This book tells the story of the late Soviet consumer revolution. It analyses the politics and economics of the state'¬"s efforts to improve living standards, and shows how mass consumption was often used as an instrument of legitimacy, ideology and modernisation. It also discusses however how rising prosperity altered citizens'¬" relationship with the state, and how, although the image of Soviet consumers endlessly queuing for inferior products is much overstated, people'¬"s engagement with consumer modernity had profound consequences for the communist project.