The USSR's failure to produce sufficient consumer goods

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Just throwing this out for discussion - One of the factors I've seen cited as a major reason why citizens of the Soviet block lost faith in the Soviet system was its failure to produce sufficient consumer goods to meet popular demand. This is often tied with a crude attack of the Soviet model as essentially less efficient than the liberal capitalist system, although this overlooks the fact that the Soviet Union matched or exceeded the US in many areas of production. However, the areas in which it exceeded the US was in things like steel, cement, hydrocarbons, other metal alloys and so on.

Clearly, the emphasis here was on producing resources for the modernization and industrialization of the USSR. The country was ravaged by two world wars and the intervening civil war, and never modernized sufficiently in the 19th century. It is also intuitive that a bureaucracy will have an easier time evaluating success in industrial production where it is easy to show that twice as much steel was produced. Evaluating many (most?) consumer goods can be a far more complex and exhausting process - are the right consumers getting the goods? Do they last long enough? Are they easy or cheap to repair? What percentage are defective? Are they really what consumers want or need? This means that ambitious officials would have more reason to emphasize industrial production as proof of their competence. What do people think would have happened if the USSR had begun to focus more seriously on the production of consumer goods? Would this have had too great an impact on development, or would it have given people more confidence in their economic system? Was it even possible with the Soviet party and state in the 60-80s?

[Comrade #138672]

I think it is better to explain why it happened than to focus on "what if" scenarios, since these tend to diverge from reality rather quickly.

As for the explanation of why, I think you have pretty much summarized it already.

[Emmett Till]

Just throwing this out for discussion - One of the factors I've seen cited as a major reason why citizens of the Soviet block lost faith in the Soviet system was its failure to produce sufficient consumer goods to meet popular demand. This is often tied with a crude attack of the Soviet model as essentially less efficient than the liberal capitalist system, although this overlooks the fact that the Soviet Union matched or exceeded the US in many areas of production. However, the areas in which it exceeded the US was in things like steel, cement, hydrocarbons, other metal alloys and so on.

Clearly, the emphasis here was on producing resources for the modernization and industrialization of the USSR. The country was ravaged by two world wars and the intervening civil war, and never modernized sufficiently in the 19th century. It is also intuitive that a bureaucracy will have an easier time evaluating success in industrial production where it is easy to show that twice as much steel was produced. Evaluating many (most?) consumer goods can be a far more complex and exhausting process - are the right consumers getting the goods? Do they last long enough? Are they easy or cheap to repair? What percentage are defective? Are they really what consumers want or need? This means that ambitious officials would have more reason to emphasize industrial production as proof of their competence. What do people think would have happened if the USSR had begun to focus more seriously on the production of consumer goods? Would this have had too great an impact on development, or would it have given people more confidence in their economic system? Was it even possible with the Soviet party and state in the 60-80s?

Well, no.

As pointed out, you've summarized the problem pretty well already. I'll add that to focus successfully on production of decent consumer goods, which both Khrushchev and Brezhnev attempted to do at various times, you have to have input from the consumers, which requires (proletarian) democracy not bureaucracy.

This is also true for quality control in general, quality control is harder to do from the top than from the bottom, so you'd get excellent quality control for survival matters, i.e. the military, but bureaucratized Soviet industry notoriously had lousy quality control in industrial goods as well.

[Mr. Piccolo]

My understanding is that while Soviet citizens were not always happy with their consumer goods, as long as economic growth continued and the standard of living improved unhappiness with consumer products was not a major problem. When Soviet growth rates slowed in the 1970s this started to put more pressure on the system.

However, it was not until the dismantling of the central planning system starting in 1989 that the really severe problems with shortages began. Yeltsin and his allies used this state of affairs to promise Russians a cornucopia of consumer goods like they had in the West.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I'd answer OPs question with a question.

Given that there was significant economic and productive progress in the USSR from its inception until roughly the 1960s, to what extent does the anecdotal evidence about Soviet citizens' unhappiness with lack of consumer goods reflect an actual, internal desire for consumer goods, and to what extent is it merely a function of Western propaganda or for want of a better cliche, 'the grass being greener on the other side'?

