Zinaida came across as kind of eccentric to me so I read it as saying more about her personality as someone who might get really into a specific type of kids' chocolate than about the USSR. I don't know a lot about daily life there but should it be a default assumption that everyone was completely deprived -- wouldn't there be quite a difference between a young single mother in a provincial city in the forties and a high-up civil servant in Moscow in the eighties? I know Zinaida wouldn't've had as much as her US equivalents but without that interview quote above I would've assumed she'd've had small luxuries like chocolate.