Communal Dining and State Cafeterias in Moscow and Petrograd, 1917-1921
Author(s)
Borrero, Mauricio
Abstract
Dining, an activity generally considered to be conducted within the privacy of one’s home, became one of the changes on the forefront of the Bolshevik revolutionary plan following the October 1917 revolution. Largely in response to the food shortages that had contributed to the downfall of the tsarist and Provisional Governments, state cafeterias became a way for the peasants of Russian society to meet their daily need for subsistence. Touted as a way to bring together the masses under one roof, the communal dining halls attempted to further the socialist aims of the Bolshevik government, though they never really attained the status they set out for. Popular, yes, acclaimed, never. The state cafeterias eventually fell to the wayside, being usurped by black market dining, and not until their reinvention in the 1930s as a means of purchasing cheap, though unappetizing food, did they make the comeback that the Party was hoping for.
