Ration card system — a system of supplying the population with consumer goods under conditions of shortage. Under this system, in order to buy a product one had not only to pay money for it, but also to present a single-use coupon granting the right to purchase it. Ration cards (coupons) set specific monthly per-person consumption norms for goods.
The essence of the coupon system is that to buy a scarce good it is necessary not only to pay money, but also to hand over a special coupon authorizing the purchase of that good.
Coupons for food and some consumer goods were obtained at one’s place of registered residence through the housing office. At the workplace (usually through the trade-union committee), distribution was organized for some food and industrial goods obtained via in-kind exchange between enterprises.
The reason for the emergence of the coupon system was a shortage of certain mass-market goods.
The purpose of introducing coupons was to provide the population with a minimally guaranteed set of goods. Demand was supposed to fall, because without a coupon the relevant goods were in practice 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, one could buy goods at markets and from speculators.
The assumed consumption norm could differ depending on the status of the locality; thus, 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 cities, 150 grams; for most localities, 100 grams. Fulfillment of coupons with a specific type of product could vary; thus, with a guaranteed norm of 2 kilograms of meat products per person per month, coupons in Chelyabinsk Oblast in 1983 were redeemed as 67% sausage, 23% poultry meat, and 10% beef and pork (mainly for war invalids and diabetics). In 1985 the situation with meat-product supplies worsened, and coupons were redeemed mainly with boiled sausages, pork, and lean mutton.
Perestroika, on the one hand, partially abolished mandatory state deliveries, and on the other, eliminated the monopoly on foreign trade, as a result of which exporting enterprises and cooperatives accumulated large amounts of money not backed by commodity output. This led to an increase in shortages of certain goods and some expansion of the coupon system; as shortages grew in 1989–1990, coupons for many food products and some other goods were introduced everywhere (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.).
Because large and “closed” cities of the USSR were supplied with food better than the provinces, in attempts to stop non-residents from taking scarce goods out (meat, meat and fish products), the leadership of certain cities began proposing ideas to introduce meat coupons. In the late 1970s to the first half of the 1980s, due to the growing food shortage, 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 total shortage reached its peak; not only meat products but also everyday items that had not previously been in short supply began to disappear: sugar, grains, vegetable oil, and others.
The coupon system faded away from early 1992 in connection with price liberalization, which triggered hyperinflation (in 1992 alone prices rose 26-fold) and the spread of free trade. For a number of goods in some regions, coupons remained in use longer.