The standard of living of the population of the USSR. GDP of the USSR and the USA: comparison What was the standard of living in the USSR

REFERENCE: In the 70s of the last century, according to UN reports, the USSR was among the top ten countries in the world in terms of living standards. Today, in a similar UN ranking, the Baltic states occupy places in the fourth or fifth tens, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine - in the seventh, Georgia and Armenia - in the eighth, Turkmenistan - in the ninth, Moldova - in the tenth, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan - in eleventh, Tajikistan - in the twelfth ten.

Maybe that's why, despite all the propaganda efforts, nostalgia for the USSR is growing even in the Baltics?

It is officially believed that the "Soviet project" failed because the USSR collapsed. Iron logic, but only for a poorly educated person. The state collapsed. Moreover, not by itself, but thanks to decades of much more powerful states working for this. The project itself is just alive. Certain elements of it have been adopted by absolutely all developed countries of the world. China, also grown according to the Soviet project, also achieved the greatest growth rates. Vietnam is alive and well developing, Cuba is alive despite everything with the legendary Castro.

Not even nostalgia, but the popularity of the “Soviet project” not only does not decline, but is growing throughout the entire post-Soviet space. If it were not for the growth of such sentiments, no one would pass laws punishing Soviet awards and the Red Flag, would not rename streets and would not demolish monuments. The authorities of the newly-minted states are afraid of the memory of the best - cleaner and more honest years to the point of convulsions. Because the most thieving Minister of Fisheries of the USSR or the richest bride of the country, Galina Brezhneva, are beggars compared to the state of a simple regional head of the tax inspectorate in Donetsk or Zaporozhye. I am already silent about the capitals.

And this means that the "Soviet project" is alive. Recognizing this is unprofitable for any government, except perhaps the Russian one. For the leadership of any post-Soviet power, this is a deadly trend. For Russia - rather the opposite. But Russia has been living by its own laws for thousands of years.

And it seems that the authorities have begun to realize that a return to many of the values of the USSR is vital. This is what determines the heartbreaking screech of all human rights defenders, liberals, democrats and their foreign sponsors. It is from here that Putin and Medvedev manage to simultaneously blame both the revival of Stalinism and the destruction of the memory of Stalin.

In fact, it is the process of a normal and adequate assessment of the past that is going on. Recognition of real mistakes and crimes, on the one hand, and extraordinary achievements that are now lost, on the other. After all, it’s really real and no doubt great that under the leadership of Stalin we won the Great Patriotic War and created a nuclear shield, became world leaders in many respects, and even post-war cards were canceled ten years earlier than the British. Under Khrushchev, we were the first to go into space and resettled tens of millions from dugouts and sheds to "Khrushchev" built according to the French project; under Brezhnev, we entered the top ten countries in the world with the highest standard of living for the population.

This means that the "Soviet project" is not the borders on the map, the country has not disintegrated just some twenty years ago. The "Soviet project" is not the charter of the CPSU, not the works of Lenin and Stalin, not the speeches of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. This is not the popularity of the Marxist-Leninist ideology (most of them just do not like them), but something completely different. This is something that lives in memory, excites hearts, excites minds and feelings and does not want to die, no matter how rushed to bury the "judges of time".

This “something” is people’s craving for lost unity, for lost values of a moral nature that united and rallied people, even without being spelled out in the charter of the CPSU or in the Pravda newspaper (and sometimes they united - and contrary to what was prescribed). This is a craving for the ownership of the interests of ordinary people by the interests of the country. This is a craving, after all, for quite material achievements: those who believe that the USSR, at least in the so-called era of developed socialism, was inhabited by hungry, poor, ragged, downtrodden, illiterate, soulless parents of street children, which (both children and parents) every now and then ruthlessly put under the knife, pistol, machine gun, explosives, I advise you to read and think more and watch modern news releases, films and programs more, where all of the above is present in abundance.

No Stalinist innocent victims or victims of political repression of the entire Soviet period can be compared with how many people were killed in the vast expanses of the collapsing USSR to this day. After all, Chechnya is not an invention of Yeltsin or Berezovsky. And Dudayev is nothing more than a puppet. The same as the much more intelligent Professor Khasbulatov, the only Chechen who has reached such heights and betrayed everyone and everything. From the USSR to their fellow tribesmen. They would not have been born like that as a result of the collapse of the USSR. Tens of millions were killed, died of starvation and poverty, without medical and social assistance.

Yes, take any country. From impoverished Georgia to "prosperous" EU and NATO members in the Baltics. For 20 independent years, the population has decreased by 20-35%. What famine and thirty-seventh year can be compared with this? The population of Ukraine has decreased by a third. This is 15-17 million people! And after all, for the state, all these people are dead (even if physically someone lives safely abroad). That's it, it's already a cut piece.

In other words, today's popularity of the "Soviet project" is not a desire to return the USSR in its former form (this is simply impossible), but that truly good, high and valuable thing that was achieved in the USSR, but then destroyed with the same frenzy with which the Bolsheviks themselves at one time destroyed the achievements of the Russian Empire.

Lots of letters!
Since a person's brains are beaten off by propaganda, he considered it useful to return to the topic.

Before comparing, I would like to note one extremely significant circumstance that the elves are not able to comprehend categorically. The USSR only as a result of the German attack lost in 1941-1945 about a third of the national wealth. In material terms, this is the following:
The regions of the USSR that were under temporary occupation, on the eve of the Patriotic War, occupied a significant share in relation to the entire territory of the USSR: in the population - 45%, in the gross industrial output - 33, in the sown area - 47, in the number of livestock (in terms of large livestock) - 45 and in the length of railway tracks - 55%.

The Nazi invaders and their accomplices burned down and destroyed 1,710 cities and towns, more than 70,000 villages, 1.5 million buildings and structures were completely or partially destroyed. About 25 million people lost their shelter.

Also destroyed and destroyed 31,850 industrial enterprises (of which machine-building and metallurgical enterprises played a particularly important role, giving up to 60% of the gross pre-war product), not counting small enterprises and workshops, 1,876 state farms, 2,890 machine and tractor stations, 98,000 collective farms , 216,700 shops, canteens, restaurants, and other commercial enterprises; 4,100 railway stations; rest homes, 82,000 primary and secondary schools, 1,520 special educational institutions - technical schools, 334 higher educational institutions, 605 research institutes and other scientific institutions, 427 museums, 43,000 public libraries and 167 theaters.

Destroyed, destroyed or stolen by the German invaders and their accomplices on the territory of the USSR, subjected to occupation, 175 thousand metal-cutting machines, 34 thousand hammers and presses, 2,700 cutters, 15 thousand jackhammers, 5 million kilowatts of power plant capacity, 62 blast furnaces , 213 open-hearth furnaces, 45 thousand looms and 3 million spinning spindles. Material damage was inflicted on the most valuable fixed industrial assets of the USSR.

Of the 122,000 km of railway track that was occupied on the territory of the USSR before the war, 65,000 km were destroyed and looted by the invaders. 15,800 locomotives and 428,000 wagons were damaged. The occupiers destroyed, sank and seized 4,280 passenger, cargo and towing steamers of river transport and vessels of the technical auxiliary fleet and 4,029 non-self-propelled vessels. Of the 26,000 railway bridges, 13,000 were destroyed. All 2,078,000 km of telegraph and telephone communication lines in the occupied regions of the USSR were destroyed or stolen by the German occupiers.

The housing stock of the population of the USSR was subjected to barbaric destruction by means of explosions and arson. Of the 2,567 thousand residential buildings in the cities of the USSR that were occupied, 1,209 thousand houses were destroyed and destroyed, and in terms of living space, this number of houses accounted for over 50% of the entire urban living space of these cities. Of the 12 million residential buildings of the rural population of the regions of the USSR that were occupied, 3.5 million residential buildings were destroyed and destroyed by the German occupiers.
There was nothing close in the USA. On the contrary, due to the war, the United States doubled its GDP.

It is clear that in the inflamed brain of the elves, these losses should have been restored by themselves and immediately. However, it’s necessary: 24 years have passed since the beginning of perestroika, and the country has not restored even the level of 1985 in terms of a single vital indicator ...
Therefore, when we take the year 1980 of the USSR as a base of comparison, it should be remembered that 35 years have passed since the end of the war in this year - only ten years more than since the beginning of "outstanding democratic transformations."

The second point that should be kept in mind is the difference in the structure of incomes in the USSR and the USA.

Based on this distribution, the median annual income of an American household today is about $50,000.
We see, however, that this distribution has two pronounced humps: the "lower class" with incomes below 100,000 and the "upper class" with incomes over 100,000. The "upper class" makes up approximately 13% of the population. The distribution of income in the USSR had a different character: there was no “upper class” in the USSR in terms of size, and the proportion of high-income families decreased evenly and rapidly.

