RES: [lbo-talk] Consumer goods (Back to the USSR)

[" Chris Doss "]

One aspect of consumer goods that hasn't been discussed in this thread
yet (or if it has, I've missed it) is food. One big part of anti-USSR
propaganda I recall vividly is the constant pictures of grocery stores
with one moldy cabbage on the shelves, and the claim that Soviet
agriculture was always in trouble, partly because of the Lysenko
business (also, I guess, because so much emphasis in the 5-year plans
went to industrial development). Any truth to this?
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I don't know the details, but anecdotally I can say two things:

1. Produce produced in collective farms was notoriously atrocious. "Moldy" sounds like bullshit, but in general quality was bad. (Not like now! Kaluga chicken is delicious.) I know that agriculture hit a real crisis in 1991, but this is probably because Gorbachev had fucked the economy up. :) (Just as an aside, wrecking Georgian and Moldovan agriculture is one of many things that Gorbachev is disliked for.)

2. About half of Soviet agriculture was PRIVATE. After having finished work at the collective farm, a farmer was allowed to farm his/her own land plot. They would then take the produce to town and sell it in the market. This produce was of much better quality.