Erich Wollenberg: Abolition of the Bread Cards in the SU (March 1935) https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol02/no02/wollen...

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The New International, March 1935

Erich Wollenberg

The Abolition of the Bread Cards

in the Soviet Union
From New International, Vol. II No. 2, March 1935, pp. 73–74.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

UP TO NOW, 55,000,000 Soviet Russians received definite rations at definite low – privileged
– prices at exclusive distribution centers. The card system embraced bread, flour, barley,
legumes, potatoes, meat, lard, vegetables, sugar, fish, herring, preserves; further, clothing,
shoes, linen, yarn, sewing needles, etc.

In these distribution centers established for workers and employees, there was a daily bread
ration of 800 grams [1] for the worker, 400 grams for the employee in the main cities; in the
provinces, this norm went down to 500 and 300, and even to 200 and 100 grams per day in the
hard times of 1932–1933. In addition, there was received for the whole month one kilo of
barley or legumes, a few kilo of potatoes, from one-half to one kilo of meat, some margarine, a
couple of herrings, a half-kilo of sugar. “Shock brigaders” [udarniki] received from one to two
kilos of meat per month, butter and still other special rations.

In the better supplied distribution centers (like those for the workers in heavy industry), the
norm was higher. The technicians, the engineers, the artists, the scholars, the foreigners had
their special distribution centers where they had an ample selection of definite amounts of
normated commodities to buy from. The best distribution centers were those of the upper
governmental, party and GPU officials. The highest party and government officials were not
bound by any norms.

This intricate system of small, larger and largest privileges created social inequality in the
restaurant provisioning. Whereas the working woman of a Moscow textile factory received a
cabbage soup and a piece of bread for 80 copecks [2], the higher party official obtained an
excellent menu of five courses in the Kremlin restaurant for the same sum.

In the distribution centers, the following prices per kilogram were paid in 1933: black bread,
27 copecks; white bread, 52 copecks; meat, 2 to 4 rubles; herrings, 3 to 10 rubles; sugar, 2
rubles; butter, 6 to 8 rubles. (These figures – like those that follow – are taken from the official
Moscow reports.)

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On April 1, 1934, the bread prices were increased 100% to 54 and 104 copecks respectively.

With these rations, it was very difficult to manage. Whoever did not possess foreign
currency, gold, silver and objects of value and thereby have the privilege of being able to buy
all goods in the “Torgsin” stores at cheap prices, was compelled to purchase supplementary
food supplies in the government “commercial stores” or on the market (the free or the kolkhoz
market). The commercial stores are governmental sales centers with appreciably increased, but
nonetheless controlled prices.

In the commercial stores established in the middle of 1933, prices per kilogram were (figures
in parentheses represent the prices in the privileged distribution centers):

Rubles Rubles

Black bread 2.00 (0.54)

White bread 3.00 (1.04)

Meat 10.00 to 12.00 (2.00 to 4.00)

Butter 30.00 (6.00 to 8.00)

On the market, prices were 2 to 4 rubles per liter [ap. 1 liquid quart] of milk, 1 ruble per egg, in
addition to which there were vegetables and meat. The peasant came to the market not as a
seller but as a purchaser of bread; he paid for it in coin or exchanged milk and eggs for it.

From January 1, 1935 onward, the provisions card for bread, flour, barley and legumes is
abolished; the card system is to remain in effect for the time being so far as other living needs
are concerned.

Instead of definite rations at privileged prices, every consumer now receives any amount of
goods he desires – but at higher prices.

The whole Soviet Union has been divided into eight price districts. Goods are cheapest in the
first district (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan) and dearest in the eighth (Far East). Moscow is part of
the third, and Leningrad part of the fourth price district.

The spread of prices among the districts is as follows: black bread from 0.80 rubles to 1.50
rubles, white bread from 1.20 rubles to 2.80 rubles, flour from 1.35 to 3.50 rubles.

For a comparison with the prices up to now, we take the fourth district (Leningrad). In the
following table, the hitherto existing privileged prices are in parentheses and the hitherto
existing commercial prices are in brackets:

Rubles Rubles Rubles

Black bread 1.20 (0.54) [ 2.00 ]

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White bread 2.40 (1.08) [ 3.00 ]

Flour 4.00 (2.00) [ 8.00 ]

Grits 6.20 (1.00) [ 10.00 ]

Pearl-barley 4.20 (0.80) [ 8.00 ]

Maccaroni 5.60 (1.20) [ 8.00 ]

Peas 5.10 (0.80) [ 8.00 ]

Beans 5.50 (0.80) [ 8.00 ]

Rice 10.00 (2.00) [ 12.00 ]

One sees immediately: an extraordinary price rise compared with the previous privileged
prices; but it is a burden upon the worker’s household essentially only with regard to the bread
price, for up to now the worker obtained from his distribution center only slight amounts of the
other provisions anyway.