Meanwhile, the presence of a fairly massive "upper class" in the United States significantly distorts the idea of the real standard of living in the United States. First, this class is more visible to tourists who rarely visit relatively poorer areas. It is this middle class that has the most “visible” housing and cars, and, most importantly, people of approximately the same stratum, who relatively often went abroad in the USSR, fall into this class, but due to the absence of such a stratum in the USSR, their income was rather comparable to the income of the middle-lower class in the United States. This specificity is emphasized by the huge difference in the decile ratio (the relative income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%) of the USA and the USSR.

With this circumstance in mind, it would be more correct to compare the standard of living of a Soviet middle-income family with the standard of living of an American middle-income family. It is easy to recalculate that the average annual household income, after subtracting the "top peak" of the distribution, in the United States does not actually exceed $40,000.

It is with this figure that we must compare the standard of living of the average Soviet family, which in 1980 received, as you know, with two workers about 340 rubles a month (the average salary is 170 rubles per month for a worker), or, exactly, about 4,000 rubles in year. That is, at face value in 2007-2008, the income of the average American family, expressed in dollars, is exactly 10 times more than the nominal income of the average Soviet family in 1980.

This nominal comparison, however, must be supplemented by an analysis of the comparative real purchasing power of the modern dollar and the 1980 Soviet ruble, precisely in terms of household consumption.
Comparison of domestic purchasing power of the ruble and the dollar.

Compulsory spending and their shares in consumption.

The most important component of the comparison is mandatory spending, which cannot be eliminated or significantly reduced. I classify mandatory spending into four categories of expenses:

1. Housing expenses

2. Compulsory transport costs

3. Food expenses

4. Clothes expenses

The first three categories are the most easily comparable, since they do not depend on climate and are "everyday". Expenditures on clothing are close to those on durable items, since despite the relatively high “one-off” price, clothing is spent for a long time and its weight in everyday expenses is relatively small.

This also applies to goods such as televisions or furniture: their relatively high one-time price is spread over long periods of time - amortization time, which for televisions, for example, is calculated in years, and for furniture, decades. Therefore, we will confine ourselves to comparing just the basic, everyday costs that make up the lion's share of mandatory consumption.

Housing

The price of housing in the USSR. 1980 Rental.

1. The price of rent for a standard two-room "state" apartment in Moscow was 12.5 rubles per month.

2. The price of the phone is 4 rubles. per month.

3. The average price of electricity is 0.02 rubles. per kilowatt hour

4. Gas - unlimited use - 2 rubles per month

5. Heating - 2 rubles per month.

The price of housing in the USA. year 2009. Rent.

1. The price of renting a “1-bedroom” apartment is at least $700 outside major cities. The popular site www.realtor.com for Alexandria (a suburb of Washington) lists a $900 minimum price for a 590 sq. ft. (less than 50 sq. meters) apartment. In the sub-$1,000 range, only 15 offers were found for approximately one million suburbs.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Alexandria_VA/beds-1/baths-1/price-na-1000/type-rentals?sby=1

2. The price of a landline phone is $36 per month

3. Price of water - $30-50 depending on consumption

4. The price of electricity - the average for the US - $ 0.11 per kilowatt-hour

5. Gas - depends on consumption. Personally, however, I paid $360 for a house in the winter for 3 months, that is, about $120 a month. In fact, this is also the price of heating and hot water.
Housing conversion factor:

Total housing costs in the USSR for two-room apartment- about 25 rubles a month.

The total cost of housing in the US for an equivalent "1-bedroom" apartment is about $1,000 per month.

Thus, the conversion factor: 1000:25=40. That is, for housing, the purchasing power of the Soviet ruble is approximately 40 modern dollars.

Transport.

The need to consider transport as a mandatory expense is related to a simple fact: in order to receive income, you need to at least get to work.
Here again we are faced with a fundamentally different structure of consumption.

In the United States, public transport, with the exception of large cities, is practically non-existent. Whereas work is often removed from the place of residence not a dozen, but even tens of miles. Therefore, we turn first to the comparison of transport costs in large cities.

Moscow 1980. The price of a single travel card in Moscow was 3 rubles per month for all types of transport.

New York 2009. There is no trolleybus or tram transport in New York. Bus routes are limited to delivering passengers to metro stations. As far as I know, there are no routes independent of the metro. The price of a monthly pass for the metro and bus is $80.

The average car mileage in the US is estimated at 12.5 thousand miles per year.
Almost complete depreciation of the car is carried out upon reaching approximately 100-120 thousand miles. That is, we can assume that the cost of a car is depreciated over about 10 years. Based on an average car price of $20,000, the depreciation cost is $2,000 per year. To this price should be added the price of gasoline. With fuel consumption a gallon per 30 miles (highway), which is typical for 4-cylinder cars of the middle and lower classes, the annual consumption of gasoline is 12,500:30 = 416 gallons of gasoline. At $2 per gallon, the annual cost is $832. In total, the monthly expense for depreciation and gasoline is $ 236, to which must be added the mandatory insurance, driving without which is punishable by law. The price of the minimum insurance (one-way - that is, covering the costs of only the other party) is $60 per month. In total, the minimum transportation cost per person in the case of using a car is approximately $300 per month.

Transport conversion factor:

Thus, the "transport purchasing power" of the Soviet ruble is about 30 to 100 times higher than the purchasing power of the modern dollar.

Food.

Nutritional comparisons are more difficult due to significantly different eating styles. Two types of comparison are possible: by the price of a lunch in the catering of the USSR with mass chains in the USA and by the most common products.

A single meal in the cheapest US mass network McDonald's in the form of a sandwich with salad, cutlet, fried french fries and a glass of "soda", that is, carbonated water, is $ 6-7.

A single meal of three courses: borscht, meat in a pot and salad, plus a glass of coffee or tea, cost 0.60 rubles in an average Soviet canteen. The minimum price of a full meal: soup, cutlet with mashed potatoes or buckwheat porridge - 0.32 rubles.

Big Mac ratio: Thus, the Big Mac ratio was: one Soviet ruble to 10-20 modern US dollars.

The second possible way of comparison is by the price of individual products.

Potato coefficient: The price of potatoes in the USSR in 1980 was 0.1 ruble. The price of potatoes in the US in 2008 is $0.5-0.9 per pound, or $1-2 per kg. The coefficient for potatoes is 10-20.

Meat ratio. Since in some years in the USSR there was a shortage of meat at half the store price, but meat was always priced at 4-6 rubles per kg on the market against $ 8-15 per kilogram in the USA today, the coefficient for meat can be estimated with a guarantee as 2-4 (two to four modern dollars for 1 Soviet ruble)

Bread ratio. The price of a loaf of white bread weighing 450 grams in the USSR was 0.13 rubles. The price of an equivalent loaf of bread in the US today is $1.5-3. The conversion factor is thus 10-20

The third way of recalculation is by the cost of food per family per month.

Our family consistently spent 60 rubles a month on food for a person (180 rubles for three)

An American family of three spends about 800-900 dollars on food - that is, 250-300 dollars per person. Accordingly, according to this criterion, it can be considered that 1 Soviet ruble was equal to approximately 5 modern US dollars.

Clothing.

The ratio of the purchasing power of the Soviet ruble for clothing is also very complex. However, in the main areas, you can see that the conversion factor for shoes is approximately 3-4 - that is, one Soviet ruble - 3-4 modern dollars (for shoes of comparable quality), with the exception of women's boots, where the same coefficient is again 10 (the price of women's winter boots in the USA is 500-700 dollars)

At the same time, for a number of types of clothing - men's coats, jackets, suits, the quality is about 3-4.

Conclusions.

Thus, the purchasing power of the Soviet ruble for various types of goods and services ranges from 3-4 to 100 modern dollars per Soviet ruble.

Given the different weights of different types of consumption, we can calculate that the Soviet ruble in 1980 is on average equal to 10 modern American dollars and, therefore, the life of an American today, BUT NOT INCLUDED IN THE HIGHEST INCOME GROUP, is comparable in quality to the life of an average resident of the USSR in 1980.

Thus, the apparent difference between the standard of living in the USA and the USSR is connected solely with the unjustified comparison of the life of the AVERAGE SOVIET PERSON WITH THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF AMERICANS IN THE HIGH INCOME GROUP AND WITH THE DIFFERENCE OF PAY PRIORITIES, because people with higher education in the USSR were not necessarily included in the higher Soviet income group (so, for example, the average salary in science in 1980 was in fourth place after the construction of transport and industry), while in the United States the highest income group is largely made up of people with higher education.

In other words, workers in the USSR lived NO WORSE, if not better, than similar workers in the United States, while the intelligentsia in the USSR, unlike the United States, did not fall into the highest income group.

