized rational interiors under the ambiguous banner
of spirituality was closely connected to the second way in which the official
model of the home differed in the Brezhnev era. In contrast to Khrushchevs collectivist approach, the home came to be seen not only as a place of withdrawal
from the public sphere but also as a field for exercising individual autonomy.
Some degree of autonomy in state housing had been envisaged during the
Khrushchev era: as Mark Smith has shown, each type of tenure of Soviet urban
housing, including state-owned, had some attributes of individual ownership.24
But autonomy was supposed to be exercised with collective goals firmly in sight.
Residents were encouraged to look after the communal areas of their blocks of
flats, the benefits of which would be twofold: a greater sense of the collective, on
the one hand, and assistance to the state in maintaining the housing stock, on the
other. Inside, however, residents responsibilities had been limited to keeping
their apartment in good condition and heeding to the states recommendations on
how to arrange their interior.25
By the 1970s, however, home specialists began to express concern that the
overly energetic imposition of taste norms on residents might be inappropriate and
even harmful. Instead, they testified to the fact that consumers were reshaping

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167

standard interiors according to their own ideas and encouraged them to take even
more control over their space. This individual approach was hailed as medicine
against the monotony of mass-produced single-family flats.
Admittedly, even in the Khrushchev decade designers conceded that the resident
had a part to play in creating the interior, and that some collaboration between
the architect and the resident was necessary. But, in the late 1950s and early
1960s, occupiers of flats were seen as responsible merely for the finishing
touches of dcor, and the suggestion of dialogue between the designer and the
resident was no more than a token concession.26 In the 1970s, specialist discourse attributed greater autonomy to residents, while the authority of designers
and architects melted away. Glazychev, writing in DI SSSR, referred to the
Khrushchev-era campaign against philistinism in home furnishing as meaningless.27 The designer L. Kazakova called manuals on home furnishing nave:
Its very difficult to advise how to furnish a flat and which style to follow
definitively and with complete confidence in ones correctness.28 Unlike the
Khrushchev years, when the agency of design specialists and architects seemed
to gain strength, in the 1970s these specialists themselves began to undercut
their role in shaping the Soviet home.
Reporting in DI SSSR on the interior of flats in a Moscow apartment block,
where he had conducted a series of visits and interviews with residents,
A. Levison argued that society appointed a group of architects and designers to
serve its needs, but retained the last say in how to apply their advice and furnish
their homes. He frankly reported that his interviewees flouted many specialist
prescriptions: they decorated their flats with various irrational ornaments, turned
kitchens into offices and balconies into storage rooms, mismatched the colours
and fabrics of furniture sets, and used books as decorative elements in the interior.29 But, rather than disparaging these practices, Levinson suggested that
specialists hold back their criticisms and acknowledge that real consumption
models (obraztsy realnogo upotrebleniia) take shape outside designers offices.
There were other factors besides aesthetics and rationality, the main one of
which was social emulation.30
Designers advised the furniture industry to pay more attention to consumers
wishes and called on architects and producers to leave the residents more room
for manoeuvre. The question is, however, whether any of this rhetoric was ever
translated into action. Even though standard mass-produced furniture remained
the most viable economic option for industry, some change did occur. The Third
All-Union Furniture Competition for mass-produced furniture, which took place
in Moscow in 1975, not only celebrated the victory of the post-Khrushchev
position in the official discourse but also tried to give it more tangible expression.
It attempted to offer more diverse and user-friendly models. Commentators and
participants in the competition claimed that an important quality criterion in the
contest was the opportunity for individual choice.31
In reality, despite all the praise they received, the models exhibited in Moscow
were not too adventurous in terms of variety, but they certainly departed from the
earlier asceticism and came closer to their Stalin-era predecessors in appearance.

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Closing the door on socialism

Furniture was more generous in size and more substantial. Its authors shed the
anti-ornamental habits of the Thaw years, and some of the pieces were liberally
decorated: there were wall-units encrusted with reliefs, lacy patterns and neofolkloric elements.32
As for giving the consumer a greater role in shaping his or her home interior,
there was in fact one notable exception to the stack of essentially ordinary sets.
An experimental project called MEBAR, an abbreviation that combined the
words furniture (mebel) and architecture (arkhitektura), offered an interior
so flexible that it could be transformed and modified by its inhabitants endlessly, depending on the need of the day. Its radical idea was in having wall
panelling double as furniture: the panels could be pulled out to form shelves,
wardrobes or cupboards and then pushed back when not in use, in one smooth
move. Although it was doubtful that it would ever be mass-produced, this
bizarre creation was lauded as an extreme example of the trend towards flexible
furniture.33
When they addressed ordinary residents in the mass press, specialists were
more ambivalent. The old view of the designer and the architect as home interior
gurus was slow to give ground here. Moskovskaia pravda still argued in 1969 that
sorting out ones home was a job for professional designers. Moreover, it hoped
for the creation of a central body that would take upon itself the production of the
entire interior, down to matching colour for curtains and lampshades. Typically,
it was not only the convenience of consumers that was borne in mind; it was also
the cultivation of their taste.34
It seemed residents would never be permitted to shed the authority of state
specialists in furnishing their homes. In 1973, senior designer Nikolai Luppov,
head of the department of interiors at a housing design institute, coated this pill
in the sweet rhetoric of duty: The architect cannot and will not consider himself
free from the responsibility of shaping the home interior of the Soviet man.35
While it was obviously impossible to have architects oversee each new residents
furnishing process, the press, radio, and even cinema were to continue feeding
guidance to Soviet consumers. Curiously, the example of Luppov demonstrates
that the same professionals who agitated for new thinking in professional debates
could express tamer opinions when speaking to the general public.36 The patronizing ethos was too ingrained in Soviet public discourse.
Dismantling the ideal of rational standard interiors also took longer in the mass
press, despite some early attempts. In 1967, one architect writing for the popular
science magazine Nauka i zhizn (Science and Life) declared that the choice of
wallpaper was not so much a matter of taste as of having knowledge of scientific
laws. Making home decorating sound like real fun, this specialist claimed that
personal taste might have a limited role, but mainly it was all about strict scientific analysis of many objective factors.37
Yet this bastion, too, was falling. Within less than a decade, the new ideas
that had transformed professional discourse were dominating in the mass
media as well. As early as 1967, an interior specialist, V. Strashnov, told the
readers of the popular magazine Rabotnitsa that apartments, like people,

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169

38

should be different. Four years later, an article in the same monthly tenderly
described, in a tone reminiscent of the 1930s, what only recently had been
denounced as philistine junk: Old but well-kept things radiate peace and
calm: a red knitted tablecloth on the table, a home-made standing lamp in
the corner, a vase with a missing handle on a cupboard.39 The emotive attraction of old and eclectic furniture was openly juxtaposed to the rational new
furniture of the previous decade. Even the rationalist hard-liners had to adapt:
Nauka i zhizn allowed in 1976 that furniture was not just an optimal container
for possessions but also a significant element of the interior largely defining
the look of the room.40
Consumers responsibility for their homes had also become conventional wisdom in the press by the mid-1970s. Nauka i zhizn soberly observed in 1976:
There are not enough architects [to furnish] every flat, but even if there
were is it right to exclude residents completely from participating in furnishing their own home, denying them the opportunity to equip it at least
partially according to their own taste?41
The ambivalence was still there, of course, as the article attempted to do precisely the
opposite and offer professional advice to consumers; it formed part of a series in
Nauka i zhizn to give readers ideas for home design.42 But its authors, experienced architects with a long record of consumer advice, claimed now a much
humbler measure of authority. The tone of their recommendations was suggestive, and their very existence was qualified by a conclusion that each interior
should be individual and hinge on the personal requirements of its residents and
their way of life. What is more, the magazine was sceptical whether architects
were at all capable of turning a house into a real home.43
This new concept of the home, which differed so much from the Khrushchevera model, turned on its head a longer-standing constant in the Soviet vision in
fact, the very postulate which had been at the heart of the states efforts to create
the socialist home. This postulate had held that the domestic setting could have
an edifying effect on its occupiers, and therefore communist mentality could, and
should, be forged through the home environment. However, the new discourse on
domestic space contained the logical conclusion that the home was no longer a
place that shaped ones mentality. Instead, it was the mentality of residents that
dictated the interior; it was around their existing
g psychological and emotional
needs, their way of life and their taste that the interior had to be moulded.
Throwing the initiative back to consumers and building their home around them
while they were still a long way away from the ideal communist type was a truly
revolutionary idea.
Cinema and literature of the 1970s and early 1980s also played their part in
the turn away from Khrushchevite ideals by scoffing at identical domestic interiors and the obsession with all things modern and functional. The most famous
and humorous instance is the hugely popular film The Irony of Fate, or Have a
Nice Bath (Ironiia
(
sudby ili s legkim parom, 1976). This comedy ridicules

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Closing the door on socialism

Soviet mass-built apartments by constructing its entire plot around the very
realistic possibility admittedly, for a hero heavily intoxicated and aided by a
group of equally incapacitated friends of a person confusing someone elses
flat in Leningrad for their own in Moscow due to an identical address and,
importantly, an absolutely identical interior. From the airport the man takes a taxi
to what he thinks is his home address, enters the building and then the flat
which both look exactly like his and falls asleep on a sofa just like his own.
When the true owner (luckily for him, it is an attractive young woman) shows
up and tries to kick out the still inebriated intruder, his confusion is hard to dispel, not least because of the standard furniture.
Why, I ask, did you move our cupboard? demands the man.
Its exactly where we put it when we moved in, snaps his indignant opponent.
It is my Polish furniture set! It cost me 830 roubles, he persists.
And 20 [roubles] on top of that, comes her reply.
No, I gave 25 ...
The films resounding success ever since it was first broadcast on New Years
Day in 1976 suggests that the audience appreciated both the humour and the jibe
at mass-constructed housing.44
Many films in the 1970s and early 1980s promoted an ideal of the home as a
place for emotional interaction and private happiness. They certainly did not
portray it as a site of communist upbringing. On the contrary, over-indulgence in
making ones home modern and rational could be dangerous. For instance, the
heroine of the 1976 film A Sweet Woman follows the guidelines of home experts
when she is busy stuffing her flat with modern furniture and gadgets; yet this
neither turns her into an ideal communist nor brings her happiness. Sometimes
the critique of modern furniture was offered to the viewer in a more explicit manner, as in the 1977 comedy For Family Reasons. This story of one familys
attempts to improve their housing arrangements features old-fashioned and conspicuously non-modern furniture as its permanent setting. An old man who gives
a monologue on modern furniture in one scene takes aim at the minimalist styles
that dominated the previous era: They no longer make tables they make little
tables [stoliki]. It is small-sized apartments, small-sized furniture now. A family
cannot gather around such a table two people can barely sit at it Small-sized
families small-sized souls
The idea of an old-fashioned home as a more welcoming place for human relations also comes through strongly in contemporary fiction. Unsurprisingly, the
home extolled in works of village prose was a peasant house (izba), whereas a
modern flat was often seen as devoid of spirit and even lethal. Kathleen Parth
observed that the typical Village Prose writer has been called a bard of the peasant house (pevets
(
izby). This setting was as far from a modern Khrushchevist
flat as one could imagine:

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171

The stove and icon-corner are essential, along with a table, some benches,
a hanging cradle, a trunk, and a few utensils and tools. In the works that are
set in the postwar period, there is a greater variety in the furnishings a
clock, a radio, even a television but the writers are more interested in the
older, traditional peasant possessions such as distaffs, embroidered towels,
samovars, bast shoes, wooden spoons, and woven baskets.45
In one of the most prominent and moving examples of village prose, Rasputins
1976 novella Farewell to Matera, an entire Siberian village has to die for modernity: it is to be flooded to make a reservoir for a hydroelectric dam. But this is no
hymn to progress: the village residents suffer acutely the trauma of abandoning
their centuries-old homes and find no consolation in the prospect of moving into
modern flats. Tales of urban conveniences only frighten the future evacuees.
Dont torment my heart, is the response of one old woman to these stories. Ill
be dead in a week from sadness.46 When she and her husband are eventually
moved from their old house to a town flat, they both struggle to adjust to their new
home, and the husband dies. As a younger resettled villager meditates about his
new apartment fitted with the latest gadgets, he finds that, rather than make him
comfortable, they undermine his identity and heighten his sense of confusion:
Somehow with all these conveniences one feels lighter than ones weight,
lacking in firmness and security, as though any gush of wind would have
no trouble plucking you out on a whim and who knows where itll take
you; some ugly uncertainty keeps gnawing at you quietly: is it really you?
And if it is you, how did you get here?47

The home in the broader scheme of domestic policy

The new discourse on the home was the work of many hands as we have seen,
design specialists, journalists, film-makers and writers were all involved but it
gained momentum because it served beautifully the task of legitimizing the
Brezhnev administration. It sent signals to the population about putting an end to
the troublesome and turbulent period of de-Stalinization and held out the promise
of greater material wealth. Criticism of asceticism, rationalism and other principles of home design was a thinly veiled attack on Khrushchevs politics. It
implied rehabilitation of the Stalin-era vision of the home: after all, the now
criticized elements of Khrushchev-era dcor had once served as instruments of
de-Stalinization, and now they were getting the boot. Sometimes this was stated
explicitly: in 1977, DI SSSR declared functionalist aesthetics a lost cause and
openly extolled lofty Stalinist architecture and furniture design of the 1940s
and 1950s as artistic, all in one article. Its author also acknowledged and encouraged the contemporary fashion for old furniture.48
Consumers were unlikely to view the fashion for old pieces in a political light, but
some experts did. Writing about changing popular tastes, the designer L. Andreeva
stressed a link between history and the interior. She sympathetically described the

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1960s tendency when people sought to leave their old furniture behind and bring
only new things to their new home as a spiritual need. She made allusions to
the Stalin years of terror and the collective desire to distance oneself from them
and start afresh, claiming that the urge to liberate oneself from an importunate
burden of things was connected to the reluctance to tow into tomorrow the
weight of past memories and with them often [the weight] of suffering, pain, and
losses. Later, she continued, old things came to be missed and people became
less inclined to cut off the memory of past experiences as resolutely as they did
recently. The implication was that society had to make peace with its past by
allowing the furniture associated with it to re-enter the modern setting. Furniture
offered a basis for continuity, and its symbolism could help people to come to
terms with the past. For Andreeva, the contemporary drive to individualize
homes and the fascination with rarities indicated the presence of a spiritual purpose. Hers was an implicit call to abandon de-Stalinization not only in the public
sphere of politics but also in the intimate sphere of the home, a process which,
she claimed, was already under way.49
Other, more indirect invitations to re-Stalinize the home were extended by
contemporary images, both textual and cinematographic, of the home. These
1970s and 1980s portrayals resembled Stalinist idealized cosiness rather than
Khrushchev-era sanitary austerity, harking back to the literary images of the postwar years. Consider the following description of a room from a 1950 novel:
Intently and attentively he studies this room with its delicate mauve wallpaper, an airy pink lampshade like a cloud over the table, the heavy buffet,
the piano upon which was lined up a whole army of knickknacks and upon
which there also lay a book in an old-fashioned marbled binding, marked
with a ribbon.50
Let us compare it to a passage from a 1982 novel about a circle of friends in
the artistic intelligentsia, which depicts a flat in a prestigious house in central
Moscow and furnishes it with a fashionable carpet and antique furniture: A
spacious hall with wood-lined walls, a carpet of a single colour, the colour of
mocha, open glass doors respectable furnishings, restored mahogany furniture, and everything is thought through from portieres to cushions on the
sofa.51 One might think that Khrushchevs minimalist-functionalist stylistic
revolution had never happened. The same sort of luxury is visualized in Iulii
Raizmans film Time of Desires (Vremia zhelanii, 1980). When the female
protagonist obtains the flat of her dreams, she mercilessly ditches her minimalist furniture as well as her husbands old (but too simple) furnishings, and fills
their new flat exclusively with grand-looking pieces which remind one of
luxuries from a bygone era: dark carved wood, richly coloured fabrics, a round
table under a long tablecloth (both denounced by Khrushchevist designers),
and china behind the glass doors of a carved cupboard. Gazing at this mirage
of socialist abundance, one is forcibly reminded of the version of luxury
propagated in the Stalin era.

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173

The process of dismantling Khrushchevs modern home and the rehabilitation

of the Stalin-era interior had a demographic dimension. By the 1970s the government
grew increasingly anxious about what it perceived as a demographic crisis.52
Despite its continuous rhetoric on womens emancipation and some very radical
policies in the early post-revolutionary decades, the Soviet Union had been taking
family very seriously since the 1930s. The Stalin government, like many other
European states in the interwar period, had pursued heavily pro-natalist policies:
abortions were banned and divorce was difficult to obtain. By contrast, the more
liberal Khrushchev decade saw the abortions ban lifted by 1955, and divorce rates
jumped by 270 per cent between 1955 and 1965.53
Under Brezhnev, these trends were exacerbated: by 1982, one in three marriages
ended in divorce (35.8 per cent), which compared badly to 13.8 per cent in 1964.
Birth rates fell from 29.4 per thousand in 1960 to 18.3 in 1980, with decline in
fertility especially pronounced in the European part of the USSR.54 From the mid1970s onwards, the state was introducing new demographic policies to address
these alarming issues.55 Health and education specialists and psychologists egged
couples on to spend more time together and have more than one child, while the
health risks of abortion were highly publicized to serve as a deterrent.56 As Lynn
Attwood has demonstrated in her insightful study of gender role socialization in
the late Soviet Union, a more traditional role of women as home-makers was
encouraged in public discourse and education, while the press launched a pro-natalist
and pro-family propaganda campaign in the late 1970s and early 1980s in a bid to
change womens attitudes towards family and children.57 Persuasion was combined with social measures, such as a decree of the Health Ministry in 1971, which
permitted the use of hormonal contraception only for medical purposes, or the
extension of maternity leave in 1981.58
This turn to a more traditional ideal of the role of women brought the home
setting into focus. A less modern view of domestic life fitted well with a less
modern view of domestic space. If the ideal Khrushchev-era home had been a
machine-stuffed extension of an industrial production site, the Brezhnev-era ideal
gravitated towards more lavish and emotive design, and some contemporary
commentators suggested that such a home setting gave more scope for human
interaction and family life. The nostalgia for stronger family ties might have
given policy-makers as well as some ordinary people an additional reason to look
back favourably to the Stalin years, with their pro-natalist policies, and to disapprove of Khrushchevs more liberal decade of growing divorce rates. Home, as a
hub for family life, had to shed at least some of its modernity in order to encourage
the return of more traditional family values.
Condemnations of modern living and technological progress also fitted in well
with the turn to Russian nationalism that Yitzkhak Brudny has identified in the postStalin era. In the 1970s the Brezhnev government was giving nationalists its official
backing and protection, showering upon them rewards and ensuring wide circulation
for their ideas through the mass media, cinema, theatre and large publication runs.
According to Brudny, the regime hoped to use nationalist intellectuals as agents for
mobilizing society at a time when MarxismLeninism was losing its hold on the

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Closing the door on socialism

population. As they were not challenging the fundamentals of the Soviet regime, the
government was prepared to tolerate their less significant criticisms. Russian
nationalists were also preferable to other groups because the movements more
conservative strands, such as those found in the prominent literary journals Nash
sovremennikk (Our Contemporary) and Molodaia gvardiia (Young Guard),
d rejected
reformist liberalism and took a harsh anti-Western stand. The nationalism of these
writers was congruent with both the states rehabilitation of Stalin and its Cold War
ideology. They favoured strong authoritarian rule as a traditional Russian mode of
power and the only one capable of defending Russia against the corrupting influence of Western values. It was clear that this group of writers would be valuable in
the states task of rolling back Khrushchevs de-Stalinization.59
Brudnys analysis of the Russian nationalist movement helps us to place the
changing discourse on the home in the wider context of the domestic and foreign
policies of the Brezhnev administration. The states decision to back village
prose writers meant that works by these bards of the peasant house could freely
challenge Khrushchevs propaganda of a modern urban dwelling as a model
socialist home. Nationalist intellectuals, such as Dmitrii Balashov, were now
able to lambast modern Soviet architecture for its imitation of Western models
and for ignoring the Russian national traditions and lifestyle. In 1967 and 1968
a series of essays in Molodaia gvardiia by Viktor Chalmaev condemned the
capitalist world for its standardization of lifestyles, an apparent criticism of
Khrushchevs mimicking of the West.60
State indulgence of Russian nationalism explains the official tolerance, and
even approval, of the contemporary fashion for antiques and symbols of peasant
living. This, too, had some resonance with late Stalinist culture. Dunham, writing
about postwar Soviet literature, notes that, in certain contexts, artefacts of the
pre-revolutionary national past showed their owners in a good light: Ancestors,
even in tsarist uniforms, and folk art, even mass-produced, fused with patriotism
and showed that lower-class kulturnost was able to maintain connections with
the native past. This was good and proper.61 For some members of the intelligentsia in the late 1960s and the 1970s, this was likewise a way of subscribing
to nationalist sentiments, again state-approved.62 And, as usual, the tastes of the
intelligentsia percolated down into Soviet bytt more generally. Thus did statesponsored Russian nationalism, in the form of dcor la russe, or simply folkloric
knick-knacks, leave its mark on the mass Soviet apartment, while Cold War
anxieties and the Brezhnev-era rehabilitation of Stalin also found oblique
reflection in the home.
There was also, however, the important matter of economics. One of the reasons
Khrushchev had subscribed to the project of standard housing construction was its
cheapness. Building simple, no-frills five-storey prefabricated blocks was fast and
inexpensive.63 Such considerations could not be easily discarded, especially while
the housing problem was far from being solved. Mass construction of housing continued throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but shortages persisted.64 Prefabricated
flats remained the cheapest and quickest way of churning out homes, while standard
furniture continued to be the cheapest and quickest option for furnishing them.65

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175

The Soviet furniture industry was firmly geared to standardized production,

despite becoming increasingly aware of the popular and public pressure to produce
a greater diversity of styles. This posed the problem of how to find an economically
viable as well as ideologically acceptable compromise between variety and mass
production.66 Introducing private production of furniture would be ideologically
unacceptable. Reorganizing, or reforming, the entire industrial sector would be
impossible in the conditions of the command economy, unless policy-makers were
prepared to consider ideological compromises. They were not.
Even with production of standard furniture, the industry struggled. For
instance, in 1971 the Moscow trade department was worried that it would be
able to meet only half of the projected demand for kitchen furniture in the coming year; planned deliveries of sets for living rooms and bedrooms would reach
only 68 per cent of what was actually needed, while some items of childrens
furniture were entirely absent from production plans.67 In the early 1970s,
when furniture sets were in fashion, industry managed only between 30 and 45 per
cent of what was required by consumers, for whom buying the most ordinary
things like kitchen and dining chairs and bedside tables posed a challenge.68
Especially embarrassing for the nation that prided itself on being the most well
read in the world, it was next to impossible to purchase bookshelves in Moscow
in the late 1970s: only one or two out of ten consumers were successful.69 At least
some types of furniture saw significant increases in production: the output of
furniture sets, for instance, increased more than tenfold in the first decade of the
Brezhnev government, from 44,700 in 1965 to 607,000 in 1975, while the production of wardrobes doubled and that of tables went up by about 50 per cent in
the same period.70 Imports also rose: by 1982, 15 per cent of furniture on the
Soviet market was imported from the countries of the socialist bloc, which was
an increase even from the late 1970s.71 But demand outpaced all these efforts,
and, to make matters worse, customers wanted particular brands of furniture. In
1971, for example, Minsk shops did not have enough of the sets produced by the
local experimental factory of soft furniture, or the kitchen sets made by Bobruisk
furniture factory no. 2, or the folding tables made by the Molodechno furniture
factory, or the bedroom sets made by the Slonim furniture factory. Sofa-beds
produced by the Minsk experimental factory were in high demand (and short supply), while the same item made by a plant in Borisov was snubbed by customers
for its poor colour scheme and did not sell well. Although severe shortages of
quality furniture pushed Belorussian consumers to buy whatever was available,
national statistics suggested that this would not last.72 The industry was constantly
playing catch-up with its increasingly choosy consumers.
When Kosygins economic reforms failed, the state went for the cheapest
option available: to shift responsibility to the consumer. The real message to
residents behind the specialist discourse advocating individual autonomy was: If
you want variety and individualized interiors, you will have to do it yourself.73
Rather than admitting failure, however, the state presented the situation as a
mark of progress. Experts argued that homes should be more personalized and
unique because this was what residents really wanted, but they stressed that such

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heightened expectations of home interiors were born of the successes of housing

construction and the improvement of popular well-being. As quantity of separate
homes was no longer an acute problem, according to these claims, it was their
quality and their interiors that came under scrutiny. While there had been a time
and a place for Khrushchevist design, presently, as society was becoming more
affluent, peoples desire for a less ascetic home environment was legitimate and
worthy of specialists attention.74
Giving up on attempts to shape Soviet homes was a sign of the Brezhnev governments ideological pragmatism. The state might not have wished to see emulation,
fashion and conspicuous consumption in the ideal socialist home, but what choice
did it have, given that the urban population now consisted largely of more prosperous
and confident owner-residents living in the individual family apartments that the
state itself had provided in vast quantities since the 1950s? Between 1950 and 1964,
the urban housing stock increased by 130 per cent, from 513 million square metres
to 1,182 million square metres, with twice as many homes built in the late 1950s as
during the previous five years; 57.5 million people saw their housing conditions
change between 1957 and 1961 alone.75 Under Brezhnev, construction continued at
an equally impressive rate: 212 million people were affected in the years between
1966 and 1985.76 During this period, the Soviet state built, or facilitated cooperative
building of, over 33.6 million separate flats.77
By 1981, over 80 per cent of urban residents could retreat into their own flats,
relatively safe from the public eye.78 For the state to renege on its promise of individual homes would now have been impossible. What was it to do? It could have
tried to follow Khrushchevs model of mobilizing the collective and seeking control
over the use of personal space through public advice. But Khrushchevs successors
were more realistic. Their turn away from the Khrushchevist vision of the home
was determined, among other things, by pragmatism. Sociologists of the Brezhnev
era came to take heed of the elasticity of the concept of needs: in the context of
the ongoing mass housing campaign, furniture and domestic taste were bound to
become a more personal matter.79 The more separate apartments were built, the
more difficult it became to exercise the kind of public control that had been traditional in the Russian village community, achievable in the cramped Stalin-era
communal flats, and actively promoted in the Khrushchev years.80 Such practical
difficulties called for the adjustment of rhetoric to social realities. In short, the
toning down of Khrushchevs campaign for good taste reflects a more sober view
of the capacity of the state to control the home.

Practices of home furnishing

If Soviet residents were not making their homes properly socialist, then what were
they doing with their furniture and interiors? There is evidence to suggest that,
even in the most intense years of Khrushchevs aesthetic revolution, residents did
not swallow expert advice whole and had their own ideas about how they wanted
their homes to be.81 In the late 1960s and the 1970s, urban consumers of furniture
were even more independent in their choices. Despite the shortages, they were

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177

capable of rejecting what state retail had on offer. The following statistics are telling:
in early 1968, the shortfall of furniture in Moscow shops reached a value of 22
million roubles, and yet nearly the same quantity of furniture produced in the city
by local factories was being exported to other parts of the country. The quality of
local furniture was so low that Muscovites refused to buy it. Instead, the Moscow
trade department had to request from the central authorities that more furniture be
imported from abroad.82 In the 1970s, excess stocks of unwanted furniture piled up
despite the continued housing construction, at a rate which caused distress to trade
organizations. It turned out that customers rejected these items mainly because
they looked bad.83
At the same time, people were spending more on their homes. Between 1971
and 1984, the average urban familys spending on furniture more than doubled.84
Fitting out ones apartment still required considerable sums: the purchase of a
fashionable Lithuanian-made wall-unit claimed 150 roubles in the late 1960s
(more than the average monthly wage of urban workers and employees); a decent
sideboard could be bought for between 100 and 200 roubles; and carpets cost
about 500 roubles. A Czech kitchen table could be bought for 40 roubles, while
in the mid-1970s a polished TV stand cost 45 roubles; upholstered chairs could
be 14 roubles apiece.85 Belorussian producers offered bedroom sets costing on
average 400 roubles, dining sets for 270 roubles and living-room suites for 200
roubles on average. Fitting out ones kitchen cost on average 270 roubles.86 A set
with enough pieces to furnish an entire flat was imported from Bulgaria and cost
2,200 roubles in 1980: it comprised two wardrobes, two bookcases, a bureau, a
sofa-bed, a dining table with six chairs, a coffee table and a TV stand.87 These
were steep prices for an urban family, but they were not much of a deterrent;
parents and friends could help out with the cost, and people were glad to spend
their savings on a good interior. For instance, when Iren Andreeva chanced upon
a Hungarian set in light-brown oak and tweed consisting of a suite (sofa-bed and
armchairs), dining chairs and two console tables, the fact that she had no money
for it had little importance. The friend who was with her at the time footed the
bill, and to pay him back Andreeva took her old furniture to a second-hand shop.88
One way or another, Soviets could afford much better furnished homes than
before. An engineer from Leningrad recalls that all her colleagues in the office
managed to buy the popular wall-units, regardless of prices.89 Sales of furniture
in the state retail system almost tripled, from over 1 billion roubles in 1960 to
over 2.8 billion in 1970, and then rose to whopping 7.5 billion a year by 1985.90
Even allowing for hidden inflation, these were considerable increases.
People bought more furniture, but they also grew more discerning. Urban residents, at least, were far more sophisticated in their demands than the more timid
consumers of the 1940s and 1950s, many of whom were yet to be introduced to
the concept of a furniture set.91 Andreeva recalled that she only learnt that there
was such a thing as a furniture set (garnitur
(
) in Berlin, where her family lived
briefly after the war.92 By contrast, in the 1970s, furniture sets were not only
familiar but also all the rage, as were wall-units and so-called soft furniture
(miagkaia mebel), which often referred to three-piece suites consisting of a sofa

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and two armchairs. Market surveys conducted by the Moscow Department for
Trade in 19723 testified that the demand of the population has switched from
the basic types of furniture to premium polished furniture finished with expensive
fine timber. Considerations of colour and style coordination played a major role
in consumers decision to buy. The majority of people sought to furnish their flats in
a coherent style, conveniently and economically, but comfortably and in a homely
fashion.93 Homes were accessorized in a more affluent style: despite high prices,
the Leningrad engineer mentioned above remembers that people were mad about
rugs. Everyone just had to have a rug!94
What this meant exactly can be gauged from descriptions of childhood homes
offered by residents of the provincial towns of Perm and Taganrog, who were
interviewed recently as part of Catriona Kellys study of Soviet childhood.
Changes in the domestic interior and in consumer expectations come into sharp
relief if we compare the stories of older and younger respondents. One interviewee,
born in 1958 to a family of workers, described her home of the 1960s as a room in
a communal apartment which had two beds, a sofa finished with leather, a wardrobe, a desk which doubled as a dining table when the family had guests, and some
chairs. All the pieces, except the beds, were made by her father, a carpenter,
because money was a problem. Yet, this interior, the respondent pointed out,
was considered to be nice and normal, because everyone lived like that.95
Such a description contrasts with an account by a younger woman of workingclass background (born in 1970), who remembers a very different interior in the
new flat where she moved with her parents in the early 1980s: The flat was fairly
spacious and cosy. In the living room we had a beautiful German-made wallunit. Mum bought it in Moscow. We had new soft furniture, new kitchen
[units]. Astonishingly, the family kitted out the entire apartment from scratch,
leaving the old furniture behind in their previous flat. Unlike many new residents
of the Khrushchev era, they were not forced to do so by the small dimensions of
their new home: instead, they chose to abandon their (Soviet-made) furniture to
help out a single woman who was about to move into their old apartment.96
Such stories, supported by nationwide sociological surveys which recorded a
boom in demand for crystal ware, rugs, expensive tableware and furniture sets by
the 1980s,97 tell us that notions of domestic comfort were redefined over the long
1970s.98 Whatever the official definition of rational needs might have been, many
home-makers were motivated primarily by fashion and style. This is well illustrated by Andreevas story of the Hungarian oak set, a spontaneous purchase that
required not only money but also the removal of some perfectly functional existing items, which were still good enough to be resold for a decent price. Andreeva
was a professional with a reasonable salary but also the divorced mother of a
university-aged son.
The same trend is reflected in popular culture. The film Time of Desires
shows a Soviet consumer carefully choosing fittings for her home. She
remarks to a friend that chandeliers are a problem i.e., hard to buy
despite the previous shot showing her leave a store full of chandeliers. She
simply does not like any of them. The kind that she wants is definitely not in

Figure 6.1 Newlyweds choose furniture in Latvia, 1961.

N. Bobrov, FotoSoyuz. Used with permission.

Figure 6.2 A 1970s urban apartment in the Astrakhan region.

M. Redkin, FotoSoyuz. Used with permission.

Rather than the minimalist furniture of the Khrushchev era (Figure 6.1), consumers of the
1970s preferred plusher styles (Figure 6.2).

