Okay dumb fucking question here.
Why did the ussr keep making papirosy/cigarettes? The state owned company made these things, the tobacco was grown on state owned farms, they could just not.
I can understand trying it and then deciding it wasn’t worth it or something. But they never stopped making cigarettes and in ample supply too. I remember reading that during the collapse of the 90s America were shipping aid packages of cigarettes because privatised companies couldn’t keep up with Russian demand for cigarettes and the cigarette rationing was eroding regime support.
oohh, I actually didn’t know about this. did it have the same effect as here in the US, where booze production was forced “underground” and fostered organized crime? did the Soviet Union have mafia-esque crime rings peddling in black market goods? I imagine they must have. this is very interesting, I’ve gotta look more into this
There’s a lot to read about Soviet and Russian organised crime. (In fact Soviet organised crime led to the historical event with the best name ever, the bitch wars)
I don’t know if there’s a lot to read about the role of organised crime specifically during the early soviet government, but I’m sure you can find something interesting.
Tobacco addiction is hard to suppress. People already addicted will pay great amounts of money to access black market tobacco if it becomes banned. It can be grown underground like weed
I’ll preface this by saying it’s just a guess, I have no evidence for this idea, but maybe it’s because tobacco doesn’t cause social disorder in the same way as alcohol. Nobody ever got into a fight because they smoked too many cigs yknow?
Okay dumb fucking question here. Why did the ussr keep making papirosy/cigarettes? The state owned company made these things, the tobacco was grown on state owned farms, they could just not.
it would have been a deeply unpopular move. same as if they’d tried to prevent alcohol consumption.
Okay but they did do that though. Lenin instituted prohibition.
and then stalin cancelled it. maybe just to make more money and not cos it was unpopular? i dunno.
I can understand trying it and then deciding it wasn’t worth it or something. But they never stopped making cigarettes and in ample supply too. I remember reading that during the collapse of the 90s America were shipping aid packages of cigarettes because privatised companies couldn’t keep up with Russian demand for cigarettes and the cigarette rationing was eroding regime support.
oohh, I actually didn’t know about this. did it have the same effect as here in the US, where booze production was forced “underground” and fostered organized crime? did the Soviet Union have mafia-esque crime rings peddling in black market goods? I imagine they must have. this is very interesting, I’ve gotta look more into this
There’s a lot to read about Soviet and Russian organised crime. (In fact Soviet organised crime led to the historical event with the best name ever, the bitch wars) I don’t know if there’s a lot to read about the role of organised crime specifically during the early soviet government, but I’m sure you can find something interesting.
Tobacco addiction is hard to suppress. People already addicted will pay great amounts of money to access black market tobacco if it becomes banned. It can be grown underground like weed
Sure but the same surely applies to alcohol, and they were willing to try not making that.
I’ll preface this by saying it’s just a guess, I have no evidence for this idea, but maybe it’s because tobacco doesn’t cause social disorder in the same way as alcohol. Nobody ever got into a fight because they smoked too many cigs yknow?
Ussr had alcohol? It was heavily restricted but still available
The Soviet prohbition lasted from the bolshevik seizure of power until stalin ended it in 1925