In fairness, it should be noted that this state of affairs is another "achievement" of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. So, under Stalin, even during the war, the average salary of engineers was 2.6 times higher than the salary of workers, and the salaries of teaching staff were up to 6-7 times higher. Stalin's attitude towards the intelligentsia can be judged by the academic and professorial dachas on Sokolina Gora, in Mozzhinka, in Serebryany Bor, in Peredelkino, on Klyazma and other similar places, the price of which today reaches MILLIONS OF DOLLARS - which no American professors ever dreamed of.

This is the real, not elven, reality.

This does not mean that there were no problems in the USSR. But the course of perestroika itself showed that they were minimal. For the notorious deficit today owing to the increase in prices in the Russian Federation has disappeared, despite the fact that people's consumption has decreased in absolutely all respects, and, for example, in meat - by almost half. Except maybe cars.

Behind the obviousness of the data presented, no one, except for comrades who did not understand anything, dared to refute them. The only housing-related addition that needs to be made is the following. Two people made the following statement: in the United States, “the majority of the population owns houses,” and young people do not live with their parents.

According to the first thesis, I want to recall the well-known statement of F. Engels: "If a shoe brush is classified as a mammal, its mammary glands will not grow from this."

Why? - Yes, because there are very few homeowners in the United States. More precisely, it is believed that 66% "own" houses (the rest still rent housing). In fact, they don't own anything. The vast majority of them “bought” houses on credit, on a mortgage. That is, in fact, the BANKS own the houses, from which the American owners have rented money. In reality, the loan costs about 7-8% of the value of the house and is taken for a period of 30 years. This means that during the loan repayment, a person pays another two or two and a half to the bank for every dollar taken. That is, 2/3 of his payments are net rent. At the same time, there are two additional circumstances: the first and very significant is that since the "tenant of money" is called the "owner of housing", he, unlike the tenant of housing, is fully responsible for the condition of the house. The roof leaked - his responsibility, the toilet bowl broke - the same. When renting, the price of this is included in the rental price. Here, it is simply paid in a different way as it is received, more precisely, as a rule, in the form of insurance, which is paid to the insurance company. This is a premium to the real owner of housing - the bank - which, thereby, relieves itself of all worries about the safety of its housing.

The second feature is that loan payments are distributed in a very special way. For the first five years, the “tenant of money” pays the bank only and exclusively interest. Absolutely everything goes to repay those very 2/3 of the amount that the bank should receive in the form of a premium. Only after five years, some, minimal, deductions towards the main part of the loan begin, and only at the end of the term, the main payments go to repay the loan. What does this mean? - This means that for the first five years a person is ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY A TENANT OF HOUSING AT THE BANK with the responsibility assigned to him to monitor his condition.

And the funny thing is that these five years are just about the average time to own a given house. Usually, the average American is forced to move to a new place of residence due to a job change in five to seven years. As a result, this is exactly the same lease, only in the "profile".
There is an important third circumstance: What as a result - if the loan is fully repaid - remains in the hands of the owner? - Answer: the owner is left with an almost completely depreciated house, subject to at least a major overhaul, the cost of which is comparable to the cost of new housing.

In other words, "home ownership" is practically pure wiring.

As, by the way, and owning a car, a loan for which is issued for five years. At the same time, over five years, the car is depreciated by at least 75% with medium-high mileage.

It is clear that the proud name "owner" caresses the soul, but has practically nothing to do with reality.

The second remark is, of course, the notorious deficit that was in the USSR and which is not in the USA.
Although this is essentially incorrect, since in 1980 products, and everything else, could be completely freely bought on the market, but people DID NOT WANT this, since they were looking for everything in stores at a state-appointed, and not market price, there are more important misunderstanding of this issue.
Namely: a shortage on store shelves is inconvenient, but does not mean POVERTY in the sense of low consumption. On the contrary, full counters are comfortable, but do not mean wealth at all.

The real measure is the actual consumption, not the type of shelves.

So: for all the main types of products (with the possible exception of cars), primarily for the quality of food, consumption in NEW RUSSIA has fallen in comparison with the USSR. Even the reformers do not deny this. And this means that DE FACTO today the people in Russia - with full regiments - are poorer than they were under the USSR in conditions of shortage. The absolute maximum consumption was reached in 1985.

This is no excuse for scarcity, of course. But, this is a clear indication that scarcity and wealth - that is, the standard of living - are things that lie on qualitatively different planes.

This applies not only to the comparison of the USSR and the Russian Federation, but also to the comparison of the USA and the USSR. Full shelves in the US do not mean at all that the level of consumption of the bulk of the US population is higher than that of the bulk in the USSR in 1980.

An attempt to present the matter in such a way that the deficit, they say, is evidence of poverty, and the absence of a deficit = a high standard of living is just as deceitful as the assertion that mortgage tenants are its real owners.

The third type of comment is most interesting: well, you proved that in terms of satisfaction of basic needs, we see that the average resident of the USSR lived at least as well as the average resident of the United States (with the exception of the "upper class"), but the standard of living in many respects it is defined just by "luxury". The fact that a person can afford beyond basic needs.

As we have seen, taking into account proportionality in basic costs, the average income per family of a Soviet person in 1980 is approximately equal to the income of an average American in 2008 (if the American "upper class" is excluded from consideration). Consequently, “free balances are also approximately proportional and one can directly compare the conversion factors for individual forms of application of this balance.

And here we are faced with such striking differences in the structure of consumption that only one conclusion can be drawn: in all areas of the free development of man - and these are circles for children, theaters, conservatories, cinema, books, recreation, the ruble was almost infinitely more significant than the dollar.

For example, it is absolutely impossible to compare absolutely free and exceptionally high-quality Soviet higher education with paid and very expensive higher education in the USA, which is actually a master's level. How many times is the ruble higher than the dollar in the field of higher education, if a year at a very average university in the USA costs $30,000 (the course is 150,000), at prestigious universities it costs 60,000 and more (the course is $250,000-300,000) - and this does not include housing costs , whereas education in Soviet universities was not only free, but a scholarship of 40-45 rubles was also issued and a place in a hostel cost about 3-5 rubles a month?

How can you compare children's education, if a week-long specialized summer camp, say, with "advanced study of mathematics" costs an American about $ 1000, while annual classes in any circle or any number of circles in the Houses (Palace) of Pioneers, in the Houses of Culture did not cost anything at all?

Circulations of popular books in the USSR numbered in the hundreds of thousands, which exceeds typical circulations in the United States by dozens of times. Nevertheless, in the USSR in the 1980s there was a shortage of fiction. The reason for the shortage was fabulous low prices on books. A rare book cost more than 2 rubles. In the US, the price of similar quality books is tens of dollars.

With scientific and technical literature, which was in great abundance in the USSR - both domestic and translated, the coefficient is even higher. If in the USSR the price of such books rarely exceeded 3 rubles (the main price range is 1.50-2.50), literature of a similar class in the USA costs tens and often hundreds of dollars.
In other words, everything related to HUMAN SELF-IMPROVEMENT in the USSR was DOZENS, if not hundreds of times cheaper and, therefore, more accessible.

Moral: Coefficient of at least 20.

But there is an objective point, according to which the USSR was definitely “losing” to the USA in terms of the coefficient - these are items ... let's say, not essential.

Here, it looks like the conversion factor is about 1-2: one 1980 Soviet ruble is about 1-2 modern dollars in this part. Approximately the same coefficient, according to my observations, is fair in relation to some types of clothing and footwear. In other words, non-primary necessities cost the Soviet person five to ten times more in relation to their salary than they cost the modern American.

Given the inflation of the dollar over the past 30 years, it is likely that 1 dollar in 1980 in terms of purchasing power in terms of this category of consumption really equaled 4-5 rubles of the same 1980, which approximately corresponds to the black market price of that time.

But such a course was determined solely by the fact that the interests of citizens traveling abroad were focused exclusively on this group of goods - they did not have to rent apartments, and service cars, etc.
As a result, it led to an "optical illusion" regarding the real value of the ruble in the full range of consumption. Even the fact that, TO SAVING money, Soviet citizens brought FOOD with them to the West, which directly testified to its significantly lower cost in the USSR, could not change this absolutely false impression that citizens of the orange orientation of illiteracy have survived to this day.

General conclusion:

The development of personality in the USSR cost one and a half to two orders of magnitude cheaper than the development of personality in the USA today, while "materialism" - that is, optional consumption - in the USA costs five to 10 times cheaper in terms of income than it cost the inhabitants of the USSR.

IN OTHER WORDS: TO BE IN THE USSR WAS 50-100 TIMES CHEAPER THAN IN THE USA TODAY. TO HAVE (over consume) TODAY IS 5-10 TIMES CHEAPER IN THE USA THAN IN THE USSR IN 1980.

