Indicating Success with Material Symbols after the Collapse of the USSR

The growth in the role of the military sector of certain Soviet states in the overall structure of the national economy, to the detriment of other sectors, along with providing military assistance to other countries, with government subsidies to unprofitable enterprises and long-term unproductive production that never reached a buyer—these were the factors that provided the prime conditions for the collapse of the Soviet Union. The authors survey the stark economic status of the country, and show that in conditions of complete deficit citizens would value highly any chance to get hold of products that reflected the viability and status of their owners, even though the quality of these products declined steadily for a number of reasons. This article seeks to describe in detail the reasons and components of these prerequisites, as a way to review life in Russian society under conditions of shortage and poverty that presaged the collapse of the USSR, and the consequences this all had for post-Soviet Russian culture. © 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.