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Now you know why people don’t smile in Poland.
Hey, I’m Polish and I do sometimes smile. I am living in Denmark, dough.
If you still gained a salary from work and could buy the rest of what you need this really isn’t that bad
I don’t think you got this for free, it was probably just the maximum you could buy of any of these items in a month. That’s how war time rationing worked in the UK.
This was the USSR. They didn’t pay for this.
Apparently you’re incorrect: https://polishhistory.pl/a-ration-card-for-survival-rationing-in-communist-poland/
To buy sugar, cigarettes, shoes, petrol and many other goods they needed not only money, but also special coupons.
Half a liter of vodka monthly? Aren’t the Poles known for their consumption of vast quantities of the stuff?
Yeast is not on the list but the 2kg of sugar wasn’t just for cakes I’m sure.
What they were officially allowed to drink vs what they did drink.
I wonder how they used it. Fancy baked goods the first days, then a rush to bake long lasting good before the perishables spoil? Did widowers ask family to bake with their rations?
If you could even get all that, and if you could you had to queue for days
12 packs of cigs seems like a huge luxury
You didn’t live in the eighties I bet. It was cheap back then and everyone smoked.
For a month? It’s just dried shredded leaves wrapped in paper, cigarettes are super cheap to produce, tax makes them expensive.
average smoker smokes about 20 cigarettes a day. so it’s a little less than half of a monthly use of cigarettes.
from what i understand the ration was meant to supplement what you consume, not provide everything
Is 20 cigs a day honestly the average nowadays?? Mind blowing and sad. My mum who was an addicted smoker since she was 10 years of age and went through maybe 5 to 10 cigs a day.
it’s been the average for a long time. it’s due to nicotine’s pharmacological effects. its half life is roughly 1~2 hours. so a smoker on average will feel the compulsion to smoke an hour or so after the last cigarette. since most people are awake somewhere 16 hours a day, that’s about ~16 cigarettes a day.
your mom’s smoking habits were definitely atypical
Sounds like a miserable existence. You’re going to need a lot more vodka than that to cope.
Rationing in the early 80s is considered to be one of the major agitating factors that led to increased labor union activity and, thus, the eventual end of the Communist regime in Poland. Would seem that it was not nearly enough vodka to quietly cope!
I can see why. Like if I was flat broke, these rations would be super welcome, but as an ongoing totality of what I could have for all of my labor? No, fuck that! The people at the top were obviously hoarding all the wealth, which seems to always happen every time this form of government is tried.
Well, you still had to purchase the food, you were just limited by ration cards in how much of certain goods you could purchase.
Oh shit, that’s even worse!
It happens every time any form of government is tried to be honest. The problem is with people, not the system of government.
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
-Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Right. Which is a fundamental reason why the government should not be trusted to act in the best interest of the people. There must be checks and balances, and they must be held accountable and be forced to do their duty. The USA had a great run of this, but over the last 4 decades politicians have changed the lay of the land to benefit themselves and their donors more and more, and the people haven’t the gumption, will, or faculties to challenge them and hold them to account. Politicians have also realized that much of our system relied upon integrity, or the assumption that the individual would follow the system, with very little to no consequences if they just do whatever they want.
I’m no historian, but I see the cycle of [Brave New World -> Prosperity / Dominance -> Decline -> Corruption -> Oppression -> Revolution -> Brave New World] as a fairly common pattern, with timescales from decades to centuries. It might be cognitive bias, but it seems kind of inevitable, really.
Scandinavia seems like a good place to live ATM.
Reminds me of the leftist venezuelan regime monthly rations in the form of cajas clap.
Absolutely disgusting food.
Thank goodness I was able to escape the dictatorship with my family
That catsup can go 2 ways. Ketchup or Cat Soup
Thank you for posting this. I don’t understand what a lot of those foods are. It looks like a heck of a lot of it is pasta/noodles based though. And maybe milk powder? Where is the protein other than the canned tuna(?) up at the top.
That was it. No more than that. Worst thing is that almost all this products are from Mexico. Before the collectivists and leftists took power in Venezuela, we used to make all these products
Left to right
4 blue pasta packages, 200 grams each
4 green rice packages, 1 kg
4 yellow spaghetti packs. 200 grams each
6 shredded tuna cans. 130 grams each
1 oil bottle. 1 liter
2 red bottles, tomato sauce/ketchup. 220 grams each
2 orange packs, corn flour, 1kg each
1 pack of refined sugar, 1kg
1 white pack, dry whole milk, 500 grams
2 green packs, black beans, 1kg each
3 yellow packs, egg spaghetti, 290 grams each
3 red packs, elbow shaped spaghetti , 200 grams each
1 blue pack, lentils, 1 kg
Take into account that this is supposed to last a family of 4 a month. If it ever arrives.