The additional burden is to be equalized by a wage increase. How does this work out?

This total wage amount is increased in the budget year of 1935 by 4,200,000,000 rubles;
there are 22,000,000 wage and salary recipients in the Soviet Union, so that each one is to
receive an average of 190 rubles per year more than at present – that is, 16 rubles per month.

Every wage recipient has to take care of himself and in addition an average of one and a half
mouths (55,000,000 who must receive victuals from 22,000,000 who receive wages).

The monthly bread requirement in Russia (where bread is the principal means of sustenance)
amounts to 20 kilograms per person, making 50 kilograms for 2½ months. For these 50
kilograms, the worker paid:

13.50 rubles on January 1, 1934. 27.00 rubles on April 1, 1934. 60.00 rubles from January 1,
1935 on.

This is an increased burdening of the proletarian household of 13.50 rubles at first, then of an
additional 33 rubles – a total of 46.50 rubles.

As against this, there is first a wage increase on April 1, 1934 of from 10% to 15% for all
workers and employees who received less than 140 rubles per month (a total of 12,000,000
wage, salary, stipend and annuity recipients); and second, the present wage increase of 16
rubles per person.

The total wage increase in the course of the years amounts – for persons

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Who earned more than 140 rubles monthly

– to 16 rubles

Who earned less than 140 rubles monthly

– to 30 rubles

Who earned less than 100 rubles monthly

– to 26 rubles

Who earned less than 50 [3] rubles monthly

– to 21 rubles.

The result of all this, therefore – cogent and on the basis of official Moscow figures – is: After
the abolition of the bread cards the average person with an income has additional expenses of
46.50 rubles and additional income of 30 rubles; the deficit is 16.50 rubles or – if one assumes
the average wage to be the pretty high figure of 140 rubles – 12%. After the abolition of the
bread cards, the real value of the average Russian wage, as compared with January 1934, has
been diminished by twelve percent.

The elimination of the bread cards nevertheless registers an advance in economy taken as a
whole. Two years ago it was impossible. At that time it would have led to complete chaos, to a
war of everyone against everybody. Now, disorganized and weakened agriculture has
recuperated to the point where bread is at hand for the population as a whole in town and
country in adequate amounts. The gravest agrarian crisis of Soviet Russia – graver than the one
during war communism – is beginning to be overcome.

Early in 1933, an old Moscow working woman told me:

“If we are to weather these hunger years, we all ought to get the Order of Lenin; we
have earned it a thousand times more than the heroes of the civil war.”

Now they have put the very worst of the hunger years behind them. But why must this advance
be paid for by the workers with new sacrifices ? The Soviet government was guided by the
following considerations:

1. Bread is at hand, but even today it suffices for the population as a whole only with
a certain restriction of consumption. This restriction can be achieved either
administratively (by those very bread cards) or by market measures, by lowering
the purchasing power. This time the decision went for the second way.

2. In recent years the peasants bore the heaviest burdens. The present enactment
shifts them; it signifies a heavier burdening of the workers in favor of the
peasants: a portion of the surplus revenue from the price increases is to be turned
over by the government to the peasants in the form of raised governmental
purchasing prices for agricultural products.

3. The largest portion of the surplus revenues of the government is to be invested in

industry, especially in the war industry. The price increases are a special form,
specific to Russia (where there can be no property taxes), of renewed indirect

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taxation. The tempos of development of industry, which were somewhat slowed

down in 1933 and 1934, will again be accelerated at the expense of the urban
working population.

(Europäische Hefte)
Prague, Jan. 18, 1935.

Footnotes
1. 100 grams is slightly more than one-fifth of a pound; 800 grams is one and three-quarters pounds; a
kilo is 1,000 grams. – Ed.

2. 100 copecks equals 1 ruble. Not quoted on foreign exchange, the “normal” (uninflated) ruble used to
equal the “normal” American half-dollar. – Ed.

3. According to reports of the Commissariat of Labor, in March 1934 around 270,000 invalids in the
Soviet Union received less than 40 rubles support per month, and around 300,000 beneficiaries of
annuities less than 20 rubles.

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