“The bacchanalia of prices is going on quite openly” – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

70 years ago, in 1952, the Soviet people expected another “Stalinist price cut” by March 1st. But due to foreign policy reasons, the deadline for announcing it was postponed. And the events that preceded the appearance of the long-awaited resolution of the party and government, and the realities of the country’s economy, together brought results that were not customary to be made public.

From the diary of a worker of the Perm Motor Plant A. I. Dmitriev, March 3, 1952.

…Everyone was expecting that on March 1st there would be a decrease in prices for goods and products, but now it is already the 3rd, and nothing is even heard about this from official sources. Early, apparently, everyone opened their mouths. But still, there is confidence among the people that prices should be reduced in the near future …

From the diary of a Moscow State University teacher and head of the USSR History Department of the Higher Party School S. S. Dmitriev, 1952.

March 30

… Having been burned on March 1, in the sense of expecting a price reduction, now people are talking about a decrease from April 1. On April 3–4, the International Economic Conference begins in Moscow. It is possible that our politicians will deem it wise to present “a new reduction in prices in the USSR” to the conference. If this is so, then how deliberately and rudely such a trick will look!

March 31

… In the evening they announced a reduction in prices from 1.4.1952 for some products, for books (18%), for paying for hotels. The decrease is small – 10-12-15-20%. The decline did not extend to fish, wine and vodka, tobacco. There is no reduction in prom. products. According to the account, this is the fifth price reduction since 1947. However, even after him, bread continues to be almost twice as expensive as it was before the war. i.e., the picture is still not very comforting. This reduction was presented by April 1, that is, two days before the opening of the International Economic Conference in Moscow. Admission is pretty cheap…

From the publication “It is even better to work for the good of the Motherland”, Pravda, April 2, 1952.

At rallies, meetings, and in conversations, the working people of Moscow warmly thank the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet government, Comrade Stalin for their constant concern for the systematic improvement of the material and cultural well-being of the masses …

From the publication “The care of the Soviet state for the well-being of the people”, Izvestia, April 2, 1952.

… Now, in 1952, the Soviet government and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) found it possible to implement a new – fifth in a row – price reduction from 10 to 30 percent for vital food products for mass consumption …

As a result of the new reduction in prices, the population of the Soviet country will receive a net gain of more than 23 billion rubles through state retail trade alone. If, moreover, we take into account that the reduction in prices for state trade will cause a corresponding reduction in prices for collective-farm and cooperative trade in the amount of at least 5 billion rubles, then the total gain for the population will be 28 billion rubles …

From the publication “For the benefit of the people”, “Spark”, April 6, 1952.

… The growing material benefits that the Soviet people receive become even more evident when they are compared with the situation of workers in the capitalist countries …

After the attack on Korea, the high cost in the capitalist countries reached unprecedented proportions. So, even according to the confessions of falsified statistics, which greatly embellishes the actual state of affairs, for the period from the first half of 1950 to September 1951, retail prices for foodstuffs increased in the USA – by 15 percent, in England – by 16 percent, in France – by 19 percent. percent…

From the diary of the artist and translator L. V. Shaporina, April 8, 1952.

Since April 1, food prices have been reduced by 12%, 15% and 20%. A roll that cost 2 r. 15 k., now costs 1 p. 85 k., oil instead of 37 p. 50 k. costs 31 rubles. 90 k. In a large family, this slight decrease is very noticeable. There is a lot of noise in the newspapers about this: “The price reduction caused a huge patriotic upsurge!!” And the fact that the factories have already reduced prices since February, according to Katya (the author’s neighbor.— “Story”), by 30% per circle, is not written anywhere.

A hundred fours (some nine-kilogram glasses of shells) used to be paid 40 rubles – now 13.

Execution rates are also increased tremendously.

(In addition, in the fall of 1951, a government commission found an additional way to replenish the budget, which consisted in setting huge markups on imported goods and products – see below). “To cover losses from lower retail prices”.— “Story”)

From a letter from an aircraft designer K. A. Peters from Tashkent to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR I. V. Stalin, August 13, 1952.

State rationing of retail prices for foodstuffs and manufactured consumer goods is effective and of real importance for the working population only when there is in reality a state retail trade in these goods. Otherwise, the state regulation of retail prices turns into an empty formality, into an abstraction.

