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199 Chapter 7 Smokes for Big Brother Bulgartabak and Tobacco under Communism In the summer of 1973 Dimitŭr Iadkov, the director of the Bulgarian state tobacco monopoly, Bulgartabak, was in the New York City headquarters of Philip Morris at the end of his tour of tobacco facilities in the American South. After a whirlwind tour of the sights and smells of American tobacco, Iadkov had the pleasure of coffee, smokes, and a chat with Hugh Cullman, then CEO of Philip Morris. It was in Cullman ’s office that Iadkov was apprised of the real reason that the Bulgarian tobacco delegation had been wined and dined across the South: A few things were clarified in the office of Philip Morris during our last meeting in NewYork....I looked at the map behind the president’s desk and BULGARTABAK was written across it from East Germany, over the Czechs, to the huge area of the USSR all the way to Vladivostok ....I told him I felt like I was in the Pentagon and he said—“You are not mistaken, Mr. Iadkov, this is the ‘pentagon’ of Philip Morris. We look at the world this way.” The president stood and pointed at the map. “You see the spheres of interest. Look here is BAT’s [British American Tobacco’s] market, here is Reynolds [R.J. Reynolds], this is Reemtsma [a German firm]. And these are the markets of Philip Morris. I would say that we are almost everywhere with the exception of this huge territory that is held by Bulgartabak. I have to admit, 200 CHAPTER 7 Mr. Iadkov, that I really envy you. I always dream of those markets. I say this with sincere envy, because for our company the market rules.1 In the course of his American tour, Iadkov had been exposed to a great deal, from new tobacco harvesting and processing technologies to new ways of conducting business and finally to the capitalist notion of markets,as opposed to simple provisioning of goods. All of this would have a profound influence on the future of Bulgarian tobacco. At the same time, Iadkov began to fully appreciate the benefits of the Bulgarian position within the Bloc’s integrative economic institution, Comecon. For within the context of Comecon specialization,Bulgaria provided cigarettes for the Bloc,which became a kind of captive market for Bulgartabak. The jewel in the crown of this market, of course,was the Soviet Union;by 1972 the USSR was the biggest importer of cigarettes in the world, and Bulgaria was its main supplier. Armed with this market and considerable resources to respond to its demands, the leadership of Bulgartabak eventually propelled the tobacco concern to a place of prestige in the jet-setting, international circles of global tobacco. This image of a communist,state-run industry might be hard to reconcile with common assumptions about the system as a colossal economic failure , with subsidized agriculture and industry that was unproductive and not market-oriented. However,such assumptions are closely tied to the shortages and economic crises of the late communist period and Western triumphalist views of the system’s collapse. Certainly many socialist enterprises were eventual failures,especially by the later decades of the period when the result of heavy industrial development was a gargantuan rust belt from the Urals to the Oder River. This makes it all the more astounding that Bulgartabak was such an unmitigated success, especially in the late communist period. For the first time in Bulgarian history,one centralized enterprise—under the state—controlled tobacco production from seed to cigarette. Ever attuned to Soviet and Bloc tastes, Bulgaria became the biggest exporter of cigarettes in the world between 1966 and 1988 (or in some years second only to the United States), exporting roughly 80 percent of overall production.2 About 90 percent of Bulgartabak’s exported cigarettes went to its closest trading partner and political ally, the Soviet Union.3 As Iadkov—in the position of director from 1971 to 1991—points out in his voluminous memoirs, “tobacco and politics were always connected.”4 As Nazi troops withdrew and the Red Army moved into Bulgarian territory in the fall of 1944, tobacco shipments were detained and redirected. At home the social landscape of tobacco production was gradually and thoroughly transformed as pro-Nazi tobacco merchants were brought to trial, SMOKES FOR BIG BROTHER 201 and trade, along with Bulgaria itself, came under the full control of the Bulgarian Communist Party. After the...

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