Download or read book Selling to the Masses written by Marjorie L. Hilton and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2012-01-08 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating history of consumer culture in Russia from the 1880s to the early 1930s. Hilton highlights the critical role of consumerism as a vehicle for shaping class and gender identities, modernity, urbanism, and as a mechanism of state power in the transition from tsarist autocracy to Soviet socialism. She follows the evolution of retailing and retailers alike, from crude outdoor stalls to elite establishments, through the competition of private versus state-run stores during the NEP, and finally to a system of total state control, indifferent workers, rationing, and shortages under a consolidating Stalinist state.