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT, EVERYONE CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF.

A more adequate comparison by natural indicators. In this case, UN statistics, for example, reveal that the Soviet Union was in the top ten countries in terms of the quality of food. We present 3 tables comparing the development of Russia and other countries.

For many years, official Soviet propaganda spread the slogan "catch up and overtake America." It is not surprising that the idea of comparing the USSR with the most “developed country of capitalism” is so ingrained in the public mind that the fact that the USSR lags behind the United States has become one of the main arguments in favor of abandoning socialism and starting “market reforms”. Meanwhile, an attempt to "objectively" compare the level of well-being achieved by the USSR with the well-being of the United States and other Western countries runs into many difficulties. The comparison itself according to the statistics of per capita income is incorrect if it does not take into account people's ideas about their well-being, and also if it does not take into account the distribution of wealth we want or the structure of consumption and spending of the country. The feeling of comfort depends on what a person considers valuable. For example, for the Indians of one tribe, the iron irons that they kept in front of the entrance to the dwelling were very valuable. And China in the New Age "did not peck" at the cheap consumer goods of England and sold tea to England only for silver, so the British had to organize opium wars to conquer the Chinese market. When we compare the well-being of the Soviet people with the American one, we must also be prepared for the fact that some Russian citizens will not agree with the proposed comparison parameters, because for them jeans are more important than milk. Many Russian citizens still value the opportunity to buy milk without waiting in line and not getting up early in the morning for this much higher than the reduction in milk consumption itself (although it is not clear whether it was worth breaking the economy that produces so much milk to eliminate queues). What is more important - to allow the rich to travel to the Canary Islands or to have very good medical care for the entire population? In addition, the monetary expression of the same (in someone's assessment) comfort, resulting from a different way of satisfying a need, can be different. If some people prefer to have more rest, then their income is less than that of the "hard workers", but the life of the former, from their own point of view, is no worse. Yes, many Russians still believe that they lived in Soviet times 10 times worse than Americans, but this should be taken as a subjective assessment. At least the statistics of their per capita income do not confirm the tenfold difference. We would like to point out that the organization of consumption in Russia or any other country can be based on national characteristics but must necessarily correspond to the interests of the long-term survival and development of the country. If Russia as a whole does not consider the trips of its rich to the Canaries as a manifestation of its prosperity, then this type of consumption could not be included in the statistics.

Starting from a certain level of income, prestigious goods have a very large share in consumption statistics, but the subjective assessment of the value of basic goods drops sharply. Recall the situation in the 80s: the entire population is fed, clothed and shod, has a roof over their heads, that is, they are fully provided with basic well-being. In this case, it is the prestigious consumption that allows you to immediately satisfy the mi of superiority. The fact that many people in the USSR were willing to overpay monstrously for jeans, modern tape recorders and the like just shows that they no longer valued basic well-being more than prestigious consumption. But then the assessment of prestigious consumption at inflated prices turns out to be clearly inadequate. Imagine that the population of one country has only basic wealth, while the population of another voluntarily pays for prestige goods as much as it spends on basic wealth. In this case, the statistics show a twofold difference in consumption. But in fact, this does not mean a twofold difference in the power of the economies, since the production of prestigious goods is carried out by a small part of the population of a richer country, and not half of it. As the growth continues, the release of a really small number of additional workers from a poorer country for prestigious goods gives a larger estimate of consumption growth, based on market prices. But this is precisely the situation that developed in the USSR, whose authorities deliberately postponed the launch of a prestigious economy until the entire population was provided with basic well-being!

But even if we forget about subjective assessments of well-being and focus on per capita income figures as an indicator of the country's success, then even here many of the most important consumption funds characteristic of the economy of Soviet socialism do not fall into the statistics. The reason is a completely different type of exchange and distribution. If “free” consumption through public funds can still somehow be included in comparative statistics, then the effects associated with different pricing principles for paid goods are generally difficult to track. In general, the Japanese live poorer than the Germans, but Japan's per capita GDP, in monetary terms, is higher than in Germany. The reason is the way GDP is calculated. Even if natural goods are consumed the same, then the more money is spinning in the economy, the higher the so-called standard of living, calculated on the basis of per capita income. There are two factors intertwined. First, in countries with higher land rents, goods and services that do not fall into the class of exported and imported goods become especially expensive, because they cannot be exported and imported. These are, for example, heavy building materials, transport, hairdressing and utilities, hotel accommodation, services and goods included in public consumption. At the same time, classes of goods and services that are not amenable to export-import, as a rule, make up a large part of GDP. At the same time, the exchange rate in the long run is determined primarily by the ratio of prices of exported and imported goods. The latter become cheaper relative to other commodities in countries with high land-rent than in countries with low land-rent. (We do not consider customs duties here, which introduce additional distortion into the exchange rate.) In Japan, you can buy a TV at a relatively low price, but a very modest room in a Japanese hotel will cost as much as staying for several days in a hotel of such the same class in Germany. Overestimation of property rents is not always eliminated even by such tricks of statisticians as converting the exchange rate to purchasing power parity, because an inadequate set of goods can be taken. By the way, a similar effect, albeit to a lesser extent, is produced by Russian overpricing, for example, for wine, compared to its price in France. High excise taxes on alcohol also give a visible increase in GDP, as well as land rent in the Japanese case. On the whole, the USSR was characterized by an artificial underestimation of energy prices, which led to an underestimation of the apparent GDP per natural economic indicators similar to Western countries. The non-inclusion of the increase in utility in the exchange of goods in the price had the same effect: price regulation reduced the possibility of market valuation of trade services, etc., included in the GDP of Western countries. Finally, the data on per capita income statistics left out that part of goods and services that were produced in the "shadow" economy in addition to official figures and were exchanged semi-legally, for example, unregistered services of music teachers at home, apartment renovation workers, a doctor in exchange for a mutual favor ( say, the son's admission to the university), etc. Goods produced within the subsistence economy, for example, food from household plots and summer cottages, are not included in the GDP statistics. All these factors, characteristic of the Soviet economy, give obviously underestimated indicators of the USSR economy in comparison with its real successes.

Therefore, we want to warn the reader that any statistics comparing the well-being of Soviet people and Westerners must be treated with caution. From the point of view of the members of the Brezhnev Politburo, the level of well-being of the Soviet people was quite close to Western, because they compared the well-being according to the parameters that they considered the most important for the Soviet people: the consumption of vegetables, milk and meat, housing, the level of education and recreation, cultural development. From the point of view of some Soviet residents, they consumed 100 times less than the American homeless, because, although the homeless did not have the basic welfare that the Soviet people had, he had jeans, and some Soviet residents valued jeans 100 times more than basic wealth. In terms of per capita income, calculated by statistics using the usual methods applicable to capitalist economies, the gap behind the United States was two times. With the creation of an adequate system of assessments that takes into account non-monetary consumption, the backlog could perhaps be reduced by one and a half times. In terms of welfare criteria adopted by the Brezhnev leadership, the gap was minimal. According to statistics on per capita income in the 80s, according to various estimates, the USSR lagged behind the United States by 2 times, but lagged behind Italy very slightly. Compared to Italy, the difference in consumption was, at most, in the more beautiful shop windows of city shops, but the standard of living of the vast majority of the population was no lower in the USSR than in Italy. And the "socialist" Czechs certainly lived much better than the "capitalist" Italians.

A more adequate comparison by natural indicators. In this case, UN statistics, for example, reveal that the Soviet Union was in the top ten countries in terms of the quality of food. We present 3 tables comparing the development of Russia and other countries.

Table 2. Ratio of leading countries to the leading one (Selishchev A.S., Macroeconomics, p.422)

Meanwhile, an attempt to "objectively" compare the level of well-being achieved by the USSR with the well-being of the United States and other Western countries runs into many difficulties. The comparison itself according to the statistics of per capita income is incorrect if it does not take into account people's ideas about their well-being, and also if it does not take into account the distribution of wealth we want or the structure of consumption and spending of the country. The feeling of comfort depends on what a person considers valuable. For example, for the Indians of one tribe, the iron irons that they kept in front of the entrance to the dwelling were very valuable. And China in the New Age "did not peck" at the cheap consumer goods of England and sold tea to England only for silver, so the British had to organize opium wars to conquer the Chinese market. When we compare the well-being of the Soviet people with the American one, we must also be prepared for the fact that some Russian citizens will not agree with the proposed comparison parameters, because for them jeans are more important than milk.