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Closing the door on socialism

a minimalist style: it is a crystal one with dangling bits. She reserves one
through a friend who works at a commission (second-hand) store, often a
source of goods in short supply. The film does not dwell on the fact that what
is hard to obtain is not a chandelier, but a certain kind of chandelier: by now
Soviet viewers took this as read.
Home dcor, like other areas of consumer culture, reflected social and cultural hierarchies. Luxurious or imported items suggested that their owner had
privileged access to consumer goods powered by either a high-status job or a
helpful range of personal connections (or both). Finances had secondary
importance, as we have seen in the examples above. A jibe at this reality of
Soviet life is offered by a satirical sketch on furniture acquisition, entitled With
Us Everyone Is Equal (U nas vse ravny). In this sketch, a visitor is first told
by the director of a furniture shop that there are no furniture sets on sale, but,
as soon as the visitor starts dropping important names, the tide turns, and he
gets offered a better furniture set at each name he mentions. When he finally
reveals that he is a reporter who has come to expose corruption in the furniture
trade, the director exclaims: So, you are from the newspaper? From Petr
Petrovich? But why didnt you say so before?! Then you are also entitled to a
TV table [in addition to the set].99
Paradoxically, Bolshevik ideologues had always wanted the home to be a
social marker. Their efforts to some extent had been successful, and at least the
message that the home said something about its residents had sunk in. As one
readers letter to the editors of Komsomolskaia pravda stated: by the furnishings
of an apartment, as a rule, one makes judgements about the manners [vospitannost], sophistication and decency of the person who lives in it.100 How exactly
this played out in practice was another matter. In the conditions of a state monopoly on mass production of furniture, being different was more of an achievement
than it would be in a market economy. Various contemporary commentaries suggest that, while some people wished for their flats to be no worse than the others a
kind of Soviet equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses at the same time
being nott like the others was no less important.101 Many respondents of Kellys
childhood study, for instance, emphasized that their homes were like everyone
elses, but this was not seen as something particularly positive.102 In contrast,
sociologists studying Soviet youth in the 1980s observed that having something
that few others have is viewed as prestigious these days.103
As one specialist explained, the general boredom with standard items and
typical designs meant that interest grew in everything that was outdated and
ancient and everything that was not in everybodys possession and that could
make you stand out from the rest.104 The same ambition to instil uniqueness into
their homes made people turn to state workshops that produced furniture to order.
Such items were more expensive than the ready-made ones available in stores,
but Moskovskaia pravda reported in 1977 that the number of orders in furniture
workshops had sharply increased.105
Among the other potential markers of distinction was furniture imported
from abroad or made in the Baltic republics. This was partly on account of its

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181

better quality and design. The manager of the largest Soviet furniture salon,
Moscows House of Furniture, told Sovetskaia torgovlia in October 1975 that
furniture sets produced in the countries of peoples democracy are in high
demand. They are relatively inexpensive and, undoubtedly, attractive and
practical.106 Romanian pieces were more pleasing to the eye and offered better quality.107 Furniture sets from Yugoslavia (Kabinet) and East Germany
(Helga) were pricier but also popular. 108 But there was more to the popularity
of Yugoslav or Lithuanian pieces than practicality. Iurii Gerchuk, a Moscowbased arts critic and historian who served as an editor of DI SSSR in the
mid-1960s, recalls that, for us, the products of the Baltics bore the unmistakable stamp of the European culture we so desired.109 For the same reasons,
Soviet tourists in East Germany were keen shoppers for crystal and other
quality tableware, prompting Berlin stores to display the sign Dont touch in
Russian (Rukami ne trogat) to protect their deluxe wares from the zeal of
Soviet customers.110
For those high up in the social hierarchy, furniture and other home trappings
provided a key status marker. As the renegade Soviet researcher Mikhail
Voslenskii testified in his whistle-blowing work on the late Soviet privileged
class, among themselves [nomenklatura officials] boast unrestrainedly about
their apartments, their furniture and their pictures.111 Members of the intelligentsia also set about creating comfortable and fashionable homes, even if they put
more emphasis on cultural symbols, such as books or art collections. One interviewee from Perm, born into an intelligentsia family, was keen to stress that his
childhood home did not feature such symbols of prosperity back then as carpets
[or] crystal ware clearly, for him, markers of a comfortable but unintellectual
home and instead had tons of books; yet even this flat had the usual cupboard
with tableware.112 Cultural elites with better financial opportunities and connections, such as state-favoured writers or artists, were keen on expensive antique
furniture, which became a symbol both of membership in the upper intelligentsia
and of material success.113
The popularity in the 1970s and 1980s of antique and rare items of dcor, including thick rugs, furniture, decorative pieces and china, spread beyond the elites,
however, and served two seemingly contradictory purposes: to follow current fashion and yet to strive for uniqueness. It blended with another fashion for objects
representing the past (especially the Russian village past rather than the imperial
chic of antiques): icons, folk art, peasant household items such as samovars,
Russian and Central Asian ceramic toys and tableware, bast shoes and lacquered
boxes.114 Satirical magazines such as Krokodill sneered at the trend (see Figure 6.3),
but the state itself seemed to grow more appreciative of old things: it prohibited the
export of antique objects in 1973.115

Concluding remarks
Brezhnevs rejection of de-Stalinization was not primarily to do with a reassessment of Stalinism as a form of governance. In fact, politics was a field which

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Closing the door on socialism

offered only limited scope for re-Stalinization: a return to mass terror and great
leaps forward was never in prospect. Instead, Brezhnevs re-Stalinization
expanded into other spheres cultural and social. The discourse on the home
demonstrates that the positive re-evaluation of Stalins legacy sought not so much
a return to Stalinist politics as a revival of a Stalin-era set of values: in attitudes
to family life, domesticity, the West and Russian nationalism. It was an attempt to
re-create a civilization without re-creating its politics, and as such it was mainly
a project that placed style over content. The content brutal de-kulakization,
mind-blowing industrialization, mass terror, and the hard-won victory in the
world war was firmly in the past. By contrast, symbolic attributes of the system,
such as home furnishings, could be more easily re-created and produced less friction. In a sense, style was all that was left.
In its bid to re-Stalinize (or de-de-Stalinize) the home, the state dismantled
Khrushchevs more rigid didactic approach to domestic interiors and thus loosened its grip on a key aspect of communist upbringing. It accepted that homes
were individual and private and should be shaped around the resident, rather than
be used to shape him or her. With better furniture in the shops and higher incomes
to pursue items of their choice, residents of separate flats could shut the door on
the idea of the socialist home.

Figure 6.3 You call this a museum? You havent been to my house!, Krokodil, no. 19,
1981.
Source: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

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183

Consumer-oriented rhetoric was at odds with some ideological postulates, but it

reflected a more sober view of contemporary Soviet society on the part of the state.
Officially sanctioned professional discourse on the home often portrayed the
socialist community as stratified, unequal and status-conscious, with home furnishing an important instrument of social differentiation. This view was congruent
with the findings of sociologists, and it is confirmed by other sources we have on
the period. By recognizing that they were now dealing with a very different society
and making adjustments, the Soviet authorities saved some ideological face and
showed that the socialist project could be unexpectedly flexible.

Household technology in the

Brezhnev-era home

The significant shifts in Soviet foreign policy after Stalins death, such as
Khrushchevs declaration of peaceful co-existence with the West and the
Brezhnev-era dtente in SovietAmerican relations, had some important ramifications for Soviet consumer culture. However, these policy initiatives did not
make the Soviet Union completely open to the capitalist world; as the painful
example of Berlin demonstrated during the 1950s, people living in the Soviet bloc
could not be trusted to have open borders with the West. The Party-state had
committed the country to building a social order fundamentally different from
capitalism, and it was necessary to restrict the populations encounters with the
West to ensure the purity of the socialist way of life.
And yet, for all the proclaimed distinctiveness of the Soviet project and its selfimposed isolation from the West, society in the Brezhnev era was experiencing
changes that were not at all unique or specifically socialist. An examination of
consumer practices and attitudes with regard to household electrical goods shows
that the processes taking place in the still relatively closed society of developed
socialism had a surprising number of basic parallels with Western interwar and
postwar consumer cultures. It reveals that Soviet buyers rather quickly developed
agency as modern consumers of technology, becoming increasingly well informed,
discerning and consumerist in their approach to domestic appliances and other
electric durables. This case study offers further testimony to the development of
a modern consumer culture in the seemingly inhospitable conditions of communist ideology and planned economy under mature socialism.1

Home technology as domestic and foreign policy

Household technology is an area of consumption that was seen on both sides of
the Iron Curtain as inherently bound up with modernity. In the Soviet Union,
washing machines, refrigerators, television sets and other electrical durables
belonged to the unique category of commodities whose acquisition was in fact
encouraged by the state and, from the late 1950s onwards, made ever more possible for ordinary people. Khrushchev-era propaganda associated domestic
appliances with the broader campaign for modern living under the umbrella of
the scientific technological revolution, designed to complement the political

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revolution, and this revolutionary affiliation guaranteed electrical appliances
unparalleled state support.2 As elsewhere, the regimes interest in domestic
modernity had political roots. In fact, the emergence of the home as a site for
ideological stand-off between the capitalist West and the socialist East pre-dated
Khrushchev and can be traced to late 1940s Germany. As Greg Castillo has
argued, in pre-Wall Berlin the most vulnerable spot in the otherwise sealed-off
socialist bloc the home became a convenient tool for transmitting complex ideological messages.3 The relative openness of socialist society in Berlin produced an
unprecedented opportunity for propagating the Western (more specifically,
American) way of living, and the home was seen as its best representative. From
the start, electrical gadgets featured prominently in American home exhibitions
as an argument in favour of US-sponsored capitalist democracy, targeting East
German visitors as well as West Germans.4 The idealized American modern
kitchen, with its state-of-the-art white goods, played a central role not only in
Cold War propaganda but, more broadly, as an agent of Americas peaceful
conquest of postwar Western Europe.5
Although its opening shots were fired in Berlin, this home-front war duly
reached the Soviet Union, culminating in the famous Kitchen Debate between
Nixon and Khrushchev at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959.
Interestingly, the debate owed at least some of its fame to the fact that it was
televised another instance of domestic technologys contribution to politics. The
challenge of the Western consumer Other added impetus to the Soviet consumptionoriented policies which had begun earlier in the Khrushchev era. The government
launched a campaign for the production of electrical durables, promoting them as
new socialist instruments of modernization. Increases in consumer goods production were pledged in economic plans even before the American exhibition, and
Soviet experts started to take interest in the American kitchen as early as 1955.6
In 1960, the USSR produced half a million vacuum cleaners, as opposed to just
over 6,000 put out in 1950, 895,000 washing machines as compared to a meagre
300 in 1950, and approximately 529,000 refrigerators as against 1,200 produced
in 1950.7 These were impressive rises in output, but, as the 1950 figures make
clear, the Soviet Union was starting from a very low base.
The increase in investment and production extended not only to labour-saving
appliances but also to what Soviets called cultural goods television sets,
radios, etc. These had been welcomed as a sign of Soviet technological development and prosperity as well as vehicles of cultural propaganda. Kristin Roth-Ey
has shown how, during the 1950s and 1960s, the decision was made to develop
Soviet television for those reasons. Naturally, the use of TV was not limited to
cultural education, and the state was fully aware of the mediums enormous
potential for ideological propaganda.8 Between 1950 and 1960, the output of
television sets rose from 11,900 to 1,726,000 receivers per year.9
Yet, while ordinary Soviet consumers were first initiated into domestic
technology under Khrushchev, during the 1950s and even the early 1960s, this
initiation was incomplete and took largely rhetorical rather than tangible forms.
Two British sociologists visiting the USSR in the early 1960s to research family

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life came across only one flat (of an important Party member) with a refrigerator and observed that household equipment seemed quite inadequate by our
standards.10
It was only under the Brezhnev government that Soviet consumers became
properly at home with modern gadgets. From the late 1960s, but especially during
the 1970s and early 1980s, urban ownership of classic household appliances such
as washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and television sets climbed
to meaningful levels. Ownership of TV sets in the cities tripled, from 32 sets per
100 families in 1965 to 95 sets in 1981. Only four in 100 families had a tape
recorder in 1965, but 16 years later the figure was one family in three. A humble
17 per cent could keep their food fresh in a refrigerator in 1965, but in the early
1980s some families could even boast of having two fridges. A washing machine
was present in 78 per cent of urban households by 1981 compared to just a third
in 1965. Vacuum cleaners might not have been as common as TV sets, but in 16
years the proportion of families owning one grew from 11 per cent to 39 per
cent.11 In 1985, out of 100 families (rural and urban), nearly 99 had TV and radio
sets, 92 had fridges and 72 had washing machines.12 In urban areas, one in ten
households had two television sets.13
Quality issues aside, these numbers do not compare badly with the respective statistics from Western Europe. We should remember that, for all the
impressive economic changes in postwar Europe fuelled by the Marshall plan
and American-sponsored mass consumer culture, mass ownership of electrical
appliances was a novelty for capitalist European societies, too. Before the
Second World War, only 3 per cent of the British households had (electric or
gas) refrigerators; only 3.5 per cent had washing machines, and even vacuum
cleaners were still restricted to around 27 per cent of homes.14 The West
German economic miracle began to provide its housewives with labour-saving
gadgets in the second half of the 1950s: as late as 1955, only 11 per cent of
West German households had refrigerators and only 10 per cent had electric
washing machines.15 France was not far ahead of the Soviet Union in terms of
quantity in ownership of washing machines: 8 per cent of households in 1954,
27 per cent in 1961, 57 per cent in 1971, and 80 per cent in 1980.16 The range
of available electrical goods in the USSR was more limited (it often lacked
such items as blenders, mixers and dishwashers) and plagued by shortages, but
the major white goods, as well as TV sets and music players, were put out on
a mass scale, changing the landscape of everyday life east of the Iron Curtain,
just as they did to the west.
The increased levels of ownership that the Soviet Union achieved during the
Brezhnev years speak not only of great willingness on the part of consumers to
obtain electrical goods but also of notable efforts on the part of the state to provide them. Having ousted Khrushchev in 1964, the new leadership nevertheless
continued and developed further his policy on household appliances. The heavy
and defence sectors continued to play a major role in the production of household
durables. For instance, in the late 1960s, over 40 ministries were responsible
for producing washing machines, including the ministry of machine building for

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Figure 7.1 The Krasnoiarsk factory for machine Krasmash building began producing
Biriusa-5 refrigerators in the 1970s: this model had a greater capacity and
semi-automatic defrosting function.
Iu. Barmin, 1974, ITAR-TASSS. Used with permission.

light industry, the ministry of the electro-technical industry, the defence industry
ministry, the ministries of aviation industry, the radio industry, the shipbuilding
industry, the ministry for industrial machinery, and even the ministry for tractors
and farm machinery.17 By 1977, heavy industry was producing 75 per cent of all
domestic appliances.18 It was expected that such an arrangement would enhance
the production of household goods by making available to it better resources and
technological expertise.
The state under Brezhnevs leadership pushed continuously for further increases
in production of electrical consumer goods. The output of TV sets rose from over
3.5 million in 1965 to over 8 million in 1981; the number of refrigerators leapt
from 1,675,000 to nearly 6 million; and the production of vacuum cleaners
expanded from 800,000 to 3,359,000. New goods also came to the fore: for
instance, the quantity of tape recorders went up from 453,000 to 3,216,000 per
year in the period between 1965 and 1981.19
Greater rates of output of modern electrical durables were vital, but so too
were technological advances, and, despite many setbacks, important achievements were registered here as well. The Brezhnev years saw the first colour
television programme go on air. The date chosen for the broadcast could not

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have made more explicit the continued connection between ideology, technology
and consumption under developed socialism: it went out on 7 November 1967,
the fiftieth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. To make the point even stronger,
it was a broadcast of the parade on Red Square in Moscow, filmed using the first
mobile colour TV station.20 At the time, Soviet industry was already working to
produce three types of colour TV sets: Rubin-401, with a screen of 59 centimetres,
Raduga-5 (59 cm), and Raduga-4 (40 cm), as well as developing the future of TV
equipment, transistor sets. As Roth-Eys investigation into Soviet television
shows, while a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty surrounded its arrival in the
USSR during its early days in the 1950s, the 1960s saw the TV broadcasting
industry come into its own. After all, as she notes, there was no [nightly news
program] Vremia until 1968, no Ostankino needle tower until November 1967,
and television gained administrative precedence over radio only in 1970.21
No less important in conveying a sense of the states concern to provide
its citizens with modern conveniences was the lowering of prices for electrical durables. Cameras were among the categories of goods that went on sale
in one of the first such campaigns in Moscow in 1965, soon after the new
administration took office.22 In another campaign in March 1971, prices were
lowered again, this time for such goods as small-screen TV sets, washing
machines, electric and automatic razors, and motorbikes.23 According to official statistics, TV sets became more affordable by 34 per cent between 1970
and 1980.24 This successfully encouraged people to acquire more items: for
example, the 1965 price-cut resulted in sales of some cameras going up three,
four, and even eleven times.25 It also confirmed the Party-states approval of
electrical durables as politically correct commodities. Peoples interest in
them was publicly acknowledged and tolerated even when it appeared to be
at the expense of interest in the countrys industrial achievements. In one
instance, a reporter who in 1981 covered the new exhibition of light and food
industries at VDNKh (the all-Union pavilion of economic achievements)
stated that, although the exhibition had samples of new industrial machines,
visitors will definitely come to the stalls with fridges and vacuum cleaners:
they are the most interesting ones.26 By the early 1980s, it seemed pointless
to pretend otherwise.
The press regularly ran articles and special sections that familiarized readers
with new products and reassured them of the Soviet Unions leading position in
modern domestic technology, often omitting to mention that similar technologies
already existed in the West. In 1967 the newspaper Trudd promised its readers
remote controls for their TV sets and screens of a size similar to a train window. Expecting readers to be both impressed and incredulous, the newspaper
continued:
It is not a joke the screen is three-quarters of a meter in diameter!
What is this science fiction? Distant future? No, much of [it] is the
stuff of today, [and] engineers are working on further projects. Technology
develops at a headlong rate these days.27

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Often such advertisements were ahead of their time, as the products they promoted had not yet found their way to the market. For instance, the section titled
Novinki byta (Household Novelties) in Trudd enthused in 1967 that readers could
now brush their teeth with electric toothbrushes, but in reality this possibility
remained science fiction until decades later.28 Nonetheless, such articles demonstrated the states commitment to the development and production of household
appliances and stoked hope in consumers that one day such devices would really
become available.

Brezhnev-era consumers at home with technology

In the 1970s, Soviet urban consumers were becoming a clued-up bunch.
Purchasers of household electrical durables in urban areas could be described as
informed, demanding and patient. They sought out quality and the latest trends in
technology available in Soviet retail and sometimes even those which were not
yet available. A Leningrad organization overseeing trade in cultural electrical
durables, Lenkulttorg, reported in an internal memo to the Leningrad Head
Department of Trade in 1974 that patrons were keen on high-class music systems, constantly enquiring about new goods that are handsomely designed,
convenient to use and reliable, and were even asking for goods that had not yet
arrived on the market.29 A good example of the kind of commodities people
wanted was a new 4-track tape recorder, Maiak-202, produced in Kiev: Thanks
to its clear reproduction of sound and the possibility of using a remote control,
this tape recorder has won popularity with shoppers.30 The price of 220 roubles,
far more than the average salary of an urban worker or office employee, was not,
apparently, a deterrent.
Urban shoppers were especially keen on the hot stereo players. The effect
of stereo sound is very pleasant, natural , dreamily wrote the director of
Lenkulttorg, V. I. Lapin, in a 1975 report.31 People were eager to buy them, but
the players remained in short supply.32 Also well liked were radio sets such as
Leningrad-002, Sokol-308 and Sokol-403, but they, too, were scarce.33 Among
refrigerators the clear winner was ZIL, made by the Likhachev Factory in
Moscow: In the great family of Soviet refrigerators ZIL holds a special place,
reported Rabotnitsa. Such fridges as Biriusa, Minsk, Oka, Kosmos are also
popular, but ZIL is the most convenient and the most reliable.34 Part of ZILs
success was due to the fact that it came with a warranty for 18 years, but reportedly worked for longer.35
The maturing of Soviet consumers as buyers of technology is particularly evident from the example of television sets. TV sets were very expensive in the late
1950s, costing several times the monthly salary of urban professionals. They had
tiny screens that had to be viewed through magnifying lenses, and they were
liable to break down constantly; the broadcasts were of poor quality, and even
those lasted just a few hours a day. All these disadvantages notwithstanding, people were extremely keen to buy television sets.36 Merely possessing one seemed
to many a dream. The day is not far off when every home will have a television

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set, wrote the famous actor Igor Ilinskii in 1956.37 There was no fuss about
what kindd of set it would be.
In the late 1960s, however, purchases of TV sets not only grew spectacularly
but also became more differentiated. In the first quarter of 1968, for instance,
sales jumped by over 17 per cent in Moscow compared to the same period
the previous year. Although people were not yet investing in colour sets due to the
limited extent of broadcasting in colour, they were already choosing
g by giving
preference to sets with larger (47 to 59 cm) screens and modern designs.38 In
1969, the Moscow economic laboratory reported saturation of the market
throughout the country and stated that set owners were now replacing old models
with new ones at greater rates. The share of TV sets with large screens of 59
centimetres grew by 50 per cent in Moscow in the first quarter of that year
alone.39 Only five years later, Lenkulttorg reported that consumers asked mainly
for colour ones.40 In 1976, the Moscow economic lab registered further growth of
demand for colour and now also portable sets. Especially well liked was the
Rubin brand, which was produced by a Moscow factory, and the portable
Shalialis, put out by a new factory of the same name in Lithuania.41
Having become sufficiently familiar with the reputation of various products, people no longer shopped for generic items but began to seek out brands whose quality
made them desirable and even prestigious. According to the Moscow economic lab,
demand for some makes of the Rubin TV set exceeded supply, and the fact that there
were plenty of other brands in sufficient reserve did not help: people wanted Rubin.42
In 1975, the director of Lenkulttorg reported in his market survey: Shoppers do not
need just any television set with a certain [size of] screen, but specific brands.43 He
named, for instance, Rubin-710 and Raduga-704, made by the Kozitskii factory in
Leningrad. The director knew his business Raduga even made it into popular literature as a quality brand and an element in a well-to-do interior.44
Similar trends were evident with other goods. In the mid-1970s, consumers in
Moscow shops (which likely included non-Muscovites) were not asking just for
any vacuum cleaners but also for specialized vacuum cleaners for tidying their
cars, for washing carpets and dusting books.45 Washing machines provide another
illustration of growing consumer expectations. Even though all brands remained
in short supply, the popularity of manually operated machines dropped suddenly in
the late 1960s in Moscow when a new type with improved technical characteristics
appeared on the market. Although at the time only one in five families in Moscow
had a washing machine, and for the overwhelming majority of buyers this was a
first-time purchase (for 89 per cent of respondents in a city-wide survey), they
wanted to buy superior makes and were willing to pay a high price of 140
roubles double what a manually operated machine cost. They also preferred to
wait for the desired brand to become available, even if it meant postponing the
purchase for a long time. Within a year the demand in Moscow for Prozhektor, an
old type of machine without a timer or a pump, dropped from 19 per cent to a
miserable 2 per cent. In 1968, Muscovites were asking for fully automated washers, and the overwhelming majority, 93 per cent of them, wanted their machine to
have a timer. Only a third of the respondents still preferred a semi-automated

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device to a fully automated one. The main criteria that determined their choice of
a brand were the excellence of construction, shape and colour.46
The very notion of quality came to encompass a more complex range of
requirements during the 1970s and early 1980s. Apart from being reliable, owners
wanted their radio sets and tape recorders to be compact and light and their electrical devices to be energy-efficient.47 The look of an item was another important
factor. Most market reports and surveys mentioned handsome design as one of
buyers key desiderata. Consumers even turned gadgets into elements of interior
decoration. Already in the Khrushchev era, modern equipment was treated as an
embellishment of the home; for example, a TV set could be given a central place
in the living room and decorated with embroidered napkins.48 Testimony to their
owners culturedness and status, such goods as TV and radio sets and tape
recorders would be displayed in the public areas of the home. But other goods,
such as washing machines and refrigerators, were also on display to guests.
The notion of Soviet people as sophisticated and eager consumers of technology certainly needs qualification. Their standards had gone up considerably, but
the lack of competitive commercial advertisements and the inadequacy of production left many gaps in their knowledge. In the late 1970s, surveys by VNIIKS
revealed that many people did not know what a blender was: 10 per cent were not
sure what it was used for, and a further 15 per cent had never heard of such a thing
at all.49 However, having learnt what it was, almost half of the respondents
wanted to buy one immediately.
Yet consumers retained the capacity for independent choice: not all durables
were greeted with such interest even when the information about them was made
available and they could be found in shops. In one instance, a woman reportedly
rejected the attempts of a shop assistant to sell her an air humidifier costing 24
roubles, saying: I keep a saucer filled with water under the heater its easier and
cheaper.50 Another example of an unpopular gadget was the multi-task household
device known as Belka (Squirrel), which failed to win favour with buyers despite
the wide publicity it received at the Interbytmash-68 exhibition in 1968. It cost 31
roubles and had a number of attachments which enabled it to carry out a truly
impressive range of tasks, from beating eggs, mashing vegetables and kneading
dough to sharpening knives, shining shoes and even polishing furniture. Yet, for
some reason, this technological prodigy was not exactly swept off the shelves.51
Clearly, consumers did not obediently swallow each and every fruit of state production but exercised a degree of discrimination when deciding which electrical goods
to buy, taking account of their own needs, the cost and the items characteristics.
Over the long 1970s, expectations of electrical durables grew more elaborate. In
the 1980s, the list of coveted and hard-to-obtain items included (in addition to tape
recorders, TV sets and refrigerators) coffee grinders, blenders, hairdryers, electric
mincing machines, and so on. However, while Soviet ownership statistics in the
mid-1980s painted an impressive picture, specialist internal reports sounded warnings rather than celebration. Saturation of the market, VNIIKS claimed in 1985,
meant that the criteria that buyers apply to the functional, aesthetic and other
consumer qualities of [these] goods were becoming even more demanding. The

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trouble was that many goods failed to meet those criteria. For instance, trade specialists had requested from manufacturers that semi-automatic washing machines
comprise at least one-third of all deliveries. The industry responded by doing
exactly the opposite: it cut down the share of semi-automatic brands from 25 to 21
per cent. Even high-quality colour TV sets were in insufficient stock, although
their share grew from 29 per cent in 1980 to 45 per cent in 1985.52 Similarly, the
institute had found several years earlier that, out of 25 varieties of vacuum cleaners
produced in the country, only five or six enjoyed any popularity.53
Consumers were not the only group whose attitudes changed. The 1985
VNIIKS report illustrates the shift that had occurred in professional economists
attitudes, as well as those of their objects of study. For instance, the situation with
the supply of refrigerators was reported as poor by the institute, but what that
meant was that there were not enough large two-chamber and three-chamber
fridges with a capacity of over 200 cubic centimetres and freezer compartments.54
VNIIKS economists were effectively saying that sheer quantity was no longer
enough; factories had to tune in to the specific demands of consumers. This line
was supported also in the popular press. Rabotnitsa lamented in 1981 the discrepancy between demand and supply: The vacuum cleaner Chaika-3 enjoys no
demand, but it has been on the market since 1965, whereas contemporary wet
dry suction cleaners remain the stuff of exhibitions.55
The problem, from the experts point of view, was that Soviet consumers of
technology were turning their dissatisfaction into a financial problem for the
economy. Unlike the situation in Western economies, where consumers had
opportunities for forming independent organizations to defend their rights, in the
Soviet Union any such groups were ultimately subordinate to the state. Yet this
lack of meaningful formal organization did not mean that Soviet consumers had
no agency at all. In quiet protest, people refused to buy what industry was trying
to impose on them: in 1984 alone, almost 80 per cent of those industrial workers
and professionals who had savings and planned to buy a TV set did not do so
because they were unhappy with the quality of available brands or could not find
the makes they wanted.56 Given that approximately 1 million consumers throughout the country had savings to buy a TV set, this translated into serious financial
losses to the state.57 For the same reasons, 85 per cent postponed purchasing radio
sets, tape recorders and music players, and 75 per cent of potential buyers hung
on to their savings instead of spending them on a refrigerator.58 Ironically, that
consumers could exercise this degree of agency was due, at least partly, to the
successes of Soviet industry in raising the levels of ownership of many electrical
goods. The frustrations of Soviet consumption of domestic technology derived
from the fact that customers had to deal with both Soviet industrys successes in
producing modern technologies andd its failures.
To purchase goods such as tape recorders, TV sets and refrigerators still took
many consumers several years of saving, but unlike in Western market economies, this was not the main obstacle to acquisition.59 The majority of purchases
involved queuing for several hours or waiting for several years; they often also
required physical endurance and sheer luck. Refrigerators, for example, were sold

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through the system of waiting lists and postal notifications, which had been
designed to make trade in high-demand goods more efficient but, coupled with
the absurdities of Soviet retail practices, brought downright Kafkaesque results.
One shop in Lvov gave customers only a one-hour slot between 5 and 6 p.m.
during which they could sign up to buy a refrigerator, despite the fact that the
store was virtually empty for the rest of the day. During that special hour, one
assistant had the task of taking down the names of about a hundred clients,
which resulted in mayhem.60 The narrow time slot was likely a method of restricting the number of people signing up for a fridge; demand exceeded supply,
despite the waiting time of a year. But the lapses in organization which accompanied the process were unlikely to have been intentional. The Lvov shop failed to
inform its patrons that, in order to sign up, they had to bring along a blank postcard, which the shop would later use to notify them that their fridge had arrived.
Having reached the counter, customers had to lose their place in the queue and
rush about the neighbouring streets in search of a place to buy a postcard.61
Successful registration got one only half-way to the desired refrigerator. After
months and even years of waiting, when the postcard finally arrived, the lucky
buyer had to rush to the store to pick up the item in person. The rules concerning
collection were rigid. Trudd reported the case of an old man from the town of
Ivanovsk, who had been waiting for his refrigerator for two years but had the
misfortune to be ill when the notification arrived. When his children took his
postcard to the shop to collect the fridge in his stead, the shop refused to deal with
anyone but the person who had filled out the postcard two years previously.
Insensitive to the pleas of the relatives, the shop personnel kept demanding that
the old man show up, dead or alive, or they would sell his fridge to the next in
line. It took the interference of no less powerful a figure than the head of the
Ivanovsk Municipal Department of Trade to allow collection by the relatives.62
This incident highlights consumers dependence on the state, not only as the sole
producer and distributor of goods but also as the ultimate arbiter in overcoming
the red tape and inefficiency of its own retail system.63
Under these charged circumstances, shopping for modern technology was to do
more with emotions than with rationality. Soviet consumers frequently expressed
strong feelings when talking about their purchases. When efforts to get hold of a
desired device were crowned with success and the brand new gadget appeared in
their home, people felt jubilant and excited. A villager from Lipetsk region wrote
to national radio that, when he bought a Smolensk fridge, he felt indescribable
joy (neopisuemaia radost).64 Valerii Belik, an engineer from Sverdlovsk, reportedly told the newspaper Literaturnaia gazeta that he and his teenage son longed
to buy a good tape recorder (ochen stremilis), and Rabotnitsa quoted a
Muscovite who said she would purchase an electrical mincing machine with
such pleasure if only she could find one in a shop.65
But often such positive expressions served as the preamble to a tale of a shopping expedition gone horribly wrong. It was no accident that Soviet consumers
came to insist on specific brands: on the whole, electrical items tended to be
faulty more often than other types of consumer goods, while repair services were

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notoriously poor and overworked. One pensioner, K. Mukhina from Kostroma,

told the editors of the newspaper Sovetskaia torgovlia that problems with her
newly acquired Biriusa-2 fridge, which had quickly broken down, turned her into
such a nervous wreck that eventually I will either mince this fridge with an axe
or hang myself on its handle.66 It turned out that fixing a fridge was no easier
than obtaining it: Mukhina had been told her device would be repaired within one
year. When she explained in her letter why this seemed a woe ((gore), she
emphasized her consumer rights and sense of entitlement to honest treatment:
I had been saving money for five years, waited in the queue for a year,
and what now? I am looking at this fridge with horror. I spent so much
money on it (yes, for me it is a lot of money, because my pension is only
49 roubles). Never did I think that in our Soviet Union it is possible to
get swindled like that.67
The original source of consumer entitlement talk might have been the state, but
Brezhnev-era consumers readily adopted this rhetoric in their communications
with the authorities.68 With so much financial, emotional and other investment
already committed by buyers, their disappointments amidst pledges of quality
and abundance were bound to bring the issue of trust to the fore. In 1980,
Literaturnaia gazeta printed a long article on goods, mainly electric durables,
which had been awarded the Quality Mark but offered no quality at all to their
owners. The author claimed that she was reflecting the large volume of correspondence on the matter that the newspaper had received. She cited one owner of
a faulty Vega-326 tape recorder, V. Pogorelov from Novosibirsk, who was horrified when he asked for the book of complaints in the shop and saw in it just
how many fellow consumers had registered complaints about the same brand.
The fact that Vega-326 had been awarded the Quality Mark a state guarantee
made Pogorelov question whether it meant anything. The Sverdlovsk engineer
Valerii Belik was similarly let down by the Quality Mark when buying a tape
recorder with his son. The son had spent two summers working during school
vacations in order to save up for the expensive recorder; while the boy had honoured his side of the bargain by giving the state his labour, the state failed to
deliver the material reward promised to all hard-working members of society.69
The concept of consumer trust occurs frequently in Western consumptionrelated discourse, and especially in advertising. A reputation for reliable quality is
especially important for firms trading in white goods or electrical items. The
Soviet Union did not have a market economy, of course, but it, too, had to compete
as a producer of electrical goods. Its arch-competitor was the West, a fact which
the American Exhibition in Moscow served to highlight as early as 1959. The
competition had ideological purposes, but it also had a tangible economic dimension. Western goods were highly prized in the Soviet Union, because access to
them was limited and because their quality was likely to be superior. As the isolation of the USSR diminished, this superiority became an open secret.70 This did
not mean that some Soviet brands did not enjoy a reputation for being reliable, as

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we have seen earlier, but the loss of consumers faith was nevertheless more than
embarrassing: it cost both money and ideological face.
The situation was only partially alleviated by the involvement in consumer
goods production of enterprises in the space and defence industries. These enterprises were reluctant to digress from working on their prime specialties and
haggled with state planners in attempts to lower their targets.71 In the first half of
the 1970s, only five out of 19 industrial ministries fulfilled the plan for producing
consumer goods.72 Household appliances were a primary speciality for only 10
per cent of all Soviet factories producing such goods in 1965, and those had modest production capacity.73 Consequently, the quality of these step-children of
heavy industry suffered. Electrical durables were among the goods that caused
most trouble to their owners and broke down most often.74 Innovation was often
slow on account of the cumbersome planning system, prompting the newspaper
Moskovskaia pravda to complain in 1975 that, by the time a new device entered the
market, it was already thoroughly outdated and failed to satisfy the contemporary
requirements of technical aesthetics.75 This did not bode well for competition with
the West in providing modern home technology.

The scientific revolution betrayed?

