Consumption of Non-Food Consumer Goods by Families of Collective Farmers of the Molotov Region in the First Five Years After the War (1946–1950)

Abstract

Non-food consumer goods have always been, are and will remain important attributes of a person’s life. In addition to purely physiological, non-food goods satisfy a number of other needs that shape people as thinking creatures and distinguish them from animals. The article examines the problem of consumption of non-food consumer goods by collective farmers in one of the regions of the Urals, i.e. the former Molotov Region (presently, the Perm Region) during the first years after the Great Patriotic War (1946–1950). The topic of this article is relevant, since the problem of scientifically grounded and balanced consumption of non-food consumer goods by the population remains unresolved. The author turned to materials kept in two archives: Russian State Archives of Economics and State Archives of the Sverdlovsk Region. Some of these documents have never been published, including household budget surveys, which have a long history in Russia. Attention is focused on the fact that the determining factor in the material living conditions of collective farmers during the first post-war years was the permanent shortage of almost all consumer goods. The author demonstrates that in the period under study the consumption level of non-food consumer goods by collective farmers was unsatisfactory. It should be noted that such a low level of consumption by Molotov Region peasants in the first post-war years was no exception. It is concluded that there were no grounds for a rapid growth in the consumption of non-food consumer goods by this “secondary” category of the population (which collective farmers were at the time) during the period under study.