It strikes me as odd that a society in which so many things that were previously luxuries became guaranteed and easily accessible would be attacked for a lack of consumer goods. I suspect that it was used as an outlet for frustration where Soviet citizens were unable to directly criticise the Soviet Union politically, and that with the stagnation of the Soviet economy from the 1970s into the 1980s, the poor economic situation was highlighted by a lack of consumer goods. Though equally strongly evidenced is nostalgia for the Soviet Union amongst citizens of the fSU in the 1990s when queues, shortages, inflation and poverty became the norm.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I'd answer OPs question with a question.

Given that there was significant economic and productive progress in the USSR from its inception until roughly the 1960s, to what extent does the anecdotal evidence about Soviet citizens' unhappiness with lack of consumer goods reflect an actual, internal desire for consumer goods, and to what extent is it merely a function of Western propaganda or for want of a better cliche, 'the grass being greener on the other side'?


I think the fact that the USSR was relatively thriving during the 60s indicates that this wasn't really a fatal flaw then, due to the fact that living standards had bottomed out so far during WWI and the Civil War, and for swathes of the country during WWII. There were clear improvements between 1917-1960.

However, by the time the 80s rolled around, it seems that the demands for more consumer goods weren't really the invention of Western propagandists, and was an actual demand being made.



It strikes me as odd that a society in which so many things that were previously luxuries became guaranteed and easily accessible would be attacked for a lack of consumer goods. I suspect that it was used as an outlet for frustration where Soviet citizens were unable to directly criticise the Soviet Union politically, and that with the stagnation of the Soviet economy from the 1970s into the 1980s, the poor economic situation was highlighted by a lack of consumer goods.

The thing is, I don't think stagnation would have stung as bad had the production of consumer goods had improved. Whether that was possible during economic stagnation is a legitimate question, but the USSR did have vast existing industrial capacity that could have been rejigged.

Another factor that is important to mention is the need of imports to meet consumer demand. Yes, the USSR could provide for its people's needs in the 60s and 70s, but this ended when the oil crisis was over and prices plummeted. One of the problems the USSR faced when this happens was that the price of imports went up - or more specifically, the funds available to spend on consumer good imports went down. Had the USSR recognized their vulnerable position, they could have focused more on improving domestic production when they had the resources available, instead of focusing instead on short term gain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut#Impact

Venezuela has a similar problem right now - consumption patterns are subsidized by high oil prices, people have a superficial improvement in living standards alongside increased expectations, then a glut in oil or some other reduction in price ends up collapsing their ability to meet demand. This causes a whole host of political and social problems, and seriously endangers not only the regime but any actual social progress it has been able to make.


Though equally strongly evidenced is nostalgia for the Soviet Union amongst citizens of the fSU in the 1990s when queues, shortages, inflation and poverty became the norm.

Absolutely, but we already know that median living standards will go down after a planned economy collapses. I think the problem is prior to that, when a mass of workers sees an unaccountable government not realizing their economic desires.


My understanding is that while Soviet citizens were not always happy with their consumer goods, as long as economic growth continued and the standard of living improved unhappiness with consumer products was not a major problem. When Soviet growth rates slowed in the 1970s this started to put more pressure on the system.

Yes but the question is whether or not economic planners should switch gear and improve production of consumer goods in the hope of preserving social and political support, or whether they should go for a Troika-like austerity approach to consumer goods while continuing to focus on industrial growth. On one hand, we don't want to fall behind industrially, on the other failing to realize peoples demands will make assholes like Yeltsin sound more reasonable.


As pointed out, you've summarized the problem pretty well already. I'll add that to focus successfully on production of decent consumer goods, which both Khrushchev and Brezhnev attempted to do at various times, you have to have input from the consumers, which requires (proletarian) democracy not bureaucracy.

This is also true for quality control in general, quality control is harder to do from the top than from the bottom, so you'd get excellent quality control for survival matters, i.e. the military, but bureaucratized Soviet industry notoriously had lousy quality control in industrial goods as well.

I agree - I think the bureaucracy needs to not only receive input from workers, but actually be controlled by them to have actual quality control. However, it seems by that point in time the USSR would have had a hard time devolving power and authority from the bureaucracy to the workers, since it directly went against the interests of those bureaucrats. Yet on the other hand, the decisions of the bureaucrats clearly undermined the actual long-term survival of the system they depended on. It's like a Stalinist catch-22 - do you devolve powers back to popular bodies of workers, or do you just maintain and grow a grand industrial bureaucracy whether or not such a system can actually last?