Because it’s assigned per family
Also, as most of these products are from Mexico, the transportation is not the best and most of the time they arrive corroded, open by rats, or with less or very different products than advertised
So yeah I’m glad I escaped the collectivistic hellhole with my family mostly intact
Thank you for answering, this is very eye opening. In Canada we get a similar amount of food at our volunteer based food banks that is supposed to last a month but lasts a few days, but it’s different in the type of product. And it would never be given to us in a state that was degraded or torn into by pests.
Oh, she looks so happy!
I’m not gonna say that’s anywhere near sufficient, but as a US citizen where do I sign up
To be ration-limited by what you can purchase? I’m sure that’s a fad diet somewhere.
I might bring tankies out of the woodwork for saying this, but I remember one time a tankie told me that scarcity in communist countries is by design and it’s a good thing, after I pointed out that people had to be on the waiting list just to get a car. What if the person lives in rural with no access to public transport?
I understand capitalism is wasteful, but doing the extreme opposite and making people wait to own a car or giving someone bare essentials is not a good thing. Having a scarcity economy is not good, especially considering that the Soviet Union produced more tanks than cars throughout its history. The American military industrial complex is rightly criticised for overspending, but communist countries are worse since the case is that more tanks were made than civilian cars. It means more budget went to the military than to producing consumer good. Talk about priorities.
No, are you sure? /s
Don’t take what tankied say like they mean it, it’s just propaganda / they amuse themselves coming up with lies that you have to unravel and defeat. And if you do so, then magically the discussion is over and we’ll talk about some other thing.
Soviet Union had a limited ability to produce things, especially heavy machinery. Their leadership quickly realised that they can’t outproduce the Western countries on everything, so they decided to only match their military production capabilities. Which led to them falling further and further behind.
Not a tankie, nor a communist, just a progressive with an interest in history, but,
after I pointed out that people had to be on the waiting list just to get a car. What if the person lives in rural with no access to public transport?
Is such a US-centric view. They all didn’t need to drive cars, dude, they had public transportation.
Edit: Added emphasis for people having trouble reading
Not all countries have good public transport system. Imagine living in Siberia at the time of the communists, unless you’re in gulag which doesn’t require you to travel to other places.
Do you think that every single person in Europe is perfectly served by public transport?
Nope. Did I say that?
No but the person you replied to called out a specific scenario in which the person lives in a rural area with no public transport access which is a real thing in every single country, with good public transit or not.
The concept of someone not having access to public transit isn’t an American centric point of view.
Yes, busses were relatively common and affordable, but many of them were smelly and horrible. Except for the Icaruses, the passengers of which felt like kings among men.
Well if you really want to be restricted purchasing the maximum amount of those items then you don’t need to sign up. Just limit your monthly amount to be as displayed.
Four and a half kilos of carbohydrates and sugars, goddamn.
A loaf of bread is about half a kilo of flour, that’s not much for a whole month!
I wonder why it’s 1.3kg. The soviet union adopted the metric system, so it seems like an odd choice. Maybe Poland had a historical measure that size.
lot of problems, but not diabetes
For a month, that’s only about 600 kcal/day from carbs. Maybe potatoes are unrationed.
That’s a starvation diet for a full grown male. Hell, that’s even less than a very small female adult would need.
Alright, where are the anti capitalist tankies defending this?
There goes the sweets! Now she’s even more annoyed!
I can and do live very well off less than that.
You do realize that all nations ration as necessary right?
Here in the USA I can buy whatever I want, even if it’s bad for everyone.
The US isn’t currently rationing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_States
Here in the USA we are aware that they aren’t rationing. You don’t think it’s necessary?
Your comment is irrelevant
No it’s not
“In the 80s Poland was rationing”
“All countries ration when they need to”
“Im currently not rationing in the US”
“That’s because the US isn’t currently rationing {link to previous US rationing occurrences}”
“I know that”
So explain what relevance that has to the discussion
They are in the same place where pro-capitalist liberals are when people talk about food insecurity in today’s West, and let’s face it, the rest of the non-Western world.
