The work is devoted to the analysis of the material situation of the urban population during the years of the revolution and the Civil War. The whole range of issues related to people's lives is considered - the nature of nutrition, methods of distribution of products, the size and place of wages in the material support of people, the nature of housing, the level of morbidity and mortality, and others. Almost for the first time, unconventional, but really existing at that time ways of survival of citizens were considered - bagging, embezzlement, shrubbery, begging, etc. Attempts by the Soviet state to somehow improve the situation of the urban population, especially workers, are analyzed. The book is intended for specialists and everyone who is interested in the history of Russia of the XX century.