Rationing system — a system of supplying the population with consumer goods under conditions of shortage. Under this system, to purchase a product one had not only to pay money for it, but also to present a single-use coupon entitling the holder to buy it. Ration cards (coupons) set specific monthly per-person consumption quotas for goods.
The essence of the coupon system is that to buy a scarce item it is necessary not only to pay money, but also to hand over a special coupon authorizing the purchase of that item.
Coupons for food and some consumer goods were obtained at one’s place of registered residence from the housing maintenance office. At the workplace (usually via the trade-union committee), distribution was organized for certain food products and manufactured goods obtained through in-kind exchange between enterprises.
The reason for the emergence of the coupon system was shortages of certain widely used goods.
The purpose of introducing coupons was to provide the population with a minimally guaranteed set of goods. Demand was supposed to decrease, since without a coupon the corresponding goods in the state retail network were effectively not sold. 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 purchased at markets and from speculators.
The intended consumption quota could differ depending on the status of the locality; for example, when butter rationing was introduced in the Chelyabinsk Region in 1981, the quota for Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, and five other large cities was 200 grams per person per month; for some smaller towns, 150 grams; for most localities, 100 grams. The actual ability to redeem coupons for a specific type of product could vary; for example, with a guaranteed quota of 2 kilograms of meat products per person per month, coupons in the Chelyabinsk Region in 1983 were redeemed as 67% sausage, 23% poultry meat, and 10% beef and pork (mainly for disabled war veterans 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, 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 increased shortages of certain goods and a partial expansion of the coupon system, and as shortages grew in 1989–1990, coupons were introduced almost everywhere for many food products and some other goods (tobacco products, vodka, sausage, soap, tea, groats, salt, sugar; 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 out of the city (meat, meat and fish products), the leadership of certain cities began to put forward ideas for introducing meat coupons. In the late 1970s and 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 overall shortage reached its peak; not only meat products disappeared, but also everyday goods that previously had not been in short supply: sugar, groats, vegetable oil, and others.
The coupon system largely faded away from the beginning of 1992 due to the “liberalization” of prices, which triggered hyperinflation (in 1992 alone prices increased 26-fold) and the spread of free trade. For a number of goods in some regions, coupons remained in use longer.