[ComradeOm]

Given that there was significant economic and productive progress in the USSR from its inception until roughly the 1960s, to what extent does the anecdotal evidence about Soviet citizens' unhappiness with lack of consumer goods reflect an actual, internal desire for consumer goods, and to what extent is it merely a function of Western propaganda or for want of a better cliche, 'the grass being greener on the other side'?It seems strange to blame Western propaganda for nurturing such aspirations when images of abundance were such a prominent feature of Soviet propaganda. The promise of a better life, including material comforts, was always a fundamental plank of Soviet legitimacy. From Stalin (who proudly proclaimed that "life has become merrier" as millions starved) through to Khrushchev's promise that a communist society of abundance would have been created by 1980.

Even in the grim the Stalin years, ie before the state relaxed its instruments of repression and actually started to prioritise consumer goods, such images of material comfort vied with messages on foreign threats and the need to over-produce in Soviet propaganda. See, for example, here (http://i57.fastpic.ru/big/2013/1029/0b/dd843226de0d3228f5d49f65c76d320b.jpg), here (http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/OTA2WDExMzI=/z/QRkAAOxyHWJSEy3r/$(KGrHqJHJE8FIHmbMY02BSEy3q6Icw~~60_35.JPG) and here. (http://russiatrek.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/socialism-vs-capitalism-propaganda-poster-3.jpg)

Believe the propaganda and the Stalinist USSR was a veritable paradise, despite the plunging living standards of most of the population.

This propaganda theme continued in the post-Stalin years but were now at least partly matched by official economic priorities. See an example from the 1960s (literally 'to abundance') (http://cdn.modernfarmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Communist-Ag-art-3.jpg) and the 1980s (http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--7h7YM1Qd--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/196cejreikxl5jpg.jpg). For a few years under Khrushchev it looked like the dreams of 'red plenty' might actually become real. This was the key element of the post-war 'big deal': the state provided material comforts and the new 'middle class' refrained from political opposition.

So there was nothing new about the desire for consumer goods (material comfort being a very basic expectation) but the faltering economy of the 1970s meant that fantasies of 'catching and overtaking' the West were revealed as just that. The aspirations for a good lifestyle did not disappear but were divorced from official dogma - corruption and veshchizm (crass consumerism) set in as people sought to enrich themselves at the expense of the state and others.

Hence there's nothing strange about Soviet citizens bemoaning a lack of consumer goods when they'd been consistently promised these for decades. The failure to provide these undermined both the state's claim to power (as a modernising force progressing towards communist society) and its ability to secure the loyalty of the population. What was the point of the USSR if it couldn't provide for its people or guarantee that the future would be better than today?

(As an aside, if there was a foreign component to this then it came not from the West, access to which was always limited, but the Eastern Bloc nations. Millions of Soviet tourists to Bulgaria or Czechoslovakia or E Germany could see superior products, fashions and facilities in nations supposedly following their own economic model. That was more tangible than the semi-mythical West.)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yes but the question is whether or not economic planners should switch gear and improve production of consumer goods in the hope of preserving social and political support, or whether they should go for a Troika-like austerity approach to consumer goods while continuing to focus on industrial growth. On one hand, we don't want to fall behind industrially, on the other failing to realize peoples demands will make assholes like Yeltsin sound more reasonable.

I don't think it's a question we should bother to ask, unless we want to end up with another 'red bureaucracy'. Economic planning is a thankless task because economists are wrong more often than they are right, and I think that will hold true in any post-capitalist society that is not tightly controlled by repressive political and social measures.

It's also the case that the popularity vs industrial strategy question was one that was relevant in the case of the USSR, a country that needed to accelerate its own economic catch up vis-a-vis the rest of the world, but less relevant when considering already-industrialised economies. The real question of economic strategy can be answered in the political realm: strong economic 'blocs' or alliances would probably provide a more realistic and less painful solution to capitalist attacks from outside, than the near-suicidal approach taken by the Bolsheviks post-revolution.


It's like a Stalinist catch-22 - do you devolve powers back to popular bodies of workers, or do you just maintain and grow a grand industrial bureaucracy whether or not such a system can actually last?

