Russian Culture

Lesson 1: Myths and Legends of Soviet Russia

Breadlines

We equate breadlines with a failing Soviet system, but this was not the way it was for the majority of Soviet history. The breadline was a form of social welfare during periods of economic depression. In these times, citizens received tickets, which guaranteed they would get the necessities of living, which the State provided free. Food and goods like: sugar, butter, meat, eggs and soap were provided by the State. The breadlines we Americans picture in our heads were the breadlines of the WWII (in Russia, they call this war the Great Patriotic War) and post-war years. This was an extreme time, but this was not the way Soviet Russia always was.

This was a statewide resource management program during the times when the economy was depressed or in crisis. The “breadlines” were only in the WWII and post war era. In the most recent economic depression, during the 1980’s, bread was quite plentiful. Breadlines are not solely to be equated with starving people. Just as here, you don’t have to be starving to be on welfare. In the times when the “breadlines” were in place the state was providing the basic requirement of food to all citizens. It was only during the war era that people received a scant minimum of food required by the human body to live.

My husband grew up during peristrioka (in the 1980’s) and during the last “breadline” era. He tells me that what made the main fault of the ticket system was that the delivery of the food was never consistent, citizens never knew when the next shipment of a particular kind of food would come. So, citizens were allowed to buy as much of a product as they wanted at one time so they could save food for the next few months. It was not unusual to buy a supply of meat for the next three months. To do this you just needed to save three months worth of tickets, so if the meat took a long time to come to the shop you just saved your tickets up and bought it in bulk. Despite this fault, he cannot remember a time when his family (who are average working class people) did not have food.

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