Complaining about them when they aren’t here. See? They’re everywhere!
This has little to do with socialism/capitalism and more with that fact that the economy was centrally (terribly) governed and most of the products were exported to the “friend nation USSR”
75% of sugar output exported to the Sovs while the citizens of Poland ‘enjoyed’ sugar rationing.
75% of sugar output exported to moscow and leningrad, you think the people of anywhere outside the immediate vicinity of those two cities got to see any of it? Let alone anywhere east of the Urals?
Comunimsm is not that bad! It only has a 100% failure rate, but that’s the CIA/UFO/Soros fault!
Reminder you live in a country where you have to pay other people to deny you healthcare.
Plenty of countries with universal healthcare that are also capatalistic societies. I love communism, too but the other comment had a valid point.
Nope, I have universal Healthcare, like 32 of the 33 advanced economies.
Ussr never fully recovered after ww2 and had to engage in a very expensive arms race while attempting to rebuild. Imo saying that communism doesn’t work often forgets this fact.
I mean, they didn’t have to engage in an arms race, any more than either side had to go to space or the moon. They did so for the propaganda, and to make themselves look tough, the same as the US.
Plenty of capitalist countries did recover, so that just one more argument against communism.
Completely different situations. One country had to recover from complete devastation and bootstrap everything from scratch, could not rely on anyone and had to fund and support allies with that.
While other European countries were barely touched it could benefit from US funding which was in itself completely untouched and benefited from the collapse of the entire capitalist competition worldwide.
The ussr was much less devastated than Germany, and it didn’t support allies, it received support first and exploited colonies later.
Not true. Majority of ussr most economically valuable areas were destroyed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kPVo9w79D6wUssr provided major military assistance to china Korea, vietnam, African countries fighting for freedom.
Also look up comecon.
Also who do you think was responsible for reconstruction of half the germany? It was ussr most which was also half destroyed itself.All of this was a much higher burden on ussr than US which was left intact.
That’s like, half a days worth of vodka
Seriously. It’s what I’m buying for myself for a gaming evening if I don’t want to get drunk.
And far too few darts
Meet the black market.
How many cigarettes do I get if I trade in all my soap, washing powder, flour and rice?
Two.
worth it!
That’s not enough butter. I would have been put down young for rioting about criminally low amounts of butter.
I thought I used a lot of butter. You use more than a pound a month?
Holy shit that’s a lot. I use about 10 grams per portion of 1 meal, usually breakfast.
I don’t eat that daily but even like that, 30 full days non stop , that’s like 300 grams
What the hell are you guys doing up there with a pound of butter?
Oh no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know
Can someone calculate the calories in that? I’m too lazy.
Maybe don’t include the sugar. That’s a shit ton of sugar to go through in month.
Ballpark estimate, excluding the sugar:
2.5kg beef: ~6265 Calories
0.5l vodka: ~1082 Calories
1.3kg white rice: ~4743 Calories
1.3kg flour: ~4732 Calories
500g butter: ~3585 Calories
300g cooking oil (Google says rapeseed oil is popular in Poland so I used that): ~2652 Calories
250g chocolate: ~1338 Calories
Total: 24,397 Calories or ~813 Calories per day
Some other people online also did the math and came up with similar numbers. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37027027 came up with 33,063 Calories (including the sugar)
You get another 333 calories from the sugar, add it to the vodka!
Nice, that was super fast. I guess it’s probably enough for one person to survive if they practically don’t move at all the entire month, for a little while at least.
Still not pleasant I imagine.
That’s what the cigarettes are for
What would you be willing to do to ensure that your fellow citizens aren’t dying of literal hunger on the streets?
(Clearly to most Americans, that answer is “absolutely nothing”)
Exactly, and thst sounds like the sort of rations Americans had during the world wars. It was supplimented by a mass movement of community gardens. Personally I’m more a fan of the ration points system we used so that you aren’t stuck with stuff you won’t use and those who’d rather eat like Hannibal of Carthage and go less hungry can do that while those who’d rather eat more resource intensive foods like meat can accept the cost of their demands in the form of calories. Though that may just be because I’ve always been the sort who’d rather be full of lentils and potatoes than hungry after a burger, even before I quit meat.
Though that may just be because I’ve always been the sort who’d rather be full of lentils and potatoes than hungry after a burger,
I think some of us have experienced poverty (or near-poverty) in our lives, so we understand things like this.
But what if I wanted to eat the soap?
Yummy bubbles
