> USA undoubtedly had better access to a wide variety of groceries due to its geography and agrarian economy. Russia doesn't have a California or Mexico (the best candidate, Turkey, was part of NATO).
Basic goods like sausages, stockings and toilet paper - which had constant shortages - aren't some high tech that only a selection of countries are able to produce, geography permitting. It was USSR's choice to focus so much and so wastefully on the military that western stores looked like an unbelievable dream to Soviet citizens who lived their entire lives deprived of most mundane consumer goods.
Who even needs a propaganda ecosystem, when western plastic bags with graphic prints were such a luxury item in 1980s USSR that people proudly paraded them around in the public, then came home, carefully folded them (some even ironed with a cold iron to get rid of wrinkles), and put away for the next time - until the bags became completely faded.
Nobody in the west would've believed the sheer absurdity of everyday life in the USSR.
Basic goods like sausages, stockings and toilet paper - which had constant shortages - aren't some high tech that only a selection of countries are able to produce, geography permitting. It was USSR's choice to focus so much and so wastefully on the military that western stores looked like an unbelievable dream to Soviet citizens who lived their entire lives deprived of most mundane consumer goods.
Who even needs a propaganda ecosystem, when western plastic bags with graphic prints were such a luxury item in 1980s USSR that people proudly paraded them around in the public, then came home, carefully folded them (some even ironed with a cold iron to get rid of wrinkles), and put away for the next time - until the bags became completely faded.
Nobody in the west would've believed the sheer absurdity of everyday life in the USSR.