Many Russian citizens still value the opportunity to buy milk without waiting in line and not getting up early in the morning for this much higher than the reduction in milk consumption itself (although it is not clear whether it was worth breaking the economy that produces so much milk to eliminate queues). What is more important - to allow the rich to travel to the Canary Islands or to have very good medical care for the entire population? In addition, the monetary expression of the same (in someone's assessment) comfort, resulting from a different way of satisfying a need, can be different. If some people prefer to have more rest, then their income is less than that of the "hard workers", but the life of the former, from their own point of view, is no worse.

Yes, many Russians still believe that they lived in Soviet times 10 times worse than Americans, but this should be taken as a subjective assessment. At least the statistics of their per capita income do not confirm the tenfold difference. We would like to note that the organization of consumption in Russia or any other country can be based on national characteristics, but it must necessarily correspond to the interests of the country's long-term survival and development. If Russia as a whole does not consider the trips of its rich to the Canaries as a manifestation of its prosperity, then this type of consumption could not be included in the statistics.

Constantly bumping into comparisons of living standards in the USSR and the USA, I thought about this topic. After all, what is interesting is that the authors of such comparisons take the USSR of the 80s and the USA of the 21st century and always come to the conclusion that life is worse in the USA. Without asking the question of the correctness of such a comparison, I will give my analysis (according to the method of most comparers) and show that everything is a bit wrong.

So let's start with the level of income.

USSR

Average salary = 170 rubles. After deducting the tax (13%), we get 148 rubles.

On average, a family consists of 2 workers, that is, the average family income: 148x2=300 rubles. or 3600 rubles per year(round for clarity).

There are statistics on the average household income (household income is lower than family income, but let's take it and remember that in fact the family income is ~ 10 thousand dollars more) - link.

Median income (mean, minus the richest and poorest) = $50,233

Average income = 67,609

For objectivity, we take the first digit, that is $50,000

We get: 50000/300 = 14. That is an American family nominally receives 14 times more than the Soviet one.

By itself, this figure says little. It is necessary to compare the purchasing power of the dollar and the ruble. This can be done as follows: the costs of meeting basic needs are compared, the ratio is derived and divided by 14 (the nominal difference in income).

1. Housing

USSR

Rent in the USSR = 25 rubles. for a family.

We take into account the fact that about 20% of families rented apartments in one form or another. Average price = 50 rubles.

That is, we get that the average housing costs in the USSR: 25 + 50x0.2 = 35 rubles.

Everything is more complicated with the USA. There are three types of housing to consider:

1. Rentable

2. Owned but mortgaged

3. In "pure" ownership, without payments.

So, the housing for which you have to pay:

1. Rentable is 31.7%, average cost per month = $755

2. Mortgage is 68.3%, average cost per month = $927

In total, 80% of such housing (the remaining 20% are in free possession), that is, we find that the payment for housing (rent and mortgage) is on average: 0.8x(927*68.3% + 755*31.7% = 872 ) = $700 per month.

In this way, the total average cost of housing in the US is $700 + $290 = $990 per month.

We get the ratio of housing costs between the USSR and the USA: 900/35 = 26. Divide by the income ratio and get: 26/14=1.86. Thus, we get that the purchasing power of the ruble in housing is 1.86 times greater than the dollar.

2. Transport

It is very difficult to compare. Authors of the Soviet persuasion usually compare this way: the price of a travel card in the USSR is 3 rubles, and in the USA everyone has a car and costs $300 per month. Obviously, a rather flawed comparison, but let's compare it this way. That is, suppose that all American families own a car (which is almost true) and that all Soviet citizens use public transport exclusively. Here's what you get.

USSR

Single travel card = 3 rubles. The family gets 6 rubles for transport per month.

The average family spends on car maintenance $300 per month.

We get the cost ratio: 300/6 \u003d 50. Divide by 14, we get 3.6. That is, the purchasing power of the ruble in the field of transport is 3.5 times greater than the dollar. This is under the assumption that all Americans enjoy private car, and all Soviet citizens public transport.

3. Nutrition

USSR

The average Soviet family spent 60 rubles on food. per person. We take the average value of family members - 2.6, we get that the average Soviet family spent 60x2.6 = 156 rubles per month on food.

Medium an American family spends $6,133 a year on food, that is, $511 a month (link)

We get the ratio 511/156 = 3.3. Divide by 14, we get 0.23. That is, in terms of nutrition, the purchasing power of the dollar is 4.35 times higher than that of the ruble.

4. Clothing

Considering the last two facts and the fact that the ratio of food and clothing is significantly in favor of the United States, we can conclude that The USSR of the 80s did not even come close to the standard of living of today's USA.

On the whole, the USSR was characterized by an artificial underestimation of energy prices, which led to an underestimation of the apparent GDP per natural economic indicators similar to Western countries. The non-inclusion of the increase in utility in the exchange of goods in the price had the same effect: price regulation reduced the possibility of market valuation of trade services, etc., included in the GDP of Western countries. Finally, the data on per capita income statistics left out that part of goods and services that were produced in the "shadow" economy in addition to official figures and were exchanged semi-legally, for example, unregistered services of music teachers at home, apartment renovation workers, a doctor in exchange for a mutual favor ( say, the son's admission to the university), etc. Goods produced within the subsistence economy, for example, food from household plots and summer cottages, are not included in the GDP statistics. All these factors, characteristic of the Soviet economy, give obviously underestimated indicators of the USSR economy in comparison with its real successes.

Table 2. Ratio of leading countries to the leading(Selishchev A.S., Macroeconomics, p.422)

years	Leading country	Second country	third country	fourth country
GNP
1984	USA - 100%	USSR - 51%	Japan - 34%	Germany - 17%
1950	USA - 100%	USSR - 29%	England - 19%	France - 13%
1938	USA - 100%	Germany - 37%	USSR - 37%	England - 27%
1913	USA - 306%	Russia - 123%	Germany - 113%	England - 100%
1870	USA - 117%	Russia - 117%	England - 100%	France - 85%
1830	Russia - 132%	France -105%	England - 100%	France - 87%
military spending
1984	USA - 100%	USSR - 100%	China - 18%	England - 15%
1950	USSR - 106%	USA -100%	China - 18%	England - 16%
1938	Germany - 651%	USSR - 483%	England - 161%	Japan - 154%
1913	Germany - 129%	Russia - 125%	England - 100%	France - 99%
1872	Russia - 127%	France - 119%	England - 100%	Germany - 68%
1830	France - 148%	England -100%	Russia - 92%	Austrian Hungary - 54%
industrial production
1984	USA - 100%	USSR - 52%	Japan - 30%	Germany - 16%
1950	USA - 100%	USSR - 24%	Japan - 19%	Germany - 13%
1938	USA - 100%	Germany - 40%	England - 34%	USSR - 29%
1913	USA - 235%	Germany - 109%	England - 100%	Russia - 26%
1872	England - 100%	China - 75%	USA - 51%	France - 37%
1830	China - 319%	India - 185%	England - 100%	Russia - 59%

Source: Russett B.U.S. Hegemony: Gone or merely Diminished, and How Does it Matter? // The Political Economy of Japan Vol.2. /Ed. by Takashi Inoguchi & D.I.Okimoto. Stanford, 1988. p.87)

Table 3. Comparison of average annual per capita incomes in international dollars(according to purchasing power parity) 1988 (Selishchev A.S., Macroeconomics, p.423)

Country
China
India
Brazil
Indonesia
Japan
Britannia
France
Germany
Italy
USA
Russia

It is believed that in Russia in the twentieth century there were 3 revolutions: in February and October 1917 and in 1991. Sometimes the year 1993 is also referred to. As a result of the February revolution, the political system changed within a few days. As a result of the October Revolution, both the political and economic system of the country changed, but the process of these changes dragged on for several months. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, but there were no changes in the political or economic system that year. The political system changed in 1989, when the CPSU lost power both in fact and formally due to the repeal of the relevant article of the Constitution. The economic system of the USSR changed back in 1987, when a non-state sector of the economy appeared in the form of cooperatives. Thus, the revolution did not take place in 1991, but in 1987, and, unlike the revolutions of 1917, it was carried out by the people who were then in power.

