Food rations in communist Poland, early 1980s | Hacker News Reader

Food rations in communist Poland, early 1980s

rarehistoricalphotos.com

26 pointsmrzool39 comments

Lucky lady in the main photo with a 2.5kg haul of meat

That was worth a lot of vodka and cigarettes in the lines

We used to stand in line from 6am until 12-4pm. Siblings would take turns on who got to go to school that day and who had to stand in line. Eventually some schools started doing a 12pm start for half the school.

Rarely did we get meat, almost never veg aside from potatoes. Resulted in some very creative but delicious recipes.

I estimated from the photo:

Vodka: 231 kcal/100ml * 500ml = 1155 kcal

Meat: say 300 kcal/100g * 2.5kg = 7500 kcal

Butter: 717 kcal/100g * 500g = 3585 kcal

Cooking oil: 884 kcal/100g * say 300g = 2652 kcal

Sweets: say 387 kcal/100g * 250g = 967 kcal

Rice, uncooked: 364 kcal/100g * 1.3kg = 4732 kcal

Sugar: 387 kcal/100g * 2kg = 7740 kcal

Flour: 364 kcal/100g * 1.3kg = 4732 kcal

Total 1155+7500+3585+2652+967+4732+7740+4732 = 33063 kcal

That's 33063 kcal for a month, or 1086 kcal per day on average... how? Long-term, that's a starvation diet, and that's assuming you consume every gram of everything you get including the cooking oil, the vodka, and the unhealthy amount of sugar.

[edit] I see now that some products were not rationed, but still, this seems like a rather restrictive diet and indeed from the article:

>In mid-1981 thousands of Poles took part in several hunger demonstrations, organized in cities and towns across the country.

>Banners, held by the protesters, stated among others: “Our children are hungry”, “We stand in lines 24 hours a day”, “We want to split bread, not Poland”, “The hungry of all countries – unite!”, and “We are not going to work hungry”.

Oh these commies! Starved to death polaks so much they doubled in count. It is not what you allowed to buy at all, it is what you allowed to buy for low fixed price. Food stamps. Bread milk and pretty much everything else you can eat as much as you want. Meat can be bought on market, for much higher price.

Hm... leftists tales. 'As much as you want' - As much as you can afford. And this is completely different story.

Please stop rewriting history. Read the comments left in this thread by actual Polish people that lived through this, and reconsider if that really was a good system to live in. Let's learn from history instead of throwing away lessons we've painfully learned.

Sincerely, a Polish person (by the way, I'm not a native speaker, but I believe "Polacks" is a derogatory term. I don't mind personally, but someone may be offended by the use of an ethnic slur. If that's not what you intended, "Poles" or "Polish people" are usually used instead).

Bro, just fyi Polak is polishman in polish, source: I’m polish.

Doesn’t really feel as a slur that warrants this reaction. Even if meant as derogatory

Vegetables were not rationed and available. Seasonal fruits were available. Milk, milk-based products, many grains and eggs were also not rationed. Life then was not easy for most, but there was no hunger. The hunger started in 1990's when the market economy has lead to the economic collapse for many and boom for the few.

Only some items were rationed, you could buy other stuff like eggs, fruits, vegetables. The picture of a woman with rationed goods does not include for example bread - it was freely available at that time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/04/15/p...

This news article says bread was extremely scarce even if available for purchase

https://polishhistory.pl/a-ration-card-for-survival-rationin...

It seems that wheat and wheat products were at times rationed

I'm from Poland. We moved the US when I was a young child.

I still remember taking a picture around 1990 after going to Costco/PriceClub the day my dad got a raise to $20 an hour. We bought a lot of groceries, put them on the kitchen table, and took a timed photo the 3 of us and all the groceries.

The early-mid 1980s was a tough time, but it is remarkable how rationing had been overcome by the late 1980s. Near the end of the decade, a Polish–Russian relative of mine was delivering food to friends and family in Russia, because some products were now relatively abundant in Poland while Russia dealt with shortages.

My own, purely anecdotal impression from looking at the background of photos and video recordings from Poland circa 1988–1989 is that that country (or at least a few parts of it) was already better off than other Warsaw Pact countries.

So many interesting things here: first, only .5L of vodka per month? That surprises me, as I know people who would go through that in a single weekend, let alone an entire month... especially in Poland, known for their drinking culture, that little amount of (what seems to be cheap to produce) alcohol is striking. Second, these are all just staples: the only real things one could make out of these rations are bread, meat, and rice—which is odd in of itself: I wouldn't expect rice to be a part of the Polish diet. I'm assuming vegetables and other foods like that weren't rationed, and/or people grew it themselves.

Rice and pork rolled in cabbage leaf and cooked in tomato sauce, for one I know.

- "Article based on A ration card for survival – rationing in Communist Poland by Andrzej Zawistowski"

I don't think you can copy-and-paste large exact text passages in bulk [0] and pass it off as "based on". This is simply plagiarism.

[0] https://polishhistory.pl/a-ration-card-for-survival-rationin...

I remember this website: I caught it on HN plagiarizing Wikipedia in a different article (with zero attribution in that case) [1]. It's a spam domain of some kind, it's not legitimate in any sense.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36032869

"The central planning system, while intended to ensure equitable distribution, was riddled with inefficiencies and mismanagement."

