Many enterprises were taken over by the state or failed, small trade and production shops had to join cooperatives, but only a small proportion of peasant agriculture was made collective (over ten percent of the arable area) by the start of the war with Germany. Among the industrial installations dismantled and sent east were most of the Białystok textile industry factories. The results of the Soviet economic policies soon resulted in serious difficulties, as shops lacked goods, food was scarce and people were threatened by famine. Nevertheless, the conditions were better under the Soviets than in the German-run General Government. The industry was developed in Lviv and elsewhere and unemployment was officially eliminated by the spring of 1940. The living standards, following the initial collapse, kept gradually improving, many services were free or inexpensive and the poor and people with technical education fared better than under the Polish rule. The cities, of which Lviv and Białystok were particularly well-maintained by the Soviet authorities, were in much better shape than the countryside. The situation was very difficult for the Polish retirees, deprived of their pensions, and for the tens of thousands of war refugees who fled German-occupied Poland and settled in the eastern cities.