In addition to the revolutions mentioned above, there was another one, about which not a single line has been written so far. During this revolution, cardinal changes took place in both the political and economic system of the country. These changes led to a significant deterioration in the financial situation of almost all segments of the population, a decrease in the production of agricultural and industrial goods, a reduction in the range of these goods and a decrease in their quality, and an increase in prices. We are talking about the revolution of 1956-1960 carried out by N.S. Khrushchev. The political component of this revolution was that, after a fifteen-year break, power was returned to the party apparatus at all levels, from the party committees of enterprises to the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1959-1960, the non-state sector of the economy (commercial cooperation enterprises and household plots of collective farmers) was liquidated, which ensured the production of a significant part of industrial goods (clothes, shoes, furniture, dishes, toys, etc.), food (vegetables, livestock and poultry products , fish products), as well as household services. In 1957, the State Planning Commission and the sectoral ministries (except for defense ministries) were liquidated. Thus, instead of an effective combination of a planned and a market economy, there was neither one nor the other. In 1965, after the removal of Khrushchev from power, the State Planning Commission and the ministries were restored, but with significantly curtailed rights. In 1956, the system of material and moral incentives for increasing the efficiency of production was completely eliminated, which was introduced back in 1939 in all sectors of the national economy and ensured in the post-war period the growth of labor productivity and national income significantly higher than in other countries, including the United States, solely due to own financial and material resources. As a result of the elimination of this system, an equalization of wages appeared, and interest in the final result of labor and the quality of products disappeared. The uniqueness of the Khrushchev revolution was that the changes dragged on for several years and passed completely unnoticed by the population.

The standard of living of the population of the USSR in the post-war period increased annually and reached its maximum in the year of Stalin's death in 1953. In 1956, the incomes of people employed in the sphere of production and science are declining as a result of the elimination of payments that stimulate labor efficiency. In 1959, the incomes of collective farmers were sharply reduced due to the reduction of household plots and restrictions on keeping livestock in private ownership. Prices for products sold in the markets rise by 2-3 times. Since 1960, the era of a total shortage of industrial and food products began. It was this year that Beryozka foreign exchange shops and special distributors for the nomenclature, which had not previously been necessary, were opened. In 1962, state prices for basic foodstuffs rose by about 1.5 times. In general, the life of the population has sunk to the level of the late forties.

Until 1960, in such areas as health care, education, science and innovative industries (nuclear industry, rocket science, electronics, computer technology, automated production), the USSR occupied a leading position in the world. If we take the economy as a whole, then the USSR was second only to the United States, but significantly ahead of any other countries. At the same time, the USSR until 1960 was actively catching up with the United States and just as actively moving ahead of other countries. After 1960, the growth rate of the economy has been steadily declining, leading positions in the world are being lost.

In the materials below, I will try to tell in detail how they lived ordinary people in the USSR in the 1950s. Based on my own memories, the stories of people with whom my life came across, as well as on some documents of that time that are available on the Internet, I will try to show how far from reality are modern ideas about the very recent past of a great country.

* * *

Immediately after the end of the war, the life of the population of the USSR began to improve dramatically. In 1946, the wages of workers and engineering and technical workers (ITR) working at enterprises and construction sites in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East increased by 20%. In the same year, the salaries of people with higher and secondary specialized education (technical engineers, workers in science, education and medicine) are increased by 20%. The importance of academic degrees and titles is rising. The salary of a professor, doctor of science is increased from 1,600 to 5,000 rubles, an associate professor, a candidate of science - from 1,200 to 3,200 rubles, a rector of a university from 2,500 to 8,000 rubles. In scientific research institutes, the scientific degree of a candidate of science began to add 1,000 rubles to the official salary, and 2,500 rubles for a doctor of science. At the same time, the salary of the union minister was 5,000 rubles, and the secretary of the district committee of the party - 1,500 rubles. Stalin, as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, had a salary of 10 thousand rubles. Scientists in the USSR of that time also had additional income, sometimes several times higher than their salary. Therefore, they were the richest and at the same time the most respected part of Soviet society.

In December 1947, an event occurs that, in terms of emotional impact on people, was commensurate with the end of the war. As stated in the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks No. 4004 of December 14, 1947 "... from December 16, 1947, the card system for the supply of food and industrial goods is canceled, high prices for commercial trade are canceled and uniform reduced state retail prices are introduced for food and manufactured goods ... ". The card system, which allowed many people to be saved from starvation during the war, caused severe psychological discomfort after the war. The assortment of foodstuffs that were sold on cards was extremely poor. For example, in bakeries there were only 2 varieties of rye and wheat bread, which were sold by weight in accordance with the norm indicated in the cut-off coupon. The choice of other food products was also small. At the same time, commercial stores had such an abundance of products that any modern supermarket would envy. But the prices in these stores were unaffordable for the majority of the population, and products were purchased there only for the festive table. After the abolition of the rationing system, all this abundance turned out to be in ordinary grocery stores at quite reasonable prices. For example, the price of cakes, which were previously sold only in commercial stores, has decreased from 30 to 3 rubles. Market prices for products fell more than 3 times. Before the abolition of the rationing system, industrial goods were sold under special warrants, the presence of which did not yet mean the availability of the corresponding goods. After the abolition of ration cards, a certain shortage of industrial goods persisted for some time, but, as far as I remember, in 1951 there was no longer such a shortage in Leningrad.

On March 1, 1949-1951, further price cuts take place, on average by 20% per year. Each decline was perceived as a national holiday. When the next price cut did not occur on March 1, 1952, people felt disappointed. However, on April 1 of the same year, the price reduction did take place. The last price cut took place after Stalin's death on April 1, 1953. During the post-war period, food prices and the most popular industrial goods fell on average by more than 2 times. So, for eight post-war years, the life of the Soviet people improved noticeably every year. In the entire known history of mankind, similar precedents have not been observed in any country.

The standard of living of the population of the USSR in the mid-50s can be assessed by studying the materials of studies of the budgets of families of workers, employees and collective farmers, which were carried out by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of the USSR from 1935 to 1958 (these materials, which in the USSR were classified as “secret” , published on the website istmat.info). The budgets were studied in families belonging to 9 groups of the population: collective farmers, state farm workers, industrial workers, industrial engineers, industrial employees, elementary school teachers, teachers high school, doctors and nurses. The wealthiest part of the population, which included employees of defense industry enterprises, design organizations, scientific institutions, university professors, artel workers and the military, unfortunately, did not come into the view of the CSO.

Of the study groups listed above, doctors had the highest income. Each member of their families had 800 rubles of monthly income. Of the urban population, the employees of industry had the lowest income - 525 rubles per month accounted for each family member. The rural population had a per capita monthly income of 350 rubles. At the same time, if the workers of state farms had this income in explicit monetary form, then the collective farmers received it when calculating the cost of their own products consumed in the family at state prices.

Food consumption was at about the same level for all groups of the population, including the rural population, 200-210 rubles per month per family member. Only in the families of doctors, the cost of a food basket reached 250 rubles due to the greater consumption of butter, meat products, eggs, fish and fruits, while reducing bread and potatoes. Rural residents consumed the most bread, potatoes, eggs and milk, but significantly less butter, fish, sugar and confectionery. It should be noted that the amount of 200 rubles spent on food was not directly related to family income or a limited choice of products, but was determined by family traditions. In my family, which in 1955 consisted of four people, including two schoolchildren, the monthly income per person was 1,200 rubles. The choice of products in the Leningrad grocery stores was much wider than in modern supermarkets. Nevertheless, our family's expenses for food, including school breakfasts and lunches in departmental canteens with parents, did not exceed 800 rubles a month.

Food was very cheap in departmental canteens. Lunch in the student canteen, including soup with meat, a main course with meat and compote or tea with a pie, cost about 2 rubles. Free bread was always on the tables. Therefore, in the days before the scholarship was given, some students living on their own bought tea for 20 kopecks and ate bread with mustard and tea. By the way, salt, pepper and mustard were also always on the tables. A scholarship at the institute where I studied, starting from 1955, was 290 rubles (with excellent grades - 390 rubles). 40 rubles from nonresident students went to pay for the hostel. The remaining 250 rubles (7,500 modern rubles) was enough for a normal student life in a big city. At the same time, as a rule, nonresident students did not receive help from home and did not earn extra money in their free time.

A few words about the Leningrad grocery stores of that time. The fish section was the most diverse. Several varieties of red and black caviar were displayed in large bowls. A full range of hot and cold smoked white fish, red fish from chum salmon to salmon, smoked eels and marinated lampreys, herring in jars and barrels. Live fish from rivers and inland waters was delivered immediately after being caught in special tank trucks with the inscription "fish". There was no frozen fish. It appeared only in the early 60s. There was a lot of canned fish, of which I remember gobies in tomato, the ubiquitous crabs for 4 rubles per can, and the favorite product of students living in a hostel - cod liver. Beef and lamb were divided into four categories with different prices, depending on the part of the carcass. In the department of semi-finished products, langets, entrecotes, schnitzels and escalopes were presented. The variety of sausages was much wider than now, and I still remember their taste. Now only in Finland you can try sausage, reminiscent of the Soviet one from those times. It should be said that the taste of boiled sausages changed already in the early 60s, when Khrushchev ordered to add soy to sausages. This prescription was ignored only in the Baltic republics, where back in the 70s it was possible to buy a normal doctor's sausage. Bananas, pineapples, mangoes, pomegranates, oranges were sold in large grocery stores or specialized stores all year round. Ordinary vegetables and fruits were purchased by our family at the market, where a small increase in price paid off with higher quality and more choice.

