Ration card system — a system for supplying the population with consumer goods under conditions of shortage. Under this system, to buy a product one had to not only pay money for it, but also present a single-use coupon granting the right to purchase it. Cards (coupons) set specific monthly per-person consumption quotas.
The essence of the coupon system was that, to purchase a scarce product, it was necessary not only to pay money but also to hand over a special coupon authorizing the purchase of that product.
Coupons for food and some consumer goods were issued at one’s place of registered residence through the local housing maintenance office. At the workplace (usually through the trade-union committee), distribution was organized for certain foods and industrial goods obtained via in-kind exchange between enterprises.
The reason the coupon system emerged was the shortage of certain widely used consumer goods.
The goal 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 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—for example, salt.
Without a coupon, one could buy goods 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 Chelyabinsk Oblast 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; and for most localities, 100 grams. The extent to which coupons were backed by specific products could vary; for example, with a guaranteed quota of 2 kilograms of meat products per person per month, in Chelyabinsk Oblast in 1983 coupons were redeemed 67% with sausages, 23% with poultry meat, and 10% with beef and pork (mainly for war invalids and diabetics). In 1985 the meat supply situation worsened, and coupons were redeemed mostly with 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 goods. This led to increased shortages of certain goods and some expansion of the coupon system; as shortages grew in 1989–1990, coupons were introduced almost everywhere for many foods 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 the USSR’s large and “closed” cities were supplied with food better than the provinces, and in attempts to stop nonresidents from taking scarce goods (meat, meat and fish products) out of the city, the leadership of some cities began proposing the introduction of 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 reached its peak, and both meat products and everyday items that previously had not been scarce began to disappear: sugar, grains, vegetable oil, and others.
The coupon system faded out from the beginning of 1992 in connection with price liberalization, which triggered 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.