The state responded by retracting some of its enthusiasm for the scientific technological revolution (NTR) in the home. The irony in the fate of this pet project of
Khrushchev was that, just at the time when consumers became keen participants in
what can be seen as the implementation of NTR principles kitting out their homes
with washing machines, TV sets, music players, and so on the state seemed to have
got cold feet. State-sanctioned discussion of household technology became more
ambivalent. Surprisingly, there were parallels between some of the responses and
aspects of contemporary Western discourse on the problems of consumerism.
The idea that the modern home should contain modern conveniences was not
abandoned; nor did the Party-state explicitly renounce its commitment to producing them. A statement by the CPSU Central Committee on the eve of the XXVI
Party Congress in 1981 spoke of the necessity to expand even further the production, and increase the variety, of electrical domestic appliances and to make them
more efficient and convenient.76 People had their appetite whetted by exhibitions,
such as the 1981 display at VDNKh, and by media reports. Telling its readers
about the Legpishchemash-81 fair, Rabotnitsa attempted both to convey the
notion of Soviet consumers sophistication and to draw their attention to the new
developments offered by industry, as it insisted that a retractable electrical cord
and a dust-bag indicator [on a vacuum cleaner] can no longer surprise anyone
today; the real stuff of tomorrow (but already being prepared for production)
was a cleaner that could pack dust in tidy blocks or wash it out, or a plastic iron
with only the foot of the iron made of steel to help avoid burns.77
But electrical durables did not receive unreserved support from the state and its
agents. From the start, not all of them featured equally in officially promoted
visions of the modern socialist home. For instance, in the late 1960s, only TV sets

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and refrigerators were included in the budgets prescribed by the state for urban
minimum-wage earners: these two items were designated basic necessities, but
other electrical goods were not.78 Entertainment gadgets, orr kulturnye tovary
(cultural goods), held the most ambivalent image in popular culture and the press.
While television sets, record players and cameras could be associated with cultured pursuits, education and healthy socialist leisure,79 their reputation could also
suffer from other associations. Their location in the privacy of the home made
their usage difficult to control. From the start there were concerns that watching
TV to excess would result in individual isolation and passive leisure,80 although
by the 1980s at least some commentators seemed to have resigned themselves to
the fact of televisions dominant presence in the home.81 More worrying still was the
fact that, while broadcasts were controlled by the state, the audiences decisions
to watch them were not. In 1972, Krokodill printed a cartoon in which a nonplussed TV viewer wonders why the broadcast of a lecture is continuing despite
his TV set being unplugged. This can be seen as a critique of spiritless propaganda, but it also betrays traces of wishful thinking: by denying the viewer his
power to escape propaganda at home by turning off the TV set.82 Tape recorders
and radios could be used to listen to Western or Soviet auteur music or foreign
radio broadcasts. As Sergei Zhuk states in his study of late Soviet youths cultural
consumption in the closed Ukrainian city of Dniepropetrovsk, Western popular
music was the most desirable object of cultural consumption during the late
socialist period.83 The authorities often knew full well that this was the case: in
one instance, a Komsomol survey of 605 working youths and students in another
Ukrainian town, Ivano-Frankovsk, in February 1975 revealed that 76 per cent of
them were listening to foreign radio.84 This did not necessarily mean outright
anti-Soviet propaganda: as Alexei Yurchak points out, there was a vast gray area
between approved cultural information and bourgeois propaganda received
through shortwave radio, but this only added to the ambivalence in official attitudes.85 With Western radio stations in mind, Soviet-made receivers were
designed to have only limited reception of distant transmissions, but the production of radio sets grew steadily, and, furthermore, consumers were provided with
spare parts and instructions for building or improving their own sets.86
Tape recorders, equally, were identified as potential instruments of good cultural
consumption, but in fact they contributed to consumption of the more troublesome kinds of Western and Soviet music as well as the acceptable kinds. Zhuk
argues that, in Dneipropetrovsk, it was the arrival of cheaper mass-produced tape
recorders from the early Brezhnev years onwards that played a key role in the
Western music boom, especially rock music during the 1970s, and in the popularity of songs by alternative Soviet musicians, such as the guitar poet Vladimir
Vysotskii or Soviet beat groups.87 The illegal trade in foreign music flourished
in many urban areas in the Brezhnev years, serving as further confirmation of
many listeners taste for Western albums, but it was the ever growing statesponsored production of tape recorders that enabled Soviet people, especially the
young, to enjoy these tapes at home, at friends houses, at parties, or even in
public places such as dance clubs.88 This turned the Brezhnev era into a time

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h l
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h Brezhnev-era
h
home
h
197
when the entire cohort of Soviet youth in a closed society became intimately
familiar, and even came to identify, with the current products of external, Western
culture, prompting some commentators to talk about the magnitofikatsiia [taperecorderfication] of the whole country.89
The resulting ambivalence in the states position on these potentially troublesome goods found reflection in the press and even popular cinema: for instance,
Riazanovs comedy Beware of the Car! features an imported tape recorder as the
object of a shady deal between a corrupt shop assistant and his customer. Not
surprisingly, the inappropriate use of musical equipment was a common theme
in portrayals of contemporary youth problems. One 1972 front-page cartoon in
Krokodill shows a young man being bottle-fed alcohol by his mother, while the
two are surrounded by other handmaids of moral delinquency a magazine with
foreign cars and girls, cigarettes and, featured prominently at the forefront, a tape
recorder (Figure 7.2).90 Highbrow literature also found room for such motifs. In
Iurii Trifonovs novel Preliminary Stocktaking, a 17-year-old boys consumerist
cynicism and disrespect for his parents is conveyed with the symbolic help of a
tape recorder. What starts with the fairly minor consumerist ambitions of a spoilt
teenager ends up with the theft of an icon, carried out in circumstances that are
disturbing in more ways than one.91

Figure 7.2 Sucker Sonny, Krokodil, no. 20, 1972.

Source: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

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Household technology in the Brezhnev-era home

A second group of electrical goods, khoziaistvenno-bytovye (household

appliances), seemed on the surface of it less controversial, but it was here that
the contradictions of the Soviet scientific revolution in the home became most
apparent. The press adopted a strategy that held customers themselves responsible for the shortage of electrical durables: they were praised for being well
informed and demanding, but also scolded for being too impatient. This trend
was especially evident in the early 1980s. In one example, Rabotnitsa, targeting
a female audience, displayed almost desperate eloquence in blaming the short
supply of appliances on the surge of demand rather than on underproduction:
This is not the first time that the tide of consumer demand, sweeping the industry and overtaking all possible production growth rates, has washed us up on
the empty shop shelves.92
In contrast to the almost unconditionally enthusiastic Khrushchev-era propaganda on labour-saving goods, caution and restraint now prevailed. Consumers
were asked to be rational not by buying technology for their homes, but by
refraining from buying too much of it. A pamphlet on family budgeting, which
proclaimed that industry would soon deliver a considerable increase in output of
sets of household appliances, qualified this promise by saying that it would produce a range of goods that afford[s] normal (reasonable) comfort in life.93 In
other words, spending on domestic appliances was approved and encouraged, but
preferably within reasonable limits.
But what exactly was meant by reasonable comfort? What considerations
were consumers advised to take into account? Space and budget constraints, family size, dietary needs, and even style of cooking were all said to play a role in
purchasing decisions. It reached the point that experts in mass media began to
dissuade customers explicitly from purchasing complicated gadgets. In one
instance, Rabotnitsa told women that a food processor was too time-consuming
to use! Imagine, it declared, every blade or nozzle has to be taken out [of the
box], assembled, fixed to the base or the motor, then taken off, disassembled,
washed, dried with a towel, and put back.94 It made food processors sound like
more work than help, and the magazine soberly stated that in some cases it was
easier to do a task manually or use simpler, non-electrical tools such as graters.
Rabotnitsas verdict on food processors was shattering: Is it really worth it? (a
stoit li ovchinka vydelki?).95 Literaturnaia gazeta also mused on the disadvantages
of owning domestic electrical devices:
In practice, while electrical appliances liberate us from one kind of servitude, they immediately plunge us into another one: servicing them takes
too much time, and it is not always straightforward With every new
electro-assistant one gets more and more trouble.96
Such verdicts were perhaps born of disappointment at the fact that the NTR was
failing to bring the much heralded improvements in daily life. During the 1970s and
1980s, there was a new emphasis on what domestic technology should deliver but
was not doing so. While Khrushchev-era rhetoric promoted domestic appliances as

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instruments for gaining time for social involvement and for self-elevation through
cultured leisure, Brezhnev-era propaganda suggested that the energy they freed up
should be spent on work. Pravda blamed the failure to equip apartments with modern machinery for womens fatigue, and this fatigue was presented as not only a
moral but an economic problem: The level of mechanisation of housework is
still very low. Much work in the home continues to be done manually. And this does
not only mean tiredness; there is also a time factor whose cost is felt increasingly
acutely every year.97 Literaturnaia gazeta made the point even more explicitly:
At the level of the state, household work becomes hundreds of millions
of lost hours per year. To cut time losses resulting from household
chores means to raise the work efficiency of the population [and] to boost
the productivity of work for society.98
More than two decades since the launch of the Soviet technological revolution, the situation with housework had hardly changed. It had been anticipated
that the various new devices would help free up approximately 1,000 hours per
year per family; instead, the time spent on domestic chores remained the same
in 1980. Literaturnaia gazeta saw Soviet underachievement in the transition to
comprehensively mechanized housework as a cause for embarrassment: it was
paradoxical [that] today, in the age of the atom, computers and universal
electrification, our domestic life is extremely conservative.99
Aside from specially favoured goods such as TV sets, fridges and washing
machines, the presence of domestic gadgets in the home was obstructed by a host of
difficulties, and it was not just a matter of shortages. Food processors or microwave
ovens were costly and often bulky. Even smaller appliances like juicers occupied too
much space in tiny Soviet kitchens and could not be left standing permanently on a
kitchen table, but had to be completely disassembled and put away after every use.
Even in large kitchens several appliances could not be used simultaneously because
there were only one or two plugs in the kitchen, and the voltage in the electrical
circuit was too low to sustain all of the machines working together.100
Finally, in a move that we most often associate with contemporary Western ideas
of sustainable development, users of domestic appliances were invited to feel guilty
about the environmental damage their deployment of machinery was producing:
Have many people thought about the fact that our domestic comfort has also an
environmental price, [and] that it is bought largely at the expense of discomfort to
the natural environment?101 In Stalins and Khrushchevs times, Soviet citizens had
been encouraged to earn their comfort by wresting resources from nature; in the
1980s, it seems, they were to moderate their ambitions for its sake.
Environmental and ethical concerns also featured prominently in the criticism
of modern life voiced by village prose writers. But even childrens literature and
cinema expressed ambivalence on the place of technology in everyday life. In one
popular childrens film, The Adventures of Electronic ((Prikliucheniia Elektronika),
shot by Konstantin Bromberg in 1980 and based on novels by Evgenii Veltistov,
a robot named Electronic desperately wants to become a real boy, escaping from

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his creator to find friendship with a Moscow teenager who is also his exact lookalike. Electronic starts attending school and doing homework for the boy, in a
childs version of machines liberating people from chores. But trouble ensues:
a couple of thieves attempt to kidnap Electronic and use him in a museum robbery. A happy ending is ensured only through human friendship: Electronic is
saved from this predicament by his human friends. Even closer to the subject of
domestic durables is a heart-warming childrens book by Eduard Uspenskii, The
Little Warranty People (Garantiinye chelovechki, 1975). The novel humanizes
machines and technical objects in the home by populating them with affable tiny
men, old-fashioned mechanics who look after the gadgets. The opening scene of
the book has a fridge man and a clock man getting together for a cup of tea.102
Yet, despite all the discouragement, Soviet consumers were stubbornly pursuing
technology for their homes. Between 1980 and 1984, urban residents spent 50
per cent more on radio sets, music players, and TV sets than during the preceding
five years.103 As did Western consumers, they were favouring personal ownership of domestic appliances over the socialist ideal of the communal usage of
technology. A survey of 1,635 families in the Ukrainian SSR in 1970 showed
that 80.75 per cent of them wanted to have all household appliances in their
personal ownership, while only 19.25 preferred various forms of collective or
mixed ownership.104 More in parallel to Western twentieth-century culture than
in line with the proclaimed goals of socialism, gadgets became important not
only as convenience items but also as status symbols and as instruments of
pleasure, personal enjoyment and individual withdrawal into a private world.
This is evident even from such state-monitored sources as the press and cinema.
One article in DI SSSR claimed in 1975: The warmest place in the room is, of
course, by the telly. The whole family gathers together here in the evenings; it
brings everyone closer together.105 The power of television to grant privacy
from the outside world and even to allow the individual to escape reality was
promoted through the medium itself: domestic scenes in a number of feature
films show a TV set helping people switch off mentally, especially from acute
stress, and to transport themselves emotionally to another setting.106

Concluding remarks
During the 1950s, the political engineers of the West German economic miracle, including its key figure, Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard, insisted that
the difference between Western capitalism and Soviet communism was in the
exercise of choice that was available to Western consumers but not to Soviet
ones.107 Even two decades later, during the 1970s, Soviet consumers had access
to nothing like the shops, department stores and hypermarkets of Western
Europe, which supplied their customers with the latest home technology. And
yet the Soviets of the 1970s and 1980s could and did enjoy a variety of household appliances on a new and meaningful scale; moreover, against the odds of
the planned economy, they were exercising choice and agency as consumers. The
same factors that lay behind the development of Western European postwar mass

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consumption of modern domestic appliances technological change, rising
incomes and changes in attitudes108 were at play in the relatively closed Soviet
Union. Even emulation of the American standard of living (which, as Victoria de
Grazia argues, was of key importance to the initiation of postwar Europe into
mass consumption) played a role in the USSR, albeit mainly through the decision of Soviet policy-makers to compete with the US.
The Soviet authorities did not openly welcome American consumer ideals and
sought to protect their subjects by limiting contact with the alluring West. Although
such contact was much more common during the Brezhnev era than in previous
decades, it was mainly the USSRs own policies aimed at improving living conditions that caused consumer expectations to rise and, with them, consumer
dissatisfaction. The case of electrical goods certainly confirms this. Progress here
was substantial but soon became insufficient to satisfy contemporary citizens,
whose appetites for technology were whetted not as much by their (still limited)
knowledge of Western gadgets as by the Party-states own promises of abundance
and technological revolution. Even when Soviet youth became interested in jazz,
rock n roll and other kinds of Western music, it was the Soviet authorities decision to produce shortwave radios and tape recorders in mass quantities, as well as
their inability to stamp out the black market, that made possible consumption of
Western music on such a scale. As for household appliances, rising incomes in the
Brezhnev era were consistent with domestic modernity, but the economy was not
producing the quality and technological sophistication that consumers wanted. The
failures soured the successes and undermined rhetoric on socialist ethics. Erika
Carter has argued that West Germany pinned the success of its postwar national
regeneration on the promise of consumer prosperity, which turned out to be a successful policy because its economy actually delivered the goods.109 The Soviet
economy delivered only partially. At the same time, the decision to compete with
the West on its own terms backfired. The American-inspired model of consumer
prosperity helped fuel desires, while the limited access to its products, such as the
latest models of refrigerators or, later on, video recorders, contributed to social
stratification and Soviet consumerism. Nevertheless, the case study of domestic
appliances suggests that many aspects of Soviet consumer culture in the late
1960s, the 1970s and the early 1980s the interest in home technology, selectiveness, consumer autonomy and agency bore striking resemblances to Western
consumer cultures, even as they developed out of specifically Soviet conditions.
The Soviet Union might have failed to become a modern consumer economy,
but Soviet citizens living in the closed society of mature socialism did become
modern consumers of home technology.

Conclusion

In 2012, the Russian journalist Valerii Paniushkin published a book entitled The
Revolt of the Consumers (Vosstanie potrebitelei). He tells a story of a group of
young economists, lawyers and other enthusiasts who, inspired by perestroika and
the worsening economic problems in Gorbachevs Soviet Union, took up the
defence of consumer rights. The result was the Confederation of Consumer
Societies (CCS), which outlived the Soviet Union and took its legal battles, mystery shopper inspections and media campaigns into the post-Soviet 1990s. Its main
task was to get the Russian consumer to know and demand her rights, and to get
the state, the courts and the emerging private market to learn to observe those
rights. The story is important, Paniushkin believes, because it casts the events of
the late 1980s and early 1990s in a different light: the changes that swept the
Soviet colossus out of existence were part of a consumer revolution rather than a
democratic one. The first major victory was scored in spring 1991, when the
Soviet parliament adopted a new law for consumer rights protection drafted with
the help of the above enthusiasts. By the end of the 1990s, thanks largely to their
efforts, Russia had a functioning consumer market, and now contemporary
Russians are competent and confident consumers of just about everything, except
the state itself; here, the book suggests, they still have much to learn.1
Paniushkin focuses on a handful of people in the CCS, but what emerges from
his anecdotes about the legal battles of the early 1990s is that ordinary consumers
played the leading role. It is one thing to introduce a new law quite another, as
the book agrees, to change legal practice. No group of lawyers and economists
could have achieved such changes without the abused shoppers who came to the
office of the CCS to complain about violations and asked its lawyers to file suits
and represent them in court. How did people take so quickly to these new opportunities? Paniushkin points in the direction of the more open media climate of the
late 1980s and the publicized successes of the CCS in the 1990s.
The present book has tried to show, however, that the roots of Russian consumers
self-assertiveness stretch back beyond the 1990s or even Gorbachevs glasnost:
they can be traced to the Brezhnev decades. A consumer revolution of a different
kind began then, and, while this did not bring down the Soviet state, the social
changes that took place over the long 1970s prepared people for the transformations
ahead. For decades before the Brezhnev years, Soviet consumers had been told by

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the regime that they should anticipate and, indeed, demand quality goods, handsome clothes, comfortable homes and, eventually even cars and colour TV sets, but
under developed socialism many got a real opportunity for the first time to be
consumers of these things. Incomes improved enough for them to be able to afford
such items. Shortages persisted, but the economy of the 1970s was a qualitatively
different shortage economy from earlier times and those times were still well
within the living memory of many Soviet people. Now modest but separate homes
were a norm, and the overwhelming majority of the urban population did not have
to share their kitchen and bathroom with strangers. These homes could be furnished
with soft-furniture suites and other sets in matching colours, possibly even imported
ones. Jeans, imported shoes and luxuries such as French perfume, porcelain, crystal
ware or fluffy rugs were expensive and could be difficult to acquire, but they were
nevertheless becoming standard attributes of the Soviet interior and wardrobe. The
choice of goods in the shops was limited, but it was enough for consumers to learn
to be selective and start paying attention to the brand, design and reputation of
goods. Even in the absence of Western-style commercial advertising, there were
many different, even competing, channels of information for urban residents about
quality, fashion, novelties and the social prestige of goods. Many Soviet people
became confident users of modern technology at home, from refrigerators to washing
machines and even video players.
Without these substantial improvements in consumption opportunities and
aspirations, the shortage crises of the late 1980s and early 1990s would not have
seemed so painful and unacceptable. The Brezhnev era had not only taught people to consume, it also gave them training in complaining. Neither perestroika nor
the early post-Soviet years were the first time that purchasers had the opportunity
or were encouraged to seek redress for wrongs against them. Soviet consumers
under mature socialism had definite material aspirations, and after years of
official speeches and press reports they also knew that they were entitled to see
at least some of these aspirations fulfilled. In the post-Soviet legal and political
landscape, consumer rights the right to information, choice, fair practice, and
so on could be exercised more effectively by resorting to lawsuits, something
that had not been available to individual citizens of the Soviet Union (although
an organization could take another organization to court). But Brezhnev-era consumers also could seek justice, or at least cause malefactors discomfort, by writing
to a newspaper or petitioning the authorities at any level, from a local soviet or
their Supreme Council representative to the Council of Ministers. These strategies sometimes worked and sometimes they did not. But the ability of post-Soviet
consumers to learn quickly to exercise their rights in the improved legal (and
deteriorating economic) situation of the late 1980s and early 1990s is rooted in
these defensive strategies of the long 1970s. Soviet consumers developed a more
activist relationship to the state in the Brezhnev era, and it served them well in
the post-socialist period.
Better legal protection for individual consumers is one attribute of modern
market capitalism. But, as far as ex-Soviet citizens went, this was one of the few
benign things about the 1990s. For many, the form of capitalism that arrived in

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Conclusion

Russia in the first post-socialist decade brought brutal shocks and uncertainty.
This was especially so because the preceding decades had been so stable and
secure. Yet it might be worth considering how the long 1970s prepared society for
the advent of capitalism. Could it be that yesterdays Soviet consumers, trained
in pursuing their individual material interests despite ideological discouragement
and the idiocies of the command economy, were in fact better equipped to deal
with their societys troubled entry into the market economy than they would have
been otherwise? However reluctant they were to see the Brezhnevite social contract torn to shreds,2 many nonetheless found the internal resources to adjust. The
factors behind successful adjustment to the disappearance of socio-economic
safety nets were too complex to reduce to consumption experiences alone, and
they varied from individual to individual. And yet, those who did manage to adapt
to new realities quite possibly drew on the skills and values that developed in the
era of mature socialism. To address this issue more comprehensively would
require further scholarly research into the modes of adaptation and social change
in post-Soviet Russia.3 As Jennifer Patico and Melissa L. Caldwell note in their
introduction to a special issue of Ethnos: Journal of Anthropologyy on post-socialist
practices of consumption, the exit from socialism is far from unitary or complete, nor is it truly a radical departure from the past.4
The consumer practices and attitudes of the 1970s might help illuminate social
change in the post-socialist period, but they also tell us a great deal about the
Brezhnev era and its place in the broader sweep of Soviet history. We gain a more
nuanced picture of late Soviet society on the eve of perestroika: its supposed
homogeneity is offset by social fragmentation signalled by material differences
along professional, geographical and generational lines. We gain a sense of
change: of a society that was not only growing more consumerist but also
becoming less conservative in many respects, such as in its attitudes to fashion,
youth behaviour or entertainment. The role and motivations of the authorities in
these developments, as well as their attempts to deal with the consequences,
have much to tell us about the nature of the mature socialist regime and its
relationship with society. For all the mounting contradictions of late Soviet consumer culture, the Brezhnev leadership hung on to power for nearly 20 years
(more, if we include the tenures of Andropov and Chernenko). The key to overcoming those contradictions, at least in the short term, was compromise and
adjustment in the public sphere. The official line on fashion, the home and the
scientific revolution in everyday life underwent significant revision. Often such
re-evaluation did not originate in the offices of state ideologues but emerged
more spontaneously in the press and other public forums, and then came to be
accepted or adopted by the authorities. In that sense, not only did the population
have to adapt under state socialism, the government also did a great deal of
implicit negotiating with its citizens.
These ideological adjustments make it difficult to see the Brezhnev regime as
simply marking time. This was another stage in the socialist project of modernization, even if there was something quietly unsocialist about the move from
collectivism to individualism. Should this Brezhnev-era version of consumer

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modernity, with the attributes it shared with modern Western societies, such as
individualization, privatization and commercialization of everyday life, be seen
as a deviation from previous efforts at socialist modernization? Only, perhaps, in
its long-range effects. After all, the Brezhnev government did not invent the competition with the West in living standards5 and, if anything, tried to offset its
unwelcome consequences by courting Russian nationalists. The individualizing
effects of modernization had been a perpetual thorn in the side of Soviet leaders,
and embracing it quietly in the social and economic circumstance of the 1970s
might have been a sensible option. The problem was not the emergence of this
limited version of consumer modernity but the fact that it was limited. This was a
general pattern across the socialist bloc. From the late 1960s onwards, the emphasis of propaganda in Eastern European states also gradually swung from political
ideas to promises of welfare. In East Germany, for instance, this was manifested
in the adoption in the early 1970s of the principle of the unity of social and economic policies, which the government hoped would allow it to reap political
benefits by improving the conditions for consumption. But the goal of creating a
satisfactory consumer environment was never truly achieved.6 Despite some of
the regimes attempts to shift the emphasis from consumer goods to broader
notions of the socialist quality of life, such as leisure time, guaranteed employment and state housing, material frustrations grated on the population, especially
when there was observable deterioration.7 In the 1970s and 1980s, the majority
of instances of overt protest in the Soviet bloc occurred not over political or religious freedoms but over problems with food supplies and consumer goods.8 In
the Soviet Union, this failure to meet popular aspirations was becoming evident
by the early 1980s, even before Gorbachev took office.
The unique combination of progress and frustration that we find in the long
1970s is reflected in popular reactions to Brezhnevs death. Many respondents
in Catriona Kellys study of Soviet childhood named this event as the most
memorable moment of their childhood. In 1982, individual reactions to the news
of the General Secretarys passing varied from tears shed by members of the
older generation to relief felt by younger adults.9 Such generational difference,
however anecdotal, makes a lot of sense. The prosperity and stability of the long
1970s was seen as unprecedented by the older citizens of mature socialism, but
for their children and grandchildren in the early 1980s it was time to move on.
The Brezhnev years, in other words, took the Soviet project from a series of
violent and tumultuous stages to its next phase of instability and, eventually,
destruction, but in the process prepared the new generation of Russians for what
would come next.

Note on sources

Archives
BGANTD: Belarusian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documents
f. 68 Soiuz arkhitektorov Belorussii
GARF: State Archive of the Russian Federation
f. 6903 Gosteleradio SSSR
f. 7523 Verkhovnyi sovet SSSR
f. 8424 Gosudarstvennyi arbitrazh SSSR
f. 9527 Komitet narodnogo kontrolia SSSR, Kontrolnaia palata SSSR
NARB: National Archive of the Republic of Belarus
f. 1221 Ministerstvo torgovli BSSR, Belorusskaia respublikanskaia kontora
Glavobuvtorga
RGAE: Russian State Economic Archive
f. 467 Ministerstvo legkoi promyshlennosti SSSR
f. 1562 Tsentralnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie SSSR
f. 4372 Gosplan SSSR
RGALI: Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts
f. 1702 Redaktsiia zhurnala Novyi mir
f. 2944 Goskino SSSR
RGANI: Russian State Archive of Contemporary History
f. 1 XXXXVII sezdy KPSS
f. 2 Plenumy TsK KPSS
f. 5 Apparat TsK KPSS

Note on sources

207

RGASPI: Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (Komsomol section)
f. 1 Obshchii otdel TsK VLKSM (Komsomol)
f. 1s Sektor sekretnykh dokumentov TsK VLKSM, 19621978 gg.
f. 25 Redaktsiia zhurnala Smena
f. 98 Redaktsiia gazety Komsomolskaia pravda
TsAGM: Central Archive of Moscow
f. 297 Upravlenie torgovli promyshlennymi tovarami Glavnogo upravleniia
torgovli Mosgorispolkoma
f. 346 Glavnoe upravlenie torgovli Mosgorispolkoma
TsGALISPb: Central State Archive of Literature and Arts of St Petersburg
f. 169 Redaktsiia zhurnala Neva
f. 178 Kseniia Fedorovna Komissarova
f. 342 Leningradskii oblastnoi komitet profsoiuzov rabotnikov kultury
f. 514 Valentin Ivanovich Kudrov
TsGASPb: Central State Archive of St Petersburg
f. 7082 Glavnoe upravlenie torgovli ispolkoma Lengorsoveta
f. 9803 Leningradskii gorodskoi komitet narodnogo kontrolia

Document collections
Artizov, A. N., Naumov, V. P., Prozumenshchikov, M. Iu., Sigachev, Iu. V., Tomilina, N. G.,
and I. N. Shevchuk (eds), Nikita Khrushchev, 1964: Stenogrammy plenuma TsK KPSS i
drugie dokumenty, Moscow: Materik, 2007.
Bredikhin V. N. (ed.), Lubianka Staraia ploshchad: Sekretnye dokumenty TsK KPSS i
KGB o repressiiakh 19371991 gg. v SSSR, Moscow: Posev, 2005.
Kudriashov, S. (ed.), Generalnyi sekretar L. I. Brezhnev, 19641982, Moscow: Arkhiv
Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 2006.
Kulakov, A. A., Sakharov, A. N., Arefev, A. P., Koken, F., Kolodnikova, L. P., Nabatov, G. V.,
Belous, V. I., Makarov, V. B., Serebrianskaia, G. V., Smirnov, V. V., Ustinkin, S. V., and
V. A. Kharlamov (eds), Obshchestvo i vlast: Rossiiskaia provintsiia, 19171980-e gody
(po materialam nizhegorodskikh arkhivov), vol. 5: 19651980, Moscow: Institut
Rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2008.

Memoirs
Andreeva, I., Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme: Otchet sovetskogo obyvatelia, Moscow:
Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009.
Arbatova, M., Mne 46: Avtobiograficheskaia proza, Moscow: Eksmo, 2004.
Baibakov, N. K., Ot Stalina do Eltsina, Moscow: GazOil Press, 1998.
Brezhneva, L., The World I Left Behind: Pieces of a Past, New York: Random House, 1980.

208

Note on sources

Churbanov, Iu., Moi test Leonid Brezhnev, Moscow: Algoritm, 2007.

Dorman, O., Podstrochnik: Zhizn Lilianny Lunginoi, raskazannaia eiu v filme Olega
Dormana, Moscow: Astrel, 2010.
Fetisov, T. I. (ed.), Premer izvestnyi i neizvestnyi: Vospominaniia o A. N. Kosygine,
Moscow: Respublika, 1997.
Gebgardt-Fedorov, G., Zapiski syna vraga naroda: Nemnogo o rabote, zhizni, ekonomike,
politike: Vzgliad inzhenera i kommersanta, Moscow: Aslan, 1996.
Iushkova, A., Aleksandr Igmand: Ia odeval Brezhneva , Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe
obozrenie, 2008.
Korotich, V., Ot pervogo litsa, Kharkov: Folio, 2000.
Kozlov, A., Kozel na sakse: I tak vsiu zhizn, Moscow: Vagrius, 1998.
Metelitsa, V. I., Stranitsy zhizni, Moscow: Raduga, 2001.
Plisetskaia, M., Ia, Maiia Plisetskaia, Moscow: Izdatelstvo Novosti, 1994.
Riazanov, E., Nepodvedennye itogi, Moscow: Vagrius, 1995.
Ryzhkov, N. I., 10 let velikikh potriasenii, Moscow: Kniga, Prosveshchenie, Miloserdie,
1995.
Shenderovich, V., Izium iz bulki, Moscow: Zakharov, 2005.
Sinitsyn, I. E., Andropov vblizi: Vospominaniia o vremenakh ottepeli i zastoia, Moscow:
IIK Rossiiskaia gazeta, 2004.
Slavkin, V., Pamiatnik neizvestnomu stiliage, Moscow: Artist. Rezhisser. Teatr, 1996.

Films
The Adventures of Electronic ((Prikliucheniia Elektronika, Bromberg, 1980)
The Belorussian Station (Belorusskii
(
vokzal, Smirnov, 1970)
Beware of the Car! (Beregis
(
avtomobilia!, Riazanov, 1965)
The Blonde around the Corner ((Blondinka za uglom, Bortko, 1983)
The Diamond Arm ((Brilliantovaia ruka, Gaidai, 1968)
For Family Reasons ((Po semeinym obstoiatelstvam, Korenev, 1977)
The Garage (Garazh, Riazanov, 1979)
The Grasshopperr (Kuznechik, Grigorev, 1978)
The Irony of Fate, or Have a Nice Bath (Ironiia
(
sudby ili s legkim parom,
Riazanov, 1976)
A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme, Lelouch, 1966)
The Messenger Boy (Kurer
(
, Shakhnazarov, 1986)
Mimino (Daneliia, 1978)
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears ((Moskva slezam ne verit, Menshov, 1979)
The Most Charming and Attractive (Samaia obaiatelnaia i privlekatelnaia,
Bezhanov, 1985)
Noisy Day (Shumnyi den, Natanson and Efros, 1960)
An Office Romance (Sluzhebnyi roman, Riazanov, 1977)
The Pokrov Gates ((Pokrovskie vorota, Kozakov, 1982)
Spring (Vesna, Aleksandrov, 1947)
A Sweet Woman (Sladkaia zhenshchina, Fetin, 1976)
The Tall Blond Man in One Black Shoe (Le
( Grand Blond avec une chaussure
noire, Robert, 1972)

Note on sources

209

Time of Desires (Vremia zhelanii, Raizman, 1980)

Tootsie (Pollack, 1982)
The Toy ((Le Jouet, Veber, 1976)
The Turning Point (Povorot
(
, Abdrashitov, 1978)
Two in a New House ((Dvoe v novom dome, Shakhverdiev, 1978)
The Zigzag of Fortune (Zigzag udachi, Riazanov, 1968)

Contemporary periodicals
Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR
Iskusstvo kino
Iunost
Izvestiia
Kommunist
Komsomolskaia pravda
Krokodil
Leningradskaia pravda
Literaturnaia gazeta
Moskovskaia pravda
Nauka i zhizn
Novyi mir
Ogonek
Oktiabr
Pravda
Rabotnitsa
Smena
Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia
Sovetskaia kultura
Sovetskaia torgovlia
Trud
Vechernii Leningrad
Voprosy ekonomiki

Interviews
Interviews coded Oxf/Lev: the Oxford Archive of Russian Life History, Childhood
in Russia: A Social and Cultural History, 18901991, funded by the Leverhulme
Trust, Grant F/08736/A (20036). The interviews are The University of Oxford.
The coding system consists of a project identifier, place code (St Petersburg (SPb.),
Moscow (M.), Perm (P), and Taganrog (T), and villages in Leningrad (2004) and
Novgorod (2005) provinces (V)), a date code, a cassette number (PF), and a transcript page (e.g. Oxf/Lev SPb-03 PF8A, p. 38). For further information about the
project, see www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/russian/childhood. My thanks to the interviewers, Aleksandra Piir (St Petersburg), Yuliya Rybina and Ekaterina Shumilova

210

Note on sources

(Moscow), Svetlana Sirotinina (Perm), Yury Ryzhov and Lyubov Terekhova

(Taganrog), Oksana Filicheva, Veronika Makarova and Ekaterina Melnikova
(village interviews), to the project co-ordinators, Professor Albert Baiburin and
Professor Vitaly Bezrogov, and to the project leader, Professor Catriona Kelly, for
making this material available to me.
I am also grateful to the following people for sharing with me their recollections on Brezhnev-era consumption:
G. P., St Petersburg (July 2005).
N. E., Moscow (February 2005).
S. Ch., Minsk (July 2011).
Hansson, C., and Liden, K., Moscow Women: Thirteen Interviews, trans. G. Bothmer,
G. Blecher, and L. Blecher, London: Allison & Busby, 1984.

Internet sources
Alekseev, V., Zhizn potaennaia, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 1 April 2005, www.ng.ru/saturday/
2005-04-01/15_life.html (accessed 7 May 2007).
Dokumenty proshlogo, 23 May 2003, Radio Liberty http://euro.svoboda.org/programs/
hd/2003/hd.052303.asp (accessed 7 May 2007).
Dokumenty proshlogo, 12 September 2003, Radio Liberty http://euro.svoboda.org/
programs/hd/2003/hd.091203.asp (accessed 7 May 2007).
Dzhinsy epokhi SSSR http://forum.onliner.by/viewtopic.php?t=2833468 (accessed 21
August 2011).
Live Journal, Soviet Life Community, entry tag: Sovetskaia Estoniia, http://soviet-life.
livejournal.com/721294.html#comments (accessed 1 October 2011).
Malenkaia lichnaia istoriia dzhins v SSSR, journal of Crykitten2 at LiveJournal http://
crykitten2.livejournal.com/1498.html (accessed 21 August 2011).
Muzei torgovli, www.mintorgmuseum.ru/trade/literature/press/ (accessed 26 September
2011).
Seventeen Moments of Soviet History, www.soviethistory.org
Zhvanetskii, M., Official Website of M. M. Zhvanetskii, http://jvanetsky.ru/data/text/70/
(accessed 24 September 2011).

For secondary sources and contemporary literature, see the endnotes to individual
chapters.