This is what the shelves of ordinary Soviet grocery stores looked like in 1953. After 1960, this was no longer the case.

The poster below refers to the pre-war period, but jars of crabs were in all Soviet stores in the fifties.

The above-mentioned materials of the Central Statistical Bureau provide data on the consumption of foodstuffs in the families of workers in various regions of the RSFSR. Of the two dozen items of products, only two items have a significant spread (more than 20%) from the average level of consumption. Butter, with an average level of consumption in the country in the amount of 5.5 kg per year per person, was consumed in Leningrad in the amount of 10.8 kg, in Moscow - 8.7 kg, and in the Bryansk region - 1.7 kg, in the Lipetsk region - 2.2 kg. In all other regions of the RSFSR, the per capita consumption of butter in the families of workers was above 3 kg. A similar picture for sausage. The average level is 13 kg. In Moscow - 28.7 kg, in Leningrad - 24.4 kg, in the Lipetsk region - 4.4 kg, in the Bryansk region - 4.7 kg, in other regions - more than 7 kg. At the same time, the income in the families of workers in Moscow and Leningrad did not differ from the average income in the country and amounted to 7,000 rubles per year per family member. In 1957 I visited the cities along the Volga: Rybinsk, Kostroma, Yaroslavl. The assortment of foodstuffs was lower than in Leningrad, but butter and sausage were on the shelves, and the variety of fish products was perhaps even higher than in Leningrad. Thus, the population of the USSR, at least from 1950 to 1959, was fully provided with food.

The food situation has been drastically worsening since the 1960s. True, in Leningrad it was not very noticeable. I can only remember the disappearance from the sale of imported fruits, canned corn and, more importantly for the population, flour. When flour appeared in any store, huge queues lined up, and no more than two kilograms were sold in one hand. These were the first queues that I saw in Leningrad since the late 1940s. In smaller cities, according to the stories of my relatives and friends, in addition to flour, the following disappeared from sale: butter, meat, sausage, fish (except for a small set of canned food), eggs, cereals and pasta. The assortment of bakery products has sharply decreased. I myself observed empty shelves in grocery stores in Smolensk in 1964.

I can judge the life of the rural population only by a few fragmentary impressions (not counting the budget studies of the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR). In 1951, 1956 and 1962 I spent the summer on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. In the first case, I traveled with my parents, and then on my own. At that time, trains had long stops at stations and even small half-stations. In the 50s, local residents came out to the trains with a variety of products, among which were: boiled, fried and smoked chickens, boiled eggs, homemade sausages, hot pies with various fillings, including fish, meat, liver, mushrooms. In 1962, only hot potatoes with pickles were brought to the trains.

In the summer of 1957, I was a member of a student concert brigade organized by the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. On a small wooden barge, we sailed down the Volga and gave concerts in coastal villages. At that time, there were few entertainments in the villages, and therefore almost all residents came to our concerts in local clubs. They did not differ from the urban population either in clothing or in facial expressions. And the dinners that we were treated to after the concert testified that there were no problems with food even in small villages.

In the early 80s, I was treated in a sanatorium located in the Pskov region. One day I went to a nearby village to try the village milk. The talkative old woman I met quickly dispelled my hopes. She said that after Khrushchev's 1959 ban on keeping livestock and cutting back on household plots, the village was completely impoverished, and previous years were remembered as a golden age. Since then, meat has completely disappeared from the diet of the villagers, and milk was only occasionally given out from the collective farm for small children. And before, there was enough meat for their own consumption and for sale on the collective farm market, which provided the main income of the peasant family, and not at all collective farm earnings. I note that according to the statistics of the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR in 1956, each rural resident of the RSFSR consumed more than 300 liters of milk per year, while urban residents consumed 80-90 liters. After 1959, the CSO ceased its secret budget research.

The provision of the population with industrial goods in the mid-50s was quite high. For example, in working families, more than 3 pairs of shoes were purchased annually for each person. The quality and variety of exclusively domestically produced consumer goods (clothing, shoes, dishes, toys, furniture and other household goods) was much higher than in subsequent years. The fact is that the main part of these goods was produced not by state enterprises, but by artels. Moreover, the products of artels were sold in ordinary state stores. As soon as new fashion trends appeared, they were instantly tracked, and within a few months, fashion products appeared in abundance on store shelves. For example, in the mid-50s, a youth fashion arose for shoes with a thick white rubber sole in imitation of the rock and roll singer Elvis Presley, who was extremely popular in those years. I quietly purchased these domestically produced shoes from a regular department store in the fall of 1955, along with another fashionable item, a tie with a brightly colored picture. The only product that was not always available for purchase was popular records. However, in 1955 I had records, bought in a regular store, of almost all the then popular American jazz musicians and singers, such as Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller. Only recordings of Elvis Presley, illegally made on used x-ray film (as they used to say "on the bones") had to be bought by hand. I do not remember that period of imported goods. Both clothes and shoes were produced in small batches and were distinguished by a wide variety of models. In addition, the manufacture of clothing and footwear for individual orders was widespread in numerous sewing and knitting ateliers, in shoe workshops that are part of the trade cooperation. There were many tailors and shoemakers who worked individually. Fabrics were the hottest commodity at that time. I still remember the names of such popular fabrics at that time as drape, cheviot, boston, crepe de chine.

From 1956 to 1960, the process of liquidation of commercial cooperation took place. The bulk of the artels became state-owned enterprises, while the rest were closed or went underground. Individual production on patents was also prohibited. The production of almost all consumer goods, both in terms of volume and assortment, has sharply decreased. It is then that imported consumer goods appear, which immediately become scarce, despite the higher price with a limited assortment.

I can illustrate the life of the population of the USSR in 1955 using the example of my family. The family consisted of 4 people. Father, 50 years old, head of the department of the design institute. Mother, 45 years old, engineer-geologist of Lenmetrostroy. Son, 18 years old, high school graduate. Son, 10 years old, student. The family's income consisted of three parts: official salary (2,200 rubles for father and 1,400 rubles for mother), a quarterly bonus for fulfilling the plan, usually 60% of the salary, and a separate bonus for extra work. Whether my mother received such a bonus, I don’t know, but my father received it about once a year, and in 1955 this bonus amounted to 6,000 rubles. In other years, it was about the same value. I remember how my father, having received this award, laid out a lot of hundred-ruble bills on the dining table in the form of solitaire cards, and then we had a festive dinner. On average, the monthly income of our family was 4,800 rubles, or 1,200 rubles per person.

Of this amount, 550 rubles were deducted for taxes, party and trade union dues. 800 rubles were spent on food. 150 rubles were spent on housing and utilities(water, heating, electricity, gas, telephone). 500 rubles were spent on clothes, shoes, transport, entertainment. Thus, the regular monthly expenses of our family of 4 amounted to 2000 rubles. Unspent money remained 2,800 rubles a month, or 33,600 rubles (a million modern rubles) a year.

Our family income was closer to the middle than the upper. Thus, private sector workers (artels), who accounted for more than 5% of the urban population, had higher incomes. The officers of the army, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security had high salaries. For example, an ordinary army lieutenant platoon commander had a monthly income of 2600-3600 rubles, depending on the place and specifics of the service. At the same time, military income was not taxed. To illustrate the income of workers in the defense industry, I will give only an example of a young family I know well, who worked in the experimental design bureau of the Ministry of Aviation Industry. Husband, 25 years old, senior engineer with a salary of 1400 rubles and a monthly income including various bonuses and travel allowances of 2500 rubles. Wife, 24 years old, senior technician with a salary of 900 rubles and a monthly income of 1,500 rubles. In general, the monthly income of a family of two was 4,000 rubles. About 15 thousand rubles of unspent money remained a year. I believe that a significant part of urban families had the opportunity to save annually 5-10 thousand rubles (150-300 thousand modern rubles).

Of the expensive goods, cars should be singled out. The range of cars was small, but there were no problems with their acquisition. In Leningrad, in the Apraksin Dvor large department store, there was a car dealership. I remember that in 1955 cars were put up for free sale there: Moskvich-400 for 9,000 rubles (economy class), Pobeda for 16,000 rubles (business class) and ZIM (later Chaika) for 40,000 rubles (representative class). Our family savings were enough to purchase any of the cars listed above, including ZIM. And the Moskvich car was generally available to the majority of the population. However, there was no real demand for cars. At that time, cars were seen as expensive toys that created a lot of maintenance and maintenance problems. My uncle had a Moskvich car, in which he traveled out of town only a few times a year. My uncle bought this car back in 1949 only because he could build a garage in the courtyard of his house in the premises of the former stables. At work, my father was offered to buy a decommissioned American Jeep, a military SUV of that time, for only 1,500 rubles. The father refused the car, as there was nowhere to keep it.

