Ration card system is a system for supplying the population with consumer goods under conditions of shortage. Under this system, to purchase a product one must not only pay money for it, but also present a single-use voucher entitling the holder to buy it. Cards (vouchers) set specific monthly per-person consumption quotas for goods.
The essence of the voucher system is that to buy a scarce product, it is necessary not only to pay money, but also to hand over a special voucher authorizing the purchase of that product.
Vouchers for food and certain consumer goods were obtained at one’s place of residence registration from the housing office. At the workplace (usually through the trade-union committee), distribution of certain food products and manufactured goods obtained through in-kind exchange between enterprises was organized.
The reason for the emergence of the voucher system was a shortage of certain mass-demand goods.
The goal of introducing vouchers was to provide the population with a minimally guaranteed set of goods. Demand was supposed to fall, since without a voucher the corresponding goods were effectively not sold in the state retail network. In practice, it was sometimes impossible to use vouchers if the relevant goods were not available in stores. Some goods, if they were in surplus, were sold without vouchers, even though vouchers were issued for them as well; for example, vouchers were also issued for salt.
Without a voucher, goods could be bought at markets and from speculators.
The assumed consumption quota could differ depending on the status of the locality; for example, when butter rationing was introduced in the Chelyabinsk Oblast in 1981, the quota 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. The fulfillment of vouchers with a specific type of product could vary; for example, with a guaranteed quota of 2 kilograms of meat products per person per month, in the Chelyabinsk Oblast in 1983 vouchers were redeemed as 67% sausages, 23% poultry meat, and 10% beef and pork (mainly for war invalids and diabetics). In 1985 the supply situation for meat products worsened, and vouchers were redeemed mostly for 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 available goods. This led to increased shortages of certain goods and some expansion of the voucher system; and as shortages grew in 1989-1990, vouchers 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.) were introduced everywhere.
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 and fish products) out of the city, the leadership of certain cities began putting forward ideas to introduce meat vouchers. 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 vouchers for certain types of food (meat, meat products, sausage, butter).
The voucher 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, and products began to disappear not only meat products but also ordinary goods that previously had not been scarce: sugar, groats, vegetable oil, and others.
The voucher 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, vouchers remained in use longer.