ABSTRACT
The object of this paper is to calculate the purchasing power of the Soviet ‘consumer rouble’ in terms of sterling. The author is by no means the first to utilize Soviet retail price quotations for comparisons with prices outside Russia, or with Russian prices at earlier dates. However, hitherto there has been no up-to-date information on product weights, nor has there been an adequate basis for making allowances for free-market prices. The publication in 1956 of a statistical compendium, Sovetskaya Torgovlya (Soviet Trade), makes it possible to fill these gaps, at least approximately, and this is the justification for the present exercise—together with the fact that the author has been able to observe prices and qualities on the spot.
