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Another journalist, a British Communist called John Gibbons, spent the war working for Moscow Radio. During the winter of 1941–2, when food shortages were acute throughout the Soviet Union, he resented the fact that his workplace lunches consisted of dry bread and tea without sugar, while his boss, sitting in the same office, had ham and eggs. Though he accepted this as part of the system and ‘no doubt quite right’, it was nonetheless ‘bloody unpleasant to smell the ham and eggs. All the more so as my boss thought it was quite normal, and never offered me even a scrap of ham.’16

Leningrad’s rationing system operated similarly to the Gulag’s. Though articulated as giving to each according to his needs, in practice it tended to preserve (just) the lives of those vital to the city’s defence — soldiers and industrial workers — and condemn office workers, old people, the unemployed and children to death. When rationing was introduced in mid-July, initial allocations were the same as those for Muscovites — a generous 800 grams of bread daily for manual workers, 600 grams for office workers and 400 grams for children and the unemployed, plus adequate amounts of meat, fats, cereals or macaroni, and sugar. Astonishingly, the city soviet did not reduce the ration until 2 September, almost a fortnight after the direct railway line to Moscow had been cut. At Pavlov’s insistence, the first reduction was followed by another ten days later, to 500 grams of bread for manual workers, 300 for office workers, 250 for dependants and 300 for children. To make up for the drop, rations of fat and sugar were simultaneously increased, with hindsight a terrible mistake. ‘Looking back’, Pavlov admitted later, ‘it may be said that the fats ration, most clearly, and the sugar ration, should not have been increased in September. The approximately 2,500 tonnes of sugar and 600 tonnes of fats expended in September and October. . would have been extremely valuable in December.’ At the time, he added, nobody imagined that the city would remain cut off for that long.17

At its lowest, after a final cut on 20 November, the ration fell to 250 grams of bread per day for the 34 per cent of the civilian population classed as manual workers, and 125 grams (three thin slices) for everybody else, plus derisory quantities of meats and fats. For the lower category cardholders, this was officially the equivalent of 460 calories per day — less than a quarter of the 2,000–2,500 per day the average adult requires to maintain weight. Even these 460 calories were only the official figure: in reality bread, as we have seen, was seriously adulterated with ‘fillers’, meat disappeared, and there were days on which no rations were distributed at all. Today’s nutritionists, who use siege survivors to study the long-term effects of foetal and infant malnutrition, estimate that just taking account of ‘fillers’ the real number was closer to 300 calories per day.18 Had the second ration cut of 12 September been made just six days earlier, Pavlov later admitted, nearly 4,000 tons of flour would have been saved, and the final ration cut avoided.19

The allotments were also deadly in their crudeness, particularly as regards older children and adolescents. Children under twelve all fell into the same category, meaning that an eleven-year-old received no more than a toddler. From twelve to fourteen they were classed as ‘dependants’, even if in practice working and despite their fast-developing bodies’ more than adult needs. A child turning twelve between the two ration cuts of 12 September and 1 October thus found that his or her bread ration actually dropped, from 300 grams per day to 250. The classifications, Pavlov admitted, were ‘unjustified’, but ‘the situation made it impossible to feed them better’.20 Equally unfairly classed as ‘dependants’ were non-working mothers, upon whom fell the physical burdens of queuing at bread stores, bartering and hauling fuel and water. Tellingly, ‘dependants’ were also allotted fewer non-food necessities: they received one box of matches, for example, as compared to workers’ two. The nickname for the dependant’s card was the smertnik, from the word smert, or ‘death’.21