[autotypo]

This all sounds exactly like Solzhenitsyn's descriptions of Soviet factory production, where the work near the end of the month was always rushed out the door to meet quotas.

The way he tells it, no one ever got in trouble for subpar products. But if production numbers were down, someone was going to the gulag.

Apparently, consumers were aware of this and would try to obtain goods that were produced near the start of each month.