I'm shocked. Shocked, I say!

both cigarettes and liquor are tremendously addictive; yet the allocation is written as "essential" .. only decades earlier, massive and cruel killing spread across that region, persistent the minds of so many.

This bit of history is completely foreign to me and I am listening, but there is more going on that what is being discussed. Like a family argument, where the thing said is to hurt the opponent more than the center of the conflict.

Cigarettes were essential to keep the masses happy, and alcohol was essential to keep the masses too drunk to rebel if the cigarettes didn't do the trick

> Cigarettes were essential to keep the masses happy

this is so completely not-real -- it leaves no doubt that this story is still a mystery

What's not real? Could you elaborate?

When an alcoholic tells me that they are "deprived of essentials" I say to them.. go to a clinic and get sober. Zero people are born smoking cigarettes.. Tobacco is from the new world, and definitely, deeply addictive. The word "essential" is related to the core, the most core needs.

Let's be honest. It is some combination of "aspiration", luxury goods, being cool, Who is in Charge, and economics.. Yes waiting in lines is real. I hear you! but that is not the whole story.

Every American newspaper had the pictures of Lech Wałęsa with Solidarność at that time. Later, I heard that the reason the Soviet Union fell was because people wanted Beatles records!

my friend -- I do not believe that liquor and cigarettes are "essential" .. there is more to this story.

They are essential if you dont want the people attempting to hang members of the govt from the nearest tree

where is the Most Holy and Apostolic Church of Rome in this story? surely hanging officials is sin?

ok - let's look from another storyline. In the civilized world, by some definition, there have been markets, sellers of goods, idea of public space, protection and enforcement, and taxes .. for close to three thousand years now. If people need cigarettes and alcohol they must be imported and sold somehow. alcohol and cigarettes.. does every person in the house need this? only one person ? big people the same amount as small people too ?

Somehow, the middle and lower-middle system of distribution has failed in the case of rationing. Supply is part of it but also look at the profit for blackmarkets, the local gangs that ask for money from the shopkeeper, or the police do it. Pressure from these street-level forces can break local distribution trade systems that need trust and good-faith to operate.

I am guessing completely but I suspect betrayal at some layer of administration or wholesale practices, as part of the root cause of this kind of market panic. Second I suspect that there were people who knew they were making the situation worse, but did so to embarrass or break the existing political system. so many people.. no real way to know

I lived through that. The famous socialist ideas in practice - we even had a saying for this in Poland: equal shit for everyone.

Here: Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others.

"The central planning system, while intended to ensure equitable distribution, was riddled with inefficiencies and mismanagement."

I'm shocked. *Shocked*, I say!

I count around 40.000 calories worth of food in the main photo

Anyway, cigarettes are not mentioned in the article, wondering why

This is what communism brought for those who lived under it. After 50 years people had to line up to get their food. Just look around the world and see what people who live under that system reap, poverty and slavery. Thank God Poland freed itself from that evil imposed on it by Russia who was the main driver of that garbage. Can you believe Russia still glorifies it and celebrates it's hero's Lenin and Stalin, insane.....

Don't worry, random internet commenters have assured me that it's only because literally every country who tried communism didn't do it correctly.

If we try again, it'll definitely lead to a utopia.

Well these ration tickets are the ultimate stage of a planned economy; the purest communist dream.

You would be very surprised how many 60+ year olds that lived through soviet occupation would agree with that statement.

It's bizarre..

The same way that North Korean people may not want to be freed.

They are used to some system, where others are responsible and deciding of their life.

And this brings a lot of psychological comfort, and simplicity (no choice = it's easy to choose).

It's psychologically much easier to have others deciding, and to complain about the result, than having to take ownership and responsibility for your life and your choices.

If you don't have a choice, you can't do a wrong choice.

That makes sense

Yes + guaranteed work and housing is a clear advantage :) (or "ice cream was tastier")

> Can you believe Russia still glorifies it

You don't have to look to Russia to find people glorifying Socialism and Communism as there are plenty of those in western countries to be had, especially in academia and other educational institutions. That is where the late-60s radicals went for the most part and they have left their marks to the detriment of (nearly) all.

Yes, but the Russians actually celebrate nationally like China, North Korea, etc.

Russia has gone through the stages of a socialist/communist revolution like those other countries and as such has had its culture infused with the symbolism and mannerism of the ideology. Russians know what it leads to but they also remember what happened to those who opposed the state so they lay low and try to watch out for themselves and their own. The wannabe-revolutionaries at e.g. American educational institutions (from university to K-12) should know better but wilfully ignore the warnings history - or 'herstory' for the most radical among them - has given them about the ideology they push. To me the latter are more dangerous than the former because they can do more damage to us in 'the western world' - what propagandistically used to be called 'the free world' [1]. They know they are abusing their positions to turn their pupils into young activists instead of teaching them the necessary skills needed for self-fulfilment. The know they are using them as pawns instead of giving them the tools they need to get along in society but they do so because they want to bring about their utopia and are convinced that can only happen once current society has been brought to its knees - they follow Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” to the letter even though it has failed miserably everywhere it has been tried but this time it will work, surely, they never tried for real.

[1] ...where it is worth remembering that the west was more free compared to the Soviet block even if it was (and increasingly is) far from 'free' in an objective sense.

This would be so much better than our current capitalist system!

If there is anything I can help you to get to your communist dream country let me know. Coz now it sounds like anti-vaccer with 3 vaccines.

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