Notes

Introduction
1 See, for instance, A. K. Sokolov and V. S. Tiazhelnikov, Kurs sovetskoi istorii,
19411991, Moscow: Vysshaia shkola, 1999, pp. 292303. The same idea is expressed
in terms of an outburst of materialistic aspirations in V. Shlapentokh, Public and
Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia, New York
and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 62.
2 O. Dorman, Podstrochnik: Zhizn Lilianny Lunginoi, rasskazannaia eiu v filme Olega
Dormana, Moscow: Astrel, 2010, pp. 2889.
3 B. Dubin, Litso epokhi: Brezhnevskii period v stolknovenii razlichnykh otsenok, in
Dubin, Zhit v Rossii na rubezhe stoletii: Sotsiologicheskie ocherki i razrabotki,
Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 2007, pp. 3845. The precise figures are 34 per cent in
1995; 36 per cent in 1997, and 49 per cent in 2002.
4 See for example, V. Buchli, Khrushchev, Modernism, and the Fight against PetitBourgeois Consciousness in the Soviet Home, Journal of Design History, 10/2
(1997), pp. 16176; Iu. Gerchuk, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Khrushchev
Thaw in the USSR (19541964), in S. E. Reid and D. Crowley (eds), Style and
Socialism: Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe, Oxford:
Berg, 2000, pp. 8199; S. E. Harris, Moving to the Separate Apartment: Building,
Distributing, Furnishing, and Living in Urban Housing in Soviet Russia, 1950s1960s,
PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 2003, ch. 8 (I am indebted to Dr Harris for forwarding me this chapter of his dissertation); S. E. Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen:
Gender and the De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the Soviet Union under
Khrushchev, Slavic Review, 61/2 (2002), pp. 21152; Reid, Khrushchev Modern:
Agency and Modernization in the Soviet Home, Cahiers du Monde Russe, 47/12
(2006), pp. 22768.
5 See for instance, O. Vainshtein, Female Fashion, Soviet Style: Bodies of
Ideology, in H. Goscilo and B. Holmgren (eds), RussiaWomenCulture,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 6493; O. Gurova, Prostota i
chuvstvo mery: Nizhnee bele i ideologiia mody v Sovetskoi Rossii v 195060-e
gody, Gendernye issledovaniia, no. 10 (2004); K. Roth-Ey, Kto na pedestale, a
kto v tolpe? Stiliagi i ideia sovetskoi molodezhnoi kultury v epokhu ottepeli,
Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 4 (2004), http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2004/4/ra4.
html (accessed 15 May 2007); L. Zakharova, Sovetskaia moda 195060-kh
godov: Politika, ekonomika, povsednevnost, Teoriia mody: Odezhda, telo,
kultura, no. 3 (2007), pp. 5580; A. Kimerling, Platforma protiv kalosh, ili Stiliagi
na ulitsakh sovetskogo goroda, Teoriia mody: Odezhda, telo, kultura, no. 3
(2007), pp. 8199.

212

Notes

6 J. Zavisca, Consumer Inequalities and Regime Legitimacy in Late Soviet and PostSoviet Russia, PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2004, ch. 2. I am
indebted to Dr Zavisca for sharing with me chapters from her dissertation.
7 E. Bogdanova, Gazetnye zhaloby kak strategii zashchity potrebitelskikh interesov:
Pozdnesovetskii period, Teleskop: Nabliudeniia za povsednevnoi zhizniu peterburr
zhtsev, no. 6 (2002), pp. 448; Bogdanova, Konstruirovanie problemy zashchity prav
potrebitelei: Retrospektivnyi analiz, Rubezh, no. 18 (2003), pp. 1626.
8 A. Titov, The 1961 Party Programme and the Fate of Khrushchevs Reforms, in
M. Ilic and J. Smith (eds), Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev, London:
Routledge, 2009, pp. 825. See also Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen, p. 217.
9 See, for example, A. B. Zubov (ed.), Istoriia Rossii, XX vek, Moscow: Astrel,
2009, pp. 4856. This work suggests that the fact that people did manage to get
food and clothes despite total shortages was only down to blat, the informal network of contacts and favours. For non-specialist sources, see, for example, Aleks
Panchenko, Sovetskii soiuz ubili ne vneshnie i vnutrennie vragi, a totalnyi defitsit: Obzor knigi Kiev. Konspekt 70-kh, http://www.segodnya.ua/news/14370435.
html (accessed 18 July 2012); Fartsovshchik, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%
A4%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%86%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%89%D0%B8%D0%BA
(accessed 18 July 2012).
10 See H. Smith, The Russians, London: Sphere, 1976; M. Binyon, Life in Russia,
London: Hamilton, 1983; A. Lee, Russian Journal, New York: Random House, 1979.
11 M. Matthews, Patterns of Deprivation in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev and
Gorbachev, Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1989, p. 43. For details of surveys
conducted by Soviet sociologists, see Chapter 3 of this book.
12 Developed socialism and mature socialism were Soviet terms for the period, used
to indicate the progress made by the Soviet project and to distinguish the Brezhnev era
from the Khrushchev decade. While some historians might be reluctant to use mature
socialism today, I subscribe to Juliane Frsts succinct but spirited defence of the term.
See J. Frst, Stalins Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of
Mature Socialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 26.
13 Reid, Khrushchev Modern, p. 255.
14 A notable trailblazer in that regard is E. Bacon and M. Sandle (eds), Brezhnev
Reconsidered, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. A more recent example is the international
workshop Reconsidering Stagnation, which was held at the University of Amsterdam
in March 2012. On cinema, see A. Shemiakin and Iu. Mikheeva, Posle ottepeli:
Kinematograf 1970-kh, Moscow: NII Kinoiskusstva, 2009. Other works offering
reassessment of the era have appeared in Russia, partly as a result of nostalgia for the
Golden Age of Soviet socialism during the more uncertain post-socialist era: see
V. Chernykh, Brezhnev: Sumerki imperii, St Petersburg: Redfish, 2005; Iu. Churbanov,
Moi test Leonid Brezhnev, Moscow: Algoritm, 2007; S. N. Semanov, Brezhnev:
Pravitel zolotogo veka, Moscow: Veche, 2002.
15 See, for example, D. J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russias
Cold War Generation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; L. H. Siegelbaum (ed.),
Borders of Socialism: Private Spheres of Soviet Russia, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006; S. I. Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and
Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 19601985, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson
Center Press, 2010; A. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was No More: The
Last Soviet Generation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
16 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, esp. pp. 95105, but also various other parts
of the book.
17 W. J. Risch, The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Ukrainian Lviv,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 82112.
18 Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was No More, esp. pp. 2026.

Notes

213

19 C. Kelly, Good Night, Little Ones: Childhood in the Last Soviet Generation, in
S. Lovell (ed.), Generations in Twentieth-Century Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007, pp. 17485.
20 See, for instance, A. Ivanova, Izobrazhenie defitsita v sovetskoi kulture vtoroi poloviny
1960-kh pervoi poloviny1980-kh godov, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 3 (2011), http://
magazines.russ.ru/nz/2011/3/iv18.html (accessed 7 July 2011); O. Gurova, Sovetskoe
nizhnee bele: Mezhdu ideologiei i povsednevnostiu, Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2008; V. S. Tiazhelnikova, Domokhoziaistvo gorozhan v 19601980-e gody:
Struktura i strategii ekonomicheskogo povedeniia, Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 4
(2006), pp. 2539.
21 A. Tikhomirova, V 280 kilometrakh ot Moskvy: Osobennosti mody i praktik potrebleniia odezhdy v sovetskoi provintsii (Iaroslavl, 19601980-e gody), Neprikosnovennyi
zapas, no. 5 (2004), pp. 1019. Tikhomirova, Soviet Women and Fur Consumption,
in D. Crowley and S. E. Reid (eds), Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in
the Eastern Bloc, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010, pp. 283308;
Bogdanova, Gazetnye zhaloby kak strategii zashchity potrebitelskikh interesov;
Bogdanova, Konstruirovanie problemy zashchity prav potrebitelei.
22 S. Zhuravlev and J. Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast: Istoriia protivostoianiia,
Istorik i khudozhnik, no. 4 (2006), pp. 10616; for the quotation, see p. 116.
23 L. H. Siegelbaum, Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile, Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2008, pp. 23847.
24 Zavisca, Consumer Inequalities, esp. chs 2 and 3. Zavisca focuses on the period after
1975 because, she explains, this year is commonly accepted as the peak of Soviet
economic growth rates, which slowed down considerably afterwards, marking the start
of economic stagnation.
25 V. Kozlov, Neizvestnyi SSSR: Protivostoianie naroda i vlasti 19531985 gg., Moscow:
Olma Press, 2006, pp. 41215 and 4289.
26 See Buchli, Khrushchev, Modernism, and the Fight against Petit-Bourgeois
Consciousness in the Soviet Home; Gerchuk, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the
Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR (19541964); S. E. Reid, Destalinization and Taste,
19531963, Journal of Design History, 10/2 (1997), pp. 177201.
27 Zavisca, Consumer Inequalities, ch. 2.
28 M. Matthews, Class and Society in Soviet Russia, London: Allen Lane, 1972, pp. 7993.
29 See, for instance, A. Zdravomyslov, Sotsialnaia sfera aktualnye problemy,
Kommunist, no. 16 (1981), pp. 5563.
30 See N. Naumova, Novoe otnoshenie k trudu, Kommunist, no. 7 (1965), pp. 6473;
A. Grzhegorzhevskii, Sotsialno-ekonomicheskie voprosy sozdaniia materialnotekhnicheskoi bazy kommunizma, Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 9 (1967), pp. 11517.
31 Zavisca, Consumer Inequalities, ch. 2.
32 G. Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union, 19171991, London: Fontana, 1992, pp. 376,
3923.
33 For cultured privacy under Stalin, see C. Kelly and V. Volkov, Directed Desires:
Kulturnost and Consumption, in C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (eds), Constructing
Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution: 18811940, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998, pp. 3034.
34 Zavisca, Consumer Inequalities, ch. 2.
35 Shlapentokh, Public and Private Life, pp. 16061; L. H. Siegelbaum, Introduction,
in Siegelbaum, Borders of Socialism, pp. 46.
36 For examples of proprietary mentality used as a derogatory term, see A. Mitskevich,
Kommunisticheskaia moral i sovetskoe pravo, Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no.
12 (1966), pp. 1319; N. Vetrov, Ideologicheskie diversii i preduprezhdenie
pravonarushenii sredi molodezhi, Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 8 (1979),
pp. 257; El. Bauman, Ispytanie vyigryshem, Iskusstvo kino, no. 1 (1969), pp. 4451.

214

37

38
39
40
41

42

43

44

Notes
For the constitutional norms, see R. Khalfina, Ekonomicheskaia sistema razvitogo
sotsializma (konstitutsionnye printsipy), Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 9
(1978), p. 5.
For example, S. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary
Times, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 6793; Fitzpatrick, Becoming
Cultured: Socialist Realism and the Representation of Culture and Taste, in Fitzpatrick
(ed.), The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia, Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1992, pp. 21637; Kelly and Volkov, Directed Desires;
C. Kelly, H. Pilkington, D. Shepherd, and V. Volkov, Introduction: Why Cultural
Studies?, in C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (eds), Russian Cultural Studies: An Introduction,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 117; C. Kelly, Refining Russia: Advice
Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001, esp. pp. 9 and 14; J. Gronow, Caviar with Champagne:
Common Luxury and the Ideals of Good Life in Stalins Russia, Oxford: Berg, 2003,
esp. pp. 24951; S. Boym, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, esp. pp. 348.
S. Lovell, The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and PostSoviet Eras, London: Palgrave, 2000, pp. 21 and 256.
J. Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and
Consumption, 19171953, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. 197247;
for the quotation, see p. 244.
Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen; Reid, Women in the Home, in M. Ili, S. E. Reid
and L. Attwood (eds), Women in the Khrushchev Era, New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004, pp. 14976.
See Buchli, Khrushchev, Modernism, and the Fight against Petit-Bourgeois
Consciousness in the Soviet Home; Gerchuk, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the
Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR (19541964); Harris, Moving to the Separate
Apartment; Kelly, Refining Russia; N. B. Lebina and A. N. Chistikov, Obyvatel i
reformy: Kartiny povsednevnoi zhizni gorozhan v gody NEPa i khrushchevskogo
desiatiletiia, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2003; S. E. Reid, The Khrushchev
Kitchen: Domesticating the Scientific-Technological Revolution, Journal of
Contemporary History, 40/2 (2005), pp. 289316.
J. Stitziel, Fashioning Socialism: Clothing, Politics and Consumer Culture in East
Germany, Oxford: Berg, 2005; various essays in Reid and Crowley, Style and
Socialism; L. H. Siegelbaum (ed.), The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern
Bloc, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.
See, for instance, L. Attwood, Housing in the Khrushchev Era, in Ili, Reid and
Attwood, Women in the Khrushchev Era, pp. 177202; Buchli, Khrushchev,
Modernism, and the Fight against Petit-Bourgeois Consciousness in the Soviet
Home; E. Gerasimova, Massovoe zhilishchnoe stroitelstvo i izmeneniia v povsednevnoi zhizni gorozhan, Teleskop: Nabliudeniia za povsednevnoi zhizniu peterburzhtsev,
no. 3 (1998), pp. 2331; Gerchuk, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Khrushchev
Thaw in the USSR (19541964); Steven E. Harris, I Know All the Secrets of my
Neighbours: The Quest for Privacy in the Era of the Separate Apartment, in
Siegelbaum, Borders of Socialism, pp. 17189; Harris, Moving to the Separate
Apartment, ch. 8; Reid, Khrushchev Modern; Reid, The Meaning of Home: The
Only Bit of the World You Can Have to Yourself, in Siegelbaum, Borders of
Socialism, pp. 14570.
J. McLellan, Even under Socialism We Dont Want to Do without Love: East
German Erotica, in Crowley and Reid, Pleasures in Socialism, pp. 21937. See also
a discussion of tensions between the socialist regimes push for modernity and their
desire for exceptionalism in Gyrgy Pteris Introduction to Pteri (ed.), Imagining
the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 2010, pp. 112.

Notes

215

45 Pteri, Introduction, pp. 812.

46 In this sense, the work follows the example of Kozlov, Neizvestnyi SSSR, pp. 43943;
Siegelbaum, Borders of Socialism; Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was No
More, esp. pp. 410. Siegelbaum noted that, instead of two separate spheres public
and private there existed a multiplicity of layers of the private, whose borders with
the public were anything but impenetrable or unchanging, see Introduction, in
Borders of Socialism, pp. 121.
47 Pravda, 16 August 1983, p. 1, cited in M. Sandle, Brezhnev and Developed Socialism:
The Ideology of Zastoi?, in Bacon and Sandle, Brezhnev Reconsidered, p. 173.
48 N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J. H. Plumb (eds), The Birth of a Consumer Society:
The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1982.
49 J. Appleby, Consumption in Early Modern Social Thought, in J. Brewer and R. Porter
(eds), Consumption and the World of Goods, London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 16277;
J. C. Riley, A Widening Market in Consumer Goods, in E. Cameron (ed.), Early Modern
Europe: An Oxford History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 25364.
50 See J. Benson, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 18801980, London:
Longman, 1994; G. Cross, Time and Money, London: Routledge, 1993; W. H. Fraser,
The Coming of the Mass Market, 18501914, London: Macmillan, 1981; Y. Gabriel
and T. Lang, The Unmanageable Consumer, London: Sage, 1995; V. de Grazia and
E. Furlough (eds), The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
51 J. Brewer, Ego in the Arcades, Times Literary Supplement, 22 October 2004, pp. 34.
52 See T. Edwards, Contradictions of Consumption: Concepts, Practices, and Politics in
Consumer Society, Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000; Gabriel and Lang, The
Unmanageable Consumer; Grazia and Furlough, The Sex of Things.
53 On the relationship between class and consumption, see P. Bourdieu, Distinction: A
Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R. Nice, London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1984; T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of
Institutions, London: Allen & Unwin, 1949.
54 I. R. C. Hirst, Consumer Choice and Collective Choice, in Hirst and W. D. Reekie
(eds), The Consumer Society, London: Tavistock, 1977, p. 51.
55 Grazia and Furlough, The Sex of Things, p. 4.
56 D. Slater, Consumer Culture and Modernity, Cambridge: Polity, 1997, p. 8.
57 C. Clunas, Modernity Global and Local: Consumption and the Rise of the West,
American Historical Review, 104/5 (1999), pp. 1497511; J. Brewer and R. Porter
(eds), Consumption and the World of Goods, London: Routledge, 1997.
58 Note a more recent contribution by John Brewer and Frank Trentmann which warns
against applying Western norms too liberally: see J. Brewer and F. Trentmann (eds),
Consuming Cultures, Global Perspectives: Historical Trajectories, Transnational
Exchanges, Oxford: Berg, 2006, esp. p. 5.
59 Just a handful of examples: M. Landsman, Dictatorship and Demand: The Politics
of Consumerism in East Germany, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005;
I. Merkel, Utopie und Bedrfnis: Die Geschichte der Konsumkultur in der DDR,
Cologne: Bhlau, 1999; Stitziel, Fashioning Socialism.
60 P. Bren, The Greengrocer and his TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968
Prague Spring, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.
61 On the socialist car, see Siegelbaum, The Socialist Car. For a region-wide study of
socialist fashion, see D. Bartlett, FashionEast: the Spectre That Haunted Socialism,
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010.
62 N. Condee, Hard Candy, Soft Currency: Paradoxes of Russian Consumer Culture,
paper presented at the lecture series Russia Hangs Out: Consumer Culture from the
Tsars to Putin, Cambridge, 7 October 2004. I am grateful to Professor Condee for
forwarding me the text of her paper following the presentation.

216

Notes

63 Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, p. 40.

64 See J. Kornai, Economics of Shortage, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1980.
65 On the Stalin period, see E. Osokina, Ierarkhiia poterbleniia: O zhizni liudei v
usloviiakh stalinskogo snabzheniia, 19281935, Moscow: Izd-vo MGOU, 1993.
66 For discussions of these concepts in reference to Western consumer cultures, see
Bourdieu, Distinction; Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class.
67 Matthews, Class and Society in Soviet Russia, p. 27.
68 Zhuravlev and Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast , p. 114.
69 See Article 25 of the federal law on Russian archival service (No. 125-FZ, dated
22 October 2004), and the previous law (No. 5341-I, dated 7 July 1993).
70 These are coded Oxf/Lev in the endnotes. They were conducted for a project
sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust under grant no. F/08736/A, Childhood in
Russia, 18901991: A Social and Cultural History (20036), as well as the Arts
and Humanities Research Council and the Humanities Division, University of
Oxford. The interviews are The University of Oxford. For further information
about the project, see www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/russian/childhood. See also Note
on Sources.
71 Grushin reports that, in 19667, Komsomolskaia pravda alone received on average
1,000 letters a day; see B. A. Grushin, Chetyre zhizni Rossii v zerkale oprosov obshchestvennogo mneniia: Ocherki massovogo soznaniia rossiian vremen Khrushcheva,
Brezhneva, Gorbacheva i Eltsina v 4-kh knigakh: Zhizn 2-aia. Epokha Brezhneva,
vol. 1, Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 2003, p. 178. My own archival research confirms
the epistolary activity of newspaper readers.
1 Between failure and success
1 W. Reich, The Land of Single File, Wilson Quarterly, 7/4 (1983), p. 51.
2 C. Thubron, Among the Russians, London: Heinemann, 1983, p. 29.
3 M. Sandle, Brezhnev and Developed Socialism: The Ideology of Zastoi?, in
E. Bacon and M. Sandle (eds), Brezhnev Reconsidered, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002,
p. 177; A. Titov, The 1961 Party Programme and the Fate of Khrushchevs Reforms,
in M. Ilic and J. Smith (eds), Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev,
London: Routledge, 2009, pp. 825.
4 A. Pyzhikov, Khrushchevskaia ottepel, 19531964, Moscow: Olma Press, 2002,
pp. 2745.
5 On the introduction of a new theoretical concept of developed socialism in Soviet
ideology, see T. L. Thompson, Ideology and Policy: The Political Uses of Doctrine in
the Soviet Union, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989. For critique of the concept of
developed socialism as a conservative ideology of stagnation, see Sandle, Brezhnev
and Developed Socialism, pp. 16587.
6 V. Kozlov, Neizvestnyi SSSR: Protivostoianie naroda i vlasti 19531985 gg., Moscow:
Olma Press, 2006, pp. 41213 and 4289.
7 V. Afanasev and D. Kiknadze, Stroitelstvo kommunizma i razvitie potrebnostei,
Kommunist, no. 3 (1965), pp. 3847.
8 RGANI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 809, l. 33.
9 Doklad tovarishcha L. I. Brezhneva na torzhestvennom zasedanii v Kremlevskom
Dvortse sezdov 6 noiabria 1964 g., Pravda, 7 November 1964, p. 2.
10 Bolshe dobrotnykh i raznoobraznykh tovarov!, Pravda, 15 November 1964, p. 1.
11 RGANI, f. 1, op. 5, d. 28, l. 65.
12 RGANI, f. 1, op. 5, d. 18, ll. 1416.
13 O. P. Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, Moscow: Znanie, 1983, p. 3.
14 Zapis soveshchaniia po voprosu podgotovki otchetnogo doklada TsK KPSS XXIII
sezdu KPSS, 27 noiabria 1965 goda, in S. Kudriashov (ed.), Generalnyi sekretar

Notes

15
16
17

18
19
20

21
22
23

24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37

217

L. I. Brezhnev, 19641982, Moscow: Arkhiv Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii,

2006, p. 53.
M. Ellman and V. Kontorovich (eds), The Disintegration of the Soviet Economic
System, London: Routledge, 1992, pp. 139.
Figures from the report cited in Titov, The 1961 Party Programme and the Fate of
Khrushchevs Reforms, pp. 1314.
Doklad Prezidiuma TsK KPSS na oktiabrskom plenume TsK KPSS (variant), ne
pozdnee 13 oktiabria 1964 g., in A. N. Artizov et al. (eds), Nikita Khrushchev, 1964:
Stenogrammy plenuma TsK KPSS i drugie dokumenty, vol. 1, Moscow: Materik, 2007,
pp. 1867.
Doklad chlena Prezidiuma TsK KPSS, Predsedatelia Soveta Ministrov SSSR tovarishcha A. N. Kosygina, Pravda, 28 September 1965, p. 2.
I. Karpenko, Kosyginskaia reforma, in T. I. Fetisov (ed.), Premer izvestnyi i neizvestnyi: Vospominaniia o A. N. Kosygine, Moscow: Respublika, 1997, pp. 524.
Mark Harrison points out that this was a misconception. His argument follows that
of the Hungarian economist Ferenc Jnossy, who argued that the slowing down of
growth rates at the time marked the end of the naturally dynamic postwar recovery,
but the socialist policy-makers mistook it to be a sign of slowing economic growth,
because they had misinterpreted the high postwar rates of growth as normal rather
than specifically as recovery rates. This misconception pushed the socialist leaders
into making mistakes. See M. Harrison, Economic Growth and Slowdown, in
E. Bacon and M. Sandle (eds), Brezhnev Reconsidered, Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2002, pp. 534.
See J. Kornai, Economics of Shortage, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1980.
Ellman and Kontorovich, The Disintegration of the Soviet Economic System, p. 10.
G. V. Serebrianskaia and A. M. Goreva, Ekonomicheskaia politika i razvitie promyshlennosti regiona, in A. A. Kulakov and A. N. Sakharov et al. (eds), Obshchestvo i
vlast: Rossiiskaia provintsiia, 19171980-e gody (po materialam nizhegorodskikh
arkhivov), vol. 5: 19651980, Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2008, p. 212.
See a commentary on storming in V. Popov and N. Shmelev, Velikii planovyi eksperiment, in T. A. Notkina (ed.), Pogruzhenie v triasinu: Anatomiia zastoia, Moscow:
Progress, 1991, p. 108.
G. A. Arbatov, Zatianuvsheesia vyzdorovlenie, 19531985 gg: Svidetelstvo sovremennika, Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1991, pp. 2489.
Karpenko, Kosyginskaia reforma, p. 11.
RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 558.
RGANI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 789, l. 14.
Karpenko, Kosyginskaia reforma, p. 7.
Bolshe dobrotnykh i raznoobraznykh tovarov!, p. 1.
Berite, chto daiut, Pravda, 12 November 1964, p. 3. The published letter was signed
by the deputy head of the sewing factory, I. Kormishin.
RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 400.
Ibid.
Ibid.
A. Struev, Torgovlia i proizvodstvo, Kommunist, no. 16 (November 1964), p. 41.
RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 1233.
Cited in V. Andriianov, Kosygin, Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2003, p. 193.
A. Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, 19171991, London: Penguin, 1992,
pp. 3824. See also Serebrianskaia and Goreva, Ekonomicheskaia politika i razvitie
promyshlennosti regiona, p. 215. The reforms cosmetic character is highlighted in
Karpenko, Kosyginskaia reforma, pp. 1516. The former head of Gosplan Nikolai
Baibakov also acknowledges many problems with the reform, although he says it
produced good immediate results; see N. K. Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, Moscow:

218

38
39

40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56

57
58
59
60
61
62

Notes
GazOil Press, 1998, pp. 1723. On bureaucratic confusion, see V. Naishul, Vysshaia i
posledniaia stadiia sotsilaizma, in Notkina, Pogruzhenie v triasinu, p. 31.
A. Vishnevskii, Serp i rubl: Konservativnaia modernizatsiia v SSSR, Moscow: OGI,
1998, p. 72.
See, for example, W. Tompson, The Soviet Union under Brezhnev, Harlow: Pearson/
Longman, 2003, pp. 679 ; J. R. Millar, The Little Deal: Brezhnevs Contribution to
Acquisitive Socialism, Slavic Review, 44/4 (1985), pp. 694706; R. Skidelsky, The
Road from Serfdom: The Economic and Political Consequences of the End of
Communism, New York: Viking Penguin, 1996; L. J. Cook, Brezhnevs Social
Contract and Gorbachevs Reforms, Soviet Studies, 44/1 (1992), pp. 3756; Nove, An
Economic History of the USSR, p. 397. R. Pikhoia, Moskva: Kreml, Vlast, vol. 2,
Moscow: Novyi khronograd, 2009, p. 17. On the arms race, see S. Kotkin, Armageddon
Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 19702000, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Tompson, The Soviet Union under Brezhnev, p. 66; Vishnevskii, Serp i rubl, p. 72.
Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, p. 171.
See Andriianov, Kosygin; various contributions in Fetisov, Premer izvestnyi i neizvestnyi; N. I. Ryzhkov, 10 let velikikh potriasenii, Moscow: Kniga, Prosveshchenie,
Miloserdie, 1995, p. 44.
Karpenko, Kosyginskaia reforma, pp. 810.
Ibid., pp. 524; Adriianov, Kosygin, p. 192; Serebrianskaia and Goreva, Ekonomicheskaia
politika i razvitie promyshlennosti regiona, pp. 21315; Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina,
pp. 17073.
Serebrianskaia and Goreva, Ekonomicheskaia politika i razvitie promyshlennosti
regiona, p. 213.
N. Egorychev, On shel svoim putem, in Fetisov, Premer izvestnyi i neizvestnyi, p. 32.
V. Zotov, Vziat vernyi kurs, Pravda, 1 October 1965, p. 3.
Doklad tovarishcha A. N. Kosygina, p. 2. See also Baibakov, Ot Stalina do
Eltsina, p. 171.
RGANI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 789, ll. 920.
Doklad tovarishcha A. N. Kosygina, p. 2.
Serebrianskaia and Goreva, Ekonomicheskaia politika i razvitie promyshlennosti
regiona, p. 213.
M. Bespalov, Nekhodovye izdeliia: Otkuda oni?, Pravda, 18 October 1964, p. 4.
Zotov, Vziat vernyi kurs; D. Zamkovskii, Torgovlia i shveinoe proizvodstvo,
Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 3 (1966), pp. 245.
Struev, Torgovlia i proizvodstvo, pp. 3944.
See Bespalov, Nekhodovye izdeliia; Struev, Torgovlia i proizvodstvo, p. 41.
Struev, Torgovlia i proizvodstvo, p. 39. In 1964, the State Committee for Trade was
compiling lists of consumer goods for which it would no longer allocate funds to trade
organizations, which meant that shops and wholesale firms were on their own in procuring the goods. They could, in theory, buy unrestricted quantities of those wares
directly from factories, while the latter were free to sell as much as they had.
RGANI, f. 1, op. 5, d. 28, l. 71. Also see Struev, Torgovlia i proizvodstvo, pp. 445.
A. Struev, Bolshe prav vyshe otvetstvennost, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 6 (1965), p. 7.
B. Naumenko, Na blago cheloveka, Pravda, 5 October 1965, p. 2.
V. Shutiak, V. Skakovskaia and D. Shumskii, Za modoi ugnatsia mozhno, Pravda,
18 October 1964, p. 4.
Naumenko, Na blago cheloveka.
Serebrianskaia and Goreva, Ekonomicheskaia politika i razvitie promyshlennosti
regiona, pp. 21415; Ryzhkov, 10 let velikikh potriasenii, pp. 445. Baibakov, who
headed Gosplan during all five-year periods from Khrushchev to Gorbachev, felt the
efforts of the reform were not entirely wasted: during the five years of the reform
the economy developed at a faster rate than in the five-year period before and all the
five-year periods that followed it: see Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, p. 173.

Notes

219

63 Tompson, The Soviet Union under Brezhnev, pp. 649; Baibakov, Ot Stalina do
Eltsina, pp. 1723.
64 V. Novikov, Kak tovarishchi, edinomyshlenniki, in Fetisov, Premer izvestnyi i neizvestnyi, p. 118.
65 V. Kontorovich, Lessons of the 1965 Soviet Economic Reform, EuropeAsia
Studies, 40/2 (1988), pp. 30816.
66 Harrison, Economic Growth and Slowdown, p. 58.
67 Ryzhkov, 10 let velikikh potriasenii, p. 44; Nove, An Economic History of the
USSR, p. 385.
68 RGANI, f. 1, op. 6, d. 18, l. 85.
69 Pyzhikov, Khrushchevskaia ottepel, p. 156.
70 Postanovlenie biuro Gorkovskogo obkoma KPSS i oblispolkoma Postanovlenie
TsK KPSS i Soveta Ministrov SSSR ot 22 aprelia 1974 g. O nekotorykh merakh po
sovershenstvovaniiu planirovaniia i ekonomicheskogo stimulirovaniia proizvodstva
tovarov legkoi promyshlennosti, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, p. 275. For
the 195863 figures, see Struev, Torgovlia i proizvodstvo, p. 41.
71 Postanovlenie biuro, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, p. 275.
72 Iz spravki otdela legkoi, pishchevoi promyshlennosti i torgovli Gorkovskogo
obkoma KPSS dlia podgotovki materiala k konferentsii na temu Zadachi po uskoreniiu nauchno-tekhnicheskogo progressa promyshlennogo proizvodstva, in
Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, p. 255.
73 A. A. Gumeniuk, Chelovek i reformy v SSSR v 19531985 gody (po materialam
Saratovskoi oblasti), Izvestiia Saratovskogo universiteta, 9/2 (2009), p. 96.
74 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 44, d. 3677; RGAE, f. 1562, op. 62, d. 2385.
75 Kazhdyi den chastitsa iubileinogo goda, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 2 (1967), p. 4.
76 See, for instance, NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 614, l. 18; NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 641.
77 Harrison, Economic Growth and Slowdown, p. 47. See also Gumeniuk, Chelovek i
reformy v SSSR v 19531985 gody, pp. 92102.
78 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 782, ll. 3, 248.
79 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 782, ll. 1214.
80 See, for instance, a survey of customers in Ukrainian shops in V. Fastovets,
Trebovaniia pokupatelei k assortimentu i kachestvu, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 7
(1970), pp. 489, which is discussed in Chapter 5. This trend can be found in Moscow
even in the late 1960s, but Moscow had traditionally been better supplied with consumer goods. See TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2301; TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2239.
81 RGANI, f. 1, op. 6, d. 18, l. 93. See also the Central Committees Report to the XXIV
Congress of the CPSU, 30 March 1971, in L. I. Brezhnev, Ob osnovnykh voprosakh
ekonomicheskoi politiki KPSS na sovremennom etape, rechi i doklady, vol. 2,
Moscow: Politizdat, 1979, pp. 267.
82 Zapis soveshchaniia po voprosu podgotovki otchetnogo doklada TsK KPSS XXIV
sezdu KPSS, 5 fevralia 1971 goda. Zamechaniia po dokladu, in Kudriashov,
Generalnyi sekretar L. I. Brezhnev, p. 99.
83 RGANI, f. 1, op. 6, d. 156, ll. 1048.
84 Zapis soveshchaniia ... XXIV sezdu KPSS, p. 100.
85 Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, p. 174.
86 See n. 169 in Kudriashov, Generalnyi sekretar L. I. Brezhnev, p. 215.
87 Zapiska A. Aleksandrova L. Brezhnevu, 22 dekabria 1970 goda, in Kudriashov,
Generalnyi sekretar L. I. Brezhnev, pp. 934.
88 RGANI, f. 1, op. 6, d. 18, l. 93.
89 Data by G. Khanin, cited in Tompson, The Soviet Union under Brezhnev, p. 84.
90 Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, p. 385; Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina,
pp. 175, 180.
91 R. Nazarov, Osnovnye zakonomernosti i tendentsii razvitiia sprosa i potrebleniia,
Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 12 (1969), p. 13.

