Ration card 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 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 to buy a scarce product it is 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 obtained at the place of registered residence from the housing maintenance 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 the coupon system emerged was the 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 decrease, since without a coupon the relevant goods were in practice not sold in the state retail network. In practice, sometimes it was impossible to use coupons if the corresponding goods were not available in stores. Some goods, if they were in surplus, were sold without coupons, although coupons were issued even for items such as salt.
Without a coupon, goods could be bought at markets and from speculators.
The intended consumption norm could differ depending on the status of the locality; for example, when butter rationing was introduced in the Chelyabinsk region in 1981, the norm for Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, and five other large cities was 200 grams per person per month; for some smaller cities it was 150 grams; for most localities it was 100 grams. The extent to which coupons were backed by a specific type of product could vary; thus, with a guaranteed norm of 2 kilograms of meat products per person per month, in the Chelyabinsk region in 1983 coupons 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 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 товар supply. This led to an increase in the shortage of certain goods and some expansion of the coupon system, and as the shortage grew in 1989–1990, coupons were introduced everywhere for many food products and some other goods (tobacco products, vodka, sausage, soap, tea, cereals, salt, sugar, and in some cases, in remote areas, bread, milk, mayonnaise, laundry detergent, women's underwear, etc.).
Since large and “closed” Soviet cities were supplied with food better than the provinces, in attempts to stop outsiders from taking scarce goods (meat, meat and fish products) out of the city, the leadership of certain cities began to put forward ideas of 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 norms and coupons for certain types of food (meat, meat products, sausage, animal 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; products began to disappear both meat items and ordinary goods that previously had not been scarce: sugar, cereals, vegetable oil, and others.
The coupon system faded away from the beginning of 1992 due to price liberalization, 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 place longer.
Coupon (card) 1 Kopeck 1991.
Izhevsk. Oktyabrsky RPT.
