Rich Hairdressers and Fancy Car Repairmen: The Rise of a Service Worker Elite in the USSR and the Evolution of Soviet Society in the 1970s

Abstract

Abstract In the Soviet Union during the 1970s, many service workers, such as salespeople, hairdressers, and car mechanics who worked in the state-owned retail sector, rose to prominent financial positions. They achieved this mobility because they had access to coveted goods and services that were in short supply. Soviet citizens’ disposable incomes were growing, producing a desire to consume in a more sophisticated way. However, shortages of the planned economy meant that people often could not satisfy their growing demands for consumption. Service providers illegally sold goods and services on the side for higher prices and became wealthy by collecting a huge portion of the money that the populace could not spend in the state retail system. The Soviet state was reluctant to prosecute these dealers because it needed their services to provide for consumers and to avoid pursuing large-scale economic reform. However, the enrichment of service workers caused resentment among the broader population. The newly rich, as opposed to members of an older Soviet upper class including party and state officials and the cultural and academic elite, flaunted their wealth and created a new mass culture of luxurious lifestyle. They not only became role models for some Soviet youth, but also created a sense among many Soviet citizens that socialism was in crisis. The prominent status of this new elite and its conspicuous consumption contradicted traditional socialist values of modesty, collectivism, and the priority of spiritual over material concerns.