220

Notes

92 M. Dabrinian, Tovarooborot: Strukturnye sdvigi, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 8 (1971),

p. 4.
93 Serebrianskaia and Goreva, Ekonomicheskaia politika i razvitie promyshlennosti
regiona, p. 215.
94 Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, p. 388.
95 TsAGM, f. 297, op. 1, d. 965, l. 7. For Latvia, see B. P. Stalmakov, Ispolzovanie
materialov izucheniia sprosa v kommercheskoi rabote bazy, in Opyt izucheniia
sprosa, Riga: Zvaigzne, 1973, pp. 634.
96 B. Kosharovskii, Ot obraztsa do serii, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 5 (1973), pp. 89;
S. Ia. Sirotenko, Osobennosti razvitiia torgovli elektrobytovymi mashinami v usloviiakh sovershenstvovaniia bytovogo obsluzhivaniia naseleniia, Candidate of Economic
Sciences dissertation (avtoreferat),
t Kiev Institute for Trade and Economy, 1972, p. 7.
97 N. Lokhvitskaia, Mebel: Proizvodstvo i prodazha, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 6
(1973), p. 47.
98 A. Struev, Uspeshno vypolnit zadachi reshaiushchego goda piatiletki, Sovetskaia
torgovlia, no. 3 (1973), p. 3.
99 The volume of imported consumer goods was as follows: in 1970: 14.2 billion roubles;
in 1975: 22.9 billion; in 1980: 33.6 billion; in 1985: 48.5 billion. See Vishnevskii, Serp
i rubl, p. 60.
100 M. V. Slavkina, Velikie pobedy i upushchennye vozmozhnosti: Vliianie neftegazovogo
kompleksa na sotsialno-ekonomicheskoe razvitie SSSR v 19451991 gg., Moscow:
Neft i Gaz, 2007, pp. 2724. Slavkina bases her analysis on figures from Vneshniaia
torgovlia SSSR.
101 Ibid.
102 Pikhoia, Moskva: Kreml, Vlast, p. 125.
103 See, for instance, Slavkina, Velikie pobedy i upushchennye vozmozhnosti; Kotkin,
Armaggedon Averted.
104 Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, p. 180.
105 Arbatov, Zatianuvsheesia vyzdorovlenie, pp. 16871.
106 Zapis soveshchaniia po voprosu podgotovki doklada L. Brezhneva na aprelskom
(1973 g.) Plenume TsK KPSS, 30 marta 1973 goda, in Kudriashov, Generalnyi sekk
retar L. I. Brezhnev, p. 130.
107 Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, pp. 1814; Iu. A. Khinshtein, Skazka o poteriannom
vremeni: Pochemu Brezhnev ne smog stat Putinym, Moscow: OLMA Mega Grupp,
2011, pp. 2323.
108 Pikhoia, Moskva: Kreml, Vlast, p. 127.
109 Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, p. 391; Vishnevskii, Serp i rubl, pp. 6061.
110 Slavkina, Velikie pobedy i upushchennye vozmozhnosti, pp. 27881; Baibakov, Ot Stalina
do Eltsina, p. 185. In reference to the entire economy, see Kotkin, Armaggedon Averted.
111 A. Iarovikov and G. Mikhailova, Shveinye izdeliia: Spros i predlozhenie, Sovetskaia
torgovlia, no. 7 (1980), p. 46.
112 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 4241.
113 M. V. Slavkina, Triumf i tragediia: Razvitie neftegazovogo kompleksa SSSR v 1960
1980-e gody, Moscow: Nauka, 2002, pp. 15760. Baibakov argues in his memoirs that
oil revenues were spent on importing new equipment. But most of his examples come
from the mid-1980s, when the economic situation was critical and the political situation began to change. See Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, pp. 2224.
114 Zapis soveshchaniia ... na aprelskom (1973 g.) Plenume TsK KPSS, p. 133.
115 G. Gebgardt-Fedorov, Zapiski syna vraga naroda: Nemnogo o rabote, zhizni, ekonomike, politike: Vzgliad inzhenera i kommersanta, Moscow: Aslan, 1996, p. 141.
116 S. Grigorev, Sistematicheski uluchshat kachestvo neprodovolstvennykh izdelii,
Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 7 (1969), p. 16; Ia. Ganshtak, Novoe polozhenie o postavkakh
i praktika, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 3 (1970), p. 13.

Notes

221

117 See Postanovlenie biuro, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, pp. 2757; V. Voronin,
Pravilno planirovat tovarnye resursy, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 4 (1979), pp. 257.
118 See references to this decree in Postanovlenie biuro Gorkovskogo obkoma KPSS
Postanovlenie TsK KPSS O rabote Ministerstva legkoi promyshlennosti SSSR
po sovershenstvovaniiu upravleniia otrasliu, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i
vlast, pp. 2813.
119 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2482.
120 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 3523.
121 RGAE, f. 467, op. 1, d. 588, ll. 22635.
122 Postanovlenie biuro Gorkovskogo obkoma KPSS Postanovlenie TsK KPSS O
rabote Ministerstva legkoi promyshlennosti SSSR po sovershenstvovaniiu upravleniia
otrasliu, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, p. 282.
123 T. Kostygova, Dialektika mody, Rabotnitsa, no. 11 (1976), pp. 2930.
124 Orientir udovletvorenie sprosa, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 1 (1978), p. 4.
125 GARF, f. 9527, op. 1, d. 3685.
126 Gumeniuk, Chelovek i reformy v SSSR v 19531985 gody, p. 98.
127 GARF, f. 8424, op. 3, d. 1912, ll. 129.
128 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 641.
129 GARF, f. 9527, op. 1, d. 3685, l. 51. For instance, the Belorussian ministry of trade
received 12 such letters in 1971 asking for help in obtaining furniture; they helped five
of the respondents and passed six of the remaining letters to the local trade agencies.
130 To be precise, 60 per cent of the inspected factories. See Ia. Orlov, Promyshlennotorgovyi mekhanizm dolzhen rabotat slazhenno, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 1 (1975), p. 3.
131 For instance, GARF, f. 9527, op. 1, d. 3685, ll. 77, 125.
132 N. Tregubov, Gorizonty stolichnoi torgovli, Nauka i zhizn, no. 7 (1972), cited on
Muzei torgovli, http://www.mintorgmuseum.ru/trade/literature/press/ (accessed 26
September 2011).
133 Gumeniuk, Chelovek i reformy v SSSR v 19531985 gody, p. 96.
134 Tregubov, Gorizonty stolichnoi torgovli.
135 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2377.
136 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2241.
137 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 145.
138 RGANI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 808, l. 9.
139 Usually, prices were lowered for those goods that were difficult to shift. Conversely, prices
went up for luxuries such as diamonds, furs and gold. TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 3189.
140 Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, p. 21. This, of course, must be taken with a large
grain of salt.
141 Orlov, Promyshlennotorgovyi mekhanizm dolzhen rabotat slazhenno, p. 3.
142 Zapiska V. Golikova L. Brezhnevu, 10 dekabria 1974 goda, in Kudriashov,
Generalnyi sekretar L. I. Brezhnev, p. 177.
143 Iz postanovleniia biuro Gorkovskogo obkoma KPSS i oblispolkoma Postanovlenie
TsK KPSS i Soveta Ministrov SSSR ot 14 iunia 1971 g. O merakh po uluchsheniiu
praktiki ustanovleniia i primeneniia roznichnykh tsen na tovary narodnogo potrebleniia i tarifov na uslugi, okazyvaemye naseleniiu, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i
vlast, p. 337.
144 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 250, l. 5.
145 Iz postanovleniia biuro, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, pp. 33740. All pricing in the USSR was done artificially and reflected political priorities rather than the
market value of a commodity.
146 Zapiska V. Golikova L. Brezhnevu, 10 dekabria 1974 goda, pp. 1747.
147 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 924, ll. 32, 80.
148 This was noted in B. Solomonov, Potreblenie bytovykh tovarov: Kachestvennye
sdvigi, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 5 (1976), p. 15.

222

Notes

149 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 609, l. 43.

150 I. Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme: Otchet sovetskogo obyvatelia, Moscow:
Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009, pp. 1745.
151 N. Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei: Sovetskaia povsednevnost: Kontury, simvoly,
znaki, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2006, p. 125.
152 RGANI, f. 5, op. 76, d. 204, ll. 58.
2 Redefining the norms of socialist consumption
1 J. Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and
Consumption, 19171953, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. 2445.
2 C. Kelly and V. Volkov, Directed Desires: Kulturnost and Consumption, in C. Kelly
and D. Shepherd (eds), Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution:
18811940, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 295300.
3 L. H. Siegelbaum, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 19351941,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 1869 and 21046; J. Hessler,
Cultured Trade: The Stalinist Turn towards Consumerism, in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.),
Stalinism: New Directions, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 1989; J. Gronow, Caviar
with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of Good Life in Stalins Russia,
Oxford: Berg, 2003.
4 Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade, esp. pp. 12, 198215; Hessler, Cultured
Trade, pp. 182209.
5 V. Dunham, In Stalins Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976.
6 Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade, pp. 21214.
7 M. Sandle, Brezhnev and Developed Socialism: The Ideology of Zastoi?, in E. Bacon
and M. Sandle (eds), Brezhnev Reconsidered, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002, pp. 1767.
8 S. E. Reid, Khrushchev Modern: Agency and Modernization in the Soviet Home,
Cahiers du Monde Russe, 47/12 (2006), pp. 23032.
9 E. Bogdanova, Gazetnye zhaloby kak strategii zashchity potrebitelskikh interesov:
Pozdnesovetskii period, Teleskop: Nabliudeniia za povsednevnoi zhizniu peterburr
zhtsev, no. 6 (2002), p. 44; Reid, Khrushchev Modern, pp. 24950.
10 For discussions of the post-Stalin discourses on taste and culturedness, see C. Kelly,
Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to
Yeltsin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 31226; V. Buchli, Khrushchev,
Modernism, and the Fight against Petit-Bourgeois Consciousness in the Soviet
Home, Journal of Design History, 10/2 (1997), pp. 16176; Iu. Gerchuk, The
Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR (19541964), in
S. E. Reid and D. Crowley (eds), Style and Socialism: Modernity and Material Culture
in Post-War Eastern Europe, Oxford: Berg, 2000, pp. 8199; O. Gurova, Prostota i
chuvstvo mery: Nizhnee bele i ideologiia mody v Sovetskoi Rossii v 195060-e
gody, Gendernye issledovaniia, no. 10 (2004); S. E. Harris, Moving to the Separate
Apartment: Building, Distributing, Furnishing, and Living in Urban Housing in Soviet
Russia, 1950s1960s, PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 2003, ch. 8; S. E. Reid,
Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender and the De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the
Soviet Union under Khrushchev, Slavic Review, 61/2 (2002), pp. 21152;
O. Vainshtein, Female Fashion, Soviet Style: Bodies of Ideology, in H. Goscilo and
B. Holmgren (eds), RussiaWomenCulture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1996, pp. 6493.
11 See the works in the note above. Historians disagree on the extent to which these
efforts were successful, but they do not dispute the fact that they were made.
12 Buchli, Khrushchev, Modernism, and the Fight against Petit-Bourgeois Consciousness
in the Soviet Home, p. 162.

Notes

223

13 Reid, Khrushchev Modern, p. 229; Harris, Moving to the Separate Apartment, ch. 8;
L. Zakharova, Sovetskaia moda 19501960-kh godov: Politika, ekonomika, povsednevnost, Teoriia mody: Odezhda, telo, kultura, no. 3 (2007), pp. 5460.
14 Bogdanova, Gazetnye zhaloby kak strategii zashchity potrebitelskikh interesov.
15 J. Zavisca, Consumer Inequalities and Regime Legitimacy in Late Soviet and PostSoviet Russia, PhD thesis, University of California at Berkeley, 2004, ch. 2.
16 V. Afanasev and D. Kiknadze, Stroitelstvo kommunizma i razvitie potrebnostei,
Kommunist, no. 3 (1965), p. 43.
17 A. Levin, Problemy upravleniia sprosom naseleniia, Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 6 (1973),
pp. 712.
18 Afanasev and Kiknadze, Stroitelstvo kommunizma i razvitie potrebnostei, pp. 445.
See also G. Diligenskii, Potrebnosti lichnosti i obshchestvo, Kommunist, no. 6 (1975),
p. 71. On rational needs under Khrushchev, see Reid, Khrushchev Modern, pp. 2478.
19 See M. Mchedov, Sotsialnyi progress v SSSR, Kommunist, no. 1 (1973), pp. 5365;
A. Zdravomyslov, Sotsialnaia sfera aktualnye problemy, Kommunist, no. 16
(1981), pp. 5563; Afanasev and Kiknadze, Stroitelstvo kommunizma i razvitie
potrebnostei, pp. 43, 47; Levin, Problemy upravleniia sprosom naseleniia;
Diligenskii, Potrebnosti lichnosti i obshchestvo, pp. 7182.
20 Afanasev and Kiknadze, Stroitelstvo kommunizma i razvitie potrebnostei, p. 45.
21 Diligenskii, Potrebnosti lichnosti i obshchestvo, p. 74.
22 Another term, goods for mass production (tovary massovogo proizvodstva), emphasized production rather than consumption.
23 A. Kharchev, Nekotorye problemy kommunisticheskogo vospitaniia trudiashchikhsia, Kommunist, no. 12 (1980), pp. 6170; Levin, Problemy upravleniia sprosom
naseleniia; Zdravomyslov, Sotsialnaia sfera.
24 Zdravomyslov, Sotsialnaia sfera, p. 55; Kharchev, Nekotorye problemy kommunisticheskogo vospitaniia trudiashchikhsia, p. 66.
25 Kharchev, Nekotorye problemy kommunisticheskogo vospitaniia trudiashchikhsia,
p. 67.
26 Zdravomyslov, Sotsialnaia sfera, p. 62.
27 N. Fedorova, Vy kupili avtomobil, Pravda, 21 May 1968, p. 3.
28 These examples come from Moskovskaia pravda and Rabotnitsa between 1971 and
1984.
29 I. Artemov, Tovary dlia naroda, Moskovskaia pravda, 28 February 1971, p. 2.
30 A. Struev, Novyi etap v razvitii torgovli, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 5 (1971), p. 2.
31 See the directives passed at the XXIII CPSU Congress, RGANI, f. 1, op. 6, d. 156, l. 8.
32 R. Khalfina, Ekonomicheskaia sistema razvitogo sotsializma (konstitutsionnye printsipy), Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 9 (1978), p. 5.
33 E. Bogdanova, Konstruirovanie problemy zashchity prav potrebitelei: Retrospektivnyi
analiz, Rubezh, no. 18 (2003), p. 165.
34 Bogdanova records the peak of consumer complaints in newspapers being from 1965
to 1970: see Bogdanova, Gazetnye zhaloby kak strategii zashchity potrebitelskikh
interesov, p. 45.
35 Komu nuzhen shliapnyi val? Pravda, 29 May 1968, p. 3.
36 N. Mirotvortsev, Industriia cheloveku, Pravda, 7 January 1968, p. 2.
37 K. Kettering, Even More Cosy and Comfortable: Stalinism and the Soviet Domestic
Interior, 19281938, Journal of Design History, 10/2 (1997), p. 127.
38 See, for instance, on domestic furniture and dcor: Gerchuk, The Aesthetics of
Everyday, esp. pp. 8991.
39 In the socialist vision of a good life under Khrushchev, luxury was mainly what
Djurdja Bartlett called (in reference to fashion) representational luxury i.e., sumptuous goods for display but not available to everyday consumers. Luxury was also
available to elite consumers. See D. Bartlett, FashionEast: The Spectre That Haunted

224

40
41
42
43

44
45
46
47
48
49
50

51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72

Notes
Socialism, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010; also L. Zakharova, Dior in Moscow: A
Taste for Luxury in Soviet Fashion under Khrushchev, in D. Crowley and S. E. Reid
(eds), Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc, Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 2010, pp. 94119, and esp. pp. 10104.
N. B. Lebina and A. N. Chistikov, Obyvatel i reformy: Kartiny povsednevnoi zhizni
gorozhan v gody NEPa i khrushchevskogo desiatiletiia, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin,
2003, pp. 20714; Vainshtein, Female Fashion; Gurova, Prostota i chuvstvo mery.
Mirotvortsev, Industriia cheloveku.
T. Kostygova, Zatovarennyi zhaket, Rabotnitsa, no. 5 (1973), pp. 3031.
O. Gurova, Ot bytovogo asketizma k kultu veshchei: Ideologiia potrebleniia v sovetskom obshchestve, in O. G. Echevskaia, O. Gurova, O. Veis, O. Deikhina and Iu.
Zakharova, Liudi i veshchi v sovetskoi i postsovetskoi kulture, Novosibirsk: NGU,
2005, pp. 621.
N. Klepikov, Psikhologiia torgovli, Pravda, 24 January 1968, p. 2.
L. Orlova, Ravniatsia na spros, Rabotnitsa, no. 5 (1975), p. 13.
Iu. Gryzanov, Piatiletka, god piatyi, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 1 (1980), p. 2.
Torgovlia vazhnoe zveno ekonomicheskoi politiki partii, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no.
4 (1981), pp. 45.
The Blonde around the Corner ((Blondinka za uglom, Bortko, 1983).
E. Losoto, Chelovek sredi veshchei, Rabotnitsa, no. 10 (1981), p. 19.
V. Prozorovskii, Ne simptom li bolezni?, Leningradskaia pravda, 11 January 1983,
p. 2; O. Tveritina, Bekkerovskii roial, Moskovskaia pravda, 3 June 1982, p. 3; V.
Pertsova, Serdtse ne kamen, Rabotnitsa, no. 5 (1973), p. 18; V. Shirov, Ochered,
Literaturnaia gazeta, 3 September 1980, p. 13.
A. Berezina, Pobeg ot sebia, Moskovskaia pravda, 21 August 1983, p. 3; L. Ostrovskii,
Prestizhnyi suprug, Leningradskaia pravda, 1 April 1983, p. 2; N. Fedorova,
Chervotochina, Rabotnitsa, no. 6 (1978), p. 23.
Ia. Panovko, O liubvi i o dengakh, Leningradskaia pravda, 3 December 1985, p. 2.
V. Somov, Alchnost, Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 1 (1978), pp. 734.
G. Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia: From Soviet Planned
Economy to Privatisation, trans. R. Leverdier, London: Hurst, 2011, esp. pp. 6061.
N. Zvonareva and M. Tikhonov, S tseliu nazhivy, Moskovskaia pravda, 3 April
1975, p. 2.
Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 7 (1970), p. 83.
Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia, pp. 6799.
L. Velichanskii, Poka kolokolchik zvenit , Ogonek, no. 1 (January 1965), pp. 45.
L. Pochivalov, Za bortom, Ogonek, no. 3 (January 1965), pp. 234.
T. Aleksandrova, Podkhod k dokhodu, Rabotnitsa, no. 4 (1972), p. 22.
M. Potashnik, V plenu veshchei, Moskovskaia pravda, 4 January 1970, p. 2.
RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 400s, ll. 18; RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 542s ll.119 and
3546; RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 807s, ll. 5888.
RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 976s, ll. 110.
RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 976s, l. 6.
RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 1082s, ll. 115.
Molodoe pokolenie Strany Sovetov, Moskovskaia pravda, 11 November 1983, p. 1.
M. Muravev, Firmennye dzhinsy, Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 10 (1977),
pp. 789.
N. Vetrov, Ideologicheskie diversii i preduprezhdenie pravonarushenii sredi molodezhi, Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 8 (1979), pp. 257.
V. Gribachev, Po sluchaiu: Po kakomu?, Rabotnitsa, no. 6 (1984), pp. 2930.
A. Balan, Molodezhnaia moda iavlenie sotsialnoe, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 10
(1984), p. 34.
I. Trushina, Deti i dengi, Rabotnitsa, no. 7 (1977), pp. 267.
Losoto, Chelovek sredi veshchei, p. 19.

Notes

225

73 Zh. Manilova, Tormoz na sovesti, Leningradskaia pravda, 1 March 1983, p. 2.

74 Dunham, In Stalins Time, pp. 1119 and 2438.
75 K. Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2000, pp. 2369; G. Hosking, Beyond Socialist Realism: Soviet Fiction since Ivan
Denisovich, London: Elek/Granada, 1980, esp. pp. 2028; N. N. Shneidman, Soviet
Literature in the 1970s: Artistic Diversity and Ideological Conformity, Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1979, esp. pp. 331.
76 Hosking, Beyond Socialist Realism, p. ix.
77 For instance, the works of Iurii Trifonov, the master of the implicit, became popular
and important because they spoke to, and for, millions of his countrymen: see J. Woll,
Invented Truth: Soviet Reality and the Literary Imagination of Iurii Trifonov, Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1991, pp. 1213.
78 Shneidman, Soviet Literature in the 1970s, p. 10.
79 Clark, The Soviet Novel, p. 238.
80 Shneidman, Soviet Literature in the 1970s, p. 25.
81 N. Ivanova, Vsia meloch zhizni?, Literaturnaia gazeta, 13 August 1980, p. 4.
82 D. Lowe, Russian Writing since 1953: A Critical Survey, New York: Ungar, 1987,
pp. 1034; Shneidman, Soviet Literature in the 1970s, p. 25.
83 R. Stites, Soviet Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 150.
84 Woll, Invented Truth, p. 103.
85 Shneidman, Soviet Literature in the 1970s, p. 28.
86 Ibid., p. 104.
87 Ibid., p. 28.
88 V. Rasputin, Proshchanie s Materoi, in Chetyre Povesti, Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1982.
For a more detailed discussion of this work, see Chapter 6.
89 A. Kurchatkin, Schaste Veniamina L., Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2002, p. 26. The story
Sverchki was written in 1973. Here and elsewhere the translation is mine, unless
stated otherwise.
90 D. Brown, The Last Years of Soviet Russian Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993, p. 20.
91 Woll, Invented Truth, pp. 1214; Shneidman, Soviet Literature in the 1970s, pp. 88, 100.
92 Hosking, Beyond Socialist Realism, pp. 18081.
93 Woll, Invented Truth, pp. 1027.
94 Hosking, Beyond Socialist Realism, p. 181.
95 Lowe, Russian Writing since 1953, p. 100.
96 For a historical analysis of old and new intelligentsia, see S. Tchouikina, The Old
and New Intelligentsia and the Soviet State, in T. Vihavainen (ed.), The Soviet
Union a Popular State? Studies on Popular Opinion in the USSR, St Petersburg:
Evropeiskii dom, 2003, pp. 88113; Tchouikina, Dvorianskaia pamiat: Byvshie v
sovetskom gorode (Leningrad, 192030-e gody), St Petersburg: Izd-vo Evropeiskogo
universiteta v Sankt-Peterburge, 2006, pp. 10227.
97 See this point also in Woll, Invented Truth, p. 105.
98 This and the other letters cited in the paragraph come from the Novyi mirs editorial
office collection; see RGALI, f. 1702, op. 10, d. 646, ll. 19. Unfortunately, I did not
find any responses to Trifonovs other works in the archive.
99 Consider, for instance, his most famous work, The House on the Embankmentt (Dom
na naberezhnoi, 1976).
100 I. Volskaia, Zarisovki s natury, Moscow: TOO Nerei, 1995, pp. 78.
101 Iu. Bondarev, Igra, Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1985, pp. 23031.
102 A. Maisiuk, V shume gorodskom, Oktiabr, no. 12 (1980), p. 53.
103 On the intelligentsia and philistinism, see, for instance, T. Vihavainen, The Inner
Adversary: The Struggle against Philistinism as the Moral Mission of the Russian
Intelligentsia, Washington: New Academia, 2006, pp. 1821, 3069.

226

Notes

104 Volskaia, Zarisovki s natury, p. 7.

105 Iu. Dodolev, Prosto zhizn, Iunost, no. 12 (1981). The expression the swamp of
philistinism (meshchanskoe boloto) is borrowed from the film Moscow Does Not
Believe in Tears (Moskva
(
slezam ne verit, Menshov, 1979).
106 V. Aksenov, Zatovarennaia bochkotara, Iunost, no. 3 (1968), p. 40. The translation
is mine.
107 See N. Kozhevnikova, Elena prekrasnaia, Novyi mir, no. 9 (1982), esp. pp. 43, 56.
108 TsGALISPb, f. 169, op. 1, d. 847.
109 RGANI, f. 1, op. 6, d. 18, l. 94.
110 Film-makers sometimes drew on fiction for such plots, adapting byt prose as screenplays, as, for instance, with Irina Velembovskaias A Sweet Woman (Sladkaia zhenshchina), the story of an attractive woman losing out on personal happiness because of
her consumerism, which was published in 1973 and made into a film in 1976.
111 For the years 1972 to 1977, see M. Aleksandrov, Moguchee sredstvo vospitaniia ,
Iskusstvo kino, no. 8 (1979), p. 104; on transition from the big screen to television, see
M. Kosinova, Parametry krizisa organizatsionno-ekonomicheskoi sistemy sovetskogo
kinematografa, in A. Shemiakin and Iu. Mikheeva (eds), Posle ottepeli: Kinematograf
1970-kh, Moscow: NII Kinoiskusstva, 2009, pp. 545.
112 J. Woll, Real Images: Soviet Cinema and the Thaw, London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
113 P. Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society: From the Revolution to the Death of Stalin,
London: I. B. Tauris, 2001, pp. 6061.
114 On the relationship between high moral standing and the artistic intelligentsias
messianic role with reference to film-makers, see G. Faraday, Revolt of the
Filmmakers: The Struggle for the Artistic Autonomy and the Fall of the Soviet Film
Industry, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, esp. pp.
2634, 92.
115 For discussion of this propaganda dilemma, see V. I. Fomin, Kino i vlast: Sovetskoe
kino, 19651985 gody, Moscow: Materik, 1996, esp. pp. 12, 267, and 17071; V.
Golovskoi, Mezhdu ottepeliu i glasnostiu: Kinematograf 70-kh, Moscow: Materik,
2004, pp. 412.
116 Golovskoi, Mezhdu ottepeliu i glasnostiu, pp. 73, 86.
117 See, for instance, Fomin, Kino i vlast; Faraday, Revolt of the Filmmakers, pp. 634;
J. Givens, Vasilii Shukshin and the Audience of Millions: Kalina krasnaia and the
Power of Popular Cinema, Russian Review, 58/2 (1999), pp. 26885; A. Tarkovskii,
Time within Time: The Diaries 19701986, trans. K. Hunter-Blair, London: Faber &
Faber, 1994, p. 55; D. MacFadyen, The Sad Comedy of Eldar Riazanov: An
Introduction to Russias Most Popular Filmmaker, London: McGillQueens
University Press, 2003, pp. 6970. Riazanov openly referred to assistance from a
senior writer in his speech to the Union of Film Workers in 1980; see V. Golovskoy,
Behind the Soviet Screen: The Motion Picture Industry in the USSR, 19721982, trans.
Steven Hill, Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1986, p. 118.
118 Faraday, Revolt of the Filmmakers, p. 104; on Eldar Riazanov specifically, see
MacFadyen, The Sad Comedy of Eldar Riazanov, p. 69.
119 E. Riazanov, Nepodvedennye itogi, Moscow: Vagrius, 1995, p. 289.
120 Quoted in Golovskoy, Behind the Soviet Screen, p. 116.
121 See M. Segida and S. Zemlianukhin, Domashniaia sinemateka: Otechestvennoe kino,
19181996, Moscow: Dubl-D, 1996. I am very grateful to Birgit Beumers for kindly
providing me with the information on ratings and attendance statistics for most of the
films mentioned here (and directing me to this source).
122 R. Iurenev, Zigzagi udachi i dominanta uspekha, Sovetskaia kultura, 9 January
1968, p. 3.
123 V. Pogostina, Beregis avtomobilia, Izvestiia, 23 June 1966, p. 4.
124 Iurenev, Zigzagi udachi i dominanta uspekha, p. 3.
125 N. Zorkaia, Svoi film, Iskusstvo kino, no. 9 (1966), pp. 1421.

Notes
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141

142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158

227

Ibid., p. 18.
El. Bauman, Ispytanie vyigryshem, Iskusstvo kino, no. 1 (1969), pp. 4451.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 1277, ll. 516.
Bauman, Ispytanie vyigryshem, pp. 467.
Iurenev, Zigzagi udachi i dominanta uspekha, p. 3.
Iu. Smeiakov, Liudi i dengi, Literaturnaia gazeta, 30 October 1968, p. 8.
T. Mamaladze, Pustaia dusha, Iskusstvo kino, no. 8 (1977), p. 26.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 3515, ll.45, 7, 31.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 3515, ll. 8 and 28.
Mimino received the Golden Prize at the X International Film Festival in Moscow in
1977; see A. Zorkin, Mimino po-gruzinski Sokol, in Ekran 7677, Moscow:
Iskusstvo, 1978, pp. 2089.
See, for instance, Golovskoi, Mezhdu ottepeliu i glasnostiu, pp. 767, 1538.
Stites, Soviet Popular Culture, p. 173.
V. Tiazhelnikova, Moskva slezam ne verit: Zhiznennye strategii sovetskikh zhenshchin v 19501970-e gg., in S.S. Sekirinskii (ed.), Istoriia strany: Istoriia kino,
Moscow: Znak, 2004, p. 363.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 7157, ll. 151.
See Chapter 3 on consumption as a youth problem.
F. T. Ermash, O khode vypolneniia reshenii XXV sezda KPSS po usileniiu roli kino
v ideinom, nravstvennom i esteticheskom vospitanii trudiashchikhsia, po povysheniiu
ideino-khudozhestvenogo urovnia vypuskaemykh kinofilmov i uluchsheniiu kinoobsluzhivaniia naseleniia, Iskusstvo kino, no. 7 (1978), p. 12.
N. Sizov, Glubzhe osoznavat smysl epokhi, Iskusstvo kino, no. 8 (1979), pp. 4850.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 4410, l. 1a.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 3515, l. 31.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 7157, ll. 445.
Golovskoi, Mezhdu ottepeliu i glasnostiu, p. 222.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 7157, ll. 151. See also V. Golovskoy, Art and Propaganda
in the Soviet Union, 19805, in A. Lawton (ed.), The Red Screen: Politics, Society,
Art in Soviet Cinema, London: Routledge, pp. 26474.
Aleksandrov, Moguchee sredstvo vospitaniia , pp. 1034.
For these films, see Segida and Zemlianukhin, Domashniaia sinemateka.
L. Pustynskaia, Khronika, in Shemiakin and Mikheeva, Posle ottepeli, p. 563.
Segida and Zemlianukhin, Domashniaia sinemateka.
L. Attwood, Women, Cinema and Society, in Attwood (ed.), Red Women on the
Silver Screen: Soviet Women and Cinema from the Beginning to the End of the
Communist Era, London: Pandora, 1993, p. 96.
Riazanov, Nepodvedennye itogi, p. 10.
Riazanov cited in Golovskoy, Behind the Soviet Screen, p. 119.
Segida and Zemlianukhin, Domashniaia sinemateka.
RGALI, f. 2944, op. 4, d. 4410, l. 18.
Iskusstvo prinadlezhit narodu: Kruglyi stol Iskusstva kino na Izhorskom zavode,
Iskusstvo kino, no. 11 (1977), p. 84.
V. Ishimov, Pochemu tak vzvolnovany zriteli?, Iskusstvo kino, no. 9 (1980),
pp. 1537.

3 Shopping as a way of life

1 M. Zhvanetskii, Defitsit, http://jvanetsky.ru/data/text/t7/defizit/ (accessed 24
September 2011).
2 S. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 425.
3 N. K. Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Eltsina, Moscow: GazOil Press, 1998, pp. 1757.

228

Notes

4 On shortages of meat and salami in the 1970s, see L. Parfenov, Namedni: Nasha Era,
19711980, Moscow: KoLibri, 2010, pp. 46, 93.
5 This is based on a score of letters to the authorities found in the archives.
6 A. A. Gumeniuk, Chelovek i reformy v SSSR v 19531985 gody (po materialam
Saratovskoi oblasti), Izvestiia Saratovskogo universiteta, vol. 9, no. 2, 2009, p. 97.
7 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 63, d. 2631; Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let: Iubileinyi
statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1987, p. 9.
8 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2431.
9 Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR, 19221982, Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1982, p. 418.
10 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 50, ll. 48, 1617, 4041, 52.
11 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 614, l. 18.
12 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 898, l. 58.
13 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 3523.
14 See S. Ia. Sirotenko, Osobennosti razvitiia torgovli elektrobytovymi mashinami v
usloviiakh sovershenstvovaniia bytovogo obsluzhivaniia naseleniia, Candidate of
Economic Sciences dissertation (avtoreferat), Kiev Institute for Trade and Economy,
1972, pp. 58.
15 O. Dorman, Podstrochnik: Zhizn Lilianny Lunginoi, rasskazannaia eiu v filme Olega
Dormana, Moscow: Astrel, 2010, p. 340.
16 I. T. Levykin and A. A. Vozmitel, Tendentsii, aktualnye problemy i puti sovershenstvovaniia sovetskogo obraza zhizni, in I. T. Levykin and A. A. Vozmitel (eds),
Sovetskii obraz zhizni: Sostoianie, mneniia i otsenki sovetskikh liudei, Moscow: ISI
AN SSSR, 1984, p. 141.
17 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
18 V. Kh. Bigulov, A. O. Kryshtanovskii and A. S. Michurin, Materialnoe blagosostoianie i sotsialnoe blagopoluchie: Opyt postroeniia indeksov i analiz vzaimosviazi,
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 4 (1984), pp. 8893.
19 L. N. Zhilina and V. M. Sokolov, Problemy formirovaniia razumnykh potrebnostei v
materialnykh blagakh, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 1 (1980), p. 53.
20 According to a survey cited in A. Iarovikov, Gotov zaplatit dorozhe,
Literaturnaia gazeta, 6 August 1980, p. 13.
21 B. P. Stalmakov, Ispolzovanie materialov izucheniia sprosa v kommercheskoi rabote
bazy, in Opyt izucheniia sprosa, Riga: Zvaigzne, 1973, p. 64; G. I. Nosova,
Potreblenie odezhdy i ego dolgosrochnoe prognozirovanie, Candidate of Economic
Sciences dissertation (avtoreferat),
t Moscow, 1971, p. 13.
22 This observation was made by Janos Kornai in his Economics of Shortage, Amsterdam:
North-Holland, 1980.
23 C. Hansson and K. Liden, Moscow Women: Thirteen Interviews, trans. G. Bothmer,
G. Blecher and L. Blecher, London: Allison & Busby, 1984, p. 19.
24 I. Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme: Otchet sovetskogo obyvatelia, Moscow:
Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009, pp. 257.
25 See, for instance, H. Smith, The Russians, London: Sphere, 1976; M. Binyon, Life in
Russia, London: Hamilton, 1983; A. Lee, Russian Journal, New York: Random
House, 1979; C. Thubron, Among the Russians, London: Heinemann, 1983.
26 A. A. Vozmitel, Normy i tsennosti sovetskogo obraza zhizni, in Levykin and
Vozmitel, Sovetskii obraz zhizni, p. 50.
27 T. Z. Protasenko, Osnovnye kharakteristiki materialnogo blagosostoianiia (opyt
vyborochnogo issledovaniia), Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 3 (1985), p. 108.
28 Vozmitel, Normy i tsennosti sovetskogo obraza zhizni, p. 52.
29 N. M. Blinov, Udovletvorenie chelovecheskikh potrebnostei vazhneishaia sotsialnaia
funktsiia truda pri sotsializme, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 2 (1978), p. 47.
30 V. G. Britvin and V. A. Mansurov, Opyt issledovaniia mirovozzrencheskikh predstavlenii molodezhi, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 3 (1978), p. 105.

