Appealing for a Car

Consumption Policies and Entitlement in the USSR, the GDR, and Romania, 1950s-1980s

Bibliographic Data

ID4978466
AuthorsLuminita Gatejel (0009-0003-1362-0575, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume75
Issue1
Pages122-145
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSlavic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-6779 • E-ISSN: 2325-7784
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5612/slavicreview.75.1.122
OpenAlexW2338873300
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited61

In this article, I analyze the correspondence between state authorities and citizens in the USSR, the GDR, and Romania. As the consumerist turn spread across the eastern bloc, an important focus of the populations' appeals to the authorities concerned the appropriate levels and conditions of consumption. Their letters display growing consumer aspirations, and from the mid-1960s onward a significant number of these petitions expressed the desire to buy a car. However, when state authorities failed to deliver enough cars, they also shaped a new attitude toward consumption. On the one hand, the population asked for automobiles as favors. On the other, a new discourse of entitlement and even "consumer rights" surfaced. Citizens started to expect a certain lifestyle; moreover, they even believed themselves to be entitled to it. As a consequence, their new sense of entitlement diluted the culture of favors and privilege, thereby contributing to the crisis of legitimacy in late socialism

Advertising · Business · Clothing · Consumer Culture · Consumption (sociology · Economics · Entitlement (fair division · Legitimacy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Privilege (computing · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European history and politics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law

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