Historically it is well known that the former Soviet Union was making up fake statistics years before its collapse.
I was living in Moscow when the political system collapsed, and along with it distribution, including that of food. Food shops in Moscow, except for bread, were empty.
A farm woman my landlady and I met on Kutuzovskaya (boulevard) told us that she did not know how her daughter, living in Moscow, was surviving the shortage of food. I have a vivid memory of my landlady coming home from a visit to an unofficial market holding up a bag containing oranges triumphantly, with a big smile on her face, as if she were displaying the head of Herod.
From the window of the flat I could hear shouting and see a fist being waved in a crowd outside a dairy products shop across the street. Inside one of those shops, I heard a man shouting at a woman behind the counter about how he could see a container of milk being hidden on a shelf, and he told her angrily that he had a young daughter at home who needed that milk.
Two Soviet acquaintances of mine told me that in something like a violent mob scene at a butcher’s shop, they saw personnel wrapping portions of meat in newspaper and tossing them to members of the crowd as if they were afraid of having their arms torn off along with the meat.
The streets were full of the military, and as you know the system fell.