Notes

229

31 V. Shlapentokh, Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values
in Post-Stalin Russia, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989,
pp. 7980.
32 M. Zhvanetskii, U kassy, www.jvanetsky.ru/data/text/t7/u_kassy/ (accessed 24
September 2011).
33 T. Riabikina, Po obe storony prilavka, Rabotnitsa, no. 2 (1967), pp. 1314.
34 O tekh, kto stoit za prilavkom, Pravda, 7 November 1964, p. 3.
35 N. Zykov, Vnimanie: Universam, Nauka i zhizn, no. 8 (1971), cited on Muzei torgovli, www.mintorgmuseum.ru/trade/literature/press/ (accessed 26 September 2011).
36 M. N. Rutkevich, O roli torgovli v sotsialnom razvitii sovetskogo obshchestva,
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 1 (1983), p. 27. See also Shlapentokh, Public and
Private Life of the Soviet People, p. 81.
37 Levykin and Vozmitel, Tendentsii, aktualnye problemy i puti sovershenstvovaniia
sovetskogo obraza zhizni, p. 147.
38 I. Ivanova, Legkii rubl, Vechernii Leningrad, 19 September 1986, p. 2.
39 V. G. Nemirovskii, Obraz zhelaemogo budushchego kak faktor formirovaniia
sotsialno-professionalnoi orientatsii podrostkov, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia,
no. 2 (1984), p. 87.
40 Protasenko, Osnovnye kharakteristiki materialnogo blagosostoianiia, pp. 1049.
41 Vozmitel, Normy i tsennosti sovetskogo obraza zhizni, p. 44.
42 V. Shenderovich, Izium iz bulki, Moscow: Zakharov, 2005, pp. 556.
43 Compare pp. 2856 and 28890 in A. Tikhomirova, Soviet Women and Fur
Consumption, in D. Crowley and S. E. Reid (eds), Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure
and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010.
44 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 55, d. 2406.
45 GARF, f. 7523, op. 101, d. 442, l. 1.
46 GARF, f. 7523, op. 101, d. 442, ll. 37.
47 GARF, f. 7523, op. 136, d. 301, l. 104.
48 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 35.
49 RGANI, f. 5, op. 62, d. 266, l. 174.
50 Smith, The Russians, p. 85.
51 A. Holt, Domestic Labour and Soviet Society, in J. Brine, M. Perrie and A. Sutton
(eds), Home, School and Leisure in the Soviet Union, London: Allen & Unwin, 1980,
pp. 2654; also Smith, The Russians, p. 85.
52 I. T. Levykin and M. V. Pokrovskaia, Problemy urovnia i kachestva zhizni sovetskikh
liudei, in Levykin and Vozmitel, Sovetskii obraz zhizni, p. 35.
53 This is suggested by conclusions on various aspects of late Soviet life in J. R. Millar,
The Little Deal: Brezhnevs Contribution to Acquisitive Socialism, Slavic Review,
44/4 (1985), pp. 694706; L. J. Cook, Brezhnevs Social Contract and Gorbachevs
Reforms, Soviet Studies, 44/1 (1992), pp. 3756; W. Tompson, The Soviet Union
under Brezhnev, Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2003, p. 90.
54 Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, p. 40.
55 On queuing in the interwar period, see E. Osokina, Proshchalnaia oda sovetskoi
ocheredi, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5 (2005), http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/43/
oso10.html (accessed 6 June 2008); on Soviet queuing as a cultural phenomenon, see
V. Nikolaev, Sovetskaia ochered kak sreda obitaniia, Rossiia i sovremennyi mir, no.
3 (2000), p. 5572.
56 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2423; RGAE, f. 1562, op. 65, d. 2733. In comparison,
between a quarter and a third of the respondents saved for major purchases.
57 K. Chukovskii, Zhivoi kak zhizn: Razgovor o russkom iazyke, Moscow: Molodaia
gvardiia, 1962, p. 97.
58 F. Gorenshtein, S koshelochkoi, Ogonek, no. 35 (1990). The story was written in
1981, after Gorenshtein had emigrated.

230

Notes

59 On average, women spent 4.5 hours looking after children; see Rutkevich, O roli
torgovli v sotsialnom razvitii sovetskogo obshchestva, p. 25.
60 E. Novikova, Dvoinaia nosha, Pravda, 9 June 1984, p. 3.
61 RGANI, f. 5, op. 63, d. 290, ll. 2045.
62 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 153.
63 Personal communication by S. Ch., Minsk, July 2011. See also Iu. Leonidov,
Rokovaia doverennost, Trud, 26 December 1967, p. 3.
64 There were many references to shopping visitors to the capitals in the Soviet press; see,
for instance, Rutkevich, O roli torgovli v sotsialnom razvitii sovetskogo obshchestva, p. 20. For a historical study of such shopping practices of women from
Yaroslavl, see A. Tikhomirova, V 280 kilometrakh ot Moskvy: Osobennosti mody i
praktik potrebleniia odezhdy v sovetskoi provintsii (Iaroslavl, 19601980-e gody),
Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5 (2004), pp. 1019.
65 Shkola, roditeli, obshchestvennost, Rabotnitsa, no. 6 (1968), pp. 1011.
66 O. P. Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, Moscow: Znanie, 1983, p. 26.
67 V. Vysotskii, Poezdka v gorod (1969), Izbrannoe, Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel, 1988,
pp. 1278.
68 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 250, l. 54.
69 On Lvov, see W. J. Risch, The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in
Ukrainian Lviv, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 8397 and
10315. Risch also mentions Chernovtsi in that regard. On music records in
Dniepropetrovsk, see S. I. Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity,
and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 19601985, Washington, DC: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press, 2010, p. 95.
70 See Parfenov, Namedni, pp. 867. See also Live Journal, Soviet Life Community, entry
tag: Sovetskaia Estoniia, http://soviet-life.livejournal.com/721294.html#comments
(accessed 1 October 2011). On Estonia as Soviet abroad, see A. E. Gorsuch, All This
is your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad after Stalin, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011, pp. 4978.
71 N. V. Melnikova, Tvortsy sovetskogo atomnogo proekta v rezhimnykh gorodakh, in
T. S. Kondrateva and A. K. Sokolov (eds), Rezhimnye liudi v SSSR, Moscow:
Spetskniga, 2009, pp. 557.
72 E. Emeliantseva, The Privilege of Seclusion, Ab Imperio, no. 2 (2011), esp. p. 246.
73 J. Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and
Consumption, 19171953, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, p. 191.
74 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 13940. See this practice also mentioned in Tikhomirova, V 280 kilometrakh ot Moskvy.
75 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
76 For a major study on blat, see A. Ledeneva, Russias Economy of Favours: Blat,
Networking and Informal Exchange, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
See also Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, pp. 626.
77 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp 14041.
78 Vozmitel, Normy i tsennosti sovetskogo obraza zhizni, pp. 557. See also the point
about the social acceptance of blatt in Eldar Riazanovs film The Garage (Garazh),
discussed in Chapter 2; also Ledeneva, Russias Economy of Favours.
79 RGANI, f. 5, op. 64, d. 275, l. 52.
80 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2549.
81 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
82 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 138.
83 See, for instance, the interview with Ira in Holt, Domestic Labour and Soviet Society,
p. 34.
84 Andreeva notes that even unprivileged people did not mind the existence of stores for
privileged customers, as long as they could be the exception and gain entrance. See
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 158.

Notes

231

85 M. Zhvanetskii, Na sklade, www.jvanetsky.ru/data/text/t7/na_sklade/ (accessed 24

September 2011).
86 On bath-house workers especially, see an interesting discussion of the film I Scratch
Your Back, You Scratch Mine (Tymne, iatebe, Seryi, 1976), where the main character
is a bath-house worker, in A. Ivanova, Izobrazhenie defitsita v sovetskoi kulture
vtoroi poloviny 1960-kh pervoi poloviny1980-kh godov, Neprikosnovennyi zapas,
no. 3 (2011), http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2011/3/iv18.html (accessed 7 July 2011).
87 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 889.
88 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
89 Vozmitel, Normy i tsennosti sovetskogo obraza zhizni, pp. 557.
90 For discussions of semi-legal and illegal activities as well as issues of personal property, see, for instance, A. Katsenelinboigen, Coloured Markets in the Soviet Union,
Soviet Studies, 29/1 (1977), pp. 6285; Millar, The Little Deal; P. Romanov and
E. Iarskaia-Smirnova, Fartsa: Podpole sovetskogo obshchestva potrebleniia,
Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5 (2005), http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/43/ro12.html
(accessed 1 March 2006); S. Lovell, Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha, 17102000,
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003, pp. 163208; L. H. Siegelbaum, Cars,
Cars, and More Cars: The Faustian Bargain of the Brezhnev Era, in Siegelbaum (ed.),
Borders of Socialism: Private Spheres of Soviet Russia, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006, pp. 83103.
91 G. Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia: From Soviet Planned
Economy to Privatisation, trans. R. Leverdier, London: Hurst, 2011, pp. 12, 67; for
figures, see table 5 on p. 265. Favarel-Garrigues warns about problems inherent in
internal police reporting, which was subject to manipulation in response to the pressures from above (see p. 89), but even so the increase in illicit practices is evident,
especially coupled with evidence from other sources.
92 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 63, d. 2631.
93 Ibid.
94 See Romanov and Iarskaia-Smirnova, Fartsa.
95 RGAE f. 1562, op. 66, d. 2929.
96 A. S. Pashkov (ed.), Obraz zhizni naseleniia krupnogo goroda: Opyt kompleksnogo
sotsialnogo issledovaniia, Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Leningradskogo universiteta, 1988,
pp. 923.
97 V. Alekseev, Zhizn potaennaia, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 1 April 2005, www.ng.ru/
saturday/2005-04-01/15_life.html (accessed 7 May 2007); N. Lebina, Entsiklopediia
banalnostei: Sovetskaia povsednevnost: Kontury, simvoly, znaki, St Petersburg:
Dmitrii Bulanin, pp. 3612.
98 On Western music, video tapes, books and other cultural products on the black market
in Dniepropetrovsk and beyond, see Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City.
99 Lee, Russian Journal, p. 25.
100 Ivanova, Legkii rubl, p. 2.
101 See L. Duhamel, The KGB Campaign against Corruption in Moscow, 19821987,
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.
102 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 153.
103 Ibid., p. 142.
104 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
105 Lee, Russian Journal, p. 22.
106 RGASPI, f. 1, op. 31, d. 908, ll. 256.
107 A cutting from a newspaper cited in V. Slavkin, Pamiatnik neizvestnomu stiliage,
Moscow: Artist. Rezhisser. Teatr, 1996, p. 126.
108 G. P. Dolzhenko, Istoriia turizma v Rossiiskoi imperii, Sovetskom Soiuze i Rossiiskoi
Federatsii: 1696 g. sovremennost, Rostov-on-Don: Izdatelskii tsentr MarT, 2010,
p. 148. There is some debate about definitions of tourism, which might affect the
numbers (see Gorsuch, All This is your World, pp. 1819), but this is not especially

232

109
110
111
112
113
114

115
116
117
118

119

120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130

131

Notes
significant here, as what matters is the numbers of Soviets going abroad, whatever the
declared purpose of their trip.
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 152.
M. Arbatova, Mne 46: Avtobiograficheskaia proza, Moscow: Eksmo, 2004, p. 258.
For instance, RGANI, f. 5, op. 76, d. 204, l. 62. In this example, some members of a
sports delegation travelling to the world wrestling championship in San Diego, USA,
in 1979 were reported for these misdemeanours to the Partys Central Committee.
For the case of Dniepropetrovsk, see Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, pp. 2889.
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 152.
For example, Otchet o poezdke gruppy sovetskikh turistov No. 1935 v Bolgariiu s zaezdom v Bukharest, in A. A. Kulakov and A. N. Sakharov et al. (eds), Obshchestvo i vlast:
Rossiiskaia provintsiia, 19171980-e gody (po materialam nizhegorodskikh arkhivov),
vol. 5: 19651980, Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2008, p. 7079; S. A.
Shevyrin, Proniknovene nashe po planete osobenno zametno vdaleke Iz istorii
zarubezhnogo turizma v SSSR, Retrospektiva, no. 1 (2010), pp. 1518. Not all reports
contain such references: one example in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, pp. 71114,
stressed the resistance of their tourists to the superficial temptations of the capitalist life
of luxury which they had observed in France and Italy. The reporting official made sure
to emphasize indeed, more than once that the tourists felt no envy of the Western way
of life. Such insistence is in itself a little suspicious.
Zapiska komissii po vyezdam za granitsu pri Gorkovskom obkome KPSS O
nedostatkakh v vybore i podgotovke lits, vyezzhaiushchikh v zarubezhnye strany, in
Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, pp. 6968.
Iz materialov k protokolu No. 6 zasedaniia sekretariata Gorkovskogo obkoma
KPSS, in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, 73032.
Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, pp. 2845.
See an interesting discussion of the conflict between the need to maintain prestige and
desire to save hard currency in A. Ivanova, Solntse selo nizhe eli: Potrebitelskie
pristrastiia sovetskikh rabotnikov za granitsei (19601970-e gody), Rodina, no. 3
(2011), pp. 11617.
See the Central Committees Basic Rules for Soviet Citizens Travelling to Capitalist
and Developing Countries and Basic Rules for Soviet Citizens Travelling to Socialist
Countries (1979), in V. N. Bredikhin (ed.), Lubianka Staraia ploshchad: Sekretnye
dokumenty TsK KPSS i KGB o repressiiakh 19371991 gg. v SSSR (Moscow, 2005),
www.sps.ru/%20?id=213821 (accessed 15 August 2011).
Zapiska komissii po vyezdam za granitsu; Shevyrin, Proniknovene nashe po planete osobenno zametno vdaleke; Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, pp. 2846;
Gorsuch, All This is your World, pp. 937.
Shevyrin, Proniknovene nashe po planete osobenno zametno vdaleke.
Ivanova, Solntse selo nizhe eli.
M. Plisetskaia, Ia, Maiia Plisetskaia, Moscow: Izdatelstvo Novosti, 1994, p. 259.
V. I. Metelitsa, Stranitsy zhizni, Moscow: Raduga, 2001, pp. 32930.
Ivanova, Solntse selo nizhe eli, p. 117.
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 1945.
For a discussion of this incident, see Shevyrin, Proniknovene nashe po planete osobenno zametno vdaleke.
Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, p. 286.
See Plisetskaia, Ia, Maiia Plisetskaia, pp. 2635.
Andreeva reports no difficulties with her suitcases and bags full of clothes received as
presents during her work trips to Italy and France, although she does admit feeling
anxious. See Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 185. On pornography,
see Shevyrin, Proniknovene nashe po planete osobenno zametno vdaleke.
J. Frst, Stalins Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature
Socialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 214.

Notes
132
133
134
135
136
137

138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146

147
148
149

233

See Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, 1389.

Metelitsa, Stranitsy zhizni, pp. 31011.
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 158.
Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia, pp. 5051.
Romanov and Iarskaia-Smirnova, Fartsa; V. Aksenov, Ostrov Krym, Iunost,
nos.15 (1990).
Two Moscow profiteers, Ian Rokotov and Vladislav Faibyshenko, were executed in
1961; see Dokumenty proshlogo, 23 May 2003, Radio Liberty, http://euro.svoboda.
org/programs/hd/2003/hd.052303.asp (accessed 7 May 2007). Only major corruption
cases attracted such severe punishments under Brezhnev, such as the Uzbekistan case
of 1972, when Ismail Nurmukhamedov, former director of the Tashkent Cooperative
Wholesale Firm, was sentenced to execution.
Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia, esp. pp. 23, 27, 61, 94.
Millar, The Little Deal.
Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia, pp. 2399, esp. pp. 27, 94.
Ibid., esp. pp. 929.
Plisetskaia, Ia, Maiia Plisetskaia, pp. 2656.
I. E. Sinitsyn, Andropov vblizi: Vospominaniia o vremenakh ottepeli i zastoia,
Moscow: IIK Rossiiskaia gazeta, 2004, pp. 3414.
L. Brezhneva, The World I Left Behind: Pieces of a Past, New York: Random House,
1980, pp. 34658, cited on Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, www.soviethistory.
org (accessed 20 June 2012).
Brezhneva, The World I Left Behind.
See Romanov and Iarskaia-Smirnova, Fartsa; Arbatova, Mne 46, p. 177. On links
between black market sellers of music records and children of the elite in
Dniepropetrovsk during the mid- and late 1960s, see Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the
Rocket City, pp. 10001, 170.
Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia, p. 68.
Dorman, Podstrochnik, p. 331.
On discussions of this problem in the Gorky regional trade unions, see Otchet o rabote
Gorkovskogo oblastnogo soveta profsoiuzov po inostrannomu turizmu v 1968 g., in
Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, pp. 6916; for more details, see Chapter 4.

4 Structures of consumption
1 See, for instance, M. Kh. Titma, K voprosu o sotsialnoi differentsiatsii v razvitom
sotsialisticheskom obshchestve, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 3 (1980), pp.
3543.
2 V. Korotich, Ot pervogo litsa, Kharkov: Folio, 2000, p. 69.
3 These contrasting images can be surmised, for instance, from the recollections of
Lilianna Lungina; see O. Dorman, Podstrochnik: Zhizn Lilianny Lunginoi, rasskazannaia eiu v filme Olega Dormana, Moscow: Astrel, 2010, pp. 331, 3412.
4 A. Tikhomirova, Soviet Women and Fur Consumption, in D. Crowley and S. E. Reid
(eds), Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc, Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 2010, pp. 283308; Dorman, Podstrochnik, p. 98; on
Kosygina, see the insert between pp. 1923 in T. I. Fetisov (ed.), Premer izvestnyi i
neizvestnyi: Vospominaniia o A. N. Kosygine, Moscow: Respublika, 1997.
5 RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, l. 16.
6 RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, ll. 367.
7 See, notably, M. Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet Union: A Study of Elite Life-Styles
under Communism, London: Allen & Unwin, 1978; M. Voslenskii, Nomenklatura:
Gosudarstvuiushchii Klass Sovetskogo Soiuza, London: Overseas Publications
Interchange, 1984.
8 RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, ll. 367.

234

Notes

9 The Most Charming and Attractive (Samaia obaiatelnaia i privlekatelnaia, Bezhanov,

1985).
10 For more detail, see Chapter 5.
11 M. Arbatova, Mne 46: Avtobiograficheskaia proza, Moscow: Eksmo, 2004, p. 212.
12 L. H. Siegelbaum, Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile, Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2008, pp. 218, 241.
13 P. Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R. Nice,
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984; T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class:
An Economic Study of Institutions, London: Allen & Unwin, 1949; J. Baudrillard, The
Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, London: Sage, 1998.
14 C. Kelly, Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from
Catherine to Yeltsin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
15 S. Fitzpatrick, Ascribing Class: The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Russia,
in Fitzpatrick (ed.), Stalinism: New Directions, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 2046;
also Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 1113.
16 E. Osokina, Ierarkhiia potrebleniia: O zhizni liudei v usloviiah stalinskogo snabzheniia, 19281935, Moscow: Izd-vo MGOU, 1993.
17 Dorman, Podstrochnik, p. 331.
18 See Voslenskii, Nomenklatura, pp. 14, 1011.
19 F. R. Filippov, Sotsialnye peremeshcheniia v sovetskom obshchestve,Sotsiologicheskie
issledovaniia, no. 4 (1975), p. 19.
20 For example, Voslenskii, Nomenklatura; T. Kondrateva, Kormit i pravit: O vlasti v
Rossii XVIXX vv., trans. Z. A. Chekantseva, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006, pp. 13555.
21 S. Fitzpatrick, Culture and Politics under Stalin: A Reappraisal, Slavic Review, 35/2
(1976), pp. 21131.
22 S. Tchouikina, Dvorianskaia pamiat: Byvshie v sovetskom gorode (Leningrad,
192030-e gody), St Petersburg: Izd-vo Evropeiskogo universiteta v Sankt-Peterburge,
2006, esp. pp. 10227.
23 Filippov, Sotsialnye peremeshcheniia v sovetskom obshchestve, pp. 1421.
24 See S. Lovell, The Shadow of War: Russia and the USSR, 1941 to the Present,
Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 11922.
25 S. V. Volkov, Intellektualnyi sloi v sovetskom obshchestve, Moscow: Fond razvitie,
RAN, 1999, pp. 4041, 79.
26 See S. Lovell, The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and PostSoviet Eras, London: Palgrave, 2000, pp. 667.
27 See, for instance, V. Lisovskii, Sovremennyi chelovek chto eto znachit?, Rabotnitsa,
no. 6 (1981), pp. 1619.
28 TsGALISPb, f. 514, op. 1, d. 67.
29 N. Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei: Sovetskaia povsednevnost: Kontury, simvoly,
znaki, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, photograph 26.
30 Komu? Kogda? Kak?, Rabotnitsa, no. 10 (1972), p. 29. Notably, the magazine did
not object to this argument.
31 C. Hansson and K. Liden, Moscow Women: Thirteen Interviews, trans. G. Bothmer,
G. Blecher and L. Blecher, London: Allison & Busby, 1984, p. 158.
32 Zhuk notes this with reference to Ukrainian peasant youth who came to Dniepropetrovsk
to study in vocational schools and colleges and sought to adopt new culture by listening to new music and wearing American jeans. See S. I. Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the
Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 19601985,
Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010, pp. 1768.
33 Korotich, Ot pervogo litsa, pp. 1534.
34 Arbatova, Mne 46, pp. 3689.
35 Ibid., pp. 2989.

Notes

235

36 M. R. Zezina, Rezhim privilegii dlia nauchnoi i khudozhestvennoi intelligentsii, in

T. S. Kondrateva and A. K. Sokolov (eds), Rezhimnye liudi v SSSR, Moscow:
Spetskniga, 2009, p. 331.
37 These are the results of a national survey conducted during 198081. See V. Kh.
Bigulov, A. O. Kryshtanovskii and A. S. Michurin, Materialnoe blagosostoianie i
sotsialnoe blagopoluchie: Opyt postroeniia indeksov i analiz vzaimosviazi,
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 4 (1984), p. 90.
38 T. Z. Protasenko, Osnovnye kharakteristiki materialnogo blagosostoianiia (opyt
vyborochnogo issledovaniia), Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 3 (1985), p. 105.
39 Siegelbaum, Cars for Comrades, p. 241.
40 Volkov, Intellektualnyi sloi v sovetskom obshchestve, pp. 934.
41 For a discussion of how it became more difficult for the authorities under Brezhnev
to fight economic crimes such as speculation and theft of socialist property, see
G. Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia: From Soviet Planned
Economy to Privatisation, trans. R. Leverdier, London: Hurst, 2011, pp. 2399.
42 Dorman, Podstrochnik, p. 331.
43 Favarel-Garrigues, Policing Economic Crime in Russia, pp. 5051.
44 RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, l. 7.
45 RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, l. 35.
46 RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, l. 5.
47 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 35.
48 Especially shortages of food products; see T. A. Abrakova, Vlast i obshchestvennoe
mnenie epokhi zastoia, in A. A. Kulakov and A. N. Sakharov et al. (eds),
Obshchestvo i vlast: Rossiiskaia provintsiia, 19171980-e gody (po materialam nizhegorodskikh arkhivov), vol. 5: 19651980, Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi istorii RAN,
2008, pp. 81920.
49 Compare A. Lee, Russian Journal, New York: Random House, 1979, pp. 16770, and
I. Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme: Otchet sovetskogo obyvatelia, Moscow:
Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009, p. 158.
50 See A. Ledeneva, Russias Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal
Exchange, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 145.
51 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
52 V. Slavkin, Pamiatnik neizvestnomu stiliage, Moscow: Artist. Rezhisser. Teatr, 1996,
pp. 689.
53 I. T. Levykin and M. V. Pokrovskaia, Problemy urovnia i kachestva zhizni sovetskikh
liudei, in I. T. Levykin and A. A. Vozmitel (eds), Sovetskii obraz zhizni: Sostoianie,
mneniia i otsenki sovetskikh liudei, Moscow: ISI AN SSSR, 1984, pp. 378.
54 RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 177.
55 Hansson and Liden, Moscow Women, p. 20.
56 Levykin and Pokrovskaia, Problemy urovnia i kachestva zhizni sovetskikh liudei,
p. 37.
57 See A. Tikhomirova, V 280 kilometrakh ot Moskvy: Osobennosti mody i praktik
potrebleniia odezhdy v sovetskoi provintsii (Iaroslavl, 19601980-e gody),
Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5 (2004), pp. 1019.
58 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 140, 16061.
59 V. Alekseev, Zhizn potaennaia, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 1 April 2005, www.ng.ru/saturday/2005-04-01/15_life.html (accessed 7 May 2007). This is also confirmed by
Mariia Arbatova in her memoirs; see Arbatova, Mne 46, p. 155.
60 RGANI, f. 5, op, 33, delo 218, ll. 1517.
61 See the previous chapter and also A. E. Gorsuch, All This is your World: Soviet Tourism
at Home and Abroad after Stalin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 1589.
62 L. Duhamel, The KGB Campaign against Corruption in Moscow, 19821987,
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, p. 767.

236

Notes

63 RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 177.

64 See, for instance, Doklad tovarishcha A. N. Kosygina, Pravda, 28 September
1965, p. 2; E. Chistiakova, Platia sdaiut ekzamen, Moskovskaia pravda, 10 June
1969, p. 4; B. Solomonov, Potreblenie bytovykh tovarov: Kachestvennye sdvigi,
Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 5 (1976), pp. 1316. At times, comparisons were assumptive:
a phrase along the lines of this new model is not worse [ne ustupaet] than Western
samples suggested that normally Soviet models were worse (ustupali).
65 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 176.
66 BGANTD, f. 68, op. 1, d. 222.
67 S. E. Reid, Who Will Beat Whom? Soviet Popular Reception of the American
National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian
History, 9/4 (2008), pp. 855904.
68 For an insightful discussion of the fascination with shopping and souvenirs on trips to
Western countries in the Khrushchev period, see Gorsuch, All This is your World, pp.
1559.
69 Ibid., pp. 11112.
70 G. P. Dolzhenko, Istoriia turizma v Rossiiskoi imperii, Sovetskom Soiuze i Rossiiskoi
Federatsii: 1696 g. sovremennost , Rostov-on-Don: Izdatelskii tsentr MarT, 2010,
p. 148.
71 Otchet o rabote Gorkovskogo oblastnogo soveta profsoiuzov po inostrannomu
turizmu v 1968 g., in Kulakov et al., Obshchestvo i vlast, p. 6926.
72 Ibid., p. 723.
73 The application process to get permission to travel to the West and to Yugoslavia
included an additional form to be filled about all relatives, dead and alive; this was not
required of those travelling to Eastern Europe. See S. A. Shevyrin, Proniknovene nashe
po planete osobenno zametno vdaleke Iz istorii zarubezhnogo turizma v SSSR,
Retrospektiva, no. 1 (2010), pp. 1518. In 1975, a trip abroad (to any country) could cost
between 270 and 800 roubles, but exemplary workers could have between 50 and 70 per
cent of the cost covered by their workplace. TsGALISPb, f. 342, op. 2, d. 879.
74 Gorsuch, All This is your World, pp. 1559.
75 TsGALISPb, f. 514, op. 1, d. 67.
76 TsGALISPb, f. 514, op. 1, d. 65.
77 Ibid.
78 A. Ivanova, Solntse selo nizhe eli Potrebitelskie pristrastiia sovetskikh rabotnikov za granitsei (19601970-e gody), Rodina, no. 3 (2011), pp. 11617.
79 RGANI, f. 5, op. 60, d. 223. See also a story about toilet paper in V. I. Metelitsa,
Stranitsy zhizni, Moscow: Raduga, 2001, pp. 3812.
80 The special instructions written for travel to capitalist countries included Yugoslavia.
See Shevyrin, Proniknovene nashe po planete osobenno zametno vdaleke.
81 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 185.
82 Metelitsa, Stranitsy zhizni, p. 31617.
83 Bulgaria was the most visited foreign country in the Brezhnev era; see Dolzhenko,
Istoriia turizma v Rossiiskoi imperii, Sovetskom Soiuze i Rossiiskoi Federatsii, p. 148.
84 Metelitsa, Stranitsy zhizni, p. 332.
85 On the cultural influence of dtente, see R. Stites, Soviet Popular Culture: Entertainment
and Society since 1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 175.
86 Slavkin, Pamiatnik neizvestnomu stiliage, p. 199.
87 See E. Mickiewicz, Split Signals: Television and Politics in the Soviet Union, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 33.
88 Dorman, Podstrochnik, p. 289.
89 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, p. 126.
90 RGANI, f. 5, op. 89, d. 84.
91 See S. Zhuravlev and J. Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast: Istoriia protivostoianiia, Istorik i khudozhnik, no. 4 (2006), pp. 10616.

Notes
92
93
94
95
96
97
98

99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107

108
109
110
111
112

113
114
115
116
117

237

L. Parfenov, Namedni: Nasha Era, 19711980, Moscow: KoLibri, 2010, p. 105.

TsGALISPb, f. 178, op. 1, d. 37.
See Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 1545. On the Italian aunt, see p. 154.
Ibid., pp. 1545.
Dorman, Podstrochnik, pp. 2812.
T. Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, London: Pimlico, 2005, pp. 3478.
For examples of these strategies, see A. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was
No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2005, pp. 18790, 197. Information and music records could reach even such remote
places as Yakutsk in Siberia.
Oxford Archive of Russian Life History, Childhood in Russia: A Social and Cultural
History, 18901991, project leader: Professor C. Kelly, Oxf/Lev P-05 PF21 (B), p.18,
interviewer: S. Sirotinina.
L. N. Zhilina and V. M. Sokolov, Problemy formirovaniia razumnykh potrebnostei v
materialnykh blagakh, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 1 (1980), p. 55.
V. G. Nemirovskii, Obraz zhelaemogo budushchego kak faktor formirovaniia
sotsialno-professionalnoi orientatsii podrostkov, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia,
no. 2 (1984), pp. 859.
RGANI, f. 5, op. 89, d. 79.
V. G. Britvin and V. A. Mansurov, Opyt issledovaniia mirovozzrencheskikh predstavlenii molodezhi, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 3 (1978), p. 104.
RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 1082s.
M. Binyon, Life in Russia, London: Hamilton, 1983, p. 155.
Levykin and Pokrovskaia, Problemy urovnia i kachestva zhizni sovetskikh liudei, pp.
2440.
For instance, M. Potashnik, V plenu veshchei, Moskovskaia pravda, 4 January 1970,
p. 2; I. Trushina, Deti i dengi, Rabotnitsa, no. 7 (1977), pp. 267; T. Aleksandrova,
Po odezhke , Rabotnitsa, no. 10 (1972), pp. 212; E. Losoto, Chelovek sredi
veshchei, Rabotnitsa, no. 10 (1981), pp. 1719.
RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 552. The emphasis is original.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, ll. 256.
J. Frst, Stalins Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature
Socialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 20049.
See a letter to the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council K. E. Voroshilov,
1957, in Dokumenty proshlogo, 12 September 2003, Radio Liberty, at http://euro.
svoboda.org/programs/hd/2003/hd.091203.asp (accessed 7 May 2007).
H. Pilkington, The Future is Ours: Youth Culture in Russia, 1953 to the Present, in
C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (eds), Russian Cultural Studies: An Introduction, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 370; K. Roth-Ey, Kto na pedestale, a kto v tolpe?
Stiliagi i ideia sovetskoi molodezhnoi kultury v epokhu ottepeli, Neprikosnovennyi
zapas, no. 4 (2004), http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2004/4/ra4.html (accessed 15 May
2007). Juliane Frst writes that Khrushchevs policies resulted in the creation of a
counter-subculture of those who fought stiliagi, which contained both ideological
zealots and hooligans looking for a fight: Frst, Stalins Last Generation, pp. 2456.
See V. M. Sokolov, Formirovanie kommunisticheskogo mirovozzreniia molodezhi,
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 2 (1976), p. 35.
On the democratization of rock music consumption over the course of the 1970s, see
Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, pp. 17086.
Oxf/Lev P-05 PF12 (A), p. 4, interviewer: S. Sirotinina.
See O. Vainshtein, Female Fashion, Soviet Style: Bodies of Ideology, in H. Goscilo
and B. Holmgren (eds), RussiaWomenCulture, Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1996, pp. 6493.
For instance, L. Burmistrova, Daite slovo malchishke, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1968),
p. 23; T. Aleksandrova, Vstretilis pisma, Rabotnitsa, no. 3 (1972), p. 17.

238
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150

151

Notes
Arbatova, Mne 46, p. 147.
Ibid., p. 152.
RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 177.
Ibid.
Ibid.
H. Smith, The Russians, London: Sphere, 1976, pp. 745.
See V. Zaslavsky, The Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity, and Consensus in Soviet
Society, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1982, esp. pp. 513.
Zhilina and Sokolov, Problemy formirovaniia razumnykh potrebnostei v materialnykh
blagakh, p. 58.
C. Kelly, Childrens World: Growing up in Russia, 18901991, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2007, p. 393.
RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 564.
Zhilina and Sokolov, Problemy formirovaniia razumnykh potrebnostei v materialnykh
blagakh, p. 58.
A. I. Mironov, Kriticheskie periody detstva, Moscow: Znanie, 1979, p. 71, cited in O.
P. Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, Moscow: Znanie, 1983, p. 51.
Personal communication by N. E., Moscow, February 2005.
See, for instance, Protasenko, Osnovnye kharakteristiki materialnogo blagosostoianiia, p. 108.
Iu. G. Te, O povyshenii sotsialnoi effektivnosti bytovogo obsluzhivaniia naseleniia,
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 1 (1981), p. 128.
RGALI, f. 2924, op. 3, d. 165, l. 45.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, l. 29.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 64, l. 15.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, l. 25.
Te, O povyshenii sotsialnoi effektivnosti bytovogo obsluzhivaniia naseleniia,
p. 128.
See, for instance, responses in Hansson and Liden, Moscow Women, pp. 32, 33, 58.
Levykin and Pokrovskaia, Problemy urovnia i kachestva zhizni sovetskikh liudei, pp.
2440.
I. T. Levykin and A. A. Vozmitel, Tendentsii, aktualnye problemy i puti sovershenstvovaniia sovetskogo obraza zhizni, in Levykin and Vozmitel, Sovetskii obraz
zhizni, p. 152.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, ll. 45.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78; RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, l. 4.
For instance, this was reported by the editorial office of Smena throughout 1981. See
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 64.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, l. 6.
Ibid.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, ll. 56.
See, for instance, Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was No More, pp. 2012.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 78, l. 18.
For instance, Smena editors reported a sharp hike in the volume of letters from readers
in 1976, when the magazine received 18,730 letters in four months, whereas in previous
years it would receive approximately the same amount in an entire year. The editors said
this was a result of the magazine asking readers for their opinion more often and
printing materials on ethical problems. They also noted a change in the character of
correspondence, which now contained more critical and problem letters. See RGASPI,
f. 25, op. 1, d. 21, l. 44. In 1983, the editorial office received 82,160 letters. See
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, l. 33.
V. A. Mansurov, Nekotorye aktualnye problemy sotsializatsii molodezhi na sovremennom etape razvitiia sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva, in V. I. Ivanov (ed.),

Notes

152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161

239

Problemy sotsialnogo razvitiia sovetskoi molodezhi, Moscow: ISI AN SSSR, 1985,

pp. 4856.
Lee, Russian Journal, pp. 1315, 1636; Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was
No More, esp. pp. 14.
See RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 1082s.
Mansurov, Nekotorye aktualnye problemy sotsializatsii molodezhi na sovremennom
etape razvitiia sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva, pp. 4856.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, l. 23.
M. Geller, Rossiiskie zametki, 19691979, Moscow: MIK, 1999, p. 301.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, ll. 356.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, l. 28. This conclusion came as a response to an article
published earlier in the magazine about a girl caught stealing expensive things from
her more privileged roommates in a student dormitory.
RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 87, ll. 367.
Volkov, Intellektualnyi sloi v sovetskom obshchestve, p. 36.
Zaslavsky, The Neo-Stalinist State, p. 79.

