>
> I did not say that the Russians produced no consumer goods. Indeed they
> produce fridges. The one in the dormitory I stayed in kept things
> luke-cold. They also produce cars, washbasins, brooms, toilets and many
> other things in daily use. However, ever so many of the things you see in
> the GUM department store are imported. I spent half a day going to various
> shops trying to find a T-shirt with MOCKBA on it for my daughter. All I
> could find was shirts with e.g. Oakland Raiders or Los Angeles Dodgers
> logos.
>
> During the Communist era, consumers goods were affordable, but getting them
> required hours of standing in line. Now consumers goods are available,
> often foreign and unaffordable for most people. The domestic capacity to
> produce them on a sufficient scale and cheaply enough simply isn't there.
>
however, the claim was, that the collapse was partly due to
the lack of capacity to produce domestic products.
The collapse of domestic production was the result of
the sudden flow of imports and the propaganda about their
superiority that was not always well founded.
E.g. in Hungary you cannot buy anymore the unbleached, cheap
thus environmentally better toilet-paper, only the western-type
expensive stuff.
I am not defending the USSR, just query your statements.
Eva
