"After NEP ended, the Soviet government introduced a multi-tiered price system with
varying degrees of price controls. In 1928-29, rationing of food and consumer good became
widespread throughout Russia. According to Alec Nove, this was “perhaps the first and only
recorded instance of the introduction of rationing in time of peace.”4
Goods were sold at the
official ration prices in state stores, which required ration coupons, but other types of stores had
other price levels, ranging from controlled to free. Workers were able to purchase some items
from special shops that were closed to the public, where prices were higher but the workers were
able to get items unavailable elsewhere. Food and manufactured goods were also sold to the
working class in other stores for prices that were above rationed levels, but below commercial
prices. Other stores, known as torgsin, had goods available only in exchange for precious metals
or foreign currency, which the state badly needed. Finally, prices freely were set by market
forces at peasant bazaars, kolkhoz (collective farm) markets, and black markets.
Unsurprisingly, prices rose much faster where they were influenced by market forces,
than in state stores, in which inflationary pressure manifested itself in shortages instead.
Artificially low prices led to products selling out quickly and shelves laying barren until the next
delivery. In state stores, consumers were expected to take whatever they could find and move
on. These problems developed as soon the government was able to effectively enforce price
controls and continued, to varying degrees, for the rest of Soviet history. Consumer demand that
went unfulfilled in state stores spilled over into the tiny market sector. Because the free sector
was so small in comparison to the excess demand created at state stores, market prices often had
to be several times higher than official ones, in order for supply and demand to balance. For
instance, commercial prices, which were set by the state but close to market rates, were twenty
times higher for bread in 1933, six times higher for sugar, and fourteen times higher for
sunflower oil
Inflation started getting out of control during the Second World War. Due to the
necessary war expenditures, the Soviet government started running its first budget deficits since
the stabilization under NEP and was forced to pay for some percentage of these with new
currency issues. During the war, strict price controls and subsidies kept inflation in official
stores limited. However, collective farm market prices began increasing much faster than they
had during the 1930s and reached hyperinflationary levels during the war. After 1944, the
government was able to balance its budget again and increase the supply of goods in state stores,
so the rate of inflation began to decline from the peak of 1943. Nevertheless, official prices were
almost four times higher in 1947 than they had been in 1940, while kolkhoz prices were six and a
half times higher than 1940 levels and four times higher than state prices at the time. Thus, the
Soviet economy was suffering from both high rates of both open and repressed inflation."
https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2667&context=etd