Food Rationing, Supply Situation Viewed

This document, a 1991 report from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), provides an economic analysis of the food supply situation in the Soviet Union as the country approached winter. Written by Candidate of Economic Sciences L. Vashchukov and originally published in the newspaper PRAVDA on November 22, 1991, the text details the growing scarcity of essential food items such as meat, butter, and vegetables. The author observes that the disappearance of these goods from retail stores has led to the implementation of rationing in various cities, a situation described as reminiscent of a blockade. The report relies on statistical data to explain the crisis, specifically focusing on the grain procurement system. Despite a harvest that produced sufficient goods, the state granaries were significantly under-supplied, having received only 39 million tonnes of grain compared to 66 million tonnes during the same period the previous year. Vashchukov identifies the primary cause of this discrepancy as the reluctance of collective farms (kolkhozes) and state farms (sovkhozes) to sell their grain to the state at fixed prices. Instead, these entities were opting to barter or sell their produce to private stockbrokers who offered prices up to ten times higher than the state-mandated rates. The report concludes by noting a significant deficit in feed grain, with only 25-27 million tonnes procured against a requirement of 48 million tonnes, highlighting the systemic economic instability facing the nation at that time.