5 From modest to modish

1 This is according to the Petrograd resident N. N. Berberova, cited in N. B. Lebina and
A. N. Chistikov, Obyvatel i reformy: Kartiny povsednevnoi zhizni gorozhan v gody
NEPa i khrushchevskogo desiatiletiia, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2003, p. 46.
2 K. Roth-Ey, Kto na pedestale, a kto v tolpe? Stiliagi i ideia sovetskoi molodezhnoi
kultury v epokhu ottepeli, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 4 (2004) http://magazines.
russ.ru/nz/2004/4/ra4.html (accessed 15 May 2007).
3 J. Frst, Stalins Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature
Socialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 23546.
4 As Djurdja Bartlett shows, in the 1920s the modernist artists emphasized dress (such
as production clothing, prozodezhda) and rejected fashion; the 1930s saw the inauguration of socialist fashion. See D. Bartlett, FashionEast: The Spectre That Haunted
Socialism, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010, pp. 1398.
5 A. Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR: Sovetskii Kuznetskii, 14, Moscow: Slovo, 2009, pp.
1921.
6 However, the authorities never managed to eradicate completely individual private
tailors.
7 C. Kelly and V. Volkov, Directed Desires: Kulturnost and Consumption, in C. Kelly
and D. Shepherd (eds), Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution:
18811940, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 2957.
8 I. Ilf and E. Petrovs story Direktivnyi bantik was published in Pravda on 19 March
1934.
9 S. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 9093; for the quotation, see p. 92.
10 Bartlett, FashionEast, pp.717.
11 Frst, Stalins Last Generation, pp. 214, 221. The term stiliaga entered circulation in the
press during the late 1940s to ridicule modish youngsters who sported orange ties and
Hawaiian shirts, thick white rubber soles and narrow trousers; see M. Edele, Strange
Young Men in Stalins Moscow: The Birth and Life of the Stiliagi, 19451953,
Jahrbcher fr Geschichte Osteuropas, no. 50 (2002), pp. 3761.
12 M. Banting, C. Kelly and J. Riordan, Sexuality, in C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (eds),
Russian Cultural Studies: An Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998,
p. 331.
13 Frst, Stalins Last Generation, p. 214; S. Zhuravlev and J. Gronow, Vlast mody i
Sovetskaia vlast: Istoriia protivostoianiia, Istorik i khudozhnik, no. 3 (2006), pp.
11011.

240

Notes

14 Lebina and Chistikov, Obyvatel i reformy, pp. 195206.

15 Ibid., p. 204.
16 Zhuravlev and Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast, no. 3, pp. 109113;
Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, p. 35.
17 Zhuravlev and Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast, no. 3, pp. 11113.
18 This passage is based on L. Zakharova, Sovetskaia moda 195060-kh godov:
Politika, ekonomika, povsednevnost, Teoriia mody: Odezhda, telo, kultura, no. 3
(2007), pp. 5580.
19 For a fascinating discussion of the relationship between French fashion, especially Dior,
and Soviet clothing design, see L. Zakharova, Kazhdoi sovetskoi zhenshchine plate
ot Diora! Frantsuzskoe vliianie v sovetskoi mode1950-kh1960-kh godov, Sotsialnaia
istoriia: Ezhegodnik 2004, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2005, pp. 33971; L. Zakharova,
Dior in Moscow: A Taste for Luxury in Soviet Fashion under Khrushchev, in
D. Crowley and S. E. Reid (eds), Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the
Eastern Bloc, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010, pp. 94119. On
visits, see p. 100 in Dior in Moscow.
20 See Iu. V. Aksiutin, Khrushchevskaia ottepel i obshchestvennye nastroeniia v SSSR
v 19531964 gg., Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004, p. 244.
21 U. G. Poiger, Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a
Divided Germany, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, pp. 1324.
22 A. Tikhomirova, Modno odevatsia eshche ne znachit byt sovremennoi!:
Sotsialisticheskii proekt alternativnoi sovremennosti 1960-kh godov (na primere
zhurnala Sybille), Teoriia mody: Odezhda, telo, kultura, no. 3 (2007), pp. 23351;
D. Bartlett, Davaite odenem ikh v bezh: Melkoburzhuaznyi mirok ofitsialnogo
sotsialisticheskogo kostiuma, Teoriia mody: Odezhda, telo, kultura, no. 3 (2007),
pp. 187232; Lebina and Chistikov, Obyvatel i reformy, pp. 2045.
23 See, for instance, O. Gurova, Prostota i chuvstvo mery: Nizhnee bele i ideologiia
mody v Sovetskoi Rossii v 195060-e gody, Gendernye issledovaniia, no. 10 (2004),
pp. 15465; O. Vainshtein, Female Fashion, Soviet Style: Bodies of Ideology, in
H. Goscilo and B. Holmgren (eds), RussiaWomenCulture, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1996, pp. 6493.
24 On official attitudes to the New Look style, see Lebina and Chistikov, Obyvatel i
reformy, p. 212.
25 Zakharova, Dior in Moscow, pp.1023.
26 Zakharova, Dior in Moscow; see also J. Gronow, Caviar with Champagne: Common
Luxury and the Ideals of Good Life in Stalins Russia, Oxford: Berg, 2003.
27 Frst, Stalins Last Generation, pp. 2436.
28 A. Kozlov, Kozel na sakse: I tak vsiu zhizn, Moscow: Vagrius, 1998, p. 103.
29 Zakharova, Sovetskaia moda 195060-kh godov, pp. 6870.
30 P. Koivunen, The 1957 Moscow Youth Festival: Propagating a New, Peaceful Image
of the Soviet Union, in M. Ilic and J. Smith (eds), Soviet State and Society under
Nikita Khrushchev, London: Routledge, 2009, pp. 55, 5960.
31 Zakharova, Sovetskaia moda 195060-kh godov, p. 66.
32 K. Chukovskii, Ot dvukh do piati, Moscow: Detskaia literatura, 1963, p. 164.
33 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 37, d. 3674. A family of industrial workers spent 173 roubles a
year; office employees spent over 160 roubles per family; a family of industrial engineers spent over 200 roubles per year on these goods. Average annual incomes varied
from 2,267 roubles for employees to 3,087 roubles for engineers.
34 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 62, d. 2385.
35 Ibid.
36 O. P. Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, Moscow: Znanie, 1983, p. 24.
37 RGANI, f 5, op. 61, d. 250, l. 54; the emphasis is original.
38 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 250, l. 162.
39 More precisely, 231,000 roubles; TsGASPb, f. 9803, op. 1, d. 751.

Notes

241

40 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2352.

41 V. Fastovets, Trebovaniia pokupatelei k assortimentu i kachestvu, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 7 (1970), p. 48.
42 A. Iarovikov and R. Mikhailova, Shveinye izdeliia: spros i predlozhenie, Sovetskaia
torgovlia, no. 7 (1980), p. 47.
43 G. Vorobeva, Otkuda berutsia nekhodovye tovary, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 3
(1982), p. 31.
44 G. Gorina, Moda i utsenka tovarov, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 5 (1974), p. 12.
45 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2482.
46 TsGASPb, f. 9803, op. 1, d. 751.
47 V. Siniutin, Problemy mody, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 8 (1972), p. 55.
48 A. Iarovikov, Gotov zaplatit dorozhe , Literaturnaia gazeta, 6 August 1980, p. 13.
49 Zakharova, Sovetskaia moda 195060-kh godov, pp. 6370.
50 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 614, l. 133.
51 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 614, l. 203.
52 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 782, l. 3.
53 NARB, f. 1221, op. 1, d. 924. For the comment on fashion, see l. 4.
54 TsGALISPb, f. 178, op. 1, d. 37.
55 O. Vainshtein, Moe liubimoe plate: Portnikha kak kulturnyi geroi v Sovetskoi
Rossii, Teoriia mody: Odezhda, telo, kultura, no. 8 (2007), pp. 11415.
56 This point is made in Vainshtein, Moe liubimoe plate, p. 123.
57 R. Stites, Soviet Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 174.
58 M. V. Slavkina, Triumf i tragediia: Razvitie neftegazovogo kompleksa SSSR v 1960
1980-e gody, Moscow: Nauka, 2002, p. 146.
59 E. Propper Mickiewicz, Media and the Russian Public, New York: Praeger, 1981,
p. 74; S. I. Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology
in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 19601985, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center
Press, 2010, p. 126.
60 Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, pp. 613.
61 V. Siniutin, Problemy mody, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 8 (1972), p. 55.
62 This answer much amused Iren Andreeva, who was the girls examiner. See Andreeva,
Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme: Otchet sovetskogo obyvatelia, Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009, p. 249.
63 N. Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei: Sovetskaia povsednevnost: Kontury, simvoly,
znaki, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, p. 125.
64 A. Iushkova, Aleksandr Igmand: Ia odeval Brezhneva , Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2008, pp. 817.
65 RGANI, f. 5, op. 76, d. 204, l. 5.
66 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 265; Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, p. 53.
The print runs must have been sizeable, as Shchipakina notes that these brochures
brought considerable income to the House of Fashion.
67 S. Zhuravlev and J. Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast: Istoriia protivostoianiia,
Istorik i khudozhnik, no. 4 (2006), pp. 1078. The authors suggest that the encouragement to make ones own fashionable clothes might have been intentional to take
some pressure off state industry.
68 Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, p. 331.
69 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 2645.
70 See Zhuravlev and Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast, no. 4, p. 107.
71 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 155.
72 Ibid., p. 139. Andreeva recalls that goods from Yugoslavia were selected for closed
stores for the Party-state elite.
73 Zhuravlev and Gronow, Vlast mody i Sovetskaia vlast, no. 4, p. 109.
74 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.

242
75
76
77
78
79

80
81
82
83

84
85
86

87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104

105
106

Notes
For the discussion of this case see Chapter 3.
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 143.
Iushkova, Aleksandr Igmand, p. 52.
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 25051; Andreeva continued this practice when she joined the Moscow House of Fashion in 1980; see Shchipakina, Moda
v SSSR, pp. 5051.
On Riga, see M. A. Svede, All You Need is Lovebeads: Latvias Hippies Undress for
Success, in S. E. Reid and D. Crowley (eds), Style and Socialism: Modernity and
Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe, Oxford: Berg, 2000, p. 194; On Tallinn,
see A. E. Gorsuch, All This is your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad after
Stalin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, esp. pp. 567.
L. Parfenov, Namedni: Nasha Era, 19711980, Moscow: KoLibri, 2010, pp. 867.
W. J. Risch, The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Ukrainian Lviv,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 8398.
RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 564, ll. 177.
Irina Andreeva, Leksikon mody, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1983), p. 15. Rabotnitsa had
already introduced the topic of foreign fashion terms in the Russian language a few
years before, in I. V. Tolstoi, S. Svetana and A. Kulman, O modnykh slovakh i
sovremennoi mode, Rabotnitsa, no. 6 (1979), p. 26.
In 1962, Khrushchev set the tone by accusing the poet A. Voznesenskii of wanting to
trade his motherland for jeans: see Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei, p. 124.
V. I. Tolstykh (ed.), Moda, za i protiv, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1973. Others followed soon
after for instance, A. V. Petrov, Moda kak obshchestvennoe iavlenie, Leningrad:
Nauka, 1974.
For a discussion of publications on fashion and good taste in the 1950s and 1960s, see
Vainshtein, Female Fashion, Soviet Style; O. Gurova, Prostota i chuvstvo mery:
Nizhnee bele i ideologiia mody v Sovetskoi Rossii v 195060-e gody, Gendernye
issledovaniia, no. 10 (2004), esp. p. 155.
A. Levashova, Na vse vremena goda, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1968), p. 32.
V. Karbovskaia, Luzhniki-Sokolniki, Rabotnitsa, no. 10 (1967), p. 30.
I. Maliovanova, Novaia moda novogo goda, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1969), p. 31.
T. Kostygova, Kabluk, moda i zdorove, Rabotnitsa, no. 10 (1965), p. 28.
V. K. Skatershchikov, K sporam o mode, in Tolstykh, Moda, za i protiv, p. 266.
V. I. Tolstykh, Moda kak sotsialnyi fenomen, in Tolstykh, Moda, za i protiv, p. 38.
T. Kostygova, Moda i ee prevrashcheniia, Rabotnitsa, no. 4 (1972), p. 26.
G. Diomidova, Moda vash drug, Rabotnitsa, no. 4 (1973), p. 32; and I. Kosheleva,
Mnogouvazhaemaia moda, Rabotnitsa, no. 7 (1974), pp. 289.
Gorina, Moda i utsenka tovarov, p. 12; T. Kostygova, Zatovarennyi zhaket,
Rabotnitsa, no. 5 (1973), p. 30.
Kostygova, Moda i ee prevrashcheniia, p. 25.
Kostygova, Zatovarennyi zhaket, p. 30.
T. Kostygova, Dialektika kachestva, Rabotnitsa, no. 11 (1976), p. 29.
T. Kostygova, Put na prilavok, Rabotnitsa, no. 3 (1978), pp. 3031.
Tolstykh, Moda kak sotsialnyi fenomen, p. 29.
Ibid., pp. 312.
L. Efremova, Modeler rabotaet dlia promyshlennosti, Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR,
no. 4 (1965), pp. 1619.
M. Mudrov, Na cheloveke vse dolzhno byt prekrasno, Trud,
d 15 December 1967, p. 2.
T. Mikhailova, Olimpiiskie starty mody, Rabotnitsa, no. 4 (1980), p. 31. For the
impressions of a visiting foreign correspondent of Moscow as a Potemkin village
during the Olympics, see Christopher Booker, The Games War: A Moscow Journal,
London: Faber, 1981.
Skatershchikov, K sporam o mode, p. 286.
Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, p. 4.

Notes

243

107 In countries of the socialist bloc such legitimization of fashion had begun earlier; see
Bartlett, Davaite odenem ikh v bezh, pp. 187232; Bartlett, FashionEast, p. 144.
108 See Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 1445.
109 See ibid., pp. 2316, 240, 2645; L. Orlova, Ni razbogatet, ni proslavitsia, in
Iushkova, Aleksandr Igmand, pp. 67; Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, pp. 467, 197.
110 This paragraph draws on Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 22965. For
the key steps in the work of the House of Fashion designers, see Shchipakina, Moda v
SSSR, pp.613. Shchipakina also mentions that, when designing the first youth clothing collection, the House of Fashion drew on foreign experience, namely, designs of
the GDR firm Jugendmode; see pp. 3326.
111 TsAGM, f. 297, op. 1, d. 408.
112 Shveinaia industriia stolitsy, Moskovskaia pravda, 28 June 1968, p. 1. See also
Chapter 2.
113 V. Zotov, Vziat vernyi kurs, Pravda, 1 October 1965, p. 3.
114 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 2523.
115 On this investment disbalance, see Slavkina, Triumf i tragediia, p. 158.
116 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2356.
117 Iarovikov and Mikhailova, Shveinye izdeliia, p. 46.
118 This was according to the deputy minister of light industry Aleksandr Biriukov; see
T. Kostygova, Bashmak pod voprosom, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1985), p. 16.
119 Kostygova, Bashmak pod voprosom, p. 16.
120 Kostygova, Dialektika kachestva, pp. 2930.
121 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 137.
122 Kostygova, Moda i ee prevrashcheniia, p. 26; and L. Efremova, Metod modelirovaniia dolzhen izmenitsia, Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, no. 10 (1965), pp. 2730.
123 Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, pp. 3326.
124 Ibid., p. 72.
125 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 231.
126 Kostygova, Moda i ee prevrashcheniia, p. 26.
127 Kostygova, Zatovarennyi zhaket, p. 30.
128 Iushkova, Aleksandr Igmand, p. 82.
129 Orlova, Ni razbogatet, ni proslavitsia, pp. 78.
130 Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, pp. 1978.
131 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 244.
132 Ibid., pp. 1367.
133 Orlova, Ni razbogatet, ni proslavitsia, p. 8.
134 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 2968.
135 Ibid., p. 299.
136 Orlova, Ni razbogatet, ni proslavitsia, p. 7.
137 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 1612.
138 Ibid., p. 142.
139 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2328.
140 This was the view taken even by one of the contributors to the landmark volume on
fashion Fashion: Pro and Contra; see E. Ia. Basin and V. M. Krasnov, Gordiev uzel
mody, in Tolstykh, Moda, za i protiv, p. 65.
141 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 59, d. 2670.
142 Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
143 The point on classical styles is made in Zhuravlev and Gronow, Vlast mody i
Sovetskaia vlast, no. 4, p. 109.
144 T. Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, London: Pimlico, 2005, pp. 34750.
145 V. Basharina, Predlagaet Iugendmode, Rabotnitsa, no. 7 (1983), pp. 267.
146 T. Korobkova, Problemy firmennoi torgovli, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 6 (1984),
p. 15.
147 A. Tagieva, Kakaia ona moda?, Smena, 19 March 1975, p. 4.

244

Notes

148 Malenkaia lichnaia istoriia dzhins v SSSR, journal of Crykitten2 at LiveJournal,

http://crykitten2.livejournal.com/1498.html (accessed 21 August 2011).
149 These trends are described in Parfenov, Namedni, p. 50.
150 M. Arbatova, Mne 46: Avtobiograficheskaia proza, Moscow: Eksmo, 2004.
151 V. Korotich, Ot pervogo litsa, Kharkov: Folio, 2000, p. 69.
152 Cited in A. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was No More: The Last Soviet
Generation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 197.
153 Shchipakina, Moda v SSSR, p. 331.
154 Malenkaia lichnaia istoriia dzhins v SSSR.
155 Dzhinsy epokhi SSSR , http://forum.onliner.by/viewtopic.php?t=2833468
(accessed 21 August 2011).
156 Ibid.
157 RGASPI, f. 1, op. 31, d. 555a, l. 19.
158 RGASPI, f. 1, op. 31, d. 908, l. 55.
159 N. T. Frolova, A v mode li sut?, in Tolstykh, Moda, za i protiv, pp. 21517.
160 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, pp. 2834.
161 I. T. Levykin and M. V. Pokrovskaia, Problemy urovnia i kachestva zhizni sovetskikh
liudei, in I. T. Levykin and A. A. Vozmitel (eds), Sovetskii obraz zhizni: Sostoianie,
mneniia i otsenki sovetskikh liudei, Moscow: ISI AN SSSR, 1984, pp. 2440.
162 See, for instance, Oxford Archive of Russian Life History, Childhood in Russia: A
Social and Cultural History, 18901991, project leader: Professor C. Kelly, Oxf/Lev
T-04 PF6 (B), p. 17, interviewer: L. M. Terekhova; see also Dzhinsy epokhi SSSR .
163 P. Romanov and E. Iarskaia-Smirnova, Fartsa: Podpole sovetskogo obshchestva
potrebleniia, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5 (2005), http://magazines.russ.ru/
nz/2005/43/ro12.html (accessed 1 March 2006).
164 See, for instance, an interview with ex-Moscow artist Valentin Vorobev, who emigrated to Paris in the late 1970s. V. Alekseev, Zhizn potaennaia, Nezavisimaia gazeta,
1 April 2005, www.ng.ru/saturday/2005-04-01/15_life.html (accessed 7 May 2007).
165 E. Losoto, Chelovek sredi veshchei, Rabotnitsa, no. 10 (1981), pp. 1719.
166 T. Aleksandrova, Dukhovnoi zhazhdoiu tomim , Rabotnitsa, no. 8 (1984),
pp. 289.
167 Losoto, Chelovek sredi veshchei, pp. 1719.
168 T. Aleksandrova, Vstretilis pisma, Rabotnitsa, no. 3 (1972), p. 17.
169 L. Burmistrova, Daite slovo malchishke, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1968), p. 23.
170 Aleksandrova, Vstretilis pisma, p. 17.
171 Maminy uroki, Rabotnitsa, no. 6 (1969), p. 18.
172 N. Tegleva, Maksi i vremena goda, Smena, 13 September 1975.
173 Arbatova, Mne 46, p. 147.
174 Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, pp. 1356.
175 RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 390.
176 RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 552, ll. 11015.
177 Dobroe utro, chelovek!, Komsomolskaia pravda, 29 October 1972, p. 1.
178 RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 552.
179 RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 549.
180 Ibid. Ponomarev was speaking at the plenum of the Central Committee of the
Ukrainian Komsomol in January 1972.
181 RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 564.
182 T. Kostygova, Prognoz mody, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1979), pp. 3031.
183 See V. M. Sokolov, Formirovanie kommunisticheskogo mirovozzreniia molodezhi,
Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 2 (1976), p. 35; V. I. Chuprov, Aktualnye problemy sotsialnogo razvitiia sovetskoi molodezhi in V. I. Ivanov (ed.), Problemy
sotsialnogo razvitiia sovetskoi molodezhi, Moscow: ISI AN SSSR, 1985, p. 12.
184 A. Kliuchev and N. Shimbareva, Povyshat effektivnost rassmotreniia sudami del o
spekuliatsii, Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost, no. 3 (1984), pp. 3940.

Notes

245

185 For instance, Komsomolskaia pravda claimed to have received 1,500 letters after it published two readers opinions on fashion and morality. See Utverdi v sebe cheloveka!,
Komsomolskaia pravda, 12 November 1969, p. 4; see also RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 564.
186 RGASPI, f. 25, op. 1, d. 21, l. 65.
187 Frolova, A v mode li sut?, p. 216.
188 William Risch makes a similar point in reference to Lvov hippies and other youth
groups. See Risch, The Ukrainian West, p. 2413.
189 Arbatova, Mne 46, pp. 1545, 170. This was not the case of hippies in 1970s Lvov, as
William Risch points out. There were not many from upper-middle-class families, but
Lvov hippies were also very few and never a mass phenomenon, and, if the
Komsomol report is anything to go by, numbered only 21 in 1970, although these subcultures were fluid and defied set definitions. See Risch, The Ukrainian West, p. 241.
190 RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 976s, l. 2.
191 Svede, All You Need is Lovebeads, pp. 19293.
192 Ibid., pp. 1978. In contrast, Moscow-based Andreeva recalls the black marketers
dictum: To make alterations to foreign brands is to lose self-respect; see Andreeva,
Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 141. Other sources report a buyers disappointment
when a newly purchased imported item turned out to be a fake.
193 For the quote on labels, see T. Kostygova, Vyigrannoe pari, Rabotnitsa, no. 11
(1984), p. 28.
6 Closing the door on socialism
1 For a history of Soviet housing policies from the Revolution to Brezhnev, see
G. D. Andrusz, Housing and Urban Development in the USSR, London: Macmillan
and University of Birmingham, 1984, esp. p. 27 (for the 1980 figures). For the postwar
and Khrushchev periods, see M. B. Smith, Property of Communists: The Urban
Housing Program from Stalin to Khrushchev, DeKalb: Northern Illinois University
Press, 2010; for the 1960s figure, M. B. Smith, Individual Forms of Ownership in the
Urban Housing Fund of the USSR, 194464, Slavonic and East European Review,
86/2 (2008), p. 285; S. E. Harris, Moving to the Separate Apartment: Building,
Distributing, Furnishing, and Living in Urban Housing in Soviet Russia, 1950s1960s,
PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 2003.
2 V. Dunham, In Stalins Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 37.
3 On the Stalin era, see K. Kettering, Even More Cosy and Comfortable: Stalinism and
the Soviet Domestic Interior, 19281938, Journal of Design History, 10/2 (1997), pp.
11935; S. Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1995, pp. 1947; R. Balmas Neary, Domestic Life and the Activist
Wife in the 1930s Soviet Union, in L. H. Siegelbaum (ed.), Borders of Socialism: Private
Spheres of Soviet Russia, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 10722. For discussions of Khrushchev-era privacy, see V. Buchli, Khrushchev, Modernism, and the
Fight against Petit-Bourgeois Consciousness in the Soviet Home, Journal of Design
History, 10/2 (1997), pp. 16176; S. E. Reid, The Meaning of Home: The Only Bit of
the World You Can Have to Yourself, in Siegelbaum, Borders of Socialism, pp. 14570.
4 Among a wealth of literature on the politics and economics of the Khrushchev domestic discourse, see, for example, Iu. Gerchuk, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the
Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR (19541964), in S. E. Reid and D. Crowley (eds),
Style and Socialism: Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe,
Oxford: Berg, 2000, pp. 8199, esp. 868; C. Varga-Harris, Homemaking and the
Aesthetic and Moral Perimeters of the Soviet Home during the Khrushchev Era,
Journal of Social History, 41/3 (2008), pp. 56189; Harris, Moving to the Separate
Apartment. For continuities in housing policies, see S. V. Bittner, Remembering the

246

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

Notes
Avant-Garde: Moscow Architects and the Rehabilitation of Constructivism, 1961
1964, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2/3 (2001), pp. 55376;
Smith, Property of Communists.
An exception is Steven Harriss informative essay on privacy in separate apartments,
focusing on the problem of noise in the 1960s and early 1970s: S. E. Harris, I Know
All the Secrets of my Neighbors: The Quest for Privacy in the Era of the Separate
Apartment, in Siegelbaum, Borders of Socialism, pp. 17189.
For instance, Victor Buchli suggests that Khrushchevs cultural revolution continued
throughout the 1960s and decelerated in the 1970s: Reformist fervor subsided in the
general malaise characterizing Soviet society throughout the course of the Brezhnev
years. See Buchli, Khrushchev, Modernism, and the Fight against Petit-Bourgeois
Consciousness in the Soviet Home, p. 161.
Zametki redaktora, DI SSSR, no. 1 (1965), p. 1.
S. M. Temerin (ed.), Prikladnoe iskusstvo i sovremennoe zhilishche, Moscow: Izd-vo
Akademii khudozhestv, 1962; for the quotation, see p. 6.
L. V. Kamenskii, Sovremennaia mebel, ibid., pp. 937. The author criticized Stalinera architecture and furniture as suffering from eclecticism, excessive decorativeness
and sham dcor; see pp. 367.
V. Glazychev, Kak u vsekh ili ne kak u vsekh, DI SSSR, no. 5 (1966), pp. 26;
for the quotation, see p. 5.
V. Glazychev, 1968 god ot osnovaniia DI SSSR odinnadtsatyi, DI SSSR, no. 1
(1968), pp. 213.
Chto bespokoit mebelshchikov (diskussiia v Dome arkhitektora), DI SSSR, no. 9
(1968), pp. 337; for the quotation, see p. 35.
See, for instance, K. Rozhdestvenskii, Ob otvetstvennosti khudozhnika, mire predmetov naglaidnoi agitatsii, bolshom sinteze, in Sovetskoe dekorativnoe iskusstvo,
Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1976, pp. 817.
On Khrushchev-era didactic rationalism, see, for instance, S. E. Reid, The Khrushchev
Kitchen: Domesticating the Scientific-Technological Revolution, Journal of
Contemporary History, 40/2 (2005), pp. 289316.
Iu. Sluchevskii, Vyshe uroven professionalnogo masterstva, DI SSSR, no. 7 (1975),
pp. 910.
A. Levinson, Zhivye kvartiry, DI SSSR, no. 7 (1975), pp. 1318.
Harris, I Know All the Secrets of my Neighbors, pp. 17189.
A. K. Chekalov, Iz istorii russkogo interera, in Temerin, Prikladnoe iskusstvo i
sovremennoe zhilishche, p. 153.
Chto bespokoit mebelshchikov, p. 34; my emphasis.
Glazychev, Kak u vsekh ili ne kak u vsekh, p. 4; my emphasis.
Harris, I Know All the Secrets of my Neighbors, pp. 17189.
Ibid., 184.
Redaktsionnye zametki, DI SSSR, no. 11 (1966), p. 1.
Smith, Individual Forms of Ownership in the Urban Housing Fund of the USSR,
pp. 283305.
A separate apartment was not only state property but also a gift from the state, and the
state expected residents to maintain it in good order; see Reid, The Meaning of
Home, pp. 1545.
Ibid.
Glazychev, 1968 god ot osnovaniia DI SSSR odinnadtsatyi, p. 23.
L. Kazakova, Massovoe proizvodstvo i individualnyi spros, DI SSSR, no. 7 (1975),
p. 23.
Levinson, Zhivye kvartiry.
Levinson reported that social emulation was the chief factor that determined the way
people furnished their flats. See ibid., pp. 1318.

Notes

247

31 L. Kamenskii, Novoe v iskusstve mebeli, DI SSSR, no. 7 (1975), pp. 38; M. Izotova,
Khudozhestvennyi predmet vchera i segodnia, DI SSSR, no. 7 (1975), p. 20.
32 And still they were rebuked by some commentators for the lack of in-depth decorativeness; see A. V. Sikachev, Mebel-75 i khudozhestvennyi obraz zhilogo interera, in
Sovetskoe dekorativnoe iskusstvo, pp. 6774; for the quotation, see p. 68.
33 I. Luchkova and A. Sikachev, Smelee eksperimentirovat!, DI SSSR, no. 7 (1975),
pp. 1112.
34 Iu. Sosnovskii and A. Tkachenko, Vam predlagaiut udobstva, Moskovskaia pravda,
5 August 1969, p. 2.
35 N. Luppov, Kakimi stanut kvartiry?, Rabotnitsa, no. 5 (1973), p. 28.
36 For instance, writing for DI SSSR, Luppov praised new furniture for its greater individuality; see N. Luppov, Zakaz promyshlennosti otvet proektirovshchikov, DI
SSSR, no. 7 (1975), pp. 23.
37 G. Kolchanova, Oboi, Nauka i zhizn, no. 6 (1967), pp. 336.
38 V. Strashnov, Otvechaiut spetsialisty, Rabotnitsa, no. 2 (1967), p. 31.
39 R. Kovalenko, Okh, uzh eti babushki , Rabotnitsa, no. 9 (1971), pp. 1920.
40 I. Luchkova and A. Sikachev, Mebar mebel, stavshaia arkhitekturoi, Nauka i
zhizn, no. 8 (1976), pp. 97101; for the quotation, see p. 97.
41 I. Luchkova and A. Sikachev, Slagaemye interera, Nauka i zhizn, no. 5 (1976),
pp. 1046; for the quotations, see p. 104.
42 See also I. Luchkova and A. Sikachev, Nestandartnaia standartnaia kvartira, Nauka i
zhizn, no. 2 (1976), pp. 10811; Luchkova and Sikachev, Mebar mebel, stavshaia
arkhitekturoi, pp. 97101.
43 Luchkova and Sikachev, Slagaemye interera, p. 104.
44 The comedy was voted the film of the year in 1976 by readers of the glossy magazine
Sovetskii ekran (Soviet Screen). See L. Parfenov, Namedni: Nasha Era, 19711980,
Moscow: KoLibri, 2010, p. 151.
45 K. Parth, Russian Village Prose: The Radiant Past, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, p. 8.
46 V. Rasputin, Proshchanie s Materoi, in Chetyre povesti, Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1982,
p. 12; my translation.
47 Rasputin, Proshchanie s Materoi, p. 69.
48 L. Kholmianskii, Istoki formoobrazovaniia i prichiny stilizatsii, DI SSSR, no. 6
(1977), pp. 78.
49 L. Andreeva, Veshchi vokrug i my sami, DI SSSR, no. 7 (1975), pp. 3033.
50 This passage from Iurii Trifonovs novel Studenty (1950) is quoted in Dunham, In
Stalins Time, p. 45.
51 N. Kozhevnikova, Elena Prekrasnaia, Novyi mir, no. 9 (1982), p. 56.
52 That this was a matter of concern is evident, for instance, in T. Ryabushkin and
M. Jaranowski, On Soviet Population Issues, Population and Development
Review, 9/3 (1983), pp. 56972; see also G. E. Smith, Rethinking Soviet
Population Policy, Area, 15/2 (1983), pp. 13743. For a study of attitudes to gender roles and the family under Brezhnev and Gorbachev, see L. Attwood, The New
Soviet Man and Woman: Sex Role Socialization in the USSR, London: Macmillan
and University of Birmingham, 1990.
53 On divorce under Khrushchev, see D. A. Field, Irreconcilable Differences: Divorce
and Conceptions of Private Life in the Khrushchev Era, Russian Review, 57/4 (1998),
pp. 599613.
54 Smith, Rethinking Soviet Population Policy, p. 138. The decline in Russian births
unnerved Russian nationalists, especially when compared to the growth in Muslim
population, and pushed some of them to voice their concerns publicly. See Y. Brudny,
Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 19531991, Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, 1467.