It is precisely this situation, when, with the formal declaration of state retail prices for products and manufactured goods, the state and cooperative trade in them is completely absent, was created in the city. Tashkent and throughout the Uzbek SSR. Starting from the end of 1949, the state retail trade in basic foodstuffs: butter (vegetable and animal), fats, meat, canned meat and sausages, cheese, fish, cereals and sugar gradually, but very vigorously, withered and folded (it used to here it did not differ in stability, experiencing periodically a long absence of the main elements of the assortment), giving way to private, speculative trade at elevated prices.

By the end of 1950, the state and cooperative retail trade in food products in terms of their share in the supply of the population almost did not exist, and at the beginning of 1951 (by the 4th government reduction in state retail prices) the state trade in butter, fats, meat and meat products, sugar, vegetables, cereals, pasta and dairy products completely ceased, ceding their functions to private trade at speculative prices.

Therefore, the V-th reduction in retail prices for products, announced by April 1, 1952, was a fiction for the working population of the industrial centers of Uzbekistan, a bitter mockery of its financial situation.

So it was perceived by the bulk of the working people.

In the situation that already existed, the government could reduce the prices of products to any minimum – anyway for the working class it would have no real significance, and the state did not suffer financial damage, since it does not trade in these products. (In Uzbekistan). Taking advantage of the absence of state and cooperative retail trade in food products, having monopolistically seized the market, the private trader – speculators, dealers, suburban kulaks and the trading bourgeoisie – raised the prices of essential products by 2.5-3 times against state retail prices: meat (average) costs 25 -32 p. per kg., butter (handicraft) – 70–90 r. per kg., potatoes – 5 r. per kg.!! What kind of worker can provide for his family’s need for potatoes if a kilogram of them costs 5 rubles? (According to the data of the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR, the average monthly salary for the entire national economy in 1952 was 674 rubles.— “Story”).

All this speculative (so in the text.— “Story”) the bacchanalia of prices takes place quite openly under the protection of state bodies, under the guise of “collective-farm” trade in “collective-farm” markets.

The only thing the workers and employees of large industrial enterprises are provided with is bread, which is traded with the help of the ORS (Department of Workers’ Supply.— “Story”) is organized on the territory of enterprises. Here, after a short standing in line for 45-60 minutes, you can get (buy) bread almost daily. As for the rest of the working population: workers and employees of institutions and small enterprises where a special trade in grain is not organized, they also have to buy bread from a speculator-dealer or stand every day in an unorganized queue for 3-4 hours.

A similar situation has arisen with consumer manufactured goods, which are supplied to the state retail network in insignificant quantities that do not correspond to demand. A large army of speculators, united in companies, artels and gangs, takes possession of the queues in an organized manner and creates a situation (with the obvious patronage of police officers) in which the ordinary worker, the production worker, cannot get to the thing he needs. The worker is also forced to purchase manufactured goods from a speculator in the market or right there in a store with a mark-up of 30-40-50% of their nominal state price.

Particularly widespread is speculative trading in stores not with manufactured goods themselves, but with checks-coupons for paying for them at the cash desk, which go to speculators in certain ways.

Thus, the following situation has now been created in Uzbekistan:

The state retail trade in foodstuffs and consumer goods completely capitulated. The supply of the working population of industrial centers with products and manufactured goods is carried out only through the private market or through the mediation of speculators at inflated prices. State and cooperative grocery stores do not sell food products: there is no meat, fats, sausages, cereals, canned meat, etc., etc., in a word, there is nothing. The empty shelves and counters of the meat and gourmet departments of these stores are filled with bottles of vodka and wine for decoration. Manufactured goods stores mainly serve the population through dealers.

Manufacturing workers, engineers and workers of industrial centers drag out a sad, half-starved existence, filling their leisure time with the search for food for children and families.

I wonder under what pretext the Uzbek State Bank receives financial subsidies from the State Bank of the USSR? Of course, he cannot exist without subsidies and regularly pay wages to workers and employees, since the usual channels for the return of this wages through state trade organizations are closed with the cessation of state retail trade.

There was no such situation even during the NEP.

It was not for this that I, Joseph Vissarionovich, a 16-year-old guy in 1919, threw a three-ruler over my shoulders on a belt and volunteered for the Red Army to defend and establish the very Soviet Power, which you and I equally faithfully serve, in order to now feed the results of our labor except his family, besides his children, also the family of a speculator. Not for that, comrade. Stalin, the working class of Uzbekistan is working so that the main part of its earnings goes into the hands of the speculator, goes to the maintenance and restoration of bourgeois elements.

It is necessary to decisively put an end to this situation, when two engineers (my wife and I) with their honest work cannot provide normal nutrition for their two children …

Publication by Evgeny Zhirnov