'[...] the economic historian Robert Allen (formerly of Oxford, now NYU) did an analysis
of the Soviet economy, in which he found that by 1970 calorie consumption in the USSR was "on a par with Western Europe." In another paper
of his, he finds evidence that this increase in consumption (both of calories and general consumer goods) began during the early Stalinist period; as he states, "consumption per head rose 27 percent from 1928 to 1937."
[...]
Allen's findings are consistent with the the work of economist Elizabeth Brainerd (formerly of Williams College, now Brandeis), who wrote a paper
on the Soviet standard of living, finding that "conventional measures of GNP growth and household consumption indicate a long, uninterrupted upward climb in the Soviet standard of living from 1928 to 1985; even Western estimates of these measures support this view, albeit at a slower rate of growth than the Soviet measures." She also notes that "the physical growth record of the Soviet population compares favorably with that of other European countries at a similar level of development in this period," which indicates a comparable attainment in nutrition and public health status during this period.'
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100101https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/standard-of-living-in-the-soviet-union-19281940/2922A641CA53F7BF592ECDDAF3316070https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/reassessing-the-standard-of-living-in-the-soviet-union-an-analysis-using-archival-and-anthropometric-data/6266A687D6C38AB49E56612FFE44B655 