Ration card system — a system for supplying the population with consumer goods under conditions of shortage. Under this system, to purchase a product one had to not only pay money for it, but also present a one-time coupon granting the right to buy it. Cards (coupons) set specific per-person monthly consumption norms for goods.
The essence of the coupon system is that, in order to buy a scarce good, one must not only pay money but also hand over a special coupon authorizing the purchase of that good.
Coupons for food products and certain consumer goods were obtained at the place of registered residence from the housing office. At the workplace (usually through the trade-union committee), distribution was arranged for some food products and industrial goods received through in-kind exchange between enterprises.
The reason for the emergence of the coupon system was a shortage of certain widely used goods.
The goal of introducing coupons was to provide the population with a minimally guaranteed set of goods. Demand was supposed to fall, since without a coupon the relevant goods were effectively not sold in the state retail network. In practice, it was sometimes impossible to use coupons if the corresponding goods were not available in stores. Some goods, if they were in surplus, were sold without coupons, even though coupons were issued for them as well—for example, for salt.
Without a coupon, goods could be bought at markets and from speculators.
The assumed consumption norm could differ depending on the status of a locality; for example, when butter rationing was introduced in Chelyabinsk Oblast in 1981, the norm for Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, and five other large cities was 200 grams per person per month; for some smaller towns it was 150 grams; for most localities it was 100 grams. The extent to which coupons could be redeemed for a specific type of product could vary; for example, with a guaranteed norm of 2 kilograms of meat products per person per month, in Chelyabinsk Oblast in 1983 coupons were redeemed 67% for sausages, 23% for poultry, and 10% for beef and pork (mainly for war invalids and diabetics). In 1985 the situation with meat-product supplies worsened, and coupons were redeemed mainly for boiled sausages, pork, and lean mutton.
Perestroika, on the one hand, partially abolished mandatory state deliveries, and on the other hand eliminated the foreign-trade monopoly, as a result of which exporting enterprises and cooperatives accumulated large amounts of money not backed by available goods. This led to a growing shortage of certain goods and some expansion of the coupon system, and as shortages spread in 1989–1990, coupons were widely introduced for many food products and some other goods (tobacco products, vodka, sausage, soap, tea, grains, salt, sugar, and in some cases, in remote areas, bread, milk, mayonnaise, laundry detergent, women’s underwear, etc.).
Since large and “closed” cities of the USSR were supplied with food better than the provinces, in attempts to stop nonresidents from taking scarce goods (meat, meat products, and fish products) out of the city, the leadership of certain cities began to propose introducing meat coupons. In the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, as food shortages intensified, in some cities and regions of the country (Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Vologda, Zheleznogorsk, and others) attempts were made to regulate consumption by introducing rationing and coupons for certain types of food (meat, meat products, sausage, butter).
The coupon system began to be introduced on a large scale in 1989 and became most widespread in 1990–1991, when the overall shortage peaked, and not only meat products but also ordinary goods that had not previously been in short supply began to disappear: sugar, grains, vegetable oil, and others.
The coupon system faded away from the beginning of 1992 due to price liberalization, which caused hyperinflation (in 1992 alone prices rose 26-fold) and the spread of free trade. For some goods in certain regions, coupons remained in use longer.