For the Soviet people of the post-war period, the desire to have the largest possible cash reserve was characteristic. They remembered well that during the war years, money could save lives. In the most difficult period of the life of besieged Leningrad, there was a market where you could buy or exchange any food for things. My father's Leningrad notes dated December 1941 indicated the following prices and clothing equivalents in this market: 1 kg of flour = 500 rubles = felt boots, 2 kg of flour = astrakhan fur coat, 3 kg of flour = gold watch. However, a similar situation with food was not only in Leningrad. In the winter of 1941-1942, small provincial towns, where there was no military industry, were not supplied with food at all. The population of these cities survived only by exchanging household goods for food with the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. My mother at that time worked as an elementary school teacher in the ancient Russian city of Belozersk, in her homeland. As she later said, by February 1942, more than half of her students had died of starvation. My mother and I survived only because in our house since pre-revolutionary times there were quite a few things that were valued in the countryside. But my mother's grandmother also starved to death in February 1942, leaving her food for her granddaughter and four-year-old great-grandson. My only vivid memory of that time is a New Year's gift from my mother. It was a piece of black bread, lightly sprinkled with granulated sugar, which my mother called a cake. I tried a real cake only in December 1947, when Pinocchio suddenly became rich. In my children's piggy bank there were more than 20 rubles of change, and the coins were preserved even after the monetary reform. It was only in February 1944, when we returned to Leningrad after the blockade was lifted, that I stopped experiencing a constant feeling of hunger. By the mid-60s, the memory of the horrors of the war had faded, a new generation had come into life, not striving to save money in reserve, and cars, which by that time had risen in price by 3 times, became in short supply, like many other goods.

I will name some prices in 1955: rye bread - 1 rub. / kg, roll - 1.5 rub. / 0.5 kg, meat - 12.5–18 rub. / kg, live fish(carp) - 5 rubles / kg, sturgeon caviar - 180 rubles / kg, lunch in the canteen - 2-3 rubles, dinner in a restaurant with wine for two - 25 rubles, leather shoes - 150 - 250 rubles, 3 - high-speed bike Tourist - 900 rubles, motorcycle IZH-49 with an engine of 350 cubic meters. cm - 2500 rubles, a ticket to the cinema - 0.5–1 rubles, a ticket to the theater or to a concert - 3-10 rubles.

Let us try to estimate the standard of living of the population of the USSR in 1955 by comparing the family budgets of Soviet and American families consisting of four people (two adults and two children). As an example, consider 3 American families: the average American family in 1955 according to the US Census Bureau, the average American family in 2010 according to the US Department of Labor, and a specific American family from Virginia who agreed to talk about their 2011 budget.

From the Soviet side, consider the budgets of rural and urban average families of 1955 of four people based on the materials of the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR and my own family in 1966, when I kept daily records of family income and expenses.

Since different monetary units correspond to two countries and three time periods, when considering all budgets, we will use the Stalinist ruble of 1947. In 1955, this ruble, in terms of purchasing power, was approximately equal to the modern dollar or 30 current Russian rubles. The American dollar of 1955 corresponded to 6 Stalinist rubles (at the gold rate - 4 rubles). In 1961, as a result of the Khrushchev monetary reform, the ruble was denominated 10 times. However, by 1966, the increase in state and market prices led to a decrease in the purchasing power of the ruble by about 1.6 times, so that the Khrushchev ruble became equivalent not to 10, but to 6 Stalinist rubles (at the gold rate of 1961, 1 dollar = 90 kopecks).

Some explanations for the above table. Education at the school attended by children of the third American family (6 and 10 years old) is free. But for school lunches ($2.5), a school bus, and staying in an after-school group, you have to pay 5 thousand dollars a year for each child. In this regard, the absence of school expenses for statistical American families is incomprehensible. In the USSR in 1955, a hot school breakfast cost 1 ruble, the school was close to home, and the after-school group was free. Higher food costs for a more prosperous American family are explained by the fact that some of the products are bought in an "environmentally friendly" store at higher prices. In addition, daily meals while working cost the head of the family $2,500 a year. Entertainment for this family includes a traditional weekly dinner at a restaurant ($50 for the dinner itself and $30 for a babysitter staying at home with children), as well as swimming lessons for children in the pool under the guidance of a coach (once a week - $90). Household expenses include twice-monthly housekeeping and laundry costs of $2,800, and $4,200 for shoes, clothing, and toys for children.

The third Soviet family from the above table should be classified as poor rather than average. I was a full-time graduate student. My income consisted of a stipend of 1,000 nominal Stalinist rubles and half the rate of a junior researcher of 525 rubles. My wife was a student and received a scholarship of 290 rubles. Taxes on scholarships and salaries less than 700 rubles were not taken. The daughter was only two years old, and for kindergarten she was still small. Therefore, a nanny who received 250 rubles constantly lived in the family. The range of purchased products was very diverse. More than a third of the cost of the food basket was fruit. The budget notes show no intention to limit spending. For example, the cost of a taxi was noted several times a month. A family of four, including a nanny, lived in a two-room cooperative apartment purchased in 1963 when I had just married and worked as a senior engineer at a defense plant. Then my savings for two years of work after graduation was enough to pay the down payment for an apartment in the amount of 19 thousand Stalinist rubles (40% of the total cost). In the summer of 6 weeks we rested on the Black Sea coast of Crimea, where we went with a tent set up directly on the shore. I note that the wealthy American family discussed above could only afford a week-long vacation on the seashore in North Carolina, and 3 thousand dollars spent on this vacation went beyond the family's annual budget. And a poor Soviet family of three with an annual budget of 13,000 modern dollars (far below the poverty line by today's American standards) consumed a variety of organic food, paid off a mortgage loan, hired a nanny to constantly care for a child, and spent long summer vacations on the shores of a warm seas.

Previously, we considered a typical young Soviet family of the mid-50s of two people (husband - 2 years after a technical university, wife - 2 years after a technical school) with a net monthly income after taxes of 3400 rubles or 100 thousand modern rubles. The net income of a similar Russian family in the rare case when the husband and wife work in their specialty will be no more than 40 thousand rubles in Moscow or St. Petersburg, and in the provinces it will be even 1.5-2 times lower. Feel the difference!!!

So, the material standard of living of the population of the USSR in the mid-50s was higher than in the United States, the richest country of that time, and higher than in modern America, not to mention modern Russia. In addition, the population of the USSR was provided with benefits unthinkable for any other countries of the world:

a chain of dairy kitchens that provided free meals for infants up to 2 years of age;
wide network preschool institutions(kindergartens and kindergartens) with a minimum payment for the maintenance of children - 30-40 rubles per month, and for collective farmers free of charge;
summer holidays for children in pioneer camps for a small fee or free of charge;
children's music schools, allowing children to receive a musical education and to identify musical talents at an early stage;
children's sports schools, including boarding schools;
free after-school groups;
Houses of Pioneers and Palaces of Pioneers, providing free leisure for children;
Houses of Culture and Palaces of Culture, providing leisure for adults;
sports societies providing physical education of the population;
a wide network of sanatoriums, rest houses, tourist bases, providing treatment and recreation free of charge or for a small fee, accessible to all segments of the population;
the broadest opportunities for obtaining free education and advanced training for all segments of the population in daytime, evening or correspondence form;
guaranteed housing and work in the specialty, maximum social protection, complete confidence in the future.

A few words about paid education in Stalin's time. In 1940, tuition fees were introduced in the upper grades of secondary school, in universities and technical schools. In Moscow, Leningrad and the capitals of the Union republics, the cost of education in high school was 200 rubles a year, and in universities and technical schools - 400 rubles a year. In other cities - 150 and 300 rubles a year, respectively. Education in rural schools was free. From the analysis of family budgets, it can be seen that these amounts were symbolic. In 1956, tuition fees were abolished.

According to official statistics, the standard of living of the population of the USSR grew continuously until the moment of its collapse. However, real life had nothing to do with these statistics. For example, the price of a typical lunch (lagman, pilaf, flatbread, green tea) in my favorite Moscow restaurant "Uzbekistan", which I visited on any visit to Moscow, was in Khrushchev rubles: 1955 - 1, 1963 - 2, 1971 - 5, 1976 - 7, 1988 - 10. The price of a Moskvich car: 1955 - 900, 1963 - 2500, 1971 - 4900, 1976 - 6300, 1988 - 9000. For a quarter of a century real prices increased 10 times, and incomes, in particular, engineers and scientists decreased. Since the mid-60s, the richest people in the USSR were not scientists, as it was before, but trade workers and the nomenklatura.

V.A. Torgashev

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