I think it's probably the case that they didn't bother to ask or answer this question. You see many examples both in history and in contemporary society (Fifa and Sepp Blatter spring to mind) of power not only corrupting, but creating a large gap between rulers and ruled. It would surprise me greatly if the Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov and Gorbachev regimes of the 1980s actually had an accurate inclination of what ordinary Soviet citizens actually felt, needed, and desired in their lives.

[Emmett Till]

I don't think it's a question we should bother to ask, unless we want to end up with another 'red bureaucracy'. Economic planning is a thankless task because economists are wrong more often than they are right, and I think that will hold true in any post-capitalist society that is not tightly controlled by repressive political and social measures.

So then, you are against economic planning altogether? An unplanned economy will automatically be controlled by the "invisible hand" of the market, and inevitably and automatically will lead to the restoration of capitalism, no matter how much "workers control" you have on the factory floor. As Tito's "self-managing socialism" in Yugoslavia demonstrated in practice, where the workers had full control of production, though not of politics.

The solution is full freedom of discussion, with different economic plans subject to thorough analysis and debate, and decisions made through a system of proletarian democracy after the 1917 model.


It's also the case that the popularity vs industrial strategy question was one that was relevant in the case of the USSR, a country that needed to accelerate its own economic catch up vis-a-vis the rest of the world, but less relevant when considering already-industrialised economies. The real question of economic strategy can be answered in the political realm: strong economic 'blocs' or alliances would probably provide a more realistic and less painful solution to capitalist attacks from outside, than the near-suicidal approach taken by the Bolsheviks post-revolution.

And just who should the Bolsheviks have allied with? Actually, that was Stalin's solution. Didn't know you were a closet Stalinist.

The Bosheviks in the early period did the best they could, trying for as much trade and foreign investment as possible without going back to capitalism, and in particular trying to make deals with the only major capitalist power willing to do so, namely Weimar Germany. A wise policy, but it didn't get them very far, and the military deals with Germany arguably may have backfired.

The only realistic way to make economic blocs or alliances possible was through spreading the revolution and making that the fundamental Soviet foreign policy, subordinating if necessary all else. Trotsky's policy.


I think it's probably the case that they didn't bother to ask or answer this question. You see many examples both in history and in contemporary society (Fifa and Sepp Blatter spring to mind) of power not only corrupting, but creating a large gap between rulers and ruled. It would surprise me greatly if the Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov and Gorbachev regimes of the 1980s actually had an accurate inclination of what ordinary Soviet citizens actually felt, needed, and desired in their lives.

It wasn't power that corrupted the old revolutionaries, but lack of power to do what was needed. Unable to spread the revolution and not seeing Trotsky's ideas as a practical alternative, they followed Stalin's idea, which seemed more doable, to forget about international revolution and focus on trying to build a socialist society in a country far too socially and economically backward to make that possible. Squaring the circle.

Everything else, the gulags, the Great Terror, the Stalin-Hitler pact, etc. etc. followed logically and inevitably from this tragic mistake.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

^^The poster above seems totally to be missing the point. I don't give a shit about taking sides between Stalin and Trotsky, who are two sides of the same failed coin as far as i'm concerned.

I'm asking questions and having a discussion about the USSR to understand what we can learn from its failures, not to resurrect its dead corpse for political ends.

[Emmett Till]

^^The poster above seems totally to be missing the point. I don't give a shit about taking sides between Stalin and Trotsky, who are two sides of the same failed coin as far as i'm concerned.

I'm asking questions and having a discussion about the USSR to understand what we can learn from its failures, not to resurrect its dead corpse for political ends.

Seriously, analyzing what happened to the Soviet Union is not just necessary, it is simply the single most necessary thing for leftists to do nowadays theoretically, much more important than literally anything else. And that means Stalin v. Trotsky is the question of questions, here on Revleft and everywhere else.

Why? Because the collapse of the Soviet Union is the reason why most of the world working class has lost interest in socialism, the USSR widely believed to be the proof that socialism is a nice idea that doesn't work, so we are stuck with capitalism and have to live with it.

So if you can't explain what went wrong nobody is going to take you seriously, and in general will figure if your group comes to power, it will be Stalin all over again.