248

Notes

55 R. Pressat, Historical Perspectives on the Population of the Soviet Union, Population

and Development Review, 11/2 (1985), p. 323.
56 B. Holland, A Womans Right to Choose in the Soviet Union, in J. Brine, M. Perrie
and A. Sutton (eds), Home, School and Leisure in the Soviet Union, London: Allen &
Unwin, 1980, pp. 59, 6063.
57 Attwood, The New Soviet Man and Woman, esp. pp. 16582.
58 N. Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei: Sovetskaia povsednevnost: Kontury, simvoly,
znaki, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, p. 206; Attwood, The New Soviet Man and
Woman, p. 6.
59 Brudny, Reinventing Russia, esp. pp. 1012, 1618, 2356, 6075, 101.
60 Balashov and Chalmaev, cited in Brudny, Reinventing Russia, pp. 71 and 75, respectively. On adopting Western ideas about housing and architecture, see M. B. Smith,
Khrushchevs Promise to Eliminate the Urban Housing Shortage: Rights, Rationality
and the Communist Future, in M. Ilic and J. Smith (eds), Soviet State and Society
under Nikita Khrushchev, London: Routledge, 2009, pp. 312; Gerchuk, The
Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR, p. 84. Khrushchev
was not the first leader to encourage the import of Western knowledge, but his engagement with Western technologies was more widely publicized.
61 Dunham, In Stalins Time, pp. 378.
62 Lebina suggests that fashion for icons was part of the fashion for all things Russian,
and notes that this trend was tolerated due to the anti-Khrushchev sentiments of the
leadership and anti-Western attitudes of cultural policy-makers. See Lebina,
Entsiklopediia banalnostei, p. 170. See also P. Vail and A. Genis, 60-e: Mir sovetskogo cheloveka, Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 1996, p. 268.
63 N. B. Lebina and A. N. Chistikov, Obyvatel i reformy: Kartiny povsednevnoi zhizni
gorozhan v gody NEPa i khrushchevskogo desiatiletiia, St Petersburg: Dmitrii
Bulanin, 2003, pp. 1715.
64 On housing shortages, see Andrusz, Housing and Urban Development in the USSR,
pp. 17981.
65 The reliance on standard designs in urban housing construction continued to grow
during the Brezhnev period, rising from 52 per cent in 1955 to 93.5 per cent in 1970;
new improved standard designs were introduced in 1964 and 1971. See Andrusz,
Housing and Urban Development in the USSR, pp. 15960. In the mid-1960s, the
state launched construction of nine-storey blocks of flats, and later even taller ones
were built. See B. A. Ruble, From Khrushcheby to Korobki, in W. C. Brumfield and
B. A. Ruble (eds), Russian Housing in the Modern Age: Design and Social History,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 240.
66 For evidence of contemporary awareness and a discussion of this challenge, see
E. Shchedrin, Tendentsii mimoletnye i ustoichivye, DI SSSR, no. 6 (1977), pp. 910;
N. Luppov, O dvukh tipakh mebeli, DI SSSR, no. 6 (1977), p. 11.
67 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2482.
68 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2634.
69 TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 3811.
70 Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1975 g., Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1976, p. 295.
71 L. S. Kosikova and S. P. Petukhova, Promyshlennye tovary narodnogo potrebleniia:
Proizvodstvo i sotrudnichestvo stran SEV,
V Moscow: Nauka, 1985, p. 75.
72 GARF, f. 9527, op. 1, d. 3685, ll. 813.
73 People had long adopted a do-it-yourself approach to their households, having routinely to repair faulty state-made items, which prompted two Russian researchers to
describe Soviet society as a repair society. See E. Gerasimova and S. Tchouikina,
Obshchestvo remonta, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 2 (2004), http://magazines.russ.
ru/nz/2004/34/ger85.html (accessed 15 May 2005).
74 See, for instance, L. Kropivnitskii, Khudozhestvennoe osmyslenie zhilogo
interera, DI SSSR, no. 1 (1975), pp. 249; Luchkova and Sikachev, Nestandartnaia

Notes

75
76
77
78
79

80

81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91

92
93
94
95
96
97

249

standartnaia kvartira, pp. 10811; Sikachev, Mebel-75, pp. 6774; Luppov,

Zakaz promyshlennosti otvet proektirovshchikov, pp. 23.
A. Pyzhikov, Khrushchevskaia ottepel, 19531964, Moscow: Olma Press, 2002,
p. 217.
This figure included homes built by the state and by cooperatives as well as those built
by citizens independently or using a state loan. Based on data from Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1987, p. 516.
Calculations based on ibid., p. 510. This figure does not include the homes built by
collective farms.
Andrusz, Housing and Urban Development in the USSR, p. 179.
On concerns about controls over morality in the conditions of modern urban living, see
A. Kharchev, Nekotorye problemy kommunisticheskogo vospitaniia trudiashchikhsia, Kommunist, no. 12 (1980), pp. 6170. On concerns about rural youth moving into
towns and falling out from under the usual radar of social control, see S. N. Ikonnikova,
Molodezh: Sotsiologicheskii i sotsialno-psikhologicheskii analiz, Leningrad: Izd-vo
Leningradskogo universiteta, 1974, pp. 912.
On traditional village surveillance, see C. Worobec, Peasant Russia: Family and
Community in the Post-Emancipation Period, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1991. On social control under Khrushchev, see O. Kharkhordin, The Collective
and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices, Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1999, esp. ch. 7.
Even amidst the excitement of the new fashion for modern interiors, some residents
voiced dislike of the mass-produced minimalist furniture; see Harris, Moving to the
Separate Apartment, ch. 8, pp. 53345.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2288. Whether these items had better luck with buyers in
other regions is unclear from the source.
V. Prokhina, Mebel: Predlozhenie, spros, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 3 (1975),
pp. 1517.
RGAE, f. 1562, op. 48, d. 1971; RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2432. The sums went from
about 62 roubles a year in 1971 to 130 roubles in 1984. These average figures give
little sense of actual spending, but they do give a sense of change over time.
Personal communications.
GARF, f. 9527, op. 1, d. 3685, l. 64.
Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei, p. 228.
I. Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme: Otchet sovetskogo obyvatelia, Moscow:
Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009, pp. 889. This was in 1975.
Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, p. 468.
A trade specialist had to explain to colleagues at a Leningrad city council meeting
what a furniture set was in 1955; see Harris, Moving to the Separate Apartment, ch. 8,
pp. 4823. The first sets of furniture and combination furniture (nabory sektsionnoi
mebeli) were produced in Leningrad in 19523, when they were the privilege of Party
bosses; see Lebina and Chistikov, Obyvatel i reformy, p. 164.
Andreeva, Chastnaia zhizn pri sotsializme, p. 71.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2634.
Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
Oxford Archive of Russian Life History, Childhood in Russia: A Social and Cultural
History, 18901991, project leader: Professor C. Kelly, Oxf/Lev P-05, PF24 (A),
pp. 23, interviewer: S. Sirotinina.
Oxf/Lev T-04, PF8 (A), pp. 278, interviewer: L. M. Terekhova.
See, for instance, I. T. Levykin and A. A. Vozmitel, Tendentsii, aktualnye problemy i
puti sovershenstvovaniia sovetskogo obraza zhizni, in I. T. Levykin and A. A. Vozmitel
(eds), Sovetskii obraz zhizni: Sostoianie, mneniia i otsenki sovetskikh liudei, Moscow:
ISI AN SSSR, 1984, p. 141; V. Kh. Bigulov, A. O. Kryshtanovskii, and A. S. Michurin,

250

98

99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115

Notes
Materialnoe blagosostoianie i sotsialnoe blagopoluchie: Opyt postroeniia indeksov i
analiz vzaimosviazi, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 4 (1984), pp. 8893.
We can recall here the example of lampshades cited earlier in Chapter 3: by 1980, twothirds of consumers bought new lampshades not because the old ones had broken but
because they had become outdated; the actual phrase used for this was emotional
amortization (moralnyi iznos). See A. Iarovikov, Gotov zaplatit dorozhe,
Literaturnaia gazeta, 6 August 1980, p. 13.
A. Khait, U nas vse ravny, Antologiia satiry i iumora Rossii XX veka, Moskva:
Eksmo, 2004, pp. 3940.
RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d. 390.
See, for instance, Glazychev, Kak u vsekh ili ne kak u vsekh, pp. 26; Levinson,
Zhivye kvartiry, 1318.
Oxford Archive of Russian Life History, Childhood in Russia: A Social and Cultural
History, 18901991.
Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei, p. 363.
Andreeva, Veshchi vokrug i my sami, p. 33.
S. Krivushev, Mebel segodnia i zavtra, Moskovskaia pravda, 17 February 1977, p. 2.
B. Rozov, Novyi, krupneishii v strane, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 10 (1975), pp. 1819.
Interview with G. P., July 2005, St Petersburg.
Lebina, Entsiklopediia banalnostei, p. 228.
Gerchuk, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR, p. 82.
V. I. Metelitsa, Stranitsy zhizni, Moscow: Raduga, 2001, p. 317.
M. Voslensky, Nomenklatura: Anatomy of the Soviet Ruling Class, trans. Eric
Mosbacher, London: Bodley Head, 1984, p. 204.
Oxf/Lev P-07, PF38, p. 2, interviewer: S. Sirotinina.
See, for instance, M. Arbatova, Mne 46: Avtobiograficheskaia proza, Moscow: Eksmo,
2004, pp. 204, 207, 282.
Vail and Genis, 60-e, p. 268.
See Article 28 of the 1973 Law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: On the
Protection and Use of Historic and Cultural Monuments, in Future Anterior, 5/1
(2008), pp. 7480.

7 Household technology in the Brezhnev-era home

1 This path has been delineated by a number of scholars of postwar Germany. See
U. G. Poiger, Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a
Divided Germany, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000; G. Castillo, Cold
War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of the Midcentury Design, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2010; J. Stitziel, Fashioning Socialism: Clothing,
Politics and Consumer Culture in East Germany, Oxford: Berg, 2005.
2 On the ideological role of domestic appliances in the shaping of new Soviet citizens
during the Khrushchev era, see S. E. Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender and the
de-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev, Slavic
Review, 61/2 (2002), pp. 21152; Reid, The Khrushchev Kitchen: Domesticating the
Scientific-Technological Revolution, Journal of Contemporary History, 40/2 (2005),
pp. 289316.
3 Castillo, Cold War on the Home Front.
4 Ibid., pp. 238. See also S. J. Wiesen, Miracles for Sale: Consumer Displays and
Advertising in Postwar West Germany, in D. F. Crew (ed.), Consuming Germany in
the Cold War, Oxford: Berg, 2003, pp. 15178.
5 See V. de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: Americas Advance through Twentieth-Century
Europe, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005, pp. 41657.
6 Reid reports that, in 1955, a Soviet delegation purchased and shipped home an
American kitchen, while during his 1958 trip to the USA Soviet Deputy Prime

Notes

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24

25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37

251

Minister Anastas Mikoyan took an interest in domestic appliances. During 19589,

Khrushchev made public promises about domestic mechanization. See Reid, Cold
War in the Kitchen, pp. 2258.
Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1965, Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1966, p. 238.
K. Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that
Lost the Cultural Cold War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011, pp. 17896.
Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1965, p. 238.
D. Mace and V. Mace, The Soviet Family, London: Hutchinson, 1964, p. 162.
Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR, 19221982, Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1982, p. 449.
This is according to a review of the consumer goods market in 1985 conducted by
VNIIKS. TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 4424.
Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1985 g., Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1986, p. 447.
P. Scott, Consumption, Consumer Credit and the Diffusion of Consumer Durables,
in F. Carnevali and J. Strange (eds), 20th Century Britain: Economic, Cultural and
Social Change, Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2007, p. 169.
E. Carter, How German Is She? Postwar West German Reconstruction and the
Consuming Woman, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997, p. 54.
De Grazia, Irresistible Empire, p. 443.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2239.
The share of all consumer goods produced by heavy industry grew from 19 per cent in
1965 to 28 per cent by 1975. Tiazhelaia industriia i tovary massovogo sprosa,
Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 6 (1977), p. 2.
Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR, 19221982, p. 217.
Gorizonty televideniia, Trud, 10 December 1967, p. 3.
K. Roth-Ey, Finding a Home for Television in the USSR, 19501970, Slavic Review,
66/2 (2007), p. 281.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 145.
V Ministerstve torgovli SSSR, Moskovskaia pravda, 2 March 1971, p. 2. TV sets
were discounted by between 19 and 30 per cent, washing machines by 16 per cent, and
electrical and automatic razors by 20 per cent.
O. P. Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, Moscow: Znanie, 1983, p. 22. There had
been attempts to lower the prices on TV sets under Khrushchev, as in 1959, but they
still remained prohibitive. See Roth-Ey, Finding a Home for Television in the
USSR, pp. 2834.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 145.
I. Vladimirov, Vystavka i prilavok, Rabotnitsa, no. 5 (1981), p. 26; the emphasis is mine.
Gorizonty televideniia, p. 3.
Novinki byta, Trud, 25 November 1967, p. 4.
TsGASPb, f. 7082, op. 3, d. 766.
Ibid.
TsGASPb, f. 7082, op. 3, d. 820.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 3523.
In fact, trade in all radio sets suffered from undersupply in the mid-1970s. The data
confirming this apply to Moscow, but it seems unlikely that other regions enjoyed a
better situation.
A. Klein, Garantiia na 18 let, Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1976), p. 27.
My grandmothers ZIL worked unfailingly for over 40 years, from the mid-1950s to
the early 1990s. It might have survived even longer had it not been damaged when she
moved house in the 1990s.
For a discussion of how Soviet consumers welcomed television, despite poor quality
and high prices, see Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time, pp. 1835.
I. Ilinskii, Razmyshleniia u televizora, Literaturnaia gazeta, 12 May 1956, p. 1,
quoted in K. Roth-Ey, Mass Media and the Remaking of Soviet Culture, 1950s1960s,
PhD thesis, Princeton University, 2003, p. 292.

252
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46

47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56

57
58
59

60
61
62
63

Notes
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2301.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2415.
TsGASPb, f. 7082, op. 3, d. 766.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 3523.
Ibid.
TsGASPb, f. 7082, op. 3, d. 820.
A. Maisiuk, V shume gorodskom, Oktiabr, no. 12 (1980), p. 48. For details, see
Chapter 2.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 3523.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2239. The data were collected by surveying 470 customers
in Moscow stores, 75 per cent of whom were Muscovites. By contrast, large numbers
of visitors to the capital were very happy to purchase manually operated washing
machines; in fact, the directors of all Moscow shops, where the information was collected, stated that visitors still bought Prozhektor, the once-popular manual brand, and
were generally happy with whatever they could find in the shop.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 4424.
N. B. Lebina and A. N. Chistikov, Obyvatel i reformy: Kartiny povsednevnoi zhizni
gorozhan v gody NEPa i khrushchevskogo desiatiletiia, St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin,
2003, p. 185.
A. Iarovikov, Etot zagadochnyi mikser, Literaturnaia gazeta, 25 July 1979, p. 13.
Ibid.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 2301. See also St. Afonin, Vystavka Interbytmash-68,
Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 5 (1968), p. 51.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 4424.
Vladimirov, Vystavka i prilavok, p. 27.
TsAGM, f. 346, op. 1, d. 4424. The share of such refrigerators in retail in 1985 was
less than half; only 10 per cent were two- and three-chamber models, and freezers
amounted to a tiny 2.5 per cent of all machines sold.
Vladimirov, Vystavka i prilavok, p. 27.
RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2423. More precisely, 18.5 per cent said they could not find
the goods they were looking for in the shops, and 61.3 per cent said they did not make
a purchase because of the unsatisfactory quality of goods. As TV sets were generally
available in retail, it seems reasonable to assume that not finding the commodity meant
not finding the right make of set.
RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2431.
RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2423.
RGAE, f. 1562, op. 65, d. 2733; and RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2423. Data from the
Central Statistical Bureau indicate that, in the 1980s, over half of respondents/
industrial employees saved money for three or more years before they could afford a
TV set, and a third needed one to three years. Nearly one-third of employees needed
the same amount of time to save up for a tape recorder or a radio, and the number of
people who could muster enough money in just one year fluctuated in the range of just
20 to 25 per cent. In 1982, only about 14 per cent could accumulate enough funds to
buy a refrigerator in less than one year. On the prohibitive cost of most household
durables during the interwar and early postwar years in Western countries, see, for
instance, de Grazia, Irresistible Empire, pp. 43940. See also Scott, Consumption,
Consumer Credit and the Diffusion of Consumer Durables, pp. 16972.
M. Grigoreva, Esli khochesh kupit kholodilnik , Rabotnitsa, no. 5 (1968), p. 31.
Ibid.
Iu. Leonidov, Rokovaia doverennost, Trud, 26 December 1967, p. 3.
Consumers wrote numerous letters of complaint to city trade departments and other
organizations, including editorial offices of major newspapers and state TV and radio,
in the hope of getting state officials to interfere and redress the moral and material
damage done to them in the process of shopping.

Notes

253

64 GARF, f. 6903, op. 42, d. 9.

65 See, respectively, L. Velikanova, Ne podarok, Literaturnaia gazeta, 16 July 1980,
p. 12; and T. Zubrilova, Zinaida Frantsevna ishchet miasorubku, Rabotnitsa, no. 8
(1984), p. 20. These letters could well be genuine or represent a common trend. In any
case, the reporters did not object to the emotive language and sided with the consumers.
66 RGANI, f. 5, op. 64, d. 275, l. 186.
67 Ibid.
68 E. Bogdanova, Gazetnye zhaloby kak strategii zashchity potrebitelskikh interesov:
Pozdnesovetskii period, Teleskop: Nabliudeniia za povsednevnoi zhizniu peterburr
zhtsev, no. 6 (2002), pp. 448.
69 Velikanova, Ne podarok, p. 12.
70 A 1986 collection of articles on rational consumption, for instance, stated bluntly that
many [Soviet-made] products are inferior to the best of their foreign counterparts in terms
of key technical and consumer characteristics. See E. L. Davydova, Kultura proizvodstva i razumnogo potrebleniia novykh tovarov, in E. M. Agababian (ed.), Ekonomika i
kultura razumnogo potrebleniia, Moscow: Institut ekonomiki AN SSSR, 1986, p. 119.
The press also openly acknowledged this problem, even as early as the 1960s.
71 For example, in 1965 the ministry for the defence industry tried to lobby Gosplan to
reduce its planned output of electrical durables from 890 to 830 million roubles.
RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 400.
72 Tiazhelaia industriia i tovary massovogo sprosa, p. 2.
73 There were 400 such enterprises in 120 towns of the Soviet Union in 1965, and 40
specialized in electric durables. G. Ivanov, Elektrobytovye tovary i trebovaniia k
nim, Sovetskaia torgovlia, no. 5 (1965), p. 11.
74 GARF, f. 6903, op. 42, d. 2. The analysis of letters from radio listeners conducted by
the USSR State Committee for Radio and Television in 1971 showed that most of the
(numerous) letters complaining about the poor quality of consumer goods referred to
refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, transistor radios, TV sets and record players. That this
had been a problem for many years is also stated in the 1985 VNIIKS report. TsAGM,
f. 346, op. 1, d. 4424.
75 E. Evseev, Sudba novogo obraztsa, Moskovskaia pravda, 28 June 1975, p. 2.
76 Vladimirov, Vystavka i prilavok, p. 27.
77 Ibid., p. 26.
78 M. Matthews, Class and Society in Soviet Russia, London: Allen Lane, 1972, p. 82.
79 A participant in the 1973 roundtable on youth problems, a journalist by profession,
explained that her family thought having a camera was important for cultural development and that it took precedence over other consumer goods. RGASPI, f. 98, op. 1, d.
564, ll. 177.
80 Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time, pp. 2018.
81 See, for instance, F. Nodel, Smotriu vsio podriad , Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1982),
pp. 212.
82 Krokodil, no. 2, 1972, p. 10.
83 S. I. Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City: The West, Identity, and Ideology in Soviet
Dniepropetrovsk, 19601985, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010,
pp. 65, 7981.
84 RGASPI, f. 1s, op. 1s, d. 1154s, ll. 434. Of these, 23.7 per cent admitted they tuned
in to Western stations, while 38.6 per cent did not answer, and 37.5 per cent said they
listened to radio stations in the socialist bloc countries.
85 On the states ambivalent attitudes to shortwave radios in particular, see A. Yurchak,
Everything Was Forever until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 1758.
86 Ibid. Yurchak notes that programmes which were broadcast in non-Soviet languages
were never jammed by the authorities.
87 See Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, pp. 77, 835.

254

Notes

88 Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was No More, p. 187.

89 Zhuk, Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, pp. 7994; Yurchak, Everything Was Forever
until It Was No More, p. 187. Magnitofikatsiia of the whole country is Vail and
Geniss term, quoted in Yurchak. The point on tape-recording as part of the generational identity is made in T. Cherednichenko, Tipologiia sovetskoi massovoi kultury:
Mezhdu Brezhnevym i Pugachevoi, Moscow: RIK Kultura, 1994, p. 225.
90 Krokodil, no. 20 (1972), front cover.
91 Iu. Trifonov, Predvaritelnye itogi, Novyi mir, no. 12 (1970), p. 74.
92 Zubrilova, Zinaida Frantsevna ishchet miasorubku, p. 20. Another example is
Vladimirov, Vystavka i prilavok, p. 26.
93 Saenko, Biudzhet sovetskoi semi, p. 4.
94 I. Iakovleva, Kombain nuzhen, esli , Rabotnitsa, no. 1 (1981), p. 31.
95 Ibid.
96 B. Fedorovskii, Dela domashnie, Literaturnaia gazeta, 16 January 1980, p. 13.
97 E. Novikova, Dvoinaia nosha, Pravda, 9 June 1984, p. 3. Such arguments could be
seen as attempts to put the problem of womens double burden on an economic footing
in a bid to attract attention and stimulate solutions. For instance, this article discussed
the time factor in the context of the debate about womens role in the household.
98 Fedorovskii, Dela domashnie.
99 Ibid.
100 Iarovikov, Etot zagadochnyi mikser, p. 13; Fedorovskii, Dela domashnie, p. 13.
101 Fedorovskii, Dela domashnie, p. 13.
102 E. Uspenskii, Garantiinye chelovechki, Moscow: Detskaia literatura, 1975.
103 RGAE, f. 1562, op. 67, d. 2431. To compare, spending on clothes grew by 10 per cent,
while furniture and household goods went up by 16 per cent.
104 S. Ia. Sirotenko, Osobennosti razvitiia torgovli elektrobytovymi mashinami v usloviiakh sovershenstvovaniia bytovogo obsluzhivaniia naseleniia, Candidate of Economic
Sciences dissertation (avtoreferat),
t Kiev Institute for Trade and Economy, 1972, pp.
2022. Mixed ownership meant owning some of the gadgets but sharing others with
neighbours.
105 A. Levinson, Zhivye kvartiry, Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, no. 7 (1975), pp. 1318.
106 For example, in The Turning Point (Povorot
(
, Abdrashitov, 1978), The Messenger Boy
(
(Kurer
, Shakhnazarov, 1986), The Belorussian Station (Belorusskii
(
vokzal, Smirnov,
1970) and The Pokrov Gates ((Pokrovskie vorota, Kozakov, 1982).
107 Wiesen, Miracles for Sale: Consumer Displays and Advertising in Postwar West
Germany, p. 166.
108 De Grazia, Irresistible Empire, p. 446.
109 Carter, How German Is She?
Conclusion
1 V. Paniushkin, Vosstanie potrebitelei, Moscow: Astrel, 2012.
2 See L. J. Cook, Brezhnevs Social Contract and Gorbachevs Reforms, Soviet
Studies, 44/1 (1992), pp. 4950.
3 Elements of such an approach are present in J. Zavisca, Consumer Inequalities and
Regime Legitimacy in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, PhD thesis, University of
California at Berkeley, 2004; and in Jennifer Paticos study of post-Soviet schoolteachers
in St Petersburg: Consumption and Social Change in a Post-Soviet Middle Class,
Stanford: Stanford General, 2008, esp. ch. 6, pp. 169206.
4 J. Patico and M. L. Caldwell, Consumers Exiting Socialism: Ethnographic Perspectives
on Daily Life in Post-Communist Europe, Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 67/3
(2002), p. 291.

Notes

255

5 As Gyrgy Pteri points out, state-socialist socioeconomic modernization ... had

never transcended, nor aimed beyond, the material culture of capitalism rather, it
defined itself as a faster, because more rational and more efficient, path in the same
direction. See G. Pteri, Introduction, in Pteri (ed.), Imagining the West in Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, p. 11.
6 J. Stitziel, Fashioning Socialism: Clothing, Politics and Consumer Culture in East
Germany, Oxford: Berg, 2005, pp. 68 and 15969.
7 For example, in post-1968 Czechoslovakia the regime placed emphasis on socialist
lifestyle rather than living standards as the basis for superiority to the West. See
P. Bren, The Greengrocer and his TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968
Prague Spring, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
8 See, for instance, R. Okey, The Demise of Communist East Europe: 1989 in Context,
London: Arnold, 2004, pp. 1921, 30, 348.
9 Oxford Archive of Russian Life History, Childhood in Russia: A Social and Cultural
History, 18901991, project leader: Professor C. Kelly.

Index

Note: page number in bold refer to illustrations.

Adidas 41, 141
All-Union House of Fashion 134, 1356,
141, 142, 148, 150
Andropov, Iu.10, 73, 100
Angora wool (mohair) 91, 97, 142
antiques 54, 77, 108, 172, 174, 1801, 182
Arbatov, G. 32
ateliers 104, 135, 140; see also tailors
Baibakov, N. 23, 29, 32
Baltic republics 31, 111; design 143;
fashion 113, 142, 143, 15960;
furniture 177, 179, 1801; as
Soviet abroad 91, 143, 181
banany 145
batnik 141
Belobuvtorg 289, 36, 40, 140
Belorussia 289, 35, 40, 401, 812,
13940; see also Minsk
Berezka 989, 100, 111, 114
black market 5, 926, 98102, 127, 141,
143, 152, 154, 196; see also fartsa;
profiteering
blat 86, 923, 102, 126, 127; see also
corruption
bleizerr 141, 145
bolonia raincoats 34, 39, 152
brakk 21, 367, 149
Brezhnev, L. 1, 1819, 29, 30, 33, 153,
205; family of 1001; and reforms
23, 32
Bulgaria 116, 177; jeans made in 105
bytt prose 5966; see also literature,
village prose
cars 5, 69, 83, 84, 105, 110
cinema: censorship 678, 71, 73, 745, 78;
on consumerism 46, 6678; on

consumption 95; on fashion 113, 1345,

1435; foreign films 11718, 120, 1401;
on furniture 164, 16970, 172, 17880;
see also intelligentsia; the West
clothes see fashion; jeans
clothing industry 212, 24, 25, 267, 28,
345, 135, 136, 141, 14852
Cold War: dtente 117; and fashion 1367,
1467; and the home 173, 1845,
1945
commission shops see second-hand shops
congresses of the Party 18, 19, 30; and
declarations on consumer goods
39, 195
constitution: of 1936 106,
107; of 1977 7, 51
consumer policy: under Brezhnev
56, 1819, 3940, 501, 1869,
2045; under Khrushchev see
Khrushchev; under Stalin 45, 46, 106;
see also foreign goods; reforms
consumer: Brezhnev-era consumer
revolution 14, 2023; complaints 51,
87, 89, 1389, 1945, 203; consumer
goods production see light industry,
clothing industry, heavy industry;
definitions 1012, 4650; demanding
2, 26, 301, 512, 813, 138, 13940,
146, 175, 1767, 17780, 1902;
modern 34, 45, 81, 1601, 184, 186,
18992, 2001; post-Soviet 202, 2034;
rights 2, 45, 47, 51, 194, 202, 203;
socialist 1113, 42, 45, 4850, 834
consumerism 848, 108, 1234; in cinema
6678; female 645, 73, 767; in
the Khrushchev era 67; in literature
5966; in the press 434, 538, 128,
1567; in the Stalin era 45; and youth

Index
d
257
568, 73, 856, 11931, 1567; see
also intelligentsia; veshchizm
corruption see blat; trade
Council of Ministers 25, 27, 32, 34, 40,
1512
crime 54, 57, 99101; see also black
market; profiteering
Czechoslovakia 1, 12, 61, 100, 142, 177
defitsit see shortages
de-Stalinization 136, 163; curtailment
under Brezhnev 67, 46, 59, 1634;
see also home
direct links/direct orders see trade
Dniepropetrovsk 4, 96, 97, 155, 158, 196
dublenka (sheepskin coat) 1045, 117, 131
East Germany 11, 115, 116, 126, 136, 178,
181, 185, 205
excess stock see trade
exhibitions of consumer goods 11415,
153, 185, 188, 191, 195
family 73, 767, 89, 1701, 173, 200;
prestigious spouses 53, 54
fartsa 54, 901, 935, 98, 99, 101, 113,
140, 143, 1556, 196
fartsovshchiki see fartsa
fashion 88, 112, 113, 13361; in cinema
113, 1345, 1435; and Cold War
1367, 1467; debates on youth fashion
1578; design 1367, 141, 143, 1478,
1501; fashion magazines 119, 143, 148;
geography of 113, 143; Houses of
Fashion 82, 134, 1356, 141, 142,
143, 1478, 151, 154; Khrushchev-era
1367, 139; in public discourse 1457;
self-made 119, 123, 135, 141, 142,
15960; socialist fashion 1336, 1367,
145, 1601; spending on clothes 138;
Stalin-era 1346; Western 401, 11819,
1212, 134,1356, 1367, 1402, 145,
15860, 1601; for womens trousers
1578; and youth 119, 120, 1213, 148,
150, 15360; see also atelier; clothing
industry; footwear; profiteering; tailors
faulty goods see brak
footwear 289, 39, 40, 812, 13940, 142,
145, 149, 151
foreign goods 38, 91, 958, 113, 1801;
copying foreign designs 401; cult of
imported goods 94, 11319, 1567,
1801, 194; import of consumer
goods 312, 33, 94, 140, 175, 177; see
also fartsa; travel abroad; the West

foreign visitors 95, 114; impressions

of the USSR 17, 84, 94, 129, 147
furniture 104, 108, 112, 125, 16283;
the 1970s styles 1678; 169, 172,
1778, 179; from the Baltic republics
177, 1801; in cinema 164, 16970,
172, 17880; consumers of 17681;
designers 1649; industry 36, 165,
1678, 1756, 180; in literature 164,
1701, 172, 1734; MEBAR 168;
politics of 1635, 1716; as a social
marker 1801, 183; from socialist
countries 177, 178, 1801; spending
on 177; standard interior 165, 166 7,
16870, 180; see also home; prices
furs 83, 86, 1045, 105, 110, 112
GDR, the see East Germany
Gorky 24, 25, 28, 30, 35, 956, 115
Goskino 67, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 78
Gosplan 20, 22, 23, 32, 40
GUM (State Department Store) 345,
89, 92, 117
heavy industry 19, 43; and consumer
goods production 22, 1867, 195
hippies 567, 105, 122, 123, 1434,
15960
home: de-Khrushchevization of 16376,
182; de-politization of 164, 169, 176,
1823; electrical goods184201; ethical
and environmental concerns 199200;
household goods ownership 186, 200;
household goods production 185, 1868,
192, 195; housing construction 18,
1623, 174, 176; in the Khrushchev era
163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 176, 178, 179,
1846, 1989; modern 1656, 1701,
195200, 2001; and noise 1656;
peasant dcor 1701, 174, 181; revival
of Stalinist norms 1714, 1812;
in the Stalin era 1623; see also
antiques; Cold War; furniture; Russian
nationalism, scientific technological
revolution
Hungary 1, 115, 116, 177
imports see foreign goods
incomes see money
intelligentsia 10711, 1734; and arriviste
635, 66, 713, 76, 78, 1079; in
cinema 67, 712, 73, 74, 76, 778; on
consumerism 6079; consumerism of
1089; in literature 60, 604, 656;
material conditions of 95, 967, 98,

258

Index

101, 107, 10911, 126, 181; as a model

for emulation 10710, 113, 131, 174;
self-identity 64, 66, 67, 78, 107; see
also bytt prose; cinema; village prose
jeans 3, 41, 84, 86, 105, 122, 128, 141,
145, 1545, 155, 157
Khrushchev, N. 153, 185; consumer
policies of 2, 7, 1718, 456, 1212,
163, 1846; criticism of 18, 19, 478,
16474; see also fashion; home
Komissarova, K. 118, 140
komissionki see second-hand shops
Komsomol: and consumerism 95, 129,
12930; and fashion 122, 137, 1578;
and travel 155; and Western propaganda
567, 120, 196; see also youth
Korotich, V. 1034, 109, 154
Kosygin, A. 18, 21, 29, 33, 146, 1512;
daughter of 104; and reforms 224, 27,
32, 149
Kudrov, V. 108, 116
kulturnost 8, 45, 106, 134, 1623
Lvov 45, 26, 901, 119, 1212, 123,
143, 193
Leningrad 83, 84, 90, 94, 95, 110, 129,
130, 139, 143, 152, 153, 157, 178,
189, 190
light industry 19, 212, 256, 30, 325,
356, 401, 43, 135, 150, 151; and
the 1965 reform 229; see also
brak; clothing industry; furniture
literature 46, 1734; censorship of 589,
68; see also bytt prose, village prose
Lungina, L. 12, 83, 104, 106, 118

OBKhSS 99, 102

Party Programme of 1961 2, 19, 45
philistine see consumerism; veshchizm
Plisetskaia, M. 967, 100
Poland 17, 30, 39, 91, 115, 116, 129, 143
prices: of consumer goods 3940, 177,
189, 190; reductions 39, 188; setting
of 234, 39; stability of 3940;
see also reform
profiteering 54, 89, 91, 925, 99100;
see also black market; fartsa
Quality Mark 194
radio 31, 39, 83, 87, 91, 110, 117, 129,
171, 185, 186, 188, 189, 191, 200;
Western 120, 196
Raikin, A. 80, 102
Rasputin, V. 60, 171
reforms, economic 2235, 41, 149;
see also Kosygin; trade
refrigerators 39, 82, 184, 185, 186,
187, 188, 189, 191, 192, 1924, 196,
199, 200
re-Stalinization see de-Stalinization
retail see trade
Riazanov, E. 68, 6870, 74, 75, 76, 112
Romania 116, 181
Russian nationalism 46, 1734, 182

materialism see consumerism

maxi-skirts 141, 154, 157, 159
mini-skirts 141, 14950, 154, 159
Minsk 36, 37, 82, 90, 115, 143, 151,
155, 175
modernity/modernization 7, 89, 45,
789, 132, 1623, 1845, 2045
money 6970, 84, 95, 96, 97, 127,
177; incomes 24, 28, 81, 109, 126;
savings 30, 89, 192; see also prices
music players 83, 91, 186, 187, 189, 191,
192, 193, 194, 195, 1967, 200, 201

Saratov 28, 36, 38, 90, 138, 152

savings see money
scientific technological revolution (NTR)
8, 16, 201, 1845, 195, 198200
second-hand shops 92, 98, 989, 134,
177, 180
second economy see black market
shoes see footwear
shopping 17, 378, 878, 88101, 17880;
abroad see travel abroad; geography of
901; privileges 91, 93, 99, 1001,
1045, 106, 109, 110, 131, 132;
for refrigerators 1924; see
also nomenklatura; trade
shortages 212, 25, 289, 301, 35,
52, 804, 87, 88, 111, 113, 1245,
140, 149, 175, 177, 186, 189, 190,
1912, 198; total shortages 3
stiliagi 1212, 128, 134, 137

nomenklatura 83, 95, 99, 102, 181;

privileges of 97, 1001, 1045, 1067,
111, 1301, 135

tailors 137, 140; see also ateliers

tape recorders see music players
teenagers see youth

Index
d
259
television sets 39, 83, 112, 184, 185, 186,
1878, 18990, 191, 192, 1956, 199,
200
tourism see travel abroad
trade 31, 323, 3541, 87, 113, 139,
177, 1923; corruption in 86, 92, 94,
989, 152, 180, 197; cultured trade
8, 45; direct links 246, 34, 152,
192; holiday trade 389; Ministry
of Trade 3940, 193; profession in
trade 64, 723, 856, 110; reforms
246; self-service shops 378; study
of consumer demand 21, 26, 289,
34, 36, 51, 83, 87, 88, 13940, 148,
178, 18991; unwanted goods 212,
256, 29, 301, 82, 139, 146, 149,
151, 177, 1912; see also foreign
goods, second-hand shops, VNIIKS
travel abroad 115, 155; and shopping
901, 958, 100, 11617
Trifonov, Iu. 603, 64, 68, 197
Ukraine 35, 82, 139, 1578, 193, 196;
see also Dniepropetrovsk
veshchizm 47, 534, 55, 58, 63, 73, 84,
121; see also consumerism
VIAlegprom (All-Union Institute for
the Assortment of Light Industry
Products) 143, 148, 151

video players 100, 104, 140, 201

village prose 5960, 66, 1701, 174
VNIIKS 26, 36, 191, 1912
washing machines 29, 31, 82, 125, 184,
185, 1867, 188, 1901, 192
West, the: parallels with Soviet consumer
culture 81, 1056, 119, 153, 154, 184,
186, 194, 199, 2001, 2045;
production licenses for Western goods
41, 141; and Russian nationalism 174;
in Soviet imagination 11719, 120, 129;
in Soviet propaganda 546, 114;
Western films 11718, 120, 1401;
Western music 1967; see also fashion;
foreign goods; Komsomol; travel
abroad; youth
youth: and black market 119, 158, 196;
as consumers 1045, 11931, 158,
180; and fashion 119, 120, 1213, 148,
150, 15360; generation gap 81, 103,
11921, 1237, 157; incomes of 126,
155; values of 856, 111, 11920; and
the West 5, 567, 95, 1212, 15860,
1967; see also consumerism;
hippies; jeans; Komsomol; stiliagi
Yugoslavia 97, 104, 11617, 142, 181